* *
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.
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.
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
