“Ivan said the witchblood prince lived near the Ether. He grew up in this atmosphere,” Soren said. Anna could tell he felt the Ether’s power, even though he wasn’t a witch. She moved closer to him, instinctively wanting to block the rainbow light from touching his handsome features.
“We have to go to the fortress. That’s where the sword is being held,” Anna said.
Soren’s eyes had narrowed when she’d positioned herself between him and the shimmering aurora borealis–like atmosphere. She stood facing him with her back to the deceptively beautiful rainbow. He looked at it over her shoulder, and then his gaze came back to her face.
“How bad is the vacuum you fight in this place?” he asked.
He hadn’t let go of her hand when he’d pulled her to her feet. His fingers tightened around hers as if he would hold her if the Ether tried to take her away. He looked as if he could. Not only because of his broad shoulders, muscular arms and powerful frame, but also because of the intensity of determination that shone from his eyes. The usual warm amber of his irises suddenly looked like chips of agate crystal, and his grip on her hand seemed unshakable.
It was an illusion.
No one could hold out against the vacuum of the Ether forever—not even an enchanted legendary wolf or the witch who loved him.
She could feel its pull, colder and stronger than she’d ever felt it before.
But she lied.
“I’m not going anywhere. Our connection will give me the power I need to resist the vacuum. I can use the Ether’s energy without succumbing to it. At least long enough to retrieve the sword,” Anna said.
She wouldn’t reveal that she’d had another grim thought about how she could release the sword. Death or disintegration in the Ether—they were one and the same. To save Soren she would have to sacrifice herself. She just had to choose—the white wolf’s hunger or the Ether’s.
* * *
Soren knew Anna was lying. He could see the fight she waged against the Ether’s vacuum in her body and her eyes. Her jaw was tense. Her shoulders braced. Her hand gripped his as if she dangled over the edge of the cliff he faced. He just wasn’t sure why she didn’t tell him the truth. He would spare her this if he could. He would give her the sword and his heart and pledge to her his teeth and his claws for eternity if he wouldn’t also condemn his family to Volkhvy danger at the same time.
“If it wasn’t for the baby, we would leave this place...” Soren began.
“For the baby, for Elena, for Ivan and for Lev. And for you,” Anna said. “I won’t leave until I’ve done what has to be done. For all of Bronwal.”
Suddenly, she spoke truth. He could hear the difference in her voice. He could see the change blazing in her emerald eyes. He could hardly remember when they’d been a soft hazel with only a hint of green in the firelight or the sunshine. Her power was such a part of her now. He couldn’t imagine her without it.
They’d had to use her power to find the sword and to travel to it. They would have to use her power to wrest the sword from the Dark Volkhvy’s control. They would have to use it to destroy the sword. In their lovemaking, he’d had an intimate connection with her Volkhvy abilities and the way she channeled the energy of the Ether.
Her power had pulsed through him.
But for all that, he couldn’t forget what Vasilisa had done. The horrible curse and the damage she had inflicted with her Volkhvy abilities would haunt him for the rest of his days.
Anna stood between him and the atmosphere that shimmered colorfully and coldly behind her. It was beautiful and it was a horror, one he’d endured for more years than most men lived. The contradiction of its nature was represented in the woman he loved. She was lovely, from her power-tossed curls highlighted by the dangerous rainbow atmosphere to her emerald eyes, from her soft curves to her hard determination to survive. She was also deadly. Even without the emerald sword, she was the queen’s daughter. With the emerald sword magnifying her abilities, she would be unstoppable.
What they prepared to do had to be done, even if it hollowed his chest and sickened his gut.
He would lose her, but she would live. And his family wouldn’t be joined to a Volkhvy clan that had already tortured them for centuries.
* * *
Soren had the experience of centuries behind his perceptions. Anna fought to keep her intentions to herself. If he knew she was even contemplating sacrificing herself to save the sword for him, he would try to stop her. Her only hope of stopping its destruction was to move forward as if she still intended to follow their original plan.
“They’ll know we’re coming. The emerald will give us away,” Anna warned. She would distract him with action until they had the sword. If they defeated the Dark Volkhvy, then she would worry about facing Soren’s reaction to the truth—that she couldn’t allow him to sacrifice any chance at future partnership and happiness because she was a witch.
And deep in her chest, her heart beat the question: The Ether’s cold or the white wolf’s bite? The white wolf’s bite or the Ether’s cold?
She shivered at the very idea of allowing the Ether to take her after fighting against it for so long.
Her love for Soren was the only reason she could even contemplate such a fate.
“Oh, they’ll know we’re coming by much more than that,” Soren said with a dark smile.
His hand loosened and slipped from hers. He backed several paces away. His move placed him fully in the glow of the Ether’s light, and the eerie shimmer illuminated the intention on his face. Like the windows of the fortress, Soren’s amber eyes reflected the rainbow. His russet hair was tipped on the sun-lightened ends by gold and lavender and blue.
He was fully the legend she knew and loved in that moment before he shifted.
Anna’s heart expanded—not torn, not shredded after all.
And then the sudden shaking of the earth tossed her to her knees. She stayed, kneeling on the hard ground, while she watched Soren shift into her giant red wolf. Her body screamed with empathy as he cried out with the pain of his limbs and spine and face morphing into the massive canine shape, so familiar, so beloved, but even more so now that she loved the man.
“Soren,” Anna said as he leaped and landed in front of her on four paws.
The shift was horrible. The result was perfectly beautiful either way. Whether Soren went from a man to a wolf or vice versa, he was breathtaking once the shift was complete. The red wolf nuzzled her hair as if to say “Hello.” Anna thought maybe Soren breathed in her scent in a deeper, more appreciative way with his wolf’s nose than he could with his own.
She reached for his russet scruff and fisted both hands in it to help raise herself to her feet. She’d made such a move hundreds of time before. They danced a dance of familiar partnership as she stood and he made way for her beside his large shoulder.
“You know what we have to do,” Anna said. He didn’t know. Not really. Her intention was still a hot, hard secret in her chest that rose up into her throat every time she tried to speak.
The red wolf turned his face to look at her, as if he heard something in her voice that Soren hadn’t been able to hear as a man. She forced herself to look into his amber eyes. She placed both hands on either side of his enormous head.
“Retrieve the sword,” Anna said.
That was one part of the mission on which they both agreed.
What she chose to do after was her own decision as the woman who wielded the sword.
Chapter 26
When he became the red wolf, everything was simplified and more complex at the same time. He senses were heightened to a degree that filled his brain with sights, sounds, odors and tastes. Because of that overload, his analytical functions stepped aside.
The red wolf was a creature of instinct and perception.
He didn’t think. He felt.
He stood beside Anna with her hands in his scruff and he felt her heart beating, her lungs expanding and contracting, and he could feel the power of the Ether flowing beneath her skin. She was his partner. His companion. More so than she’d ever been. The heart that beat in his massive barrel chest beat for her.
He could also tell that something was wrong.
He was Soren. Soren was he. But Soren intended to destroy the emerald sword, and that was where the red wolf’s instincts diverged with the man’s. Would he rip open his own chest and throw his still-beating heart to the ground? No.
Anna was the red wolf’s, always. She was also the always of the man. But Soren had lost himself to analytical thinking. The man didn’t trust his instincts to lead him on the best path.
Still, the scents he received from Anna were confusing. The energy from the Ether burned his nose and stung his eyes. When she held him and looked into his face, it felt like she was saying goodbye.
But what she ordered was clear: Retrieve the sword. It matched with his instincts and overcame the burning and stinging. He blinked the moisture from his eyes and accepted the weight of his Anna when she climbed onto his back. She was larger than she’d been as a child, but she was still petite enough that she was no burden at all. When she held his scruff and placed her face close to his left ear, it felt like coming home.
“Take me to the sword, Soren,” she said.
If the journey had been a thousand miles, he would have burst his heart to make it. For her. The Dark Volkhvy fortress was much closer. He gathered himself and sprang into a run, ever mindful of the precious rider on his back.
* * *
Anna allowed herself to feel the exhilaration she’d always felt on the red wolf’s back. His leaps were twice the length of a horse’s stride. Hardened muscles that had been crafted by the enchanted manipulation of his genes before he was born drove his speed.
But his giant heart was all Soren’s.
He carried her toward the emerald sword he’d helped her claim the night before. It didn’t matter that he also wanted her to destroy it. He had proved his love, saving her from the Ether by celebrating their connection. It didn’t matter that he still couldn’t trust her. She wouldn’t allow his distrust to hurt her anymore. She had lived through the curse with him. She felt the same distrust for Volkhvy blood even though she now knew it flowed in her veins. The sword was hers. She could never allow herself to keep it. Even if Soren had trusted her with his family’s lives.
She would never trust herself.
The red wolf was solid and warm beneath her. The fortress came closer and closer. Soon they would battle the Dark Volkhvy who had stolen the sword that had been made for her hands, even though she’d never held it. Anna held Soren instead. She buried her face in his russet fur one last time.
* * *
He had no name that he could remember. All he had was a gnawing hunger inside him that could never be filled, no matter how he hunted and fed. He was haunted by dreams he couldn’t understand. He ran from visions of humans who called him Lev. Worse than that, he ran from visions of a woman who called him “beloved” and a tiny mewling babe at her breast.
He ran. He hunted. He killed. He fed.
But he hadn’t killed the witch.
She had survived.
He didn’t have a name. He only had visions he couldn’t understand. But he also had one more thing: a hatred for the beings who channeled the energy from the Ether that ate him.
He had fought its devouring hunger for as long as he could remember. Even after he couldn’t remember why, he fought it. He wasn’t sure why he had to survive. He wasn’t sure why no hunt satisfied, as if there was always a quarry he hadn’t managed to chase down.
He only knew from his first taste of the witch’s blood that her death would right a horrible wrong. That certainty drove him to follow her. To find her no matter the cost. His paws grew raw. His fur became patched and shabby. His bones showed beneath his skin.
And still he ran on.
As he ran, he left his visions behind until the only being he saw whenever he closed his eyes was the witch he had to devour in order to survive so his hunt could go on.
* * *
Vasilisa knew when her daughter claimed the emerald sword. As someone with a majority of her consciousness subsumed in the Ether, the tremendous power drain caused her to grow faint. She was walking in the garden at midnight when she stumbled. She almost fell. But long practice in the variations of the Ether’s energy allowed her to right herself and walk on.
She merely changed her direction because something was wrong. Her daughter had claimed the emerald sword, but it wasn’t in her hand. The connection Anna shared with Soren was still tainted by mistrust. Worse than that, the white wolf, in his savage way, was as tuned in to the Ether’s energy as Vasilisa was herself. If she could sense her daughter and Soren so clearly, then so could Lev.
Vasilisa headed for the sleeping warrior in the middle of her garden.
She no longer had the luxury of time.
If Soren couldn’t trust Anna, if Anna couldn’t trust herself, they would destroy the sword rather than trust the way it bound them together. Without the sword’s connection, her daughter would fall to the white wolf. Especially if she was too distracted to defend herself against him.
The only solution was to ensure that the white wolf was the one too distracted to attack.
Chapter 27
As they drew closer to the fortress, Anna rose up on the red wolf’s back to survey their destination. The cement that had seemed to curve up over the windows from a distance actually formed balconies that flowed out from the glass in the shape of waves curling back into themselves. They would be an effective barrier against witch or human attack, but not against a Romanov wolf.
She didn’t have to speak. Soren had already seen what he should do. Anna only had to tighten her grip to be sure she didn’t fall off his back when he gathered himself and leaped onto the balcony that surrounded the first floor.
The red wolf slid several feet when he landed. Anna couldn’t let go to raise her hands to direct her energy. She could only duck her head against his fur and allow her power to flare out and around her body. The glowing energy that engulfed her protected her from the shattering glass as Soren’s momentum took them through it. Thousands of shards of glass turned to glittering diamond-like dust against the green force field she formed. The dust burst outward from the red wolf’s body as he landed inside the fortress’s walls.
“The emerald sword belongs to me,” Anna said as the dust dissipated.
A contingent of Dark Volkhvy met their arrival as if they’d known exactly where they would be even before they knew it themselves. One stood tall in front of all the others. It was the same Volkhvy who had drawn her attention at the palace dinner. He had the sword. He wore it in a black leather scabbard that draped loosely on a belt at his lean hips. The emerald in its hilt gleamed brightly as his jaunty walk toward them jarred it to and fro. During the dinner party, she’d told herself that the oily black of his hair and clothes didn’t mean he was a Dark Volkhvy, but it hadn’t been his clothes that made him shine darkly that night. She could see the darkness in his expression more clearly now. She could see the oily weight of his hair was caused by an almost-liquid shimmer around his head, a barely visible dark halo.
It wasn’t oil.
He and his retinue stopped a few yards away. The glass dust she’d created settled on his shoulders as a light snow.
“The sword is mine, Princess. And soon you shall be mine, as well,” the man said. “Forgive me for not introducing myself before. I am Aleksandr. I rule the Dark Volkhvy, but soon all Volkhvy shall have me as their Dark master.”
“If the sword is yours, why don’t you draw it, Alek?” Anna asked. The red wolf growled deep in his chest. The glow she’d summoned to prote
ct herself from shattered glass still suffused her body. She didn’t send it away. There was no hiding who and what she was from the man who challenged her.
Aleksandr’s hand hovered over the hilt of the sword as if his fingers were being repelled. He didn’t seem to mind.
“Because you can’t. Now that the emerald shines for me, it won’t allow anyone else to wield the sword.”
Anna swung her leg over the red wolf’s back and jumped to the ground. Soren crouched to make the move easier for her, as he’d done a thousand times. Then he rose to his full height beside her. She reached to hold the fur of his scruff. Touching him gave her strength and steadied her nerves. She also hoped to hold him back from attacking the Dark Volkhvy until she was certain the time was right.
The witches they faced were too calm. Many had smiles on their faces. None of them looked afraid. Soren wasn’t the alpha wolf, but he posed a great danger to Volkhvy. Their calm made Anna’s stomach go cold, as if the Ether had crept its way inside.
“It was never my aim to steal the emerald sword...alone,” Aleksandr said. He sashayed closer toward them, as if Soren didn’t have teeth a foot long, ready to sink into his flesh. “I had to attend the dinner party that night. I needed to demonstrate my ‘loyalty’ to Vasilisa. But once I saw you, I was so tempted. I almost revealed my hand. It was always you I wanted. Anna, the Light Volkhvy princess. I couldn’t act at the palace, where Vasilisa’s power is in the very air one breathes. The attack that night was only to draw attention away from me,” Aleksandr continued. “I would have had you before now if you hadn’t been hidden by Bronwal’s curse. Why settle for the blade alone when I can have the blade and the woman who would wield it? You will unlock the sword’s power for me, Anna. And then I will rule all of Volkhvy kind. The Dark and the Light.”
He stopped far enough away that Soren would have to knock her aside to leap for the Dark Volkhvy’s throat. Anna’s fingers had loosened on the red wolf’s fur. But not because it was time for him to attack. Her hand grew slack from shock. The unexpected revelation caused her energy aura to fade just as she could feel her face go pale and cold.
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