Legendary Shifter

by Barbara J. Hancock

  She smoothed her skirts as she said it. Elena realized her unconventional appearance was as much necessity as personality. Bell made do with what she could gather and scrounge.

  Elena reached to tip Bell’s hat up. The crown often threatened to cover her pretty hazel eyes, although the shadows it caused on her features did tend to make her smile shine.

  “I wondered what the hat was about. I guess it’s what you could find,” she said.

  But the other woman grabbed for her hat as if Elena was trying to take it. She pulled the rim tight against her brown hair.

  “I’m keeping this safe for someone else. When he comes back, I’m going to give it to him,” Bell said.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t know,” Elena replied. She allowed her hand to drop to Bell’s shoulder and she gave it a squeeze. The wide panicked eyes and somber mouth that had claimed Bell’s face seemed like a glimpse into her true self, as if the forceful cheer she usually conveyed was a persona she used to survive.

  “Most of us are waiting for someone or lots of someones. When you lose hope, the Ether takes you,” Bell whispered. Elena understood. If she hadn’t had hope, she thought Grigori might have been able to take her long before now.

  “But, look, there’ll be lots of formal dresses here to choose from. The practical things have been picked over, but the most elaborate gowns haven’t been disturbed in ages. The Volkhvy are the only ones who dress for the Gathering. It’s become the grandest occasion for them. They all try to outdo each other,” Bell said.

  “That’s why this is important. I want to show the queen that the Romanovs haven’t given up the fight. And I want to show Grigori that his swan is armed and not in a cage. Most important, I want Ivan to give me his heart and the sword. I want to finally claim it fully, empowered with our connection.”

  “I want to help you,” Bell said. “The Romanovs have been too disconnected for too long.”

  She flung open one of the wardrobes, and a swarm of fluttering moths flew out surrounded by a cloud of fabric dust.

  “Oh, well. I was wrong about that one. Let’s try the next,” Bell said sheepishly.

  They went down the row of wardrobes checking one after another until they finally found several that hadn’t been invaded by gnawing insects. And in the dresses they found, Elena finally got a glimpse of the scope of Bronwal’s previous splendor.

  “I told you...an orphan among legends,” Bell said. But she said it with a smile because Elena’s wonder was contagious.

  She buried her hands in the textures of damask and brocade. She feasted her eyes on the sheen of silks and satins. She laughed out loud at the airy lightness of chiffon and organza.

  “This reminds me of home. Although these kind of skirts would only get in the way,” Elena said. She lifted one of the full ball gowns out for a closer inspection. It was far too heavy and cumbersome for her needs, but she twirled around in it anyway.

  “You were a dancer before you came here,” Bell said.

  “I’m a dancer still. Once a dancer, always a dancer. Once you’ve been forged in the fire of the Saint Petersburg Ballet Company, it never goes away,” Elena said. She placed the dress back in the wardrobe. She needed a dress that was light and airy around her legs, designed in such a way that it wouldn’t impede her movements with the sword.

  They rifled through trunks and drawers in companionable silence broken occasionally when a dress elicited appreciative or horrified sounds. Until Bell exclaimed, and Elena turned to see the other woman holding a green dress made of liquid silk. As Bell unfolded the dress from its tissue-lined drawer, its train spilled down and thousands of embroidered flowers showed on the backdrop of green.

  “They’re bellflowers,” her friend said. There were tears in her voice, as if something poignant from the past had been taken from the drawer.

  Elena went to her. Beside Bell’s current patched and worn outfit—a pauper’s clothes—the dress seemed meant for a princess. But, when Bell lifted her eyes up to meet Elena’s, her eyes matched the green dress, not her servant’s clothes. The sheen of the silk had turned her eyes from hazel to a forest green.

  “That dress was made for you,” Elena said.

  “I never went to dances or parties. Some thought I should,” Bell said softly. Elena immediately supposed that by “some” Bell referred to Soren Romanov.

  “Of course you should have,” Elena said. “He was right. Did he have this dress made for you before the curse fell?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” Bell said. “I’ll never know.”

  She folded the dress back into the drawer. She covered it carefully with the tissue paper. Maybe it would have been too painful for her to try it on.

  “Besides, we’re looking for something for you to wear to the Gathering,” Bell reminded Elena.

  There was nothing she could do for her friend except respect her wishes to forget about the green dress. Elena turned back to the project at hand, but her mood had been tainted by yet another reminder of how cruel the curse had been to the people of Bronwal. She was silent for a long time, until a brush of feathers against her hand caused her to cry out and pull away.

  “What is it?” Bell asked. She’d been lost in thought in front of the drawer she’d closed on the green dress, but she rushed back to Elena’s side. She reached for the hand Elena was cradling to see what had caused her to emit the cry of distress.

  “It’s nothing. I’m fine. The feathers startled me, that’s all,” Elena said. She forced herself to reach into the wardrobe and bring out the dress that had frightened her. It was weightless in her hand, crafted almost entirely of layers of chiffon. The feathers decorated the bodice and the shoulders, and they’d been expertly applied. They would lie crisscrossed over the breasts in a smooth pattern exactly as they would lie on a bird’s chest. The feathers on the shoulders were looser and accompanied by down so that they conveyed the idea of wings when they fluttered with the slightest air currents.

  “This one, you’ll have to try on,” Bell said. She touched the soft down on the shoulders with one finger.

  There were several screens in the room decorated with enameled nature scenes. Elena would have been perfectly comfortable changing out in the open, but she didn’t want to startle the young woman who came from another time. Maybe the Middle Ages had the equivalent of locker rooms or dressing rooms, but Elena couldn’t be sure.

  Besides, there was something of her nightmares and her shattered dreams in this dress, and she was too shy to face it in front of curious eyes. She’d worn feathers many times before. She’d been feathered in her nightmares many times before.

  But she’d never donned them for a purpose that was completely her own.

  The appropriate undergarments had also been in the wardrobe, but Elena chose to wear nothing with it but the panties she had on. She wasn’t so curvy that she needed the support, and she wasn’t inhibited enough to need the coverage. The dress would fit her perfectly with no help. It settled against her as if it had been made to ride her bare skin.

  The feathers provided enough modesty so she didn’t feel like an exhibitionist when she came from behind the screen. And her shyness had faded away. This wasn’t a nightmare where she was trapped in a swan’s body. This wasn’t a reminder that she’d lost the dance of her dreams. If anything, it reminded her that she would always have the dance in her heart. Because she walked gracefully in the flowing layered skirts. They didn’t impede her movements at all.

  Bell sighed out loud when Elena came into view. She’d been looking at the other dresses, but she turned around and her eyes went wide again along with the sigh.

  “You’re no foundling,” Bell said. “You would have fit in at Bronwal before the curse.”

  She slowly walked to Elena’s side. In her hand, she carried a delicate cap of white. She set it on Elena’s head and then placed her hands on El
ena’s upper arms to turn her around toward a large mirror. The cap was little more than a wisp of lace shaped like a tiara. It softly framed her forehead with delicate swirls of feathers on either side of her temples.

  “This is it. There can be no better choice,” she said.

  It was true. Elena could face Grigori in this dress. She could make one last plea to Romanov about her place by his side. And she could face the Light Volkhvy queen.

  Chapter 21

  As night approached, Elena struggled. The sapphire in her sword didn’t glow. Grigori would be able to find her. But the wolves had vanished and Romanov was nowhere to be seen. The windows in her tower were shut up tight, but they’d been tight the night before when Grigori had flown inside. Only the power of her mother’s sacrifice had kept her inaccessible. With that protection almost completely faded, there wasn’t a tower or a lock on earth that could keep her safe. She could feel her vulnerability all the way to her bones.

  But Grigori wasn’t her only concern.

  If she went to the black wolf’s lair for sanctuary, she would also be stepping into Romanov’s arms. He had rejected her time and time again as the bearer of the sword. How could she indulge in his kisses and his touch when he was closed off to more?

  She briefly considered Bell’s aviary. In it, she wouldn’t be alone. She would have a friend by her side and one of the wolves at her feet. But, in spite of her fear, she couldn’t bring herself to intrude. The orphan and the red wolf seemed to have some sort of special bond. It was obvious that Soren watched over the child his father had saved so long ago, even though she had become little more than a servant to the family. In turn, Bell seemed to watch over the red wolf. They were an odd pair but a pair nonetheless.

  Besides, if Grigori followed her to the aviary, she would be placing Bell and Soren in grave danger. Neither of them could stand against the witchblood prince, and no matter her training or her determination, her sapphire sword might not be enough to stop him without its glow.

  Frustration bubbled up in her chest and stole her breath. Romanov was too stubborn. He was so busy doing the right thing to protect her that he didn’t stop to think how it placed everyone in greater danger. Herself included.

  She had no choice but to seek refuge in the cavern. Grigori wouldn’t dare penetrate the black wolf’s lair. If he found her in her dreams, so be it. At least she wouldn’t have to be helpless under his actual physical touch.

  This time, Elena brought her flashlight and a handful of spare candles she’d found in a drawer in her room. Without the sapphire’s glow, the cavern would be too dark.

  She tucked them in her backpack, along with her book and her last energy bars and bottled water. She had no idea if Romanov would even be in the cavern when she got there, but, if he was, she had no intention of winding up in his arms.

  She struggled for nothing.

  The cavern was empty when she arrived except for the bedding Romanov had carried there the night before. When she sank down on the furs and blankets, she tensed because the scent of roses and winter came from the soft bed beneath her. Romanov’s skin and hair always held the scent of evergreen and fresh snow. But he had another headier scent that was purely masculine—a combination of wood smoke, leather and heated muscle.

  She couldn’t avoid his scent on the bed they’d shared. She breathed it in and accepted that it was mingled with her scent because their bodies had mingled perfectly together.

  Elena had told herself she would resist her desire to be with him tonight, but, now that he wasn’t here, memories rose up swift and hot to claim her. She shifted, still tender between her legs where they had thrust so hungrily for connection. Her body had already responded to mere recall by becoming hot and wet. She gathered the quilts and furs and held them close beneath her in substitution for the hot thighs she’d prefer to straddle. The bulk of the blankets were nothing compared to the solidity of the man. She missed his hard muscles and the heat of his eager erection.

  Elena moaned softly as she undulated against the bedding that smelled like the man she desired. She hadn’t come to the cavern for refuge. She’d come for Romanov. She admitted it now that she’d found him gone.

  “I tried to stay away.” The voice was almost a growl from the mouth of the tunnel that led to the lair.

  Elena stilled, and a hot flush washed over her skin in response to the grit of desire in his tones and to being found in the grips of the sensual memory of riding him.

  She pushed herself up from the ground and waited on her hands and knees as he approached. The fur beneath her knees protected them from the hard stone. Nothing protected her from the raw hunger her position inspired. She saw it in Romanov’s eyes as he slowly stalked toward her. Their emerald depths reflected the candlelight, as did the mica all over the walls. The candle’s glow was warmer than the sapphire’s soft blue. Tonight, the mica looked like thousands of flecks of gold.

  “I went to find you when night fell. I was going to send you down here alone, while I kept watch outside,” Romanov said.

  “I was going to keep my distance,” Elena said. “If you don’t want me to have the sword, then you don’t want me.”

  A harsh, raw laugh erupted from Romanov’s chest. It reminded her more of a rumbling growl than an expression of humor.

  “I’ve never wanted anyone or anything more than I want you,” he said. But it wasn’t a proclamation of love. It was a tortured confession.

  “You can’t have me without the sword. We’ve become a package deal,” Elena said. But she didn’t rise. She stayed as she was, and her body tightened and moistened as he stepped closer and closer.

  “You can’t have me without the wolf,” Romanov said. He was close enough to drop down on his knees on the bedding in front of her. He dropped, but he didn’t relax. He towered over her, even on his knees. “I’ve tried to deny it, but the wolf is part of me. We’ve been a ‘package deal’ all along. And the Ether only makes us wilder.”

  She gasped when he reached for her hair. He plunged his hands into the silky waves on either side of her head, and he held her head in place when he swooped down to kiss her. She whimpered into his hungry mouth, but she didn’t pull away. Even if he hadn’t held her so tightly, she wouldn’t have moved. She was held as much by anticipation and need as by his strong hands.

  If wilder meant that Romanov would finally give in to their connection so that they could truly be together, in every sense of the word—physically, emotionally, partners against the Dark—then wilder was what she craved.

  She sought the deep recesses of his mouth with her tongue and gloried in the heat and velvety friction she found. His tension softened. His elbows gave. She was able to press forward as they kissed and climb onto his bent legs. He took her slight weight easily—leaning back to give her a place to sit on his hard thighs. She wrapped her legs around his waist and buried her hands into the mane of hair that had always seemed to reveal the wildness he tried to suppress.

  She had never been very attracted to soft, sophisticated gentlemen. Now she knew why. Her heart had held out for a legendary shifter as wild and fierce as the black wolf he could become. She was a warrior. A civilized and polished partner would never do.

  His hands left her face and fell to cup the globes of her bottom and pull her even closer against him. He pressed her heat to his already swollen erection. She undulated against him.

  “No chance I would stay away. None,” he groaned against her lips. His face fell to her neck, and she threw back her head to give him access to the sensitive pulse point he sought. His lips were hot, even hotter than her flushed skin. He nipped and licked his way to her cleavage, and then he indulged in slower sucking kisses on the swell of her breasts that rose above the low V of her T-shirt.

  Elena moaned as the different textures overwhelmed her with sensation—the tickling strands of his snow-scented hair, the rough stubb
le on his jaw and the soft but firm swell of his lips. The moist velvet sweep of his teasing tongue caused her nipples to peak into hardened nubs that pressed against the fabric of her T-shirt. She sought to satisfy their throbbing urgency by rubbing them against his hot, muscular chest as she continued to rock against his erection.

  But it wasn’t enough.

  Her body knew what it was like to be filled by his heat and naked against his skin. It would never be satisfied fully clothed again.

  She reached between them to undo the crisscrossed laced fastenings of his leather pants. Her fingers fumbled, and he pressed her away to make room for his own hands. She slid down his legs and waited with her knees on the fur and her hands on his thighs. His more practiced movements were able to undo his pants and press them open and slightly down. His underwear came slightly down with the pants and she could see the prize she’d sought. His erection was fully engorged.

  Elena took over from there. She grabbed the edges of his fly and opened it farther so that his erection fell free. She looked from the shaft she craved up to his shadowy green eyes. The golden light brought out the flecks of gold in his irises. They matched the mica in the walls. His lips were swollen from her kisses. His hair was mussed. The color in his pale cheeks was high. His flush matched his passion-darkened mouth. But it was the intensity in his expression that seduced her the most. He didn’t avoid her perusal. He met her eyes and allowed her to see all that he felt in that moment. His wild need was as obvious in his eyes as it was in his body.

  He wanted her and he’d come here to be with her. Not to protect or reject her. He wasn’t here as a champion or as a cursed man who had to refuse his needs. He was here to mate. She’d returned to the black wolf’s lair to do the same. This was about the oldest enchantment that existed between a man and a woman. No Volkhvy magic required.