“I’m here. I’m here,” Soren murmured as he gentled the deep kiss into long, leisurely tastes. One after the other.
Soren let go of her gown, and she wrapped her freed legs around him. His hands came up to support her bottom and press her heat against him. Nothing could have prevented her from rocking against his erection. He bulged out the front of his trousers until the thin, slim-cut material revealed the solid length and heft of his excitement. Soren rewarded her undulations with a groan that was almost a growl.
She had opened the door. She had invited him inside. No one had to know. They had stolen moments before. Why couldn’t they steal one last night?
Chapter 17
“The black wolf would never approve of this assignation. But what of the queen? I’ll wager she’d be very happy if her daughter brings at least one of the Romanov wolves to heel,” a voice interrupted them from the corridor. Soren had hooked the door with one of his ankles in order to pull it shut, but he froze and Anna ripped her mouth from his.
She and Soren weren’t naked, but she felt completely exposed as a dozen Volkhvy approached from the hallway’s shadows. She recognized them from the dinner party, but none of them had been seated together and none of them were the lank-haired witch she had most feared. She didn’t remember any of their names. Like the lank-haired witch, they had faded away after dinner without staying to be introduced, but, unlike him, they had reappeared. If the tone of the witch who was obviously in the lead hadn’t clued her in on their antagonism, the flanking maneuver of their positioning would have. They approached as enemies, covering the corridor’s exits and extending their hands as a witch does before he or she summoned Ether energy.
“This is a mistake,” Soren growled at the approaching witches. This time his emotion wasn’t sexy. It was intended as a warning. He let her go when she loosened her legs and she slid to the floor. But Soren didn’t allow her to stand where she’d dropped. He stepped forward. He placed his muscular frame in front of hers.
Suddenly, Anna wanted the emerald sword with a ferocity that startled her. She had other powers at her disposal. She’d never trained with a blade. But it was missing from her hands. She could almost feel its hilt in her fingers. She fisted her hands around nothing and stood with impotent rage in the sword’s place.
“That’s what it looked like from here. A mistake,” the Volkhvy continued.
“A very hot mistake,” another Volkhvy added. The older woman smirked at her own joke, looking Soren up and down as if she would like the chance to climb him herself.
“Hey,” Anna protested. She stepped from behind Soren, and without thinking she summoned a flash of energy from the Ether that morphed into the shape of a glowing green sword in her hands.
“That’s new,” Soren said. He didn’t try to block her again. He accepted her beside him.
The Volkhvy in the hallway responded to Anna’s sword-shaped energy. The corridor exploded into multiple shades of jewel-toned light as they all summoned energy from the Ether.
“They stole my sword. I have to make do,” Anna replied.
Soren didn’t argue as she suddenly claimed the sword they’d both agreed should be destroyed. He simply shifted. He hadn’t meant their kiss was a mistake, of course. He’d meant it was a mistake for the Dark witches to attack the red Romanov wolf.
The whole palace quaked with his shift. Dust drifted from the ceiling and several glass panels fell with a tinkling crash, but the Volkhvy still advanced. Anna was a survivor. She’d fought many battles during the curse. She’d used whatever she could gather and grab. But this time, she used the suddenly manifested energy sword as if it was the real blade she’d never wielded.
The first Volkhvy who’d spoken went down beneath her “blade” with a scream. Witches weren’t easy to kill. Energy from the Ether gave them long lives, and it also healed them from grievous wounds. But Anna’s “sword” was made from the Ether’s energy. It disrupted the connection between the Ether and the witch she stabbed. Black blood flowed from his lips as he disappeared. He might recover within the Ether itself, but that would take time.
Hopefully a long time.
The red wolf’s bite was another matter.
He had been an enchanted champion of the Light Volkhvy queen. She’d manipulated his genes with the Ether before he was born. Although she was no longer his queen, Volkhvy who must have allied themselves with Darkness in order to attack a Romanov wolf and the queen’s daughter still fell beneath his teeth.
They’d fought side by side before, but this time Anna used all the power of her Volkhvy abilities to help Soren. The older woman who had jokingly called their kiss a “hot mistake” was much more experienced than Anna. But she retreated before the blows of Anna’s energy. The shredded skirt of Anna’s nightgown proved to be as useful in battle as it had been in lovemaking. She moved with grace and no hindrance of material as she landed blow after blow against a bright citrine energy shield the Volkhvy woman had created.
Finally, the hallway fell silent except for the loud sizzle of Anna’s electric blows and the woman’s cries each time their energy connected. The Volkhvy fell back on one knee, and still Anna kept advancing until she lifted her sword over her head and brought it down onto nothing. The citrine had fizzled and disappeared. Her green sword plunged through the Volkhvy’s breast, and the woman retreated into the Ether.
Only then did Anna turn around.
Her green sword flickered and winked out as she faced a bloody scene.
The red wolf had been busy, too. There were half a dozen Volkhvy traitors who would never be able to retreat to the Ether for healing again. A Romanov wolf bite made for a much worse injury than an Ether-energy blade.
Soren came to her on four legs. He pushed his bloody snout into her outstretched hand. Of course, she reached for him. She always would. Even when she shouldn’t.
“Well. This has been a long night,” Vasilisa said from the archway of the stairs. She surveyed the damage Soren’s shift had caused in the tile and the ceiling. She stepped off the stairs and into the hallway, carefully avoiding the bodies and steaming blood on the floor.
Anna noted that the queen had a matching robe for a nightgown that was similar to her own ruined garment. Automatically she reached to pull a ripped sleeve up on her exposed shoulder as her mother approached. Soren whined. The red wolf wasn’t feral. But he wasn’t human, either. He’d just attacked and killed Volkhvy he didn’t trust. Now another Volkhvy he didn’t trust was in the same hallway. She reached to place her hand on the top of his russet head. He fell silent. But he didn’t retreat. He stood by her side.
“You were right, Soren. There were traitors in our midst. I can’t thank you enough for protecting my daughter, the future queen, from their treachery,” Vasilisa said. Other Volkhvy had begun to poke their heads out of bedrooms. A troop of servants arrived to clean up after the battle.
She and Soren had never been alone. Volkhvy had surrounded them. Even if they had hidden behind her closed bedroom door, they would have had to face possible revelation in the morning. No one who had seen them together would believe they’d spent a platonic night.
Her arms ached from the fight. She’d used muscles to wield the energy sword that she’d never used before. It had seemed to come naturally to her, but now her body protested. Her forearms twitched with spasms, and her neck and shoulders screamed.
“You knew this would happen,” Anna said. She wasn’t only talking about the traitors or the battle. Her mother had wanted her and Soren to spend time together. But now it was obvious that she’d wanted them to connect as intimately as possible.
I’ll wager she’d be very happy if her daughter brings at least one of the Romanov wolves to heel.
Vasilisa looked from Anna’s face down to where her daughter’s hand rested on top of the red wolf’s head.
“They said that you’d wa
nt me to bring the red wolf to heel. Are you matchmaking, Mother? Is that why you provided the red dress? Is that why you insisted on a dinner?”
“I’m older and wiser than I appear,” Vasilisa said. “I’ve made many mistakes. Some of them unforgivable. But in this, I’m guilty of nothing more than wanting my daughter to be happy.”
The queen turned away. She lifted her skirts and stepped over the puddles of blood in the hall. Anna felt Soren move away from her hand, but she watched her mother until the queen’s back had disappeared up the stairway before she turned around.
The red wolf was gone.
Anna couldn’t blame him.
As the servants cleaned up the dead Volkhvy with no more emotion than they’d shown when they tidied after the dinner earlier in the evening, Anna retreated to her bedroom. This time when she shut the door, she leaned her back against it as if she would hold the whole dark world at bay.
Her arms still trembled.
She hugged them around herself and closed her eyes.
She and Soren hadn’t been allowed to steal a single night, and she should be glad. Anna wouldn’t allow Vasilisa to use her to manipulate Soren back into being the queen’s champion. He should be free. And he would be. Even if it broke her heart.
* * *
He ran because he could. And because he had to. The night was still young for an enchanted wolf. He had boundless energy even after the battle and restlessness caused by what might have been. Four legs became two as he ran, and the shift didn’t slow him down.
In fact, he ran faster as he became a man with a man’s needs.
He should be glad they’d been interrupted before they could make a mistake that would haunt him for the rest of his days. Trouble was he would be haunted anyway. He slowed and stopped near the dark ribbon of a freshwater stream. He’d splashed through it before. This time he used the chill waters to wash away sweat and blood—his own, as the Volkhvy blood had already evaporated from his skin like smoke. He slicked his hair back out of his eyes. Then, as the dirty water flowed away, he drank his fill of water from his cupped hands.
The moonlight illuminated the island around him, but he could still see the lights from the palace in the distance. He’d left Anna alone. She’d been shaken. She’d been upset with her mother and the treachery they’d faced.
Soren rose and tilted his chin toward the sky. He closed his eyes. He could still see Anna wielding her energy sword. The vision would stay with him forever. She’d been unstoppable. Volkhvy had fallen to her, left and right. In nothing but an ethereal nightdress, she had fought like a warrior.
Because it was her destiny to be one.
Destroying the emerald sword would take that destiny away from her. It wasn’t until now, as the adrenaline of battle bled away to leave him hollow and cold, that he fully understood he would also be robbed.
He had mourned the loss of the waif. Now he knew he would mourn the loss of the warrior, as well.
Chapter 18
She was tired and sore to the bone. Her body ached with every heartbeat, or maybe it was only heartache that resonated outward with her Volkhvy blood as it pumped through an organ that was useless save for circulation.
She loved Soren.
Her mother was right.
But her love had to be denied.
They had been nothing but companions for centuries, a girl and her wolf. In truth, they had always been more. There was a connection between them and it was one that could never be severed, not even with the sword’s destruction. But their connection couldn’t be indulged. Not now when she’d seen time and again how fiercely Soren fought against it. And not ever if she wanted to avoid becoming too powerful to control her abilities.
Anna turned the hot-water tap on full blast and sat on the edge of the large claw-foot tub in her bedroom’s bath. As the steam rose to fill the room with swirling, soothing fog, she remembered the way they’d had to heat water on the kitchen fire and carry it in containers to wooden tubs for bathing. It had been an arduous chore and, more often than not, baths had been taken in an inch or two of rapidly cooling water. To fill a tub for soaking would have been a pure, selfish luxury they couldn’t afford in a cursed castle where the clock was always counting down as they ran out of time.
Volkhvy blood rose like black smoke from the skin to disappear into the Ether when it was spilled. She ran the tub full of hot water more to cleanse her thoughts and soak her sore muscles than to wash. Her hair had loosened and tumbled down from her dinner coiffure during the battle. She took the bulk of it in her hands and wound it in a pile on top of her head, where she pinned it with a clip she’d found in the vanity drawer. Her nightgown was already hanging from her shoulders. The fight had been too rough for the delicate material. With only a tug, she pulled what was left of it free and allowed it to puddle on the floor.
And then she thought of Soren.
Of course she did.
The steam had fogged up the room and the full-length mirror that sat opposite the tub. The ghostly reflection of her nude form mocked her in the glass. The bath wouldn’t soothe her. Its heat wasn’t the heat she craved.
Anna lifted a leg and stepped into the water anyway. What else could she do? Soren had run away from her again. He’d been right to run. When they were together, it was hard to remember why they needed to stay apart.
The water welcomed her with a hot embrace that made her gasp, then sigh as she sank down into the tub. She leaned back against the highest end of the warmed enamel and propped herself with her arms on either side. She closed her eyes and knew it for a mistake as soon as memories of Soren’s kisses came flooding back to life in senses heightened by the lack of visual distraction.
* * *
The hot water lapped just over the rounded globes of Anna’s breasts. The rest of her was a pale, shimmering mystery under the steaming liquid as vapor continued to rise. Soren drew in a shaky breath to steady himself in the doorway, and the heat and humidity infiltrated his lungs with languorous, heavy air.
He grabbed the frame of the door with both hands to hold himself where he should stay.
“I came back,” he said softly. Anna opened her eyes. He thought to reassure her, but she wasn’t startled. Some part of her must have already known he was there. “It isn’t safe for you to be alone. There’s no way of knowing if there are others who might attack before the night is out.”
“I can take care of myself,” Anna replied. She hadn’t locked the doors to keep him out. She’d hoped he’d return. Besides, her abilities protected her from a Volkhvy threat better than any lock and key.
She didn’t sink deeper into the water. She didn’t cover her nudity with her hands. She simply watched as if she waited to see what he would do. She didn’t order him away. His grip tightened on the doorjamb without him consciously deciding that he needed to tighten it. The slightest hint of rose scent tantalized, because he knew it would be sweeter and muskier breathed in deeply from the skin of her neck.
“I know,” Soren said. “But you shouldn’t have to. Not as long as I’m with you. I’ll fight by your side.”
He couldn’t promise that he’d be by her side forever. He could only promise that while he was with her he would have her back as he’d always done.
“I don’t need a champion. You saw me. You saw what I’m capable of,” Anna said. Her voice trembled. He could hear her fear. He watched as her jaw tightened against it.
His hands loosened. He allowed them to slide down the door’s frame. Anna’s eyes tracked his hands. Then her gaze flew to his face. She sat up in the water. She was no longer reclined. The moist pink areolae of her breasts were exposed.
“Then I offer no champion. Only a partner. Only a friend,” Soren said. He didn’t feel friendly. His body was on fire with need and anticipation. He hadn’t consciously come back to the palace to finish what they’d start
ed earlier in the evening, but he couldn’t walk away.
She was a sultry vision in the bath. Her nipples were still barely submerged, but their peaked tips caused his lips to go dry. He hardened, and only then did he realize he’d come to her still naked from his shift. His erection was a confession that drew her gaze and caused a flush to rise on her damp cheeks.
“Only a friend?” Anna asked. Her lips curled slightly into a smile that was at once familiar and electrifyingly new.
And that was when he knew they’d won a fight with the Volkhvy, but his battle against his desire for one special witch had been lost.
* * *
Soren appeared in the doorway like a god fallen from the heavens. His tall, muscular form was as she remembered it from the day she’d almost died, but this time, she was fully conscious and able to appreciate every curve and angle. He was perfect, from his damp russet hair to his long pale legs dusted with darker hair. His angular face was graced only with a trimmed red shadow of a beard that highlighted his cheek and jaw—and the tension in his jaw as he held himself in the doorway.
He wanted to join her.
She saw the need in his hard face and his glittering eyes even before she saw it elsewhere.
His arms were braced and bulging with muscle. His knuckles were white as he held on.
But it was the direction of his gaze that caused her to melt. Her nipples hardened with need as he moistened his lips. His grip loosened and his hands dropped from the door. And then his penis jutted proudly from a nest of dark red curls.
Anna stood at exactly the same moment that Soren stepped into the bathroom. Water sluiced off her skin, but she didn’t have time to shiver. Because Soren took several more steps. He paused beside the tub. He lifted one hand to her face. She drew in a shaky breath as he cupped her cheek.
“We aren’t alone. There are guards stationed outside your door. They allowed me to pass,” Soren said.
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