feet seemed to have rooted to the ground right when she needed them to be nimble and quick. He was only a foot away, and the barrier of the iron vines seemed like no barrier at all. His amber eyes were dark in the shadows. So dark they were almost black. They stood out against his russet hair and beard. She couldn’t help it. Her gaze dropped to find his lips where they peeked from the red waves of his beard. It didn’t matter that the direction of her gaze was barely telegraphed by the flicker of her lashes. Or that she disciplined herself immediately and brought her attention back to his dark eyes.
He had seen the look.
He had seen whatever desires the flicker of her lashes revealed.
Her cheeks heated. The rise in color would be starkly revealed against her pale skin. But she was no coward. She didn’t lower her chin or look away. She faced him, and she watched as her interest in his lips and her blush caused his brow to furrow and his face to tense.
“It isn’t your plans that concern me. It’s your presence. Vasilisa is an ongoing threat to our safety even as she currently helps us to recover. We’ve experienced the volatility of her favor. How quickly it can change from love to hate. Your very existence as her daughter threatens us all,” Soren said. “The curse was for you. Her power is in you. How far will you go for love? How quickly will your love turn to hate?”
She didn’t need him to say it. She felt it in her tingling fingers. She’d seen it in her mother’s actions. She’d endured their effects as much as Soren and all the other denizens of Bronwal.
“I won’t apologize for surviving,” Anna said. “Not even for surviving the revelation of my Volkhvy parentage.” Her gut was cold and hollow, but there was a tiny flame in her chest where her heart used to be. Its stalwart flickering kept her going. She was afraid of her blood, but fear wouldn’t stop her. It never had.
Losing Soren was bad.
But losing her courage would be worse.
“Who survived? What survived? You pulse with the energy of the Ether that ate us every Cycle. It was relentless. Unstoppable. It sucked the life out of us all, year by year, coming and going until so many were lost. I might never see my brother’s face again. All because of the Ether. The power you channel is evil. There is no light. It all comes from Darkness. The Ether is a relentless vacuum we barely escaped, only to find its energy walks and talks beside us in you,” Soren said.
“The Ether is no different than the sun or the tides. It is energy. How we choose to use it determines whether it is Dark or Light. Whether you accept that fact or not is no concern of mine,” Anna said. Her words were true. Dark or Light—it was a choice, not an inevitability. She had to believe it. That was the only way she could go on.
“What will you choose one day, Volkhvy princess? When your back is up against a wall? With unlimited Ether at your fingertips, how will you restrain yourself when your own mother—a much more experienced witch—failed?” Soren asked. He suddenly reached for the bars and his grip was white-knuckle and fierce. The rattle of iron rang out and echoed down the winding stairs. Anna jumped in response, but she didn’t retreat.
She searched his eyes for the faith in her she’d once thought unshakable. The red wolf had never doubted her, not once in centuries. Until her parentage was revealed. And then he had turned away. He hadn’t looked back until now. Her presence forced him to see what she’d become. She could read nothing in Soren’s gaze. She could only sense his heightened emotion through the tension in his grip.
“We shall see,” she said. She could make no promises. That was what hurt the most. His doubts were echoed in her own thoughts. There was no way of knowing how she would handle the abilities her Volkhvy blood gave her. So far she had chosen careful control. Even with the Call of the emerald sword increasing the energy that pulsed in her. But the use of power was a slippery slope. She had her mother’s example as an ever-present warning.
She jumped again when Soren released the bars as quickly as he had grabbed them. He pushed back from them and dropped his hands to his sides.
“We leave at dawn. On horseback until we reach Cyrna. I won’t step willingly into the Ether for you. No enchantments. No tricks. You might recall my survival instinct is as healthy as your own,” Soren said.
The tingling in her hands turned to ice as he walked away. If they traveled without using the Ether, the trip would last for weeks rather than days. She was a survivor, but she wasn’t sure she could survive being close to Soren for that long. The Call tormented her. But his nearness both tormented and enticed.
The magnetism between them was a cruel jest in a world determined to keep them apart.
* * *
Elena dressed for bed in one of her black wolf’s favorite nightgowns. It was a diaphanous silk spun through with glittering silver threads that reminded Ivan of the lair where they’d first made love. They still escaped to his former retreat sometimes when the demands of bringing Bronwal back from the brink became too stressful.
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
