Legendary Shifter

by Barbara J. Hancock

  The illustrations in her book hadn’t done the wolves justice. They were more monstrous. Far above her, she could see the power in their limbs and the glint of their eyes. She could also see the flash of white that indicated deadly teeth against their damp fur.

  It was only the movement of the wolves’ attention from her to elsewhere that caused her to lower her attention from the ridges back to the pass. She blinked against icy lashes as an approaching form swam into focus. A tall, muscular man clothed all in black walked purposefully through the deep snow. He came out of the swirling white clouds of flakes as if he materialized before her eyes. He wore a cloak with a fur mantle that covered his broad shoulders. Its voluminous folds whipped around his powerful strides. But it was another sight behind him that caused her to gasp in stunned surprise.

  Before she’d fallen, there had been nothing but ice and snow on the cliffs of the pass. Now, in the last hazy hint of twilight, ramparts and towers seemed to solidify from the shadows high above. Behind the man, the castle had appeared as if the mountain itself had decided to morph its rocks into the shape of a king’s home. Around the highest tower, ravens circled in and out of storm clouds that clung to its pointed peak. The structure was surrounded by a stone wall that enclosed the entire keep and a small village around the foot of the castle. She could see thatched rooftops peeking over the wall. Wind swept over her in a new way. The sudden appearance of the castle and the enclave its walls created had diverted the air. This new breeze rushed over the man, and his long, tousled hair was blown into a riotous black mane around his face.

  He held a lantern in his hand. Its light suddenly flared to life and its glow illuminated the man’s face. The world fell away—castle, mountain, wolves and snow—until only his face shone before her. The call had brought her to the right place and the right time. The compulsion to come here hadn’t been a lie.

  “Romanov,” Elena said. Her lips were stiff with cold. Her voice was muted by the wind. The white of her breath dissipated in wisps blown away from her face, taking most of the sound with it. The snow had claimed all feeling from her legs, and the numbness climbed steadily up her hips to her waist.

  He heard her. He stopped and lowered the lantern so its light shone in her eyes and on her face, leaving his in shadow.

  “Whoever you are, I’m not the man you seek,” he said.

  The wolves had leaped down from the peaks on either side of the pass while the castle and the man had distracted her. Their large, powerful forms had eaten up the distance much sooner than ordinary canines might have done. They came to the man—one on each side—and he chided their eager prancing without taking his attention from her face. She’d been right about the wolves’ size. Both came to their master’s chest, and he was no small man.

  The wolf she’d come to find would be even larger.

  She needed larger-than-life legends to help her escape Grigori’s clutches.

  “I’m not here for a man. I’m here for the wolves,” Elena said. The wolf she needed was the alpha of the Romanov pack and he would be as black as midnight. The old legends said that only the alpha wolf could defeat the strongest of the Dark Volkhvy.

  The creatures paced toward her, but the man called them back to his side by name.

  “Lev. Soren. Heel.” Though his face was shadowed, she could see the stern set to his lips and jaw. “Then you have come for nothing,” he said to her bluntly.

  He gestured and the two wolves churned snow as they spun around to rip back toward the castle in the distance. Oddly, she felt abandoned rather than spared. Her stomach hollowed within her as if she’d fallen from a great height. The cold reached relentless icy fingers into her heart. Its thumping had slowed as if the muscle that pumped her blood was beginning to freeze.

  “You risked your life,” the man said. “For nothing.” He didn’t follow the wolves. He stepped closer. His clothes were fashioned with tooled leather and thick stitches. The wool of his cloak was thickly woven and the fur of his mantle blew this way and that in glossy chunks. There was a richness of texture to his entire appearance that made her frozen fingers twitch. Though she’d come for the alpha wolf, a being more fantasy than reality, this man looked solid and strong. Against the backdrop of ice and snow and plain gray rock, he was sudden, vigorous and very alive.

  Far from nothing.

  Only his eyes kept her from reaching out to him. They were green. A frigid pale green. Ferocious and intense. Bright against his black hair and the deepening darkness, but also intimidating.

  “I risked my life to escape from a nightmare. I’ve accomplished that. At least for now,” Elena said. His words had caused the pulse beneath her skin to fade. She was left on top of a mountain in a snowstorm with nothing to anchor her there. No certainty. No song.

  “You won’t find escape here,” the man said. But he knelt down beside her. Elena was so cold, the heat from his lantern seemed to warm her, or maybe it was the heat of his large body so close to hers.

  This was the right place. She wasn’t mistaken. Even with the physical pulse of the compulsive call to climb diminished, her instincts to trust the old legend wouldn’t fade. She was here for a reason. The book in her bag had shown her the way. Her grandmother had told the old tales as if they were true. They might have fueled her nightmares, but they might also prove to be her only hope against Grigori once the protective binding her mother had bought with her blood ran out.

  “I won’t go back,” Elena said.

  Her body was done. Frozen. If he refused to help her, she would die. But it was force of will, not bodily exhaustion, that caused her to take a stand even as she knelt in the snow.

  “Not tonight anyway,” the man said. “The storm is only getting started. I won’t leave you here to die.” She cried out when he reached to pick her up, but she quieted when his hold turned out to be surprisingly gentle for such a large man. He stood easily, trading his lantern for her body in one smooth, easy move. “But this isn’t an invitation to stay,” he continued.

  “You are a Romanov,” Elena murmured against his windswept hair. He turned to walk back through the deep snow. The ache in her knee throbbed in time with the thudding of her heart. Her weight in his arms didn’t slow him down and neither did the drifts of snow. He left the glowing lantern behind them, so every stride carried her closer and closer to the dark where his wolves had disappeared. She’d seen his face earlier. She’d recognized his features—the square jaw, the sculpted nose. She’d seen their like in the book that had brought her here, but her book’s illustrations had been fanciful compared to the actual man.

  “I am Ivan, the last Romanov,” the man replied. “You came for a refuge, but you found nothing but cursed ground.”

  * * *

  When she’d fallen to her knees, Ivan Romanov wanted to rush forward to her aid. That very human reaction had slowed his response. It wasn’t the fall that caused his heart to swell and his chest to tighten with concern. It hadn’t been the pale blue of her lips or the porcelain of her skin or her thick dark lashes crusted with a dusting of white. Her sapphire eyes, vivid against the blowing snow, and the stubborn light that intensified in them even as darkness fell, had compelled him forward. Whatever had driven her up the mountain in winter hadn’t faded with the fall or the intimidating appearance of the wolves.

  She would rise.

  She would press on.

  And if he didn’t do something to prevent it, she would die at Bronwal’s great gate. Her eyes revealed a different person than her slight form suggested. When he picked her up, she weighed nothing in his arms. He had trained for centuries, but it wasn’t until he felt her delicate, mortal burden that he had the insane idea he had trained for just this moment.

  For centuries.

  She reached to hold around his neck. In spite of the stubborn light in her eyes, her arms surprised him with their strength. Only the wisps of respirat
ion that came too quickly from her lips betrayed her fear. She was bundled in insulated clothing of a make and design he’d never seen. It had been many years since anyone other than the Volkhvy had ventured close during the Romanov materialization. The glimpses he’d seen of the modern world as it progressed had created an incomplete picture in his mind, always changing.

  Her clothes told him little about the woman who wore them, but her determined journey through the pass should have alerted him. Her size was deceptive. Her eyes and tight hold as well as the tension in her body against him—those things revealed the woman to him.

  Her limp did not define her.

  She wouldn’t be frightened away. Not easily.

  “You can shelter here for the night out of the storm, but when it passes, you leave,” Ivan said. He’d left the gate open. Lev and Soren stood on either side to guard the entrance. He’d seen them do so thousands of times before. The momentary electricity that had claimed his limbs when he’d lifted the woman in his arms drained away. He recognized the numbness as it returned. He was beyond weary. More worn by the years of coming and going from the Ether than he’d ever been worn by battle.

  His father, Vladimir Romanov, had betrayed the Light Volkhvy queen centuries ago. He hadn’t been satisfied to be a champion. He’d wanted to rule. The queen’s punishment had been unrelenting. She’d cursed Bronwal and all the people in it to be bound to the Ether for eternity. Every ten years, the castle materialized for one month. It was taken into the Ether after the month was over, again and again. Each materialization, fewer survivors materialized. His father had been the first to succumb.

  The quickening Ivan had felt in himself when he’d rushed to the fallen woman wasn’t respite. It was torture. The years had piled on until his soul was crushed by too many losses to bear. And yet there was always one more.

  Not always.

  His enchanted blood had prolonged his life as had Vasilisa’s curse.

  But he wasn’t immortal.

  He said a prayer of thanks for that small mercy before he carried the woman inside.

  Chapter 2

  Even though she had the snowstorm and the frigid mountain pass for comparison, she didn’t find the great hall of the castle welcoming. It was nothing like the illustrations in her book. Dark, gray, unlit by torches or firelight, it seemed more a massive cave than a place where people would gather. A fireplace several times larger than any she’d seen before yawned cold and dark. Wind whistled down its chimney like a banshee. A frozen banshee.

  In the shadows, the elaborate tapestries hanging on the walls were lifeless and dull. In her book, they were painted with vivid detail that never seemed to fade. Romanov had carried her through the outer keep without greeting or comment from a dozen or so dreary-looking denizens going about half-hearted work. The gamboling of the giant wolves had seemed cruelly vigorous in comparison. The wolves were playful when all else was doom and gloom. They must have been protected from the gloom of the villagers by their simpler, animal comprehension.

  Something was wrong with Bronwal. The wrongness permeated the people and the atmosphere, including the man who held her to his chest.

  Inside, the great hall was deserted. Elena tried to speak, but her teeth chattered together and shivers racked her body. The trembling meant her nerves hadn’t been frozen, but the pain of her skin coming back to life caused her to moan.

  “We have no accommodations for visitors. Not anymore,” Romanov said. He turned around as if he was looking for somewhere to put her that wasn’t dark and damp.

  “I s-see th-that,” Elena replied. Welcome or not, she was here. She’d made it. Once she warmed up enough to face the challenge, she would find the alpha wolf even though this last Romanov was determined to send her away. She’d be much better off facing this man’s determination not to help her than she’d been facing Grigori in Saint Petersburg alone.

  “Fetch Patrice. To the tower room,” Romanov ordered. The russet wolf jumped to attention. He stopped his leaping and stared at his master for several seconds as if his wolf brain had to interpret the command. Then he was off. The white wolf sat on its haunches and looked at them.

  “I know there are plenty of empty rooms. Don’t look at me like that. Anyone who would have an opinion about where best to put her is long gone,” Romanov said.

  He tightened his arms when she tried to press her palms against his broad chest for release. He didn’t place her on her feet. Inside the castle, even in the lofted great hall, he seemed much larger. He was well over six feet with muscled arms and legs that matched his intimidating frame. His hold was overwhelming. His embrace swallowed her petite body. He held her close against his chest. Odd, since he had ordered her to go away. His heartbeat was clear and strong against her cheek.

  Suddenly, he was too real. Her respiration quickened and her fingers curled into the damp material of his cloak. He felt her increased tension and paused. His whole being became alert. She could sense the intensity of his attention on her face. Her focus was on the fur of his mantle, but she forced her gaze from that safe haven to more dangerous territory.

  In the shadows, his eyes were lighter than his dark brows and hair, but they were hooded against her. She couldn’t read his emotions before he looked away. He betrayed nothing of his inner feelings yet she sensed them beneath his stiff demeanor. She noted his tightened hands and his unwillingness to meet her eyes. They waited for a long time, made longer by her fatigue and fear.

  Finally, at some unspoken signal, he turned again and headed from the room in a decided direction. They came to a circular stone hall that eventually changed to stairs. She held him as he carried her up and up the never-ending climb. She was accustomed to athletic artists and dancers. Sophisticated and polished businessman and patrons were her usual companions. She wasn’t used to storybooks come to life from legends that originated in the Dark Ages.

  Romanov’s scent was one of wind and snow, leather and fur. His hair had enveloped her with stinging strands outside on the mountain. Now it dried around his face in a riot of damp waves. By the time they came to an open door at the top of the stairs, Elena had seen Romanov’s face by the light of a thousand torches. The impact of his appearance wasn’t diminished by the increased time to study him. His face was as bold as the rest of him, with a strong brow and patrician cheekbones. His lips were sculpted and sensual against his hard features and there was a shadow of beard growth on his jaw that only served to highlight its perfect, sharp angles. The contrast of his green eyes continually startled her against his dark hair and pale skin.

  Not that he looked at her again. He kept his gaze on the stairs. He didn’t have to look. She could feel his attention zeroed in on her every blink and sigh. She’d followed a call she couldn’t define to a strange place she’d only heard about from a storybook, but she was afraid she might have found more danger than she’d left behind. The wolves had been terrifying, but Romanov was in some ways more intimidating than his pets. In trying to escape Grigori had she placed herself in even greater danger?

  The glow of a small fire met them when he stepped inside the room at the top of the long, spiraling stairway. A round woman in a faded apron bustled around and the russet wolf stretched out by the fireplace, soaking up what heat it provided in its infancy. Romanov had carried her up into the tallest tower she’d seen from far below in the pass. The windows were obscured by ancient stained glass, wavy and dense with imperfections. Occasional shadows seemed to swoop by, hinting that the ravens still circled outside. The room was furnished sparsely with a plain wooden bed draped in thick velvet textiles against the cold. There were two sturdy chairs on either side of the fire. There were no lamps or electric outlets. No technology of any kind.

  Had she expected modern amenities in a castle made by magic hands centuries ago?

  The woman didn’t speak. She quietly straightened a woven throw on one of the chairs b
y the fire and Romanov responded by placing Elena on it. The move was hurried, as if he couldn’t wait to put her down, but also gentle. He was being careful with her leg. His size and strength and gruff manner made his courtesy that much more surprising.

  “It isn’t a new injury. My name is Elena Pavlova. I’m a dancer. The stress of the climb aggravated an ACL condition I developed from my years in ballet,” Elena said. “I’ll be fine with rest and another knee surgery.” She didn’t tell him she’d never dance again. An additional surgery might give her a greater range of movement, but she would never reclaim the grace she’d lost.

  She could no longer focus on dancing. It had been a necessity to help support her family. It had saved her when her mother died, but now all of the drive she’d used for the dance needed to be focused on survival. Never mind there was an empty place left by the loss of her dance deep inside of her. It had given her purpose for so long even though it had been a cruel taskmaster more than a heartfelt occupation. The call had seemed to fill the void for the last several days, but she tried to ignore it now. She was here. Why did it still seem to compel her toward something she couldn’t see?

  “Thank you,” Elena said to the woman, who tucked another throw around her legs. Patrice didn’t reply.