Legendary Shifter

She hugged herself tighter as she waited long heartbeats for him to turn and face her. He expected her to leave today. She hadn’t found the alpha wolf. Grigori would find her, alone and defenseless. There was nowhere she could hide from him. Ivan Romanov couldn’t be her only hope because he was a man who didn’t believe in hope. Not anymore.

“Did you send the wolves to find me?” Elena asked.

Though she’d braced herself, she wasn’t prepared for Ivan to suddenly turn around and pace toward her. She backed away several steps from the ferocity that tightened his face before she stopped herself and stood her ground.

“You weren’t in the tower,” Ivan said.

He came close enough to touch her, but instead he reached for the key between her breasts. He didn’t pull it from her neck. He only held it in his large, calloused fingers. She looked from the key up to his eyes. He loomed over her, but it wasn’t fear she felt at his sudden nearness. No. The thrill in her veins and the rush on her skin was something besides fear. Awareness. Expectation. In the meager sunlight, she noted that his irises were brighter than the snow. His pupils had retracted, allowing lighter green and gold flecks to glow. The lightness softened his otherwise forbidding expression. His hair had been loosened around his face by his exertions, and glossy chunks of it threatened to come free from the leather cording.

If he sought to intimidate her, he succeeded, but only because she was intimidated by his accessibility. Why did she notice indications of softness that were probably a lie? And why did she feel as if she was missing a truth she needed to see?

“You gave me the key. And I chose to unlock the door,” Elena said. She still didn’t mention the call that made it impossible for her to hide. There was something here she needed to find. Something more than a man and a wolf, but they were part of it, she was sure.

“I can’t decide if you’re brave or foolish,” Romanov said. His gaze was intense. His hold on the key between her breasts was tight. She couldn’t back away. She was caught and held—both by his hand and his eyes.

“Careful and brave rarely go hand in hand. Brave is doing what has to be done, no matter the risk,” Elena said. “My mother was brave. She gave her life to call forth an ancient binding spell so that I could live free. I’m only just learning how to be brave for myself.”

He leaned slightly, bowing his head toward her face. At the same time, he pulled the key slightly toward his chest. It was an infinitesimal movement. But the chain definitely tightened against her neck. Her neck and his hand were engaged in a silent tug of war that mimicked the tug of war she was battling between the magnetic pull of his broad chest and her trembling body.

Why did the courtyard seem like the final destination in the long journey she’d taken? And why did she look for softness in this legendary man? Because she wanted him to tighten his grip on the key and tug harder. He was powerful. He could narrow the gap between them without her permission. It would absolve her of the bad decision she suddenly wanted to make.

Because in spite of the talk of being brave, all she could do was lower her attention from his angry eyes to focus on his mouth. Somehow, the truth was there for her to see. The swell of his sensual lower lip belied his talk of her foolishness. He wanted her here. He wanted her close. Deep inside, a liquid tightening coiled and a hunger rose. She wanted to kiss him. Never mind that he was an angry warrior who claimed he wanted her to stay locked away until she could leave. He held her for a reason. He stood tense as their bodies paused in the nearly touching position. Her breasts were inches from the warmth of his chest.

She lifted her gaze quickly to see what he would do. But his eyes were shadowed now by a thick fall of wavy black hair that had escaped its confinement. His irises glittered with an emerald sheen behind those snow-dampened locks. But his expression was obscured. She could only take in the rise and fall of his chest—it seemed slower than it should be, as if he controlled his breathing or even...did he hold his breath? Her own breath was shallow and quick. Her body held still as she waited to see what he would say or do.

“You are brave. Braver than I hope you’ll ever know,” Romanov said. It was almost a growl, uttered past a tense and tightened jaw.

“What is it I should be afraid of? What could possibly be worse than being captured by the witchblood prince who stalks me?” Elena asked. She closed her eyes and willed away the hot moisture that threatened to rise behind her lids. She’d already betrayed too much of her vulnerability to him and he refused to be moved. She wouldn’t give him her tears too.

“I don’t know the prince of whom you speak. And I know many monsters. Some man, some truly beast. The Ether claims more of my humanity with every Cycle. And you ask what you should be afraid of as if a threat doesn’t stand before your very eyes,” Romanov said. His voice had dropped to a low, agonized whisper. It seemed confessional. Yet he told her nothing she didn’t already know. He was dangerous. She could sense it. She could see it. But he was also so much more. Compelling. Alluring. Seductive. More attractive to a civilized woman than he should be.

“I will not give up. I will not go away,” Elena insisted. A sudden persistent pull on the silver chain caused her eyelids to open quickly. They were closer. There was only the slightest brush of contact between them, but the tips of her breasts burned. She did hold her breath then because respiration caused an agonizing allure of friction she couldn’t resist.

But she didn’t pull away.

And she didn’t close her eyes again.

There were no tears now. Only a giddy heated pleasure radiating from her distended nipples to the rest of her body. The glittering intensity of his gaze was locked on hers, but he must have known the chain was indenting the nape of her neck because he allowed the silver links to go slack. Now it was up to her to stay close or move away. He no longer held her in place.

She stayed.

And the attention of his eyes fell to the key in his hand. She watched him as he focused on placing the key against the hollow of her neck. The heat of his hand had warmed the iron. Nevertheless the contact sent shivers down her spine, especially when he allowed the key to fall. It slid down until the hollow of her cleavage caught it. The warmed iron between her breasts caused her to gasp. But then when he lifted his free hand to touch her, the sudden weight of his calloused fingers and palm cupping the back of her neck was so much hotter. Her gasp became a trembling sigh and then a whimper when his fingers brushed under the chain as if to soothe the mark it had left on her skin. He was moved, but she wasn’t sure what to expect. She suddenly feared she’d woken a sleeping giant, one that might consume her body and soul if he decided to stay awake.

“I won’t send you back out into the snow. But you won’t find what you seek at Bronwal. There are no champions here. Only heartache and defeat. Only darkness and danger,” Romanov warned.

Elena breathed freely now. Her whole body burned and she didn’t care. For so long she’d been harassed and harried. She’d been injured, physically and emotionally. Plagued by nightmares and loss. Desperation hadn’t been the only thing that drove her to climb the mountain, but it was desperation—a different kind—that caused her to lift her arms. She placed her palms against Romanov’s sweat-dampened chest. She felt the thudding of his heart, his powerful muscles and his heat. He jerked at the contact. But he didn’t jerk away. He stilled as she slid her hands up inch by inch, measuring his height and his solid reality, until she held a broad shoulder in each hand. She didn’t understand what had called her to Bronwal, but she understood this.

Her hands had been trained to be a graceful expression of her art, but in that moment they were strong. They held a legend. And he was the one who trembled beneath her fingers. His mighty form reacted to the delicate intimacy of her touch.

His hand tightened on the back of her neck. She was held again. And she didn’t mind. For the first time in a long time she focused on pleasure instead of pain. It was warm and immediate and all else fled from her thoughts.

“One word and I’ll let you go. I’m not so Ether-addled that I have no self-control. I will be a man, not a monster, for as long as I’m able. For now, I’m able. Walk away from me,” Romanov said. But as he spoke he pulled her close and it was gentler than she could have imagined. He didn’t crush her against him. He pressed and her curves complied until they were melded together.

She tilted her chin to meet his descending face. And still he paused. Their lips were only millimeters apart. His warm breath tickled her slightly open mouth.

“I’m a dancer. I’ve spent more time as a swan than as a woman,” Elena said softly. The tears were back, burning her eyes. She ached to kiss him. And more. He was big and powerful, and when his other arm came up to press against her lower back the sensation of being held, safe, away from all that had come before, left her light-headed. But she was at a loss off the stage. She didn’t know how to claim a new life now that her old life was over.

“No. I’m holding the woman. Without a doubt, it’s the woman’s mouth I’ll taste,” Romanov said.

Elena drew a shuddering breath of air as he traversed the last distance left between them.

Their lips touched and his mouth moved with eager hunger against hers. In nightmares, she’d endured depravity. This was pure, human and real. She tightened her hands on his shoulders as her stomach swooped and soared and her legs went weak. She also opened to the masculine seduction of his rough, slick tongue teasing between her lips.

Living off the stage was more instinct than practice. She swooned into the kiss without thought to form or precision. Romanov was all heat and pleasure and he consumed her easily. The thrill that rushed beneath her skin echoed the call she’d followed up the mountain. She couldn’t separate the sensations. She’d wanted his hair unbound because she wanted this wildness. He’d seemed to offer it with every glance, with every move, even though he’d withheld it.

Her tongue hungrily licked past his lips and twined with his. He held her tight as if he hadn’t been offering to let her go seconds before. She didn’t want to go anywhere. Her search seemed to be over. The call was silenced because it had been answered, somehow, someway, by his lips and teeth and tongue.

“You risk much. This woman is protected by her mother’s spilt blood and claimed by Grigori, the witchblood prince. You might be Vasilisa’s plaything, but that won’t stop him from torturing you for eternity if you despoil his prize.”

Romanov tore his lips from hers and whirled around to face the interruption. A man had entered the courtyard from the keep. Elena immediately found her footing as she was shoved behind the warrior she shouldn’t have been kissing.

Her life wasn’t a life free to indulge in sensual assignations. Especially with the legendary master who refused to help her engage the help of the alpha wolf.

The man who had entered the courtyard cautiously approached them. Of course, he was no man. He was Volkhvy. And judging from his intimate knowledge of her tormentor, he was Dark, not Light.

“You’ve come for the Romanov blade, but you’ll find it buried deep in a cross purified by generations of my honorable men. It won’t come to you easily, and the sapphire has long lost its glow,” Romanov said. He’d placed himself between her and the Volkhvy. But he had no weapon in his hands.

The Dark witch was dressed in black leather from head to foot. He shone like obsidian in the winter sun. His white hair was braided in a thousand plaits and piled on top of his head, and his movements were young and quick. He was at least as tall and strong as Romanov himself. Elena’s heart pounded, overwhelmed with the rude transition from passion to fear. The wolves would come. Surely, the wolves would come.

“Grigori will kill you for taking the taste he hasn’t been able to take himself. He will cut out your bold tongue,” the man said. He laughed when he said it. And he attacked.

Elena was startled by another sudden shove that sent her sliding backward in the snow away from Romanov as he pushed her several feet before he and the Volkhvy collided. She didn’t fall. She kept her balance as only a woman with years of physically demanding training could have. Her knee screamed, but it didn’t give way. Her arms flew out to automatically aid her equilibrium, and anyone watching would have thought she had merely been landing from a smooth pirouette.

“You grow weaker with each materialization, old man. The stone can be recharged. I’m not sure the same can be said for you,” the witchblood man said.

“Try and try and try again. But always empty-handed in the end. Right, Dominique?” Romanov taunted in return.

“You know this man?” Elena asked. She’d immediately recovered and gone to a weapons rack where practice swords and daggers were hung in a rough array.

“Him. Many others. They’re all the same to me. They come for the sword Vasilisa gave my father,” Romanov said. “They leave without it.” His blows connected powerfully with the Volkhvy’s abdomen, chest and jaw. The witchblood man recovered from each blow much more quickly than a mortal man would. But after one particularly hard connection, he did spit blood into the snow. “Sometimes they don’t leave. Perhaps it’s your turn to die, Dominique.”

“Romanov!” Elena shouted. She threw a short broadsword high into the air. It flew in a wide arc and then down into Romanov’s hand. She grabbed two daggers for herself, but as her hands closed over their hilts, something drew her attention across the courtyard. Her eyes fell on the sword Romanov had buried deep in the scarred practice form. Her feet carried her closer to it of their own volition. One step and then another. The sapphire didn’t look that dull to her. It seemed to sparkle in the sun.

“No. Go inside,” Romanov ordered. She ignored him. The Volkhvy had drawn a blade from a sheath on his back. His leather trench coat whirled around his legs as he brandished it. It wasn’t jeweled, but the metal itself glowed in his hands.

Elena had gone for the easily accessible weapons because that’s where she’d ended up when Romanov had shoved her away. Now she tucked the daggers in her back pockets and went for the more powerful blade. It was buried deep in the wood of the cross. So deep that it held her entire body weight, such that it was, when she grasped its hilt and tried to pull it free.

“I’m not running away. Not anymore,” she said through clenched teeth. She refused to let go even when the hum of power in the sword caused her arms to go numb. Romanov was wrong. There was power left in the blade. It hummed like bees beneath her skin, vibrating her body as she pulled. She braced her feet against the practice form. Her knee screamed, but she used all of her strength to push with her legs and pull with her arms at the same time.