Legendary Wolf

She stood, flayed inside, as she offered him her help, not as an old friend, but as a Light Volkhvy witch with no choice. She couldn’t repair what her mother had done. She could only control her abilities with an iron will and continue to fight against Dark witches who might do worse than her mother had ever imagined if one managed to connect with the enchanted blade.

“Your mother’s evil enchantments are no longer my concern. I left the sword hidden in a deep ravine on a battlefield long ago when I abandoned my human form during the curse,” Soren said. “But if you haven’t noticed, I’m a man, not a wolf now, and your mother is no longer my queen.”

His voice was a threatening growl, low and angry. He looked ready to tear the forest apart rather than finish their conversation.

“I see you,” Anna said. This time her reply came out as a whisper. She couldn’t help it. She’d waited to see his human face for so long. It was torturous to see it now that she knew Volkhvy blood coursed through her veins. Soren didn’t trust witches. He certainly wouldn’t trust the daughter of Vasilisa. How could she blame him when she didn’t yet trust herself?

Her eyes tracked hungrily over his features. She couldn’t stop the perusal. Yes, she was a witch who, as yet, had no idea what that might mean for her future. Yes, he was angry and wild, a man with an enchanted wolf barely beneath the surface of his skin. But he was also beloved to her memories. She couldn’t help the desire to compare and contrast and seek whatever familiarity she could find.

His damp, dark lashes blinked beneath her appraisal as if he was startled by her penetrating stare. His eyes glowed golden as a stray sunbeam managed to find its way through the forest canopy over their heads. In spite of his anger and his bitter words, she wanted to brush his unkempt hair back from his angular face. She wanted to smooth his beard and mustache to reveal the sculpted lips she could barely see.

Her carefully controlled hands didn’t betray her desire with any movement whatsoever.

He was Soren, but he wasn’t her Soren. The reminder hurt, but not as much as forgetting would hurt. He wouldn’t want her touch. He wouldn’t lean into her glove-covered fingers. She should be glad of that. How could she trust herself to touch him, knowing the potential for power that pulsed beneath her skin? Because that potential for power also came with the potential for its abuse. She’d seen what her mother had done. She’d barely lived through it.

“You come here dressed like a Volkhvy princess. I well remember your mother’s preference for red silk before she turned to the mourning color of purple,” Soren said.

“Should I keep wearing mismatched rags like I wore before? I am a Volkhvy princess. I am a witch. I am Vasilisa’s daughter. There’s no point in denying the truth. Just as there’s no point in refusing my offer to help you retrieve the sword,” Anna replied. It hurt to say it out loud. That she was no longer human. That she’d never been human. How long would it take for her to get used to being a witch? His rejection hurt all the more because she couldn’t walk away from herself. She was stuck with what she’d become, come what may. Her mother had danced with the Darkness when she’d thought she’d lost her child. Who was to say that Anna would do better if she was ever challenged in the same way?

“The emerald sword was forged by an evil queen for her champions. I’m no longer her champion, therefore, I don’t give a damn about the sword,” Soren said. “Let them have it.”

He edged closer as he spoke, and Anna’s pulse sped up, giving lie to the idea that her heart was ruined and unable to pound. Her back came up against the tree trunk again, even though she hadn’t meant to move.

She watched his eyes widen slightly. Either he was surprised by her sudden retreat or he was taking in the change of perspective. When he was in his wolf form, he was much larger than a natural wolf. The red wolf had come to her chest in height so she leaned over him to speak and he pointed his nose to the sky in order to meet her eyes.

As a man, he dwarfed her in height and breadth.

The difference was stunning.

He loomed large and intimidating, but also...something more. Her reaction wasn’t entirely one of shock. There was a more pleasurable thrill pulsing beneath her skin, as well.

Attraction.

Her retreat had been spurred in part because she wanted to step forward to meet his advance and she knew she shouldn’t. He wouldn’t welcome her. And she had to maintain control of the powers she didn’t trust. The nearer she came to him, the less control she had...in all things.

He was so close now. Only inches away. When she inhaled, a woodsy scent rose from his skin warmed by his body heat into something more human and masculine than spruce, fresh air and autumn leaves. She’d been angry at the red wolf’s rejection. In part because she had no way to reject herself. Her reaction to his human form was much more complicated.

She reached to hold the tree at her back, one hand on either side of her hips.

Her mother had begun the process of teaching her how to channel and control the power that Volkhvy drew from the atmosphere of the invisible Ether that surrounded them all. She was a novice. Her mother had already been a queen when she’d lost control and fomented a curse that plagued the Romanovs and, inadvertently, her own daughter for centuries.

The tightness in Anna’s chest was magnified as Soren paused and his amber gaze tracked over her features. He had tilted his head closely over hers and his hair fell on either side of her face, a russet curtain against the darker surroundings. She held her breath rather than trying to force air into her stubborn lungs.

And, heaven help her, she closed her eyes.

Even curse tempered, her bravery had its limits.

“You are a stranger to me,” Soren said softly. “One I do not wish to know.”

Perhaps she could blame the sword’s Call to the power in her blood for her attraction to this man who obviously despised her. Or perhaps not. The years that had passed didn’t prevent her from remembering the way she’d felt about him when she’d been a girl. He’d been boyishly handsome then and princely to her Cinderella.

Now he was hardened and scarred and angry.

And, still, she yearned.

Her eyelids opened. She couldn’t hide from this meeting by closing her eyes. His gaze locked onto hers and she was caught by the swirl of emotions behind the golden brown.

If there was only anger and distrust left between them, why did she want to touch his frowning face?

“If you care about your family, then you have to care about the sword. The Dark Volkhvy will use it against Bronwal if they have it long enough for one of them to discover how to connect with its power. Ivan and Elena and all the Romanov people will be endangered by a Dark witch connected to the emerald sword,” Anna said. Her lips moved to persuade him of desperate practicalities, but she held the rest of herself still beneath his harsh stare. It was far worse than she’d expected to stand nearly toe-to-toe with him. He despised Volkhvy. She didn’t trust her own blood or the connection the sword tried to forge between them. And yet, her desire to reach out to him wasn’t quelled.

“Why do you care? About any of us?” Soren asked. “Bell is gone. She died with the breaking of the curse and you’ve been reborn as someone we hate.” The growl was still in his voice, but it was accompanied by a new emotion he’d hidden until now. She recognized grief. He mourned for who she had been as if she’d died. As if Bell and Anna weren’t the same person.

The idea that she was dead to him was worse than rejection. She felt more abandoned to her Volkhvy blood and adrift in its power than before. For the first time since he’d stepped out of the woods, an ember of anger rekindled beneath her breast.

“My blood doesn’t negate who I was before,” Anna said. Although she wondered. She’d wondered from the moment her parentage had been revealed. “Of course I care...about Bronwal and all the people in it.” Not about him in particular. Not anymore. It wasn’t wise and it wasn’t safe. It wasn’t controlled, and she wouldn’t allow it.

“Witches only care for themselves. Your mother manipulated our genes with magic before we were born. She made us monsters and then she cursed us when our father proved too monstrous for her to handle. You can’t expect me to trust her daughter,” Soren said.

He whirled away as if he couldn’t stand the sight of her. He paced several steps in the direction from which they’d come, but then he stopped in the middle of the path. His hair fell down his back in tangled waves. It created a halo around his head where the sunbeams fell. His clothes were still the mismatched, poorly mended type of garments that denizens of Bronwal had pieced together during the curse. He wore scuffed leather breeches and a long woolen cloak. His boots had seen better days.

There was something about his manly size and shape paired with the poor quality of his clothing that made her tight chest ache. His castle was on the mend, but he, himself, was still in the midst of the curse. It had been broken. But it didn’t matter. Lev was still a feral wolf. She was the daughter of his worst enemy. Soren’s nightmare wasn’t over.

“You don’t have to trust me. I’m not here to gain your trust,” Anna said. She couldn’t protect her secret and help him at the same time. Self-preservation and pride gave way, because her pain mattered less than keeping the people of Bronwal safe. “I’m here because the emerald sword Calls to me, Soren. Vasilisa sent me to help you find it.”

Soren’s entire body stiffened. It was as if his spine turned to steel as she watched him harden from his head to his shoes. She waited as he slowly turned back around. It seemed to take an eternity. Her breath caught in her throat as she both dreaded and anticipated seeing his face again.

No. No. No. No. No.

“No,” he said. His eyes met hers, and his amber irises no longer needed the sunbeam. They blazed with his emotion alone. “No.”

His words still sliced through her, even though they only echoed her own rejection of the sword’s Call.

“There’s nothing I can do to change it. I tried to ignore its Call. The enchantment is too strong. It can’t be ignored. My destiny and yours were forged into its blade and burned into the heart of the emerald in its hilt,” Anna said. “The two of us have to work together to prevent the Dark Volkhvy from using the emerald sword’s power to hurt the people of Bronwal. Only we can stop them. We have to prevent the emergence of a new Dark prince.”

“Or princess,” Soren added.

Her cheeks were heated. She could feel the flush flaming there against the cool morning mist. She hadn’t wanted to tell him, but she saw no other way to convince him that he needed her. He couldn’t ignore the enchantment without exposing his family and his people to further harm.

“I won’t be manipulated by Vasilisa’s enchantments,” Soren continued. “Never again. There is no chance I will accept that you are...that Vasilisa’s daughter...is destined to be my mate. And there’s no way I’ll work with you to retrieve the sword.”

Anna thought she’d experienced shock before, but she’d been wrong. He would turn his back on his responsibilities in order to turn his back on her. He hated her that much. Soren’s face had become pale marble behind his russet beard. His pupils were so large that his eyes looked black. The tightness in her chest suddenly released. She was hollowed out and empty. The hollowness seemed to be reflected in those bottomless pits as they stared at her.

The idea of her as his wife was repugnant to him.

Of course it was.

That should come as no surprise.

But he refused to hear her reasonable arguments because of her blood as well, and his stubborn refusal shocked her to her core.

She couldn’t reject her blood. She couldn’t reject the mother she’d found after centuries of having none. She might never trust her blood or her mother, but she couldn’t change them. She could only endure his opinion of her the same way she’d endured the curse. One foot in front of the other, for years and years and years.

She was a Volkhvy.

Soren Romanov despised Volkhvy.

And yet, the sword had chosen her, so it was only a Light Volkhvy princess who could lead him to the sword.

“I don’t want the sword or the connection between us. I only want to stop the Dark Volkhvy from using its power to do more harm. I’m not here to claim the sword. Or you,” Anna said.

The Call of the emerald sword echoed in the shell of her body as all she’d once felt for Soren Romanov evaporated like mountain mist in the rising sun.

Chapter 2

I’m not here to claim the sword. Or you.

Her words echoed in his ears long after the silence of the forest had descended around their standoff once more. His feet were planted on firm ground. His muscles responded when he tightened his fists. His chest rose and fell. His heart beat. But none of those things negated the feeling that he stood on a jagged, dangerous precipice waiting for the suck of gravity to take him down, down, down to the floor of the canyon somewhere far below.

Bell was gone. But she was also mere feet away from where he stood waiting to fall to his death. The fall never came, of course. That would have been an escape, and there was no escape from this. The feeling of being on the edge of a cliff was only the emptiness her presence caused deep in his gut.

Because she wasn’t really here.

This wasn’t the girl he’d known. She wasn’t even the woman the girl had become as they’d endured the curse together, side by side. He’d been Bell’s protector. Her constant companion for more years than he could count. He’d been in his wolf form, but he remembered every second, every one-sided conversation, every wistful sigh and every battle. Those intimate memories scalded his already raw emotions.

The beautiful witch who faced him with wide green eyes and damp curly hair was a stranger, an enemy who was interfering with the hunt for his brother right when he was as close as he’d ever been to luring Lev home.

Soren had no time for Anna. He had to make the distinction between the girl he had known and the witch she had become clear in his heart. He had to save his brother before it was too late. Talk of swords and witches only prolonged the inevitable moment when he would have to see her leave again. Even if she only left once he had driven her away.

* * *

The howl that sounded around them was so different from the natural wolf’s howl she’d heard before that Anna jumped away from the tree. She’d have time later to mourn what she might have had with Soren Romanov if she’d actually been the foundling he loved.

For now, she swallowed her fear and chose to survive.

She had her left glove off before her feet hit the ground, and as she landed with her boots planted wide apart, the other glove fell beside its partner. Beneath her scarlet cloak—her princess garb—she wore deep green insulated leggings and a matching microfiber jacket that would have seemed at home on a cross-country skier’s body.

She’d grown used to eclectic dress as the orphaned waif of Bronwal. She saw no reason to change now. She was still Bell, even as she found her way as Anna, whether Soren understood that or not.

The veins in her hands glowed a pale green beneath her porcelain skin in the forest shadows as her cloak fell back from her shoulders to hang in a long flow of scarlet down her back.

“Don’t scare him. It’s taken me months to get him this close to the castle,” Soren ordered gruffly.

“Don’t scare him? Okay. Right. Makes perfect sense,” Anna replied. But the veins in her hands dimmed in response to Soren’s concern. She saw herself through his eyes, witchy and strange.

Another ferocious howl followed the first without pause. It was accompanied by a chorus of weaker howls that sounded from all directions around them. They stood in the center of the path. Her leap had instinctively taken her to a defensive position beside Soren. The weaker howls indicated a pack of natural wolves were following the white wolf’s lead.

“Scaring them away might be our best chance to survive,” Anna warned.

“Not an option,” Soren growled. He moved to place his back up against hers as he spoke. His rough voice vibrated against her. She ignored the pleasant thrill the vibration caused deep in her stomach. Her physical reaction to him was a distraction and his sharp words and even sharper rejection of who and what she’d become flustered her in harsher ways. She focused on the approaching howls instead.

The wolves were hunting.

And they wouldn’t be hunting one of their own.

They were coming for her, not Soren.

“They’ll tear me apart if I don’t defend myself,” Anna said. “And maybe even if I do.”

“That’s not going to happen,” Soren said.

This time she wasn’t able to ignore the thrill in response to his proclamation. These words were more like the Soren she’d known for so long. He might hate her now. He might want her to go away. But this was Soren Romanov, and he wasn’t going to throw her to the wolves—even if one of the wolves was his brother.

“I’ll take that as a promise,” Anna replied.

They were surrounded by the haze of morning mist that slowly rode the unseen drafts in the air around them. The mist’s movement made it nearly impossible to note whether or not the shadows in the undergrowth moved, as well. Anna strained her eyes to try to penetrate the mist and the shadows. A hulking canine shape detached itself from the trunk of a tree only to melt into nothingness again when she thought she’d finally focused on the shape of a wolf. It happened again and again until she finally knew there were dozens of wolves among the trees. They were in constant motion, but none of them stepped forward onto the path.

“Damn it, Lev. You don’t belong in the forest. Let this pack go and come home to Bronwal,” Soren said.

Even in his human form, Soren’s eyes were better than her own. He saw and spoke to his brother before the massive shape of the white wolf materialized out of the mist. Anna couldn’t help it—she gasped when Lev came out of the trees. He was as familiar to her as Soren, but he’d always kept his distance. For centuries he’d been a savage but ghostly presence on the periphery of her existence. She’d always known to be leery of him. She’d avoided him just as she’d avoided the other denizens of Bronwal who were Ether addled.

But his appearance now startled her so badly that her hands flared without her giving them permission. Volkhvy power was incredibly hard to harness and control. It came from the Ether itself, and many a Dark witch had been consumed while trying to tap into a greater share of the energy than they should. Light Volkhvy were careful, thoughtful and almost reverent with their abilities...most of the time.

Anna swallowed against her fear—both of Lev and of herself. She tamped down her desperate desire to bring more energy to life in her hands. She could contain and control. She had to.

“That’s new,” Soren said.

For a second she thought he was talking about Lev’s crazy fur, matted with mud and dried blood, or the ferocious snarl aimed in their direction.

“You’re glowing,” he continued.

Of course he would be talking about her powers and the obvious flares and flickerings that said she wasn’t exactly an expert at harnessing their strength.

“That’s what Volkhvy do,” Anna said. “Especially when we’re threatened.”

She didn’t tell him the emerald sword’s Call might be enhancing abilities she hadn’t learned to completely control.

The white wolf growled, and the pack of natural wolves he led was emboldened to come forward and ring the two people in the center of the path.

“He won’t hurt you,” Soren said.

He sounded so certain. Even though they were no longer friends, his confidence in his brother caused her chest to tighten again. Soren wouldn’t give up on the white wolf. Ever. He never had in all the years they’d lived with the curse. He’d even followed Lev into wolf form in order to better keep watch over his feral brother. But Soren was wrong. It was obvious that Lev would hurt her. It was obvious from the bloodstains on his muzzle and the dried blood caked in his fur that he’d been in on many kills since he’d run away from the castle. There was no way of knowing how far he’d ranged or if he’d been feeding on man or beast.

“You’re wrong. He wants to kill me,” Anna said.

This time she didn’t dim the power in her hands. She was only beginning to control her abilities and she needed to be careful, but she had no intention of being stupid. Or naive. The anger Soren had toward her was nothing compared to the fury that came off his savage brother. It hit her in waves of heat that weren’t soothed by the cool misty air.

“She’s going to leave, Lev. I promise. And she won’t be coming back,” Soren said.

Anna was too busy watching the white wolf approach to feel greater loss at Soren’s proclamation. If he wouldn’t act to stop the wolves, then she had to defend herself. She held herself back until Lev was only a leap away. She waited as long as she could, but Soren didn’t shift. He carried no weapon that she could see. He continued to speak to his brother in calming tones that seemed to have no effect.

When she decided to tap into the Ether to send the natural wolves away in the hope that Lev would be more reachable without them at his back, the air crackled with electricity. The morning mist instantly disappeared as all the moisture droplets suspended in the air were sucked into the nothingness that had swallowed Bronwal and all the people in it on a perpetual cycle during the curse.

Light Volkhvy were usually careful and reasonable...until they weren’t. Her mother, Vasilisa, had almost gone completely Dark when she thought Vladimir Romanov had murdered her daughter. The curse had been the darkest use of Volkhvy magic anyone had seen in an age, and it had been worked by the Light Volkhvy queen.

For love and loss.

Vasilisa had mourned for centuries even as she’d perpetuated the curse.

Anna guarded against the hollow ache in her chest and the supreme pain of losing her red wolf when she channeled the power she needed with her hands. The better to keep from unleashing too much, too soon, too harshly. She was learning. The flare she radiated outward toward the pack all around them was too powerful. The impact of green energy when it hit the trees shook the whole dark wood and rebounded back to her hands, sending her to her knees.

Her ears rang with the implosion of power as she desperately sent it back into the Ether.

Chapter 3

When the ringing faded away, she was left in utter silence.

The wolves were gone.

All the wolves were gone.

Anna opened her clenched eyelids. She’d landed hard. The pain had brought tears to her eyes. She blinked the stinging moisture from her lashes as she looked around the empty clearing.

The white wolf was nowhere to be seen.

“What have you done?” Soren asked accusingly. He was still on his feet only because he was incredibly strong. His muscular legs were planted and dug into the packed earth of the pathway where the impact of her energy had sent him backward several feet. “Lev!” he shouted. “Lev!”

There was no reply.

“I didn’t mean to send him away, too. I was aiming for the pack,” Anna said. She looked around and reached for her gloves. She shakily pulled them onto her hands as she rose to her feet on wobbly knees. “I still have a lot to learn.”

“You went with her. You willingly became her pupil. After all she’s done,” Soren ground out between gritted teeth. “And now you’re using the Ether. You’re using power you can’t control.”