“It’s been several Cycles since she’s spoken. You spoke of the wolves. You must know of the curse that binds us. The Queen of the Light Volkhvy punishes us for my father’s betrayal of her trust. Every ten years, Bronwal materializes from the Ether. At the end of the month, we disappear into the Ether once more. We all change each time we’re lost in the Ether,” Romanov said. “When the enclave dematerializes, we’re left with an awareness that makes the Ether a purgatory. It drains our souls away, little by little, time after time. For some there’s a sudden vanishing. For others, a slow fading away. Vladimir Romanov hasn’t been seen since the first Cycle.”
The legends about the Light Volkhvy champions had always seemed magical and romantic to her, filled with heroics and daring. She hadn’t known about the curse. No wonder there seemed to be something wrong with her storybook castle and all the people she’d encountered in it. The thaw she’d been experiencing seemed to pause as ice reclaimed her heart, but if Romanov noticed her chilling realization he betrayed nothing. Elena slowly shrugged out of her backpack as her host ignored her, and Patrice took it from her only to drop it on the floor as if she wasn’t aware she had taken it. The chubby woman had crinkles around her eyes and merry red cheeks, but her silence negated who she’d once been. Her features seemed to indicate that she’d once been a jolly soul, but she wasn’t fully with them. Her eyes were distant and her movements were automatic. It wasn’t only that she didn’t speak. She didn’t seem to hear them well. The backpack landed near the russet wolf and the giant creature nosed it and then ignored it as if it had proved of no interest.
“You’re here after all this time,” Elena said. She’d come looking for champions. She’d hoped to find enchanted wolves and their masters. She’d never imagined she’d find the original Romanovs themselves. “You’re the oldest son of Vladmir Romanov. One of Queen Vasilisa’s champions. Fully awake and aware.” The heat from the fire began to warm her again. Her shivering had stopped. Her teeth didn’t chatter. Romanov filled the room with his restrained energy. He’d let her go, but she could still feel his hold. He was powerful, but his power wasn’t merely physical. There was no way he had faded from what he had once been. Why did he want her to think otherwise?
“In time I’ll fade away too,” he said. “In one month, Bronwal will go back to the Ether. Maybe this time I’ll stay there, vanished, like the rest of my family.” He shrugged, but the light gesture didn’t match the shadows that haunted his eyes. He’s not sure what each materialization will bring. Who will remain and who will be gone forever. Elena’s body was beginning to adjust to the heat from the fire, but Romanov’s circumstances left her heart permanently chilled. It must have been torture through the decades to lose his loved ones, one by one.
He sat in the opposite chair and stretched his long legs out in front of him in a deceptively relaxed position. The white wolf, Lev, had found them. He came into the room reluctantly and slumped at his master’s feet as if he had grown unused to such comforts. The russet wolf, Soren, stretched out on the other side. Without saying goodbye, Patrice left the room. Would she wander the halls aimlessly until the castle went back into the Ether? Would she even exist during the next Cycle or would she be lost to nothingness, never to be seen again? Elena had come looking for help against Grigori, but she had found more darkness here than she’d expected.
“I need the alpha wolf. My grandmother said he was the Light Volkhvy’s greatest champion. Are you his master? Will you help me find him?” Elena asked. It made her nervous to see her bag so close to the subjects of the book inside of it. It might seem childish to Romanov even though it had served as a lifeline to her. But her knee throbbed and that was the more pressing problem. She stood and leaned to unbuckle her boots. She carefully took them off without jarring her knee. Then she reached to unzip her ski suit and pull it down. Beneath its down-filled pale blue polyester, she wore simple white silk thermals. Gooseflesh rose on her skin at the sudden rush of air against the thin material. Finally, with some painful maneuvering, the damp suit was peeled away. She draped it over the back of her chair and she sat again, free to massage her troublesome knee. There was a scar where the first surgery had extended her use of the knee. Without that repair, her walk through the snow would have been impossible, not merely excruciating.
It wasn’t until her pain eased that she noticed the tension in the air. Elena stilled. The fire had caught and it blazed brightly, bathing her in a flickering spotlight. She understood her mistake even before she lifted her eyes. Romanov wasn’t a modern man and she had basically stripped in front of him. She was a ballerina. Her body was an instrument, a tool. Her every movement was a deliberate placement of everything from her spine to her toes, but she was completely disconnected from the sensuality of her lithe limbs. The theater had no patience for modesty. They hurried to change from one costume to another in hallways amid a rush of similar nude forms.
But this man wasn’t a dancer. He didn’t even belong to this century at all. He’d been born in the Middle Ages. Her book was very old and it told a tale much older than its pages.
She’d always thought of the Romanovs as legends. Larger than life and not quite human. But this Romanov was a man. One she didn’t know, from a time she couldn’t understand. And he was a man tortured by a cruel curse. When she did look up and her gaze collided with his, he looked stunned, as if shedding her wet clothes in front of him was more shocking than his cursed castle, monstrous wolves and disappearing people. He also looked even more real. The leaping flames reflected in his eyes seemed to reveal the emotion he’d tried to hide before. His glance dropped to sweep her body. There was color in his cheeks and his lips had softened. Her stripping might have surprised him, but he was appreciative of what she had revealed. His lingering perusal made her cheeks heat. The flush was a tingling pleasure in the cool room.
In time, he might fade as he predicted, but he was fully here now and she must seem nearly naked to his old-fashioned standards. He didn’t look away, but he did raise the direction of his gaze from her breasts to her eyes.
“You won’t find help here. Loss. Despair. Resignation. Those you will find. But not help,” Romanov said. His hands had grasped the arms of his chair with a white-knuckled grip and his voice was strained. His accent was exotic to her ears. His vowels and consonants were slowly uttered with deeper inflections as out of place and uninfluenced by current civilization as his leather and furs. He must have had contact with the outside world each time he materialized. She could understand him, but it was as if he was a time traveler speaking a language that wasn’t his native tongue. It was a visceral experience to have to listen to him so carefully and watch his eyes and his lips move as he spoke. She had to attune her entire body to him in order to communicate.
Elena trembled again, but not from the cold. She didn’t see resignation in Romanov’s eyes. The waves of black hair around his face were highlighted by a halo of firelight. From that glowing frame, his green eyes shone with repressed passion...and anger. Beneath his dramatic brows and offset by pale skin, the emotion in his irises caused her heartbeat to kick in her chest and her breath to quicken.
He didn’t want her here.
In her nightmares, she had wings, but they were always clipped. She was flightless. Caged. Kept at the whim of Grigori for reasons that caused her to beat against the bars of her cage until her white-feathered breast was stained with blood. She’d danced Odette many times—the swan tormented by a sorcerer. Her performances were as prophetic as her dreams. Grigori had seen her dance as a young girl. He’d vowed to have her. Her mother had used every last drop of her blood to bind him away from her daughter.
She’d never known why her mother had killed herself. Only a few months ago, Grigori had revealed the truth. Her mother had traded her life for her daughter’s and it had only bought Elena’s safety for a limited time.
“I’ve had my share of despair and loss,” Elena sai
d. “Resignation? Never.”
She wouldn’t be frightened by his anger. Or not cowed by it anyway. She had done nothing but search for a way to survive. She was going nowhere until she found it.
Suddenly, over Romanov’s shoulder, she saw bars on the door to the tower room. They were artistically twisted in patterns of vines and flowers, but they were iron bars nonetheless. Romanov had drawn his legs back and he’d straightened. His wolves had also straightened to sit at attention by his side.
Three sets of eyes stared her down.
She had nowhere else to go, but that didn’t matter. Not if she was trapped in a tower of a cursed castle and kept from finding the alpha wolf she sought.
I am the last Romanov.
He hadn’t said it in a tone of resignation. He’d said it like his soul stood rooted in its last stand for eternity if need be. Had she disturbed his lonely vigil? Was that why he was looking at her with anger in his eyes?
This man ruled here. There were no councils or committees. He was a king and she was a trespasser. For some reason, he had decided to stand between her and the alpha wolf she needed to find.
“The Romanovs were given great power by the Light Volkhvy to fight against the dark. You were given powerful enchanted wolves to fight by your side. A Dark Volkhvy is my enemy,” she said.
Romanov stood. She wasn’t certain if it was a conscious move or if it was an automatic response to her mention of the Russian witches who had cursed his family.
“My father betrayed the Light Volkhvy. He wasn’t satisfied with leading a pack of champions. He wanted Vasilisa’s crown. His actions brought the curse down upon us. There are no champions left here. Only the dishonored and the walking dead. My father doomed himself and all of his people to this endless punishment. You’ve wasted your time,” he said.
“You’re not dead yet,” Elena whispered. He was anything but dead. He shone with life. That was what captured her attention when lantern light, torchlight or firelight illuminated his face. She’d seen many dancers glow on the stage, backlit by spotlights and painted scenery. With only the gray of his cursed castle’s backdrop, Romanov glowed—with anger, frustration and restrained passion—but he was definitely alive.
“All I ever held dear are dead. Gone. Vanished into nothing. My time will come. It must come. And soon,” Romanov said.
His hands were fisted. This man was part of the legend she’d sought, but he was also more—more human, more fallible, more tortured than the tales had led her to believe. She’d been an innocent child fascinated by the three-dimensional paper images that had popped up from the pages of her grandmother’s book. What had she known of love and loss? Since then, she’d lost her mother and her grandmother. And, finally, she’d lost the dance. Everyone she’d ever loved and her lifelong purpose. But that didn’t mean she was ready to give up. She’d been called here for a reason. She refused to be turned away before she understood the tingling in her veins that said this was where she was meant to be.
If he wouldn’t help her find the alpha wolf and fight Grigori, she would have to find the wolf and face the witchblood prince on her own. Romanov was a living, breathing legend, but he was finished. Fed up with the love and loss of this world and all the people in it. He wanted her gone because he wanted to die.
She jumped up when he turned toward the door. She couldn’t be caged. It was too much like her nightmare. But instead of running for the door, she rushed to her backpack. She unzipped the top and rummaged until she pulled her precious book from its depths. Instinct drove her now as instinct had driven her to follow its stories into the mountains. Her grandmother had been a wise woman. She’d treated the legends with respect. Romanov was at the door when she turned to show him the book. He needed to be reminded of what his family had been in the fight against the Dark Volkhvy. Of what he could be still.
“Stop,” Elena commanded. She held the book toward him and opened it as if she was the witch casting a spell. But in this cold, dark stone fortress, the book had lost its magic. It seemed small. Its colorful pages were more worn and faded than she remembered. It opened on her favorite scene. A lush forest of dozens of paper trees popped up from the page, and from between the trees three wolves ran. The white. The red. And the black. But they paled in comparison to the real wolves in the room, and they were so crumpled from use that they didn’t leap from the page as they had when she was a child.
Romanov looked from the book as the trees fluttered in her trembling hands up to her face.
“This is what brought you here?” he asked. The whole hollow castle seemed to still around them. His soft, pained voice echoed down the quiet stairs.
“My grandmother’s stories brought me here. She told them while we looked at this book,” Elena explained. The book itself wasn’t as impressive as her grandmother had been. In the same room as the last Romanov and his wolves, it wasn’t impressive at all.
But she couldn’t explain the pulse beneath her skin that had drawn her to his castle as if it were magnetized and she was raw ore dug up from the earth by an unseen hand.
He turned away again, from her and the legend, and Elena closed the book and dropped it onto her chair. She wouldn’t be locked in the tower. She would fight if she had to. The wolves led the way. They disappeared down the stairs in front of their master. Romanov’s large body blocked the door. He turned back to face her when he crossed the threshold. He slowly reached for the door to swing it closed.
“No. Wait,” Elena said. She rushed forward, but he shut the door too forcefully for her to prevent its closing. The lock clanked home as her hands gripped the iron vines. She pressed her face to the space between the bars. Romanov stood inches away from her, separated by the thick oak of the bottom of the door and the scrolling iron at the top, but also by centuries of experience that had left him jaded and untouchable.
Roses. She saw them closely now. Dozens of iron roses “grew” along the vine-shaped bars. The door was an ancient artisan’s masterpiece and a horror at the same time. She was trapped. The only thing that kept the scream from rising up from her gut was the absence of bloody feathers. As long as she was still herself, she could fight.
“You can’t keep me in here,” Elena protested.
Romanov leaned down. The firelight illuminated his face once more. He leaned so close that his raven hair brushed her cheek through the bars. He was older than she could imagine, even though he looked barely older than she was. He was more savage than anyone she’d ever encountered with his leather and furs and several white jagged lines from battle scars on his face, but he was also fiercely handsome. His rough, masculine beauty caused her to gasp at the sudden intimacy of his closeness. The door was between them but it felt like nothing at all.
She’d come looking for a legend, but he was real. She breathed in the scent of wind and snow held in his hair. And then she held her breath to keep from appreciating the wild bouquet. Of its own volition, her gaze cataloged every scar, every dark eyelash that lushly rimmed his eyes and the oddly vulnerable swell of his sensual lips. His eyes were hooded and hard, but the tenseness in his jaw eased when he noticed her catch her breath and hold it. He must have seen her sudden surprise at the physical attraction she felt for him in spite of her desperation. His gaze tracked over her face. She held her body still. She bit a lip that suddenly tingled because his were so kissable and so close. His attention dropped to her lips and then to her tight-knuckled grip on the bars. When he spoke, his voice was quiet.
“I’m not locking you in the tower, Elena Pavlova,” he said softly. His voice still vibrated against her even though they weren’t touching. It was deep, low and raw with some restrained emotion she couldn’t name. He looked back up, into her eyes. His gaze held her for long moments so that when he lifted an iron key scrolled with tiny vines and roses that matched the bars, she released her breath in surprise. The key dangled from a delicate silver chain and i
t bumped her hand again and again through the bars while he waited for her to move. She released the bar to open her hand for the key. Her fingers were shaking. Rather than dropping the chain, he lowered it slowly down into her palm to pile on top of the cool key in a slow, lazy coil of precious metal. For several seconds, his large hand rested over hers. His touch was light and warm. He stilled her trembling. She’d thought she knew his story, but his tale was still unfolding right before her eyes. She’d become a part of it, and it was a tale rife with danger.
She’d responded to the call. She’d come to the mountains for a legend and his wolves.
She’d found a man.
“The tower is for your protection. You hold the key while you’re here. Don’t be fooled by your pretty book. This isn’t a fairy-tale castle. Bronwal is cursed. Those who come and go from the Ether are forever changed and even while we’re in this world the Ether isn’t fully dispelled. Whatever you do, don’t consider this a refuge. The Volkhvy, both Dark and Light, aren’t to be trusted and neither am I. The Romanov curse is real...and deserved. Don’t forget that while you’re here,” Romanov said. He was warning her away. He wanted her to keep her distance. But he uttered the warning only after he’d leaned down until their lips were even closer together—nearly touching—between the iron bars. The door was nothing. It didn’t seem to exist at all. She looked up into his eyes and rather than repel, they caught and held her more thoroughly than any cage.
Perhaps it wasn’t the castle that was the magnet.
She’d been wrong. He was worn, not jaded. And he was touchable. Very touchable. It took all her self-control not to touch him now when he seemed to invite it.
“Sometimes the month passes in the blink of an eye and sometimes it stretches on in an endless trial. But however our time passes, it ends with a Volkhvy Gathering. If you came here to escape a Volkhvy prince, it was a mistake. They all come to dance on our graves. Or wasn’t that bit a part of the tale you were told?” Romanov whispered. “The Volkhvy, Dark and Light, are drawn to power. And Bronwal glows cruelly and seductively with power to their eyes. You’d do well to stay locked in this tower until the storm passes and you’re strong enough to leave.” His voice had dropped even lower and one sigh would have brought her to the taste of his lips. She held very still. She didn’t move. He dared her to greater intimacy, but she refrained. Because she could see that he was only torturing himself. He had no intention of kissing her. She wondered if he knew how much he tortured her too. His body was pressed to the outside of the door and hers was pressed against the inside. She could have sworn their body heat mingled even as they were kept apart.
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