Legendary Wolf

“He won’t hurt you,” Soren said.

He sounded so certain. Even though they were no longer friends, his confidence in his brother caused her chest to tighten again. Soren wouldn’t give up on the white wolf. Ever. He never had in all the years they’d lived with the curse. He’d even followed Lev into wolf form in order to better keep watch over his feral brother. But Soren was wrong. It was obvious that Lev would hurt her. It was obvious from the bloodstains on his muzzle and the dried blood caked in his fur that he’d been in on many kills since he’d run away from the castle. There was no way of knowing how far he’d ranged or if he’d been feeding on man or beast.

“You’re wrong. He wants to kill me,” Anna said.

This time she didn’t dim the power in her hands. She was only beginning to control her abilities and she needed to be careful, but she had no intention of being stupid. Or naive. The anger Soren had toward her was nothing compared to the fury that came off his savage brother. It hit her in waves of heat that weren’t soothed by the cool misty air.

“She’s going to leave, Lev. I promise. And she won’t be coming back,” Soren said.

Anna was too busy watching the white wolf approach to feel greater loss at Soren’s proclamation. If he wouldn’t act to stop the wolves, then she had to defend herself. She held herself back until Lev was only a leap away. She waited as long as she could, but Soren didn’t shift. He carried no weapon that she could see. He continued to speak to his brother in calming tones that seemed to have no effect.

When she decided to tap into the Ether to send the natural wolves away in the hope that Lev would be more reachable without them at his back, the air crackled with electricity. The morning mist instantly disappeared as all the moisture droplets suspended in the air were sucked into the nothingness that had swallowed Bronwal and all the people in it on a perpetual cycle during the curse.

Light Volkhvy were usually careful and reasonable...until they weren’t. Her mother, Vasilisa, had almost gone completely Dark when she thought Vladimir Romanov had murdered her daughter. The curse had been the darkest use of Volkhvy magic anyone had seen in an age, and it had been worked by the Light Volkhvy queen.

For love and loss.

Vasilisa had mourned for centuries even as she’d perpetuated the curse.

Anna guarded against the hollow ache in her chest and the supreme pain of losing her red wolf when she channeled the power she needed with her hands. The better to keep from unleashing too much, too soon, too harshly. She was learning. The flare she radiated outward toward the pack all around them was too powerful. The impact of green energy when it hit the trees shook the whole dark wood and rebounded back to her hands, sending her to her knees.

Her ears rang with the implosion of power as she desperately sent it back into the Ether.

Chapter 3 (#u740aa1bc-7ca5-5be8-8708-468e96d63461)

When the ringing faded away, she was left in utter silence.

The wolves were gone.

All the wolves were gone.

Anna opened her clenched eyelids. She’d landed hard. The pain had brought tears to her eyes. She blinked the stinging moisture from her lashes as she looked around the empty clearing.

The white wolf was nowhere to be seen.

“What have you done?” Soren asked accusingly. He was still on his feet only because he was incredibly strong. His muscular legs were planted and dug into the packed earth of the pathway where the impact of her energy had sent him backward several feet. “Lev!” he shouted. “Lev!”

There was no reply.

“I didn’t mean to send him away, too. I was aiming for the pack,” Anna said. She looked around and reached for her gloves. She shakily pulled them onto her hands as she rose to her feet on wobbly knees. “I still have a lot to learn.”

“You went with her. You willingly became her pupil. After all she’s done,” Soren ground out between gritted teeth. “And now you’re using the Ether. You’re using power you can’t control.”

Once again, he looked at her as if she was a stranger. His face was tight. His eyes glared. His fists were held at his sides and pressed into his hips as if he needed to contain them.

“I can’t change my parentage any more than you can, Soren. She was wrong to curse us. She’s sorry.” At his harsh bark of laughter, she fisted her hands, too. “I know that’s not enough. She can’t take it back. What’s done is done. But I can’t deny my blood just because we’re scarred by the memories of what we endured. I always wondered... Who were my parents? Who was I?” Anna said. “You can’t ask me to turn away from the answer.”

“You were Bell. You were our friend,” Soren said. “You were my...”

“It was a lie. Your father kidnapped me from the human foster parents my mother had used to hide me. He said I was an orphan. I was your father’s captive until he was gone and then I was a wanderer, a survivor. We were never truly friends if you can turn your back on me now,” Anna said.

Her chest expanded fully for the first time since Soren had appeared on the path. Hot anger rushed in to fill the hollow of where her heart used to be. It supplanted the sword’s Call. She gladly accepted its warmth in place of the feelings she’d had before. Anger had sustained her for weeks on her mother’s island, Krajina, after the curse was broken. It was a relief to feel it again.

“I never belonged in Bronwal. Even after I knew its cavernous rooms and twisted hallways like the back of my hand. It was our jail, but it was never my home,” Anna continued. “I’m still trying to find my way back to a place I can call my own. Part of that journey is learning about my Volkhvy abilities.” She didn’t tell him that she had her own doubts. That she was afraid. Once upon a time, the red wolf had been her confidant. That time was past.

And part of her journey would be learning to let her red wolf go. No. Not hers. Never hers. The red wolf. She had to let her silly childish dreams concerning Soren Romanov go.

“You scared Lev away right when I’d almost reached him,” Soren said.

He was lying to himself. The white wolf had been wilder than the wildest beast. He hadn’t been a creature who looked anywhere near ready to be civilized again. But she didn’t argue. Soren wouldn’t hear reason. Not from her.

Anna straightened her back and firmed her smarting knees. She took another deep breath and faced the man in front of her. She composed her face one taut nerve at a time. She wouldn’t apologize for protecting herself, although she hadn’t meant to send Lev away. She needed to accept that she was no longer someone that Soren would care for and protect. His priorities had changed. Hers needed to change, too. She would learn to control her powers and she would use her anger to survive her time with Soren Romanov until the sword was found.

Soren blinked in the face of her sudden icy calm. He raised his hands and opened his fists to push his fingers up into his hair. He held the tangled mass back from his face on either side as if to better see the witch she’d become.

Her forced calm was shaken when he seemed to harden again right before her eyes. He lowered his hands. He lifted his chin. Even beneath the beard, she could see the sharp angles of his chiseled face as his jaw tightened. He stepped toward her and she had to brace herself to keep from retreating.

She held her ground until he was only a foot away. Only then did he speak again, and this time his voice was pitched seriously low. For her ears alone. As if he didn’t even want the forest to be privy to their complicated relationship.

“You came back because you heard the emerald sword’s Call?” he asked.

She inclined her head in response, because her mouth had gone too dry for her to speak. She was braced, but she was also nervous. Her anger threatened to drain away, and in its place was an ache that said her heart was still there and the worst was yet to come.

“Good. You can lead me to where it’s being held,” Soren said. “So I can destroy it. Then you’ll be free to go back to your queen and I’ll be free to save my brother.”

She thought she’d experienced the ultimate rejection, but now she knew better. She hid her emotions. She forced her jaw to relax and her eyes to meet his. His were trained on her face as if he wanted to memorize her reaction. Her skin was cold. Every drop of blood had drained from her cheeks, but she forced herself to lick her stiff lips and speak.

“Anything to silence the Call that won’t leave me in peace,” she said.

He blinked and looked away, as if her words had shocked him. Only her anger kept her from reaching up to bring his gaze back to hers. He wouldn’t want her gloved fingers on his face. He wouldn’t want her touch.

It was better this way.

The sooner the sword was destroyed, the sooner she could control her powers and forget the red wolf, who had savaged her without baring a single tooth or claw.

* * *

Lev had disappeared without a trace. It was too much like the old nightmare that had plagued him during the curse. Soren had always materialized to face the fear that he might have lost his brother for good. He’d never known—would this Cycle be his brother’s last? Or this one?

Bell had been his constant. His anchor. Even when he’d chosen to retreat into his wolf form to make it more possible to watch over Lev, he’d depended on Bell to always be there—human, rational, determined to survive.

And then he’d lost her.

He’d died a little that day after the curse was broken, but he’d buried himself in his vow to save his brother. He’d pushed himself mercilessly on two wobbly human legs that he had to relearn how to use again, but the push had kept him from mourning for Bell. He’d grown stronger and stronger as he’d lived in the woods tracking the white wolf. He hadn’t allowed himself to shift, because it would have been too easy to lose himself and follow his brother into the wilderness, never to return.

He couldn’t allow himself that luxury.

Instead, he’d become a wild man, driven by loss and determination, living at the edge of civilization even as he tried to urge his brother back into the fold.