Legendary Wolf

He felt the wild now, closer than it had ever been. It howled in his heart. He kept it at bay the only way he knew how—by subsuming his heart and his desires in his devotion to saving his brother.

He searched the entire forest for Lev before he admitted defeat. The whole wood was devoid of life. With her witchery, Anna had frightened every creature away. Only the leaves stirred in the trees as he passed by.

Anna wasn’t Bell. The glowing veins in her hands and forearms proved it. Her face and form were all too familiar, and his human form reacted to her in startling and unacceptable ways. As a man, he was plagued with a better perspective of her eyes, and from them he thought he saw neither a witch nor the woman he’d known gazing back at him. She looked frightened. He’d seen her scared many times when they’d been trapped in the curse and fighting for their sanity and their lives. This was different. Back then she’d always been bold. She’d always seemed confident that she could handle whatever came around the next bend in the maze of the castle’s hallways.

How often had she taken a stand at his side against Ether-addled madmen or intruding Volkhvy? So often that he could close his eyes in the shadowy forest and remember her standing as a young girl and again and again on up until she was a young woman still standing, still fighting for him, for survival and for Bronwal.

She didn’t look confident anymore.

He opened his eyes beneath the trees, and yet he could see her as she’d been moments before. She looked afraid. Her uncertainty shook him to his core. As the red wolf, he would have leaped up to defend her from whatever threatened. But that was then and this was now. He was no longer her protector. His responsibility was to his beleaguered brother. He couldn’t protect Anna anymore. She was lost to the blood in her veins.

She was a witch.

He continued deeper into the woods, and the hunt for Lev helped distance him from Anna until he could trust himself to keep that thought in mind. She had driven his brother away. It had been such a relief to see the white wolf again. To know that he hadn’t vanished into the Ether. But his relief had been short-lived. Anna’s sudden use of her power had made sure of that. Now Lev was gone again and Soren could only go after him.

He no longer had Bell to protect. What he did have was an obligation to save his brother and a frightened and unpredictable witch claiming the Call of the emerald sword Vasilisa had forged for his mate.

Soren had never been a natural wolf. He’d also never gone feral like Lev. Even in the form of the red Romanov wolf, he’d had a human’s understanding. He’d watched over Bell as she grew—older, wiser and stronger. He’d cared for her deeply, as a wolf, but in his current form he was buffeted by sensations and emotions he wasn’t prepared to handle.

His body still hummed a secret song from her nearness. His heart still raced and his mouth went dry because his breath came too quickly between lips half-parted to utter words he could never allow himself to say.

He should only feel betrayed. His only concern should be finding his brother and saving him from the wild that Vasilisa had crafted into their hearts with her magical tampering.

But every step that took him farther away from the woman he’d left in the clearing seemed a lie.

How could you mourn someone who had never existed? How could you long to touch a witch you should despise?

She’d frightened Lev away, but when she’d said the emerald sword had Called her, Soren’s first feeling had been one of triumph, as if every cell in his body wanted to claim the connection.

No.

Bell was dead to him, and Anna was a dangerous stranger. Her acceptance of her heritage had changed her from friend to foe. The flare from her hands had been brighter than any use of Volkhvy magic he’d ever seen. For all he knew, she might have sent Lev into the Ether. As the daughter of Vasilisa, she couldn’t be trusted. She threatened his family. She had proved it by getting in his way as he’d tried to help his brother. He was no longer the Light Volkhvy champion, but he’d been standing against evil for too long to stop now. After all he’d endured, how could he see any Volkhvy as anything but evil? Even one that he’d once...

He tamped down whatever attraction he had for the green-eyed witch. He hardened his heart and his soul against any of the former softness he’d felt for the woman who must now be his enemy. She’d looked for that softness in his eyes when they’d stood face-to-face. He’d done his best to kill it right in front of her searching gaze.

He would forget the weakness that had threatened to claim him when her eyes had widened and moistened with pain and fear. He would forget the familiar righteous anger that had flamed to life in his chest when she’d been threatened.

The only way he’d survive the loss of Bell would be to send Anna back to her mother as soon as possible. Bell was gone and Anna would soon be out of his life, as well. He wouldn’t allow her to accept the sword’s Call. There had been a girl the Call had been meant for, but she was gone. He might be a man, but he was also a monster created by a Volkhvy queen, and the only woman who had ever made him long to walk on two legs again was gone.

By the time Soren returned to Anna’s side, every bit of softness in his heart was gone, as well.

Chapter 4 (#u740aa1bc-7ca5-5be8-8708-468e96d63461)

It was evening before Soren came back to the castle. She’d wondered if he would come back at all. If she’d had the ability to shift into a wolf, she might have chosen that option rather than face him again.

As the daughter of Vasilisa, she had to dress for dinner when she was summoned by the master and mistress of Bronwal. Ivan and Elena were trying to treat her as a guest rather than an enemy. The least she could do was meet their efforts halfway...even if it meant exposing herself to more of Soren’s scathing reception.

She’d packed light, but she’d also been conscious of the fact that she would be visiting a castle and its recently reinstated king with his newly wedded queen. Ivan Romanov had been every inch a royal even before the curse had been lifted. He’d ruled Bronwal far longer than his father, continuing as its master after all hope of surviving the curse was lost.

Bell had been one of his subjects.

He’d tried to help her survive, never knowing that she was the daughter of the witch who had cursed them all because of Vladimir Romanov’s betrayal.

The least she could do was pull the carefully rolled evening dress from her backpack and shake out its white silken folds. She’d chosen the color carefully as a gesture of truce. She was fairly certain her mother had it put in her closet for a night like tonight. Anna would be Vasilisa’s envoy in a place where the Light Volkhvy queen herself would probably never be welcome.

No pressure.

The dress slid liquidly over her skin and settled into place as a simple shift, although the shimmer of the exquisite material gave lie to simplicity when she moved to slip on her shoes. The satin slippers would have been ruined in minutes in the old Bronwal, but now the floors were clean and covered in finely woven carpeting.

It was strange to dress in a bedchamber that was clean and modernized in a castle that had been more haunted than functional for centuries. In addition to the cleanliness and the carpeting, running water and sweet-scented toiletries startled her. She felt far removed from the desperate waif she’d been as she tamed and styled her curls on top of her head. Tendrils of gleaming chestnut were the only ornaments around her face.

But she couldn’t resist bright ruby lips and lush mascara. To those dashes of color she also added contours of blush on her cheeks. She had been as pale as death since she’d encountered Soren in the woods. The cosmetics might help to disguise her continued reaction to his transformation as well as her own. Her preparations didn’t soothe her. She felt alien when a servant she’d never known came to escort her to a sitting room, where her hosts waited.

Elena Romanov wore a stunning dress crafted of pale peach layers in crepe and chiffon. As always, no matter what she wore, she looked as if she might still pirouette rather than step from room to room. Every movement from her smile to the turning of her head was graceful and artistic.

But the former dancer was no delicate swan.

She had been as hard as she had to be to accept the sapphire blade’s Call. Tonight, she wore glittering sapphires in her ears and around her neck in honor of the blade she’d left elsewhere. Thankfully, she also wore a genuinely warm smile for Anna. They had become friends before her parentage was revealed, and it seemed that Elena had chosen to continue that friendship.

Of course, she was new to Bronwal. Vasilisa had only been her enemy for a short time, and the curse had actually brought her and Ivan together.

“Soren is back,” Elena said. She approached on light steps and Anna allowed her to grasp both of her gloved hands without flinching. It was only dinner. There was no reason to fear that her power might flare. Elena didn’t mention her elbow-length gloves, even though they didn’t exactly match her evening apparel. She only squeezed her fingers and met her nervous gaze. “He hasn’t been back for months. I hoped you might have some positive influence.”

“According to Soren, she frightened Lev away. He searched the entire wood and the white wolf was nowhere to be seen,” Ivan Romanov interjected as he entered the room.

Anna pulled her hands from Elena’s and turned to face the alpha wolf in his human form. Unlike Lev, he had resisted shifting for centuries until the savagery of the black wolf gleamed from his dark eyes and his wild, wavy hair. Although the curse had been broken, he still looked barely civilized. Maybe because he was free to shift at will now with his warrior mate by his side.

He wasn’t smiling.

As he approached, his expression was guarded and his brows were heavy. He’d always looked as if the entire weight of Bronwal rested on his broad shoulders. That hadn’t altered, unless you could call the addition of more weight and more responsibilities a change. He now had a wife and a rematerialized people to stand for.

Not to mention a former charge turned witch.

“It was an accident. I didn’t want to be eaten. Lots of things have changed, but that remains the same,” Anna said.

“I understand,” Elena said. The feral white wolf had also threatened her when she’d first come to Bronwal. Maybe her understanding would remind Ivan of that fact.

“Soren says they’re leaving in the morning,” Ivan continued, as if Elena hadn’t spoken. But he did pause by her side and place a large hand gently on her petite shoulder. Anna was hypnotized by the giant man’s soft touch against his wife’s arm. His face was lit by concern for his brothers and a wariness for Vasilisa’s daughter, but it was softened by his love for Elena.

Anna suddenly realized that she might not have been welcomed at Bronwal if not for the tiny dancer turned fierce warrior. The sapphire blade was nowhere to be seen, but Elena had its glow in her eyes when she faced her powerful husband. She was his equal as well as his lover. And her friendship with Anna would be respected as much as the king could allow.

No matter his personal trust issues about the waif turned witch in their midst.

He had been the only liege Anna had known for centuries. She hadn’t been close to Ivan Romanov. No one had. He’d been a lone wolf even when he’d chosen to only walk on two legs. But even cursed, he had been the legendary champion of the Light Volkhvy and master of Bronwal in all of its dark, labyrinthine glory.

He saw her as the enemy now. That hurt. It also shook how she saw herself.

“He won’t give up on Lev, but there’s something we have to do,” Anna said. She hoped no one, least of all Soren, would mention the emerald blade to Ivan Romanov. His distrust might erupt into fury, and the tingling her hands told her that her reaction, even in self-defense, might be irredeemable.