“You have no idea how precious your curves are to me. I’ve tortured myself by imagining what it would be like to really see every inch of you, but none of my fantasies compare to this,” Soren said hoarsely. She could still hear the howl in his voice. It roughened and graveled his tone. The vibrato of it teased against her naked skin.
She slipped her panties down while he watched her with a gaze so intense she could almost feel its caress along her legs as the lace fell. The sword Called from far away. Her abilities seemed dormant. But the pulse she experienced in a flush of desire that suffused her body was all Soren. She was wet and throbbing with need as she stood completely bare in front of him.
Soren reached for his waist. His leggings were handcrafted. They were laced at the fly. He slowly worked the knotted cord loose so that his erection could spring free. He had stretched and filled her last night, but it had been dark. In the firelight, she was able to see what she hadn’t fully appreciated in the shadows of her room the night before or during his sudden appearance in her bathroom’s doorway. His cock was fully engorged and the curve of it lay heavily against his stomach, thick and long and large.
Anna bit her lip and pressed her palm to her mound to quiet the throbbing there while Soren pushed his leather leggings off his hips.
“You can see what you do to me,” he said. He looked from his erection up to her face. He met her eyes.
“You’ll have to feel what you do to me,” Anna replied.
It only took a couple of steps to bring her to his seated form. He stroked a hand up her leg when she paused beside him. Her leg trembled with pleasure beneath his gentle, calloused fingers. He alternated between watching her face to gauge her reaction and watching his fingers on her flesh. While he watched, he stroked them closer and closer to the chestnut curls between her legs.
Anna gasped and moaned with every tickling caress. Fire from his touch sank deep into her skin and spread. There was nowhere left that the Ether’s cold could hide. He burned it all away.
And then he brushed aside the curls protecting her most intimate bud.
Anna cried out. Soren found her slick heat. His fingers slid easily into her folds. She had to grab onto his broad shoulders to keep from falling, but the move brought her hips close to his face. Her knees gave out completely when he moved his hand and pressed his face where his fingers had been seconds before. She didn’t fall. He held her in place with his strong arms and his hands on her bottom.
Then he licked into her and she called out his name.
“Soren.”
“Always, Anna. Even when we have to part. Always,” Soren murmured as he pleasured her with thrusts of his tongue.
She fell when she came. He couldn’t hold her up any longer when her whole body went tense. But she fell onto his lap, where his hardened shaft was waiting. Anna positioned herself against him. She pulsed with aftershocks from her climax as she spread her legs and took Soren’s erection inch by inch.
Now it was his turn to cry out her name as she claimed him. He pressed his face into the hollow between her breasts and she held him as she rocked them closer together.
“Not just physical, Anna. Accept the Call of the emerald sword,” Soren gasped. He raised his hips to meet her thrusts.
“Yes. Yes. Yes,” Anna said.
And then a blast of the Ether’s energy flooded into every cell of her body. She cried out from the shock of the power as it filled her completely. From far away, she sensed the sword blaze to green life. The Dark witches who had stolen it were knocked back by its sudden gleaming power.
Enchantments didn’t matter. Vasilisa didn’t matter. Witches and wolves didn’t matter. She and Soren had been forged for each other—by the curse. It had taken their destiny and crafted it into something unbreakable. They had faced day after day, decade after decade, century after century by each other’s side. They had vanished and reappeared together time after time. Time and distance and enchantment would never tear them apart even if they couldn’t be together, because they survived. Their love survived. Anything. Always.
Anna found another release as her power engulfed them both. Her body convulsed around Soren, and she collapsed against his chest.
Soren cried out when his climax slammed into him along with Anna’s power. His cry became a howl that rose up into the sky. Its resonant sound carried for miles. He didn’t shift. He stayed a man for her. But the earth shook with his power and hers combined.
He lifted her and cradled her tight against his chest as he spilled his seed outside her body. They couldn’t risk a baby, because even as they claimed their connection, they both knew they would always have to be apart.
Chapter 23
Soren left Anna sleeping by the fire. She’d cushioned her head on his discarded shirt, so he pulled up and laced his pants, then went shirtless into the woods. He found a game trail with no effort. Even in his human form, he knew all the red wolf did about field and forest and the creatures that lived there. He followed the trail to a crystal creek. He heard it before he saw it, a dark winding ribbon reflecting the glitter of stars.
He knelt and cupped several handfuls of the cold water up to his face to drink his fill. He tasted the bite of iron and minerals against his tongue, and he savored the liquid’s richness. Much preferable to the plastic-flavored water Anna carried in her backpack.
Anna.
He stood and flipped damp bangs off his face. The freshwater hadn’t soothed the residual tingle her power had left in his body. Nor did it soothe the hollow ache in his belly. He wasn’t thirsty. Or hungry. Not for water or food.
He loved a witch, and he had to let her go.
The connection between them glowed green with emerald light behind his eyes every time he blinked. He was filled with it, and he’d never been so replete. The hollow in his gut wasn’t real. He recognized it for what it was: dread. It was the phantom of future emptiness that haunted him and kept him from sleep.
By claiming the connection and helping her answer the sword’s Call, he had ensured that their parting would have maximum impact on his soul. Ironically, it was his fullness that made him feel the future ache already.
Soren tightened the muscles in his stomach as if he prepared to take a punch. He flexed his damp fingers and fought the need to howl. No one could fix this. Not his alpha. Not a pack if he still had one to support him. There was no one to call.
A sliver of moon illuminated the forest around him. The shadowy, blurred edges of things didn’t distract him from much more vivid visions of the passion he’d shared with Anna half an hour ago. She hadn’t held the sword in her hand. She hadn’t had to. She was Vasilisa’s daughter, the Light Volkhvy princess. All it took was her red wolf’s permission to claim the emerald sword that had been forged for his mate.
And he had given it.
He’d given himself to her with nothing held back, until now he wondered if destroying the sword to save his family would destroy him, as well.
* * *
Anna didn’t sleep. She didn’t know what to say when Soren left the fire to walk into the forest, and it was easier to keep her eyes closed than it would have been to watch him go. She only opened them after the sounds of his footsteps had faded in the distance.
The fire still burned, but the logs had settled and the flicker of flames was low to the ground. One of her gloves had landed too close to the embers. She didn’t reach to save it.
The gloves hadn’t stopped her. Her decision to claim Soren and the emerald sword had been made long ago.
“This never ends, Anna. We never end. We have to walk away from each other. We have to destroy the sword. But this—you and I—we’re paired for life. Even if we can’t be together,” Soren had said.
The glove began to burn. Flames licked up from its fingers to its shaft. The leather curled in on itself as it began to disintegrate. But it wasn
’t the burning glove she saw. In the dance of flickering flames, she saw memories of Ivan, Lev and Soren. She saw them laughing, fighting and shifting. She’d grown up with the Romanovs. Their legend had been her day-to-day life.
Even after the curse came down on Bronwal, she’d still believed in the legendary wolves and their cause. She’d survived. She’d persevered, because she’d always believed that Soren and his brothers would triumph in the end. She’d thought she’d be a part of that triumph.
The curse was broken. Lev might still be saved and reunited with his family. Bronwal was rebuilt and a new Romanov heir was on the way.
But her part in the Romanov triumph was very different than she’d imagined.
Why had Vladimir spared her that day when he’d kidnapped her and killed all the innocents in the village who had been hiding her for Vasilisa? Had she been nothing but leverage to the gray wolf? Or had the enchanted beast sensed what the emerald sword would one day prove?
She was a witch, but she was also Called to be a warrior. The gray wolf had brought her to Bronwal. He had set into motion the events that would lead to centuries of torture, but if he hadn’t something else would have led her to fight by Soren’s side. It wasn’t the loss of the sword she would mourn. It wasn’t even the loss of purpose. She would have plenty to do as her mother’s successor. She accepted her role as future queen, no matter how challenging it might be.
What hurt the most was that Soren needed her. Vasilisa had created the enchanted swords because her wolves needed help against the Dark Volkhvy. For all their size and power, they hadn’t been made to fight alone.
Because she was a witch, Soren thought he had to sacrifice their partnership. She had agreed. Her abilities were too dangerous. She wasn’t sure she could avoid misusing them as her mother had. She had accepted that she needed to destroy the sword in order to protect Ivan and Lev and their families.
But what about Soren?
He would have to fight alone once the sword was destroyed. Now that she’d answered the sword’s Call and fully embraced the connection, Anna struggled with their mission. Soren needed a mate by his side to continue the fight against the Dark Volkhvy. And he deserved a partner he could trust.
The glove was gone, completely consumed by the fire.
Anna felt as if she’d turned to ash herself.
She couldn’t allow the emerald sword to be destroyed. But she couldn’t retain her claim on it, either. Somehow she had to sever her connection with Soren once and for all—but save the sword so it could Call someone new.
Chapter 24
A howl sounded in the distance, rising and falling in an ululating cry that seemed to punctuate Anna’s decision. It wasn’t Soren’s howl. He hadn’t shifted. She would have known from their connection, even if she didn’t recognize the way the earth shook every time a Romanov became a wolf.
She scrambled to her feet and gathered up her clothes. Her hands fumbled as she pulled on her underwear and her leggings. The howl had been too long and too loud to originate in a natural wolf’s chest. If not Soren, there were only two other wolves it could be, and one of those wolves was with his pregnant wife at Bronwal.
Soren broke from the trees as she zipped her jacket into place. He slid to a stop when he saw she was okay. Dirt flew and then settled around his feet while they both held their breaths, waiting for another sound.
Anna’s hands were already glowing. The sword and her connection with Soren had recharged her power. Her abilities flared in order to protect her from the white wolf. It was Volkhvy instinct. It was survivor’s instinct. But it was also a betrayal of her promise to Soren. She’d sworn she wouldn’t scare Lev away again.
Another howl rent the air. Lev was closer. Louder. But even before the howl rose and fell to fade away in what seemed to be an expression of limitless sadness, Anna’s glow faded, too. She tamped down the power she had instinctively tapped into. She pushed the Ether’s energy back from where it came.
“I won’t scare him away,” she said. She braced with her feet apart and her hands fisted at her sides. This time she would keep her promise. She tried to ignore the terror that clawed its way up from her gut. Her shoulder throbbed with the memory of pain from Lev’s bite. His hatred had turned venomous in her, and her body hadn’t forgotten.
And still she stood without a single spark of green in her fingers.
Soren was shirtless. He stood in the pale glow from the sliver of a moon, his tension palpable. Their connection had given her more than enough power to kill his brother. She wasn’t channeling it. She rejected it. But he must wonder how long her resolve would last if the white wolf attacked.
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” he said. “I won’t ask you not to use your power if he attacks. He almost killed you last time.”
Suddenly, Anna had a grim idea of how she might release the sword. Going down under the white wolf’s teeth would be a horrible way to die. Her chest tightened and her stomach turned to ice thinking about Lev’s massive jaws. In spite of her best efforts to reject it, her fingers began to glow in self-defense.
Anna looked guiltily from her tingling hands to Soren’s face. His lips were set in a thin line. His jaw was tight. His body was tense, from his shoulders to his powerful legs to his feet planted firmly on the ground.
But his mouth softened and a half smile curved his lips when she met his eyes.
“He won’t attack. He’ll see what I see...a powerful witch warrior who could take him down with the blink of her eye. He’s feral, but he isn’t stupid,” Soren said.
Anna hoped he was right. Her death might free the sword, but she wasn’t ready to accept it as her only option to save Soren. Not yet. Her powers obviously agreed. She lost the battle to reject them. The glow in her fingers had engulfed both of her arms.
“Your eyes are beautiful when they sparkle with emerald light,” Soren said. He stepped toward her. He didn’t stop until they were nearly touching. His broad chest was only inches from her face. She tried to tilt away to shield him from the light in her eyes, but he reached to hold her chin. He gently tilted her face upward. Anna could see the reflection of her eyes in his. “Your irises look like faceted gems reflecting the firelight, but I know your Light comes from your power. Our power. Combined.”
“I’ll frighten your brother away,” Anna warned. She’d had a lot to learn about channeling the power of the Ether before. Now she channeled even more power, and she was still a novice witch. If she protected herself, she might do more than frighten Lev. She might hurt him.
Or, even worse, kill him while Soren watched.
But it was too late. Her power had risen up at the threat of the approaching wolf, and she couldn’t tamp it back down. She looked into Soren’s eyes. He had narrowed his in response to her light, but he didn’t look away.
“Lev found me this time. He’ll find me again. I can focus on luring him back from the wild after we retrieve the sword from the Dark Volkhvy. You can go back to your mother’s island, where you’ll be safe, after we destroy the sword. Then I’ll save Lev,” Soren said.
He sounded calm and logical, as if he wasn’t planning on sacrificing his future chance at happiness to protect her and his brother. A pang tightened her chest when she realized he hadn’t even considered that the sword might bring him another mate if she was out of the way. He championed everyone but himself.
“You’re recharged. If we travel through the Ether, Lev won’t be able to follow on our heels. His is a wandering journey, not a direct one,” Soren said. He placed his hands on her shoulders. “Take us to the sword.”
He leaned to kiss her, and her energy flared in response. Not in defense. He was her mate, and her energy recognized their connection. Her power flared to engulf him in energy, too. A soft green aura expanded outward from her body to wrap and twine around them both.
Anna saw only a glimp
se of the white wolf as he leaped into the clearing before she and Soren disappeared into the nothingness and cold.
Chapter 25
Anna had thought they might need to travel through the Ether many more times before they reached the Dark Volkhvy fortress, but the power from her connection with Soren and the fear of the white wolf propelled them the rest of the way.
This time when they materialized, they both fell forward onto hard, rocky terrain. The impact knocked the air from her body and grazed the side of her face where her cheek slid on the ground as she fell. She tasted blood. The fall had also busted her lower lip. She bathed it with her tongue as she struggled to draw air into her shocked lungs.
The emerald sword is near.
“Are you okay?” Soren asked. He was already up. The impact had barely made him pause. He reached out his hand toward her and she managed to take it, although everything was blurry in front of her. She blinked. She focused as he pulled her easily to her feet.
A mountainous landscape swam into view all around them. As did a sprawling home on the side of a sheer cliff about a mile away. It had been crafted of cement and glass. There were no obvious doors, and a few seconds’ observation revealed that it was more fortress than house. The cement curved attractively, but it also walled off the glass high from the ground. It took her a second to understand that the odd rainbowlike ripples on the glass were in fact reflections of the eerie atmosphere that hung above the canyon the cliff faced.
“It’s the Ether. It’s visible here,” Anna said. Shock and wonder filled her voice, but it was also colored by horror. The power of the Ether buffeted her senses. She couldn’t imagine choosing to live so close to its manifested presence. Although the energy it expelled probably helped to fortify the building bathed in its light.
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