her. She had to trust him now. His honor. His integrity. Yes, he was a wolf shifter. The alpha wolf shifter in a triumvirate of three Romanov shifters created by Vasilisa. But he was also her heart’s mate.
She could only hope Soren and Anna could stand against even worse odds than she and Ivan had faced. And she could only pray that once Ivan learned about the baby, his protective instincts wouldn’t cause even greater complications for his younger brother.
* * *
It was a mistake to go to the roof. He went anyway. Taking a route he’d traveled on four legs more often than two. It was both strange and painfully familiar when he came around the corner of an eastern turret to face the aviary Bell had called her home. She’d chosen the inaccessible, easily fortified stone building with shuttered window openings as the safest place in a castle that had few safe places. It had been smart. It had also been telling. She’d been on top of the world here, but she’d also been separate from Bronwal itself, as if she never felt like she belonged.
No one had questioned her proclivity for retreat even before the curse came down on them all. She’d claimed the aviary as a child’s playhouse long before she’d claimed it as a bedchamber. Looking back, he was sorry that someone hadn’t questioned her need for a hideaway back then. It hadn’t occurred to him. Not when he’d been a young teen. Not later when he was in the form of the red wolf. He’d joined her in the aviary as her nighttime protector during the curse without thought to what it meant for her to have always felt safer apart.
Had she instinctively known his father was lying about rescuing her during a Dark Volkhvy attack when, in fact, it had been his father who had destroyed the village and the human foster parents Vasilisa had asked to shelter her daughter?
It pained him to think that he hadn’t done half as good a job protecting his companion as he’d thought.
Now she was back.
And she wasn’t.
She would never truly be back again.
What they had had was even more lost to them, because it had never actually been.
She hadn’t been an orphan given a sheltering home and a family to care for her. She’d been stolen, kidnapped and treated as a foundling when she was actually a princess.
The early-autumn night was cold in the mountains. His breath came from his lips as a vapor that floated away in clouds around his head. But he didn’t go inside the aviary. He couldn’t stand the air of neglect and abandonment he might find. Instead, he pressed his back against the chilled stone of the turret’s wall and allowed his body to sink to a sitting position. He wrapped his arms around his knees.
Cold was good. Alone was good. The star-filled sky above his head brought clarity. He tried to focus on those diamond studs of light and forget the witch’s big green eyes. She looked at him as if she was hungry to memorize his features. Never mind that his overgrown hair obscured them. If the color that rose on her cheeks was any indication, she’d found what she was looking for.
She’d looked from his eyes to his lips and back again.
Just a look. Nothing more. And he’d been hard-pressed to stand his ground without pulling her into his arms or backing away. He’d felt her hand on his head a million times before. She’d given him the comfort of her touch and the companionship he’d so desperately needed when Lev had abandoned him. It was beyond cruel that he would want her touch now that he was a man, even though she was no longer the woman she’d been before.
Her touch would be no comfort.
He shuddered from a yearning that refused to be banished by the cold or by his best intentions.
Soren missed Bell, but there was no denying he desired the witch she’d become.
His desire was a foolish physical reaction he would fight until he destroyed the sword. Surely the enchantment of the emerald in the sword’s hilt was the reason he was drawn to Anna, the Light Volkhvy princess. He wasn’t a young pup to be drawn to a woman based on her beauty or the feminine curves of her body. He was wiser than that. His reaction to her was manipulated by magic, and he didn’t need any more evidence not to trust it than the loss of his brother right when he’d been so close to bringing him home.
He should have prevented Anna from frightening Lev away. He’d been thrown by her sudden appearance after so many months. Soren fisted his hands and leaned his forehead on his knees to block out the infinite stars. He should have been completely immune to any old feelings he’d had as the red wolf. He should have driven her away before she could do any harm. Instead, he’d been shocked by his body’s yearning to touch her, to confirm the pull he felt was mutual. His reaction to her as a woman had distracted him from the Volkhvy power she could channel.
He’d been completely unprepared to face who and what she’d become.
His shock had allowed what had happened. It was his fault Lev had disappeared again. It would be on him if his brother never returned.
Beneath the crystalline sky, by the harsh light of a thousand stars, Soren vowed he would not be caught unprepared again.
* * *
Anna changed out of the white dress that hadn’t served her well. It did no good to wave the flag of truce with an enemy who didn’t believe in parley. Soren was blinded by his distrust of witches and his distaste of the Ether. As long as she channeled its power, he would see her as tainted. Yet how could he expect her to be anything other than her mother’s daughter—even if her mother was the Light Volkhvy queen?
She prepared for bed in new ways that weren’t at all automatic for her. Hot running water and soft new sleeping garments might be a delight to her for the rest of her life. She appreciated the luxury and comfort, even as she braced herself against the discomfort of other sensations.
There was a filament of enchantment stretched between her and Soren Romanov. It pulled painfully from deep within her chest to wherever he had gone to pass the night. Like a string stretched taut almost to the point of breaking, the filament threatened to release if she moved too suddenly or breathed too deeply.
She was caught and held by someone who didn’t want to hold her at all.
It was the sword that created the tenuous but inexorable bond in spite of her best intentions to let the red wolf go. She pressed both hands against her chest to try to ease the pain. For sleep, she’d allowed herself to remove the protective gloves. The tingle was slight now that she was alone. There were distant threats, but she was tired and her power ebbed low. As she pressed her palms against the pain, the natural body heat in her hands soothed her.
It would be a relief to sever the thread that bound her and Soren together. For a while, as the late-night world grew silent and the doubts in her head grew loud, Anna thought about her aviary. She’d retreated to the roof of the castle so many times. Did her aviary wait there for her still, even though nothing and no one else had waited for her?
The idea of running quickly through the sleeping castle on one of the routes she would know even in the pitch darkness was seductive. But this was no longer her home. She had been reduced to a guest. An unwelcome guest. Her aviary wasn’t hers anymore.
Besides, the red wolf wouldn’t be there.
It would be cold and empty, filled only with the echoes of a life that was no longer hers. Her pain increased
