Legendary Shifter

Something was wrong with Bronwal. The wrongness permeated the people and the atmosphere, including the man who held her to his chest.

Inside, the great hall was deserted. Elena tried to speak, but her teeth chattered together and shivers racked her body. The trembling meant her nerves hadn’t been frozen, but the pain of her skin coming back to life caused her to moan.

“We have no accommodations for visitors. Not anymore,” Romanov said. He turned around as if he was looking for somewhere to put her that wasn’t dark and damp.

“I s-see th-that,” Elena replied. Welcome or not, she was here. She’d made it. Once she warmed up enough to face the challenge, she would find the alpha wolf even though this last Romanov was determined to send her away. She’d be much better off facing this man’s determination not to help her than she’d been facing Grigori in Saint Petersburg alone.

“Fetch Patrice. To the tower room,” Romanov ordered. The russet wolf jumped to attention. He stopped his leaping and stared at his master for several seconds as if his wolf brain had to interpret the command. Then he was off. The white wolf sat on its haunches and looked at them.

“I know there are plenty of empty rooms. Don’t look at me like that. Anyone who would have an opinion about where best to put her is long gone,” Romanov said.

He tightened his arms when she tried to press her palms against his broad chest for release. He didn’t place her on her feet. Inside the castle, even in the lofted great hall, he seemed much larger. He was well over six feet with muscled arms and legs that matched his intimidating frame. His hold was overwhelming. His embrace swallowed her petite body. He held her close against his chest. Odd, since he had ordered her to go away. His heartbeat was clear and strong against her cheek.

Suddenly, he was too real. Her respiration quickened and her fingers curled into the damp material of his cloak. He felt her increased tension and paused. His whole being became alert. She could sense the intensity of his attention on her face. Her focus was on the fur of his mantle, but she forced her gaze from that safe haven to more dangerous territory.

In the shadows, his eyes were lighter than his dark brows and hair, but they were hooded against her. She couldn’t read his emotions before he looked away. He betrayed nothing of his inner feelings yet she sensed them beneath his stiff demeanor. She noted his tightened hands and his unwillingness to meet her eyes. They waited for a long time, made longer by her fatigue and fear.

Finally, at some unspoken signal, he turned again and headed from the room in a decided direction. They came to a circular stone hall that eventually changed to stairs. She held him as he carried her up and up the never-ending climb. She was accustomed to athletic artists and dancers. Sophisticated and polished businessman and patrons were her usual companions. She wasn’t used to storybooks come to life from legends that originated in the Dark Ages.

Romanov’s scent was one of wind and snow, leather and fur. His hair had enveloped her with stinging strands outside on the mountain. Now it dried around his face in a riot of damp waves. By the time they came to an open door at the top of the stairs, Elena had seen Romanov’s face by the light of a thousand torches. The impact of his appearance wasn’t diminished by the increased time to study him. His face was as bold as the rest of him, with a strong brow and patrician cheekbones. His lips were sculpted and sensual against his hard features and there was a shadow of beard growth on his jaw that only served to highlight its perfect, sharp angles. The contrast of his green eyes continually startled her against his dark hair and pale skin.

Not that he looked at her again. He kept his gaze on the stairs. He didn’t have to look. She could feel his attention zeroed in on her every blink and sigh. She’d followed a call she couldn’t define to a strange place she’d only heard about from a storybook, but she was afraid she might have found more danger than she’d left behind. The wolves had been terrifying, but Romanov was in some ways more intimidating than his pets. In trying to escape Grigori had she placed herself in even greater danger?

The glow of a small fire met them when he stepped inside the room at the top of the long, spiraling stairway. A round woman in a faded apron bustled around and the russet wolf stretched out by the fireplace, soaking up what heat it provided in its infancy. Romanov had carried her up into the tallest tower she’d seen from far below in the pass. The windows were obscured by ancient stained glass, wavy and dense with imperfections. Occasional shadows seemed to swoop by, hinting that the ravens still circled outside. The room was furnished sparsely with a plain wooden bed draped in thick velvet textiles against the cold. There were two sturdy chairs on either side of the fire. There were no lamps or electric outlets. No technology of any kind.

Had she expected modern amenities in a castle made by magic hands centuries ago?

The woman didn’t speak. She quietly straightened a woven throw on one of the chairs by the fire and Romanov responded by placing Elena on it. The move was hurried, as if he couldn’t wait to put her down, but also gentle. He was being careful with her leg. His size and strength and gruff manner made his courtesy that much more surprising.

“It isn’t a new injury. My name is Elena Pavlova. I’m a dancer. The stress of the climb aggravated an ACL condition I developed from my years in ballet,” Elena said. “I’ll be fine with rest and another knee surgery.” She didn’t tell him she’d never dance again. An additional surgery might give her a greater range of movement, but she would never reclaim the grace she’d lost.

She could no longer focus on dancing. It had been a necessity to help support her family. It had saved her when her mother died, but now all of the drive she’d used for the dance needed to be focused on survival. Never mind there was an empty place left by the loss of her dance deep inside of her. It had given her purpose for so long even though it had been a cruel taskmaster more than a heartfelt occupation. The call had seemed to fill the void for the last several days, but she tried to ignore it now. She was here. Why did it still seem to compel her toward something she couldn’t see?

“Thank you,” Elena said to the woman, who tucked another throw around her legs. Patrice didn’t reply.

“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 said. “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.