Legendary Shifter

by Barbara J. Hancock

  Elena had thought he would check on his brother. She should have known he would check on them all. He stood at the door and he held the edges of its frame with a white-knuckled grip as if he’d hoped to find it locked against him even though the lock was ruined.

  Instead of a lock, he had to depend on his own strength to keep him outside.

  She hoped his strength would fail.

  “A lock wouldn’t protect me from Grigori,” Elena said.

  She was covered in the frothy lather Patrice’s soap had created in her hands. Her skin only showed in several wet flashes against the white bubbles, pink from the water’s heat. But she noticed the direction of Romanov’s eyes and how they widened when the lather began to slip away from her breasts. First the hardened nipple of one breast was revealed and then the other.

  He didn’t look away.

  The last of Elena’s shock was gone. She’d needed to see him on two legs. But there was also no room for shock when her body was reacting to his presence. Her stomach grew heavy and heated as her nipples peaked beneath his gaze. He still held the door’s frame. He still refused to step inside. But one of his legs had bent at the knee as if it would carry him forward without his permission. And his knuckles were whiter as if he used every bit of his strength to keep himself from answering her body’s silent invitation.

  It was a sudden decision that caused her to stand. Water and bubbles sluiced off her body.

  “Elena,” Romanov said. Was it in protest or appreciation? She thought the latter. His color was high. His chest rose and fell as if he’d grown winded while merely standing at the door. He also leaned slightly inward and his bent knee extended to place one booted foot inside the door.

  Another sudden decision had her reaching for one of the small buckets that a servant had left by the tub. She dipped it in the water at her feet while Romanov stared, riveted by her actions and all the pink skin her movements revealed. She watched him as she lifted the bucket high. His chest was no longer rising and falling. He held his breath. When she upended the warm water over her shoulders and washed most of the lather away, he released a long exhalation.

  In the firelight, her wet skin glistened.

  And Romanov let go of the door.

  It was her turn to hold her breath as he stepped inside. He came to the tub with no further hesitation. Her body shivered now from cold and anticipation. The battle was far from her mind. She trembled when he stopped at the edge of the tub. He towered over her. Would she ever grow accustomed to his size and strength? She was used to leaner, more graceful men. Romanov’s muscles were intended for battles like the one they’d just fought. He needed to swing a sword and plant his feet. He was so solid, she couldn’t imagine him ever giving way to an attacking foe. Not a pack of enchanted wolves or a troop of Dark Volkhvy.

  The idea that something as amorphous as time and Ether might fell him caused her to reach out her hand and place it on his downturned face. He looked at her as if he would memorize her features in the firelight. She looked up at him to do the same. He’d received several deep scratches. They joined the white scars of previous battles on his handsome face.

  “I watched you return to the castle from the ramparts, but that wasn’t enough,” Romanov said. He reached to touch a tendril of her hair that had escaped the messy bun at the top of her head. And then he moved more decisively to burrow into the mass of waves to remove the pins she’d used to hold it up and out of the way. The battle had already loosened it. His strong fingers quickly caused it to fall down around her shoulders as the pins flew.

  Elena was fascinated by the play of emotions over his face—concern, frustration and desire. She gasped when he finished with her hair because he immediately pulled her to him with a warm calloused hand on the nape of her neck.

  His lips descended to crush against hers. She wound her damp arms around his neck to hold on and to press her naked body against him. He was fully clothed. The contrast was thrilling. But it was also poignant. She laid everything bare while he remained a mystery.

  She held nothing back. Her mouth opened eagerly for his plunging tongue. He held her head for his crushing kiss and she gloried in his complete loss of control. He wasn’t holding back now. For the first time, he gave in to the connection between them. Even more so than he had the night before.

  But the firelight was suddenly overwhelmed by the flash of blue light from the sapphire behind them. It blazed and the entire room was bathed in blue. Romanov ripped his lips from hers and jerked away. He whirled away from her arms. They fell at her side, but only for a moment before she wrapped them around her aching middle.

  Now, she shivered from the cold. The water at her feet had chilled. The fire had already burned low. The sapphire faded as Romanov moved away.

  “We killed them all. Every last one. The black wolf was eager to fight,” he said. “You don’t need the sword to fight Grigori. You have me.”

  He left the room before she could reply. She watched him leave and he didn’t even glance back over his shoulder. The sapphire was cold and dull again before his footsteps had faded away.

  “But I don’t have you,” Elena said. She stepped from the tub and wrapped a sheet around her cold skin.

  Chapter 20

  The black wolf had interfered. Grigori had been touching his swan for the first time. His hands still tingled from the forbidden contact with her skin. The protection her mother had bought from the universe with her blood was almost gone. She’d been softer than silk beneath his hand.

  And she’d been so very afraid.

  Her fear was an aphrodisiac because it fueled his power like a battery that he could constantly recharge with the mere application of his dark desires. The memory of her trembling and vulnerable beneath his touch was better than any trembling he’d inspired with dreams. Who knows what he might have been able to do to her if the Romanov wolves hadn’t interrupted?

  Her mother’s knowledge of hearth magic had taken him by surprise, but it was Elena who had shocked him. He hadn’t been prepared for his little swan to take flight. He’d never imagined she would seek help from the one being who might be able to stand in his way. He’d been so certain she would be his when the power of the blood ran out. He’d never suspected that she might know Volkhvy secrets. The Light queen of the Volkhvy had been practically sleepwalking for centuries. Her anger at her Romanov champions had caused most of the old protections against the Dark to fade away. The old legends were dead. Or so he thought. No one spoke of them anymore. Cell phones and social media had taken the place of books and campfire stories that had armed generations against his kind.

  Except one old woman who had taught her daughter and granddaughter the old tales and the old ways.

  She’d been too canny and wise for him to kill. He’d had to wait for nature to take her in its own sweet time. But he’d never imagined she’d passed on the legend of the Romanovs to her granddaughter or that a woman born in this time of lattes and laptops would take the legends to heart.

  It wasn’t her belief that truly shocked him. It was her determination to travel a thousand miles and climb a mountain in the snow to find a cursed castle and a mythical champion to fight him.

  That...and the sapphire sword.

  The delicate swan he craved was not a warrior woman. He would put her back in her place...in his cage, under his power, forever at his mercy. The sword would be lost to the Ether and entirely out of her reach. She would be delicate and vulnerable once more. Even if he had to clip her wings and her uninjured leg to ensure that she accepted her true nature.

  He preened as he thought, literally soothing his ruffled feathers. They were as black as obsidian, but they weren’t a raven’s wings. They were much larger and more powerful than that. When he shifted, he was larger than a natural bird, just as the Romanov wolves were larger than natural wolves. And just as Elena was a womanly swan with
some of her human features intact. She would have feathers on her breast, but they would be full, lush womanly breasts. Her wings would stretch from her perfect, delicately boned shoulders.

  His Ether-fueled powers gave him infinite possibilities for his pleasure. Currently, he was a large cob swan anticipating making Elena his mate. He was capable of being fully formed as a bird, but he could also keep his human arms...and other attributes...if he chose.

  He would choose with Elena.

  And they would mate for life...or as long as her life lasted.

  His pets never lasted long once he had full power over them. His appetites always got the best of him once they had free rein.

  In order for all of his plans to proceed to fruition, he would need to destroy the black wolf first. The creature had been created by the Light Volkhvy queen to fight his kind, but, in truth, the queen had never fully understood what his kind was capable of becoming. The Dark Volkhvy themselves didn’t know of the power they could channel from the Ether if they were brave enough to seek it. No one had absorbed as much power as he had—not even his father, the king.

  Elena hadn’t been his only obsession for the last decade.

  It was almost time to solidify the Dark Volkhvy behind a new leader, one who knew how dark they could be.

  He would settle for no less than the black wolf’s head, his vulnerable swan slave and the throne.

  * * *

  The servants who were left in the castle made no preparations for the Gathering. There was nothing like the usual hustle and bustle of a big event about to take place. If anything, the hallways were more deserted than ever as Elena sought out the one person who might be living in the present enough to help her.

  There was very little time left to make Ivan see reason. She was down to hoping she could convince him on the night of the ball before Grigori arrived to make his claim. And if she weren’t able to convince Romanov, then her last chance before she chose to leave with Grigori would be the Light Volkhvy queen.

  Elena had been a performer her entire life. She knew one didn’t inspire a queen’s intervention in rags or jeans.

  “I need help to get ready for the Gathering,” she said when she finally found Bell. The young woman greeted her with a big grin. Her determined good humor was a welcome relief from the hopelessness Elena found in everyone else. “I need a dress fit for a warrior, a wife and a swan. My main accessory will be the sapphire sword.”

  Bell was wearing a maid’s gown paired with more modern combat boots and her usual boy’s hat. Her smile tilted slowly with a hint of mischievousness.

  “Maybe you’ll be worth all the water I’ve had to carry after all,” she said. “I’d survive the Ether one more Cycle if it means you’ll give those witches hell. This castle needs a new mistress.”

  “Romanov doesn’t want me here. And I might not be able to stay. But I’m going to do all I can to change his mind and Vasilisa’s before I go away,” Elena promised.

  At the mention of the Light queen’s name, Bell stopped smiling. Her face tightened and her eyes grew grim. Under the shadow of her oversize cap, her big hazel eyes tracked over Elena’s face as if to ascertain if she meant what she said. Elena thought Bell would warn against trying to influence the queen, but she should have known better. Once the young woman seemed to determine that Elena was earnest, a small smile returned to her lips.

  “We’ve got our work cut out for us if that’s what you’re trying to accomplish,” she said. “We’d better get going.”

  Bell was a survivor. You didn’t survive by giving up without a fight.

  Elena stopped her friend with a firm hand on her shoulder.

  “Anywhere but the baby’s room, you understand? I promised Lev I wouldn’t disturb that room again,” she said.

  Bell nodded. Her eyes softened.

  “Trevor was a fine lad. And he was loved by all. You’re kind to care,” she said. She continued pragmatically, “Madeline’s dresses would never fit you. She was tall. Almost as tall as Lev. Well, as tall as he used to be, God rest his soul.”

  Bell’s pragmatism warred with all the losses she’d suffered. Elena reminded her of all the people Bronwal had lost, but she also offered a course of action. Staying busy seemed to be something the young woman relied on.

  “This place has been reduced to mourning for too long,” Bell said. Elena squeezed the small shoulder beneath her hand. Bell was too young to have to shoulder all the work, responsibility and worry that she must have had to take on since Patrice lost her mind. And yet, more often than not, the young woman smiled.

  “I came here for help, but I found a place that needed my help. But I can’t do this alone,” Elena said.

  “I can find you a dress,” Bell replied. “The castle is full of clothes that people have left behind.” The other woman walked around Elena slowly. She narrowed her eyes and seemed to be gauging her shape and size. “I always forget how small you are. You seem bigger somehow when you leave a room than when you first come in.”

  “There’s more to me than meets the eye,” Elena said. “I’ve felt from the start that the same could be said about you.”

  Bell’s eyes widened. Maybe the young orphan wasn’t used to people noticing anything about her. She looked up to meet Elena’s gaze, and her smile grew slightly bigger.

  “The first night you arrived I recognized something in your eyes—a feeling I’ve often had. When times are dark, but you know you can put one foot in front of the other as long as it takes,” Bell said. “I haven’t had the easiest time of it since the curse. In the beginning, there were plenty of sane people to keep the first ones who fell apart from harming anyone in their madness. But with every Cycle, fewer and fewer returned. Until one day I was pretty much on my own. Since then, I’ve had to take care of myself.”

  “You couldn’t ask Romanov for help?” Elena asked. Bell stood next to her, shoulder to shoulder. They seemed to be close to the same size with only slight differences in the width of their shoulders and hips. Bell was curvier with an hourglass figure. It had been some time since Elena could take to the stage, but her body had been honed by too many years of discipline to soften now.

  “He’s been busy the last few Cycles. He has to keep up with his brothers now that they’re in their wolf forms full-time,” Bell said softly. She bit her lip and Elena regretted delving into subjects that made her sad.

  “Soren can still look out for himself,” Elena said, trying to lighten the mood.

  “The red wolf tries to look out for all of us. But he’s kept busy with Lev,” Bell said. She sounded wistful. Her eyes had gone glassy, as if she was no longer seeing Elena’s measurements, but rather something that made her pensive.

  “Lev is a challenge. He’s very dangerous,” Elena said.

  “I’m afraid he won’t last much longer. Once he disappears into the Ether for good, Soren... I’m not sure how he’ll survive it. They were born only seconds apart. They’ve been inseparable ever since,” Bell said. The young woman stilled, and suddenly Elena saw behind her smile and her busy behavior. She was a survivor, but how much longer could she survive once the red wolf was gone?

  “I’m going to try to prevent that from happening,” Elena promised.

  Elena was glad to have Bell’s help. The young girl knew the castle like the back of her hand. There was no corner she didn’t know how to reach, and many could only be reached through back passages and secret doorways that Elena would never understand.

  “The Ether changes everything. Including the layout of the castle. It never comes back the exact same way twice. But there are clues to watch for. Landmarks, if you will. A tip-tilted lantern or a mark I’ve left on the wall,” Bell instructed. She pointed at a white mark painted on the wall ahead of them. It almost looked like a flower. “That’s me. It’s supposed to be a bellflower,” Bell explained. Then she continued, “It m
ust be hard for you to imagine what Bronwal was like before the curse. Before it deteriorated. It was enchanting, specially blessed by the Light Volkhvy queen herself. I was the little orphan child who had woken in a storybook.”

  “It’s hard to grow up with legends,” Elena said.

  Bell had stopped in front of a door. To Elena it looked like every other door they’d passed, but Bell pointed to a swirl in the oak that looked like a leaping frog.

  Elena hesitated on the threshold when Bell opened the door to step inside.

  “Don’t worry. You aren’t disturbing anyone here. This room was the dressmaker’s workplace. She had a team of seamstresses and they sewed night and day to keep us all clothed—from Soren’s mother, Naomi, and Madeline, all the way down to me. And the men, as well,” Bell said.

  Elena followed her into the room. Bell ran her hand along a table and it came away covered in dust. But for the neglect, the room looked as if all the seamstresses had simply stood and walked away from their work for a coffee break. There were unfinished pieces on each station. Scissors and thread, needles and material left where they had fallen when the women faded away.

  Bell dusted her hands together and smiled a rueful smile.

  “Believe me, I regret not showing my appreciation more for them when they were here. I’m horrible with sewing. I can’t manage one straight stitch,” she said.

  “I’ve never tried,” Elena said. Her time had been all for the dance. There hadn’t been any left over.

  “The work they completed is stored in these wardrobes and trunks back here,” Bell said. She turned and motioned toward a long line of mahogany wardrobes that lined one entire wall. Stacked around the wardrobes were trunks like the one Elena had helped Bell lug up to her aviary.

  “Most of the dresses should have been protected from dust, and the wardrobes were lined with cedar to try to keep the moths away. Not so in most of the living quarters. We used up most of the more practical clothes long ago. That’s why so many servants you see are in rags,” Bell said. “It takes a lot of effort to maintain any semblance of normalcy, but it’s also horrible to not even try.”