Legendary Wolf

The gown settled against her skin softly. Its thin white material wasn’t much protection against the chill of their bedchamber’s stone walls, but Ivan’s big warm body would soon rectify that.

Bumps rose along her skin and her nipples peaked obviously under her gown, but it wasn’t the cold. She was only anticipating her husband’s touch.

Ivan Romanov was a powerful, considerate lover who made up for his years of forced celibacy by devoting himself to her pleasure whenever they could escape into each other’s arms. She hadn’t told him yet that their frequent lovemaking had resulted in a quickening deep inside her.

Elena gently ran both hands down to her stomach and pressed her palms against the life that she and the alpha wolf had created together. Ferocious joy claimed her as well as a poignant need to protect her unborn child from the effects of the curse that still haunted his or her future home. Ivan would be a wonderful father—if he could temper his protective instincts, which would be even fiercer than hers.

She heard his step outside the door and she lowered her hands lest her instinctive maternal position gave her secret away too soon. She needed to tell him, but she was worried about her friend. At one time Anna had been Ivan’s charge, but Elena knew her husband no longer saw the other woman as family.

Ivan was a good man, but he was also the alpha wolf, one of the legendary Romanovs, and he was sure to be proactive in protecting the heir to his throne. Elena had to break the news of his pending fatherhood to him, but she was concerned about Anna and Soren.

One dinner with them had shown her that the red wolf and his former companion had much to settle between them. She hated to compound their difficulties with an alpha wolf on the protective prowl.

Ivan came into the room with a furrowed brow and a distracted frown on his scarred but handsome face. In spite of her secret and her plan to improve his mood before she revealed it, Elena’s heart leaped in her chest. The sight of her husband had always caused her breath to catch and her heartbeat to quicken. Even before she’d realized she was being Called to be his mate by the enchanted sapphire sword, she’d been drawn to him because of his heroic presence.

Walking, talking, making love or simply brooding as he was tonight, he was legendary. His shifting abilities had been written into his genes by Vasilisa’s enchantment before he was born. He had been raised as one of her champions, and he had lived up to that charge every day and night since, even during all the centuries he’d been trapped in the curse because of his father’s betrayal. He still believed in standing against the Dark Volkhvy. He just wasn’t as trusting of the Light Volkhvy as he’d once been.

Still, he’d never once given up. He’d never faltered. He’d stood for decades, alone, after his brothers had given in to their shift to escape the endless torture. Bronwal had been trapped in a cycle that sucked them into the nothingness of the Ether again and again with only a month of relief every ten years.

Until she and Ivan had come together to face Vasilisa and defeat Grigori, the witchblood prince. They’d broken the curse. They’d fallen in love. The legends she’d loved as a child, the sapphire sword and their stubborn determination, had triumphed.

But there was still much to be done to claim the happily-ever-after they’d earned.

“You look as if you’re a few seconds away from running into the night to howl at the moon,” Elena said. She walked slowly toward Ivan as she said it, giving him time to notice the gown and the graceful movement of her naked body beneath it. She’d been a ballet dancer before she became a warrior and a black wolf’s wife. She knew how to place each foot for maximum effect.

Her performance was rewarded by the sudden, intense focus of her husband’s gaze. His brow smoothed. His frown eased into a smile. His hard lips softened and curved into that special smile he reserved for her when they were alone. She smiled in return as she came up against the wall of his brawny physique. He was well over six feet and muscular as only a legendary warrior born in the Dark Ages could be. Yet his massive arms wrapped around her delicate dancer’s body with loving care.

He knew how to be passionate and gentle. Powerful and considerate. But even when he got carried away, she didn’t complain. Russian ballet had been much harder on her than Ivan Romanov had ever been, even when he’d been an adversary training her out of necessity and resisting the magnetism between them.

Her body was petite, but it was powerful in its own right. She’d wielded the sapphire blade with muscles honed by years of precision and sacrifice. And she’d made love to her big savage warrior with every ounce of her skill and power. She always had, even when she’d thought each time they came together would be their last.

He’d avoided close relationships for years before she came to his castle, but with all his stoicism and control, he hadn’t been able to resist her kiss and her touch.

Tonight, he didn’t try to resist. He sank into her kiss as if she saved him by merely offering him her eager lips and tongue. It was a long while before they spoke again, but finally he must have sensed that she had things to say. He lifted his head and she allowed her hands to fall away from the long hair she’d loosened from the queue he often wore down his back.

His hair was as black as his wolf. The freed waves gleamed as they slipped through her fingers.

She almost pulled him back down to her mouth, because his lips were swollen from her hunger and his eyes sparkled, free of concern. But she needed to make sure he understood that his brother was in trouble.

“Soren doesn’t know there are Light Volkhvy besides Anna in the castle,” Elena said.

Ivan’s brow furrowed again, but only slightly. His hands roamed up and down the curve of her back as if her waist and the slight roundness of her bottom below it soothed him. She understood. Her hands had fallen down to the swell of his forearms. They were strong and warm beneath her fingers. He was no longer a figure in a storybook of legends. He was solid. He was real. And he would be a father by the spring of next year.

“I warned them all to avoid him. They’re necessary to Bronwal’s recovery. It would take decades to modernize without them. You and I agreed allowing Vasilisa to help us recover is a necessary risk,” Ivan said.

Suddenly, he scooped her up and carried her toward the bed in the center of the room. Would she ever grow accustomed to his grace? He was muscular but not muscle-bound. Whether it was the wolf in his veins or simply the sheer physicality of his long life, he was almost as agile as a dancer.

Elena wrapped her legs around his waist. The airy folds of her dress parted and fell away to allow her the pleasure of pressing her hot core against him. His large hands cupped her bottom. She held his shoulders, and his freed hair tickled her nearly bare breasts.

“But that was before we knew how Soren would feel toward all Volkhvy...even the Light. He’s terrified for Lev. And devastated by what’s become of Bell... I mean, Anna,” Elena said. She tried to focus on what had to be said even as her husband lowered his face to her chest to nuzzle her nipples through her gown. His hot tongue flicked out to tease her, and the gauzy material was no barrier at all. She gasped. She arched against him and then moaned as she felt the heat of his lean stomach between her legs.

“Bell was our sister. His feelings are understandable. It’s hard to see her as Vasilisa’s daughter now,” Ivan said. His breath was hot against the wet silk and her pink skin that shone through it.

Elena reached for his face. She cupped his stubbled jaw and lifted his chin so she could meet his eyes. They glittered in the soft light of the new electric lamps. She saw so much there. Desire. Love. Worry for his people. Concern for his family.

“Anna was a sister to you,” Elena said. “But I don’t think she was ever that to Soren.” She watched Ivan as her meaning became clear. “He thinks he’s lost her, even though she’s right beside him to this day. I’m only surprised she was able to stay away as long as she did. She has more willpower than I ever had.”

“But he hates Volkhvy,” Ivan said.

“If he doesn’t come to grips with his feelings for witches, he’ll never accept his feelings for Anna,” Elena said.

“He’s devoted to Lev. He won’t let anything or anyone come between him and saving our brother,” Ivan said. “And I can’t blame him. We might be allowing the Light Volkhvy to help us restore the castle and help our people, but we don’t fully trust them. How can we? Vasilisa gave in to the Darkness when she cursed us.”

“She thought your father had killed her little girl,” Elena reminded him. His hold had eased so she could slide down his body to sit on the edge of the bed. She reached for the hem of his loosened shirt and lifted it inch by inch. He sucked in a great gasp of air when she leaned forward to kiss his stomach. As always, she found his scars and flicked them with her tongue. She saw his erection grow beneath his trousers. They would make love and it would be as much of a wish for happiness for others as it was for their own pleasure and relief.

“Seeing the potential for Darkness in a Light Volkhvy queen causes me to distrust Anna, too. She’s Vasilisa’s daughter, and she left with her mother without protest. She chose her path. We didn’t send her away. She gave me no chance to invite her to stay. She made no effort to maintain her loyalty to us and to Bronwal. She turned her back. She walked away. I don’t blame Soren for doubting her. I doubt her myself,” Ivan said.

“You are a king who feels abandoned by one of his people. But, Ivan, she is here now because of her love and loyalty to us. As for Soren, he was Anna’s closest friend and companion. At some point he’ll have to trust her or lose her,” Elena said. It was a terrifying thought, because she’d come so close to losing Ivan. Hearing him express his doubts over Anna also confirmed her earlier fears. He might overreact to the perceived threat when he found out about the baby.

He heard the fear in her voice. His strong hands came to cup the sides of her face. She tilted her chin to look up at him. It was a long, long way up. His hair shadowed his face as he looked down at her, but she was no longer fooled by the darkness. His scars, his stoic perseverance, his powerful body had all hidden a hurt man within the legendary monster. She had found him. She had saved him as he’d saved her. She had to trust him now. His honor. His integrity. Yes, he was a wolf shifter. The alpha wolf shifter in a triumvirate of three Romanov shifters created by Vasilisa. But he was also her heart’s mate.

She could only hope Soren and Anna could stand against even worse odds than she and Ivan had faced. And she could only pray that once Ivan learned about the baby, his protective instincts wouldn’t cause even greater complications for his younger brother.

* * *

It was a mistake to go to the roof. He went anyway. Taking a route he’d traveled on four legs more often than two. It was both strange and painfully familiar when he came around the corner of an eastern turret to face the aviary Bell had called her home. She’d chosen the inaccessible, easily fortified stone building with shuttered window openings as the safest place in a castle that had few safe places. It had been smart. It had also been telling. She’d been on top of the world here, but she’d also been separate from Bronwal itself, as if she never felt like she belonged.

No one had questioned her proclivity for retreat even before the curse came down on them all. She’d claimed the aviary as a child’s playhouse long before she’d claimed it as a bedchamber. Looking back, he was sorry that someone hadn’t questioned her need for a hideaway back then. It hadn’t occurred to him. Not when he’d been a young teen. Not later when he was in the form of the red wolf. He’d joined her in the aviary as her nighttime protector during the curse without thought to what it meant for her to have always felt safer apart.

Had she instinctively known his father was lying about rescuing her during a Dark Volkhvy attack when, in fact, it had been his father who had destroyed the village and the human foster parents Vasilisa had asked to shelter her daughter?

It pained him to think that he hadn’t done half as good a job protecting his companion as he’d thought.

Now she was back.

And she wasn’t.

She would never truly be back again.

What they had had was even more lost to them, because it had never actually been.

She hadn’t been an orphan given a sheltering home and a family to care for her. She’d been stolen, kidnapped and treated as a foundling when she was actually a princess.

The early-autumn night was cold in the mountains. His breath came from his lips as a vapor that floated away in clouds around his head. But he didn’t go inside the aviary. He couldn’t stand the air of neglect and abandonment he might find. Instead, he pressed his back against the chilled stone of the turret’s wall and allowed his body to sink to a sitting position. He wrapped his arms around his knees.

Cold was good. Alone was good. The star-filled sky above his head brought clarity. He tried to focus on those diamond studs of light and forget the witch’s big green eyes. She looked at him as if she was hungry to memorize his features. Never mind that his overgrown hair obscured them. If the color that rose on her cheeks was any indication, she’d found what she was looking for.

She’d looked from his eyes to his lips and back again.