Legendary Shifter

by Barbara J. Hancock

  Vasilisa was tied to the mirror.

  “No. I’m not going to marry her. I’m going to send her away,” Romanov said.

  Vasilisa turned to stare at Ivan Romanov. He was vulnerable standing there unable to move, but he was also impressive. Because even frozen in place by the Light Volkhvy’s power, he was still taking a stand.

  “My enchantments aren’t affected by silly mortal ceremonies. The blade has called her and she has claimed it. All that’s left is for you to claim her. I suspect that’s already occurred, whether you’ll admit it or not,” she said.

  Elena’s face burned.

  The queen turned back to her and laughed as if she’d sensed her emotion.

  “My enchantments also aren’t affected by carnal actions. Can you imagine how complicated that would have been with Vladimir Romanov claiming every skirt that walked by? I’m talking about connection and emotion. Mortals might say heart and soul. What say you, Ivan Romanov? Does this warrior claim your soul?” Vasilisa said.

  “I stand alone,” Romanov replied. Too easily for it to be a lie.

  Elena didn’t drop the sword. She couldn’t. Her hand went cold as the constant vibration of power she’d experienced since she’d picked up the blade disappeared. The sapphire flickered as if it tried to fight Romanov’s decision, but then its glow faded away.

  “And now I can see another claim on this woman,” Vasilisa said. Her arms had fallen at her side and her figure moved backward toward the mirror without any obvious steps. The silvery whirlpool left the frame to reach out toward the approaching queen. “She is claimed by the witchblood prince. His mark is upon her. It rides her shoulders like a shadow she can’t escape. The sapphire’s power hid her for a while, but now she’s exposed.” The liquid mirror began to engulf the queen’s face and figure. It flowed around her. It ran into her eyes and nose and mouth. Elena couldn’t breathe as she watched in horror. “Only the black wolf can stop Grigori. And the black wolf doesn’t dare to show itself at the Gathering. I couldn’t protect it from all the Dark and Light that will come to the ball, even if I cared to try.”

  Her last words were gurgled rather than expressed. Elena gagged as the queen disappeared into the glass. Her body had been completely absorbed.

  “It’s only a portal. She’s fine. I doubt if she even breathes air. It’s probably vengeance that pumps through her lungs,” Romanov said. The tension in his broad back had eased. He turned to her and she saw that his green eyes were his own. His rejection hadn’t been a trick of the queen.

  She forced her numbed fingers to let go of the sword. It fell with a ringing clank on the flagstones of the floor. Elena looked up at the saints in the windows. They were vivid in their pain, each martyred for one cause or another. Ivan Romanov belonged up there with them. Memorialized in stained glass.

  “I told you I wouldn’t bind you to the Ether,” he said.

  “Instead, you would allow Grigori to find me,” she said.

  “He has to come to the Gathering in order for me to kill him,” Romanov said.

  “I should be the one to defeat him with the Romanov blade. He is my monster. My nightmare. You can’t kill him with your bare hands as you kill the lesser witches,” Elena said.

  “I will do whatever I have to do to stop him,” Romanov said.

  “You heard the queen. The black wolf can’t take on a whole Gathering alone. They’ve been baiting you all along. That’s why they come Cycle after Cycle. Each one hopes to be the one who can deliver the last Romanov’s head to the Light Volkhvy queen or the Dark Volkhvy king. She created you, and now she will stand back and allow you to be killed if you shift during the Gathering to protect me,” Elena said.

  “I will do whatever I have to do to stop him,” he repeated.

  She was left alone in the chapel when he walked away.

  “Except give me your heart,” she said. The stained-glass saints died as martyrs all around her and they gave her no reply.

  Chapter 14

  The absence of the sword’s hum was a keen ache in her bones. The ache she also felt over Romanov’s rejection was overshadowed by concern. He had stood for Bronwal and his lost family for so long. She hadn’t realized what risks she would be asking the legendary warrior and his black wolf to face when she’d first climbed the mountain in the snow. Escaping Grigori had dominated her mind.

  If she escaped him now at the price of Romanov’s life, she would be tortured in a completely different way.

  She didn’t leave the sword where it had fallen in the chapel. Romanov had walked out without picking it up. He’d left it dull and silent at her feet. She had leaned over and picked it up herself. She’d resheathed it, and it was back at her side. She wouldn’t meekly accept his decision. The sword had chosen, and she had accepted its call.

  Romanov had rejected her, but what if he decided to shift to save her? What would that say about his true feelings for her? Would the sapphire sing to life in time for her to prevent his sacrifice?

  She had to hope the sapphire understood Romanov’s heart better than she could.

  But hope wasn’t enough. She only had one more week before the Gathering, and in that space of time she had to make Ivan Romanov change his mind. The sword had to be brought to life again before Grigori arrived. Somehow she had to get Romanov to accept her as the wielder of the sword and his mate, in spite of his desire to protect her. She had to risk her pride and her heart for a legendary warrior who might simply be fulfilling his duty. They’d had a fiery connection from the start. The chemistry between them was unmistakable. But the sword required a pledge of the heart, and Romanov might have lost his ability to love long before they met.

  * * *

  Elena in the chapel with Vasilisa had been almost more than he could bear. He’d always hated the Audience. The mirror was a horror. The Light queen had the power to destroy all he had left with the flick of her hand. Even when he’d been treated as a treasured pet as a young boy, he understood she wasn’t human and feared her. Her feelings were more volatile and changeable than a mere mortal’s could be. When his father had betrayed her and the curse had come down on Bronwal and all connected to it, his fears had been confirmed.

  He’d walked a fine line with her ever since.

  The Audience was required. He was compelled to attend and held in a paralyzed state while it occurred to ensure that the queen had safe passage. All of that had been a trial and tribulation he endured for his people time and time again.

  But up until Elena walked over the threshold of the chapel’s door, he hadn’t known true terror.

  If Vasilisa even suspected he cared for the petite ballerina, she would be lost. Hadn’t the Light Volkhvy queen taken everyone he’d ever loved away from him? The sword had almost given him away. The sapphire had almost refused to lose its glow. He’d had to let the black wolf totally claim his heart in order to fool Elena and the queen. Once Elena believed him, the sword finally let her go.

  He’d felt the sapphire die. He’d felt the cold numbness claim the woman he could have loved. And the black wolf had howled long and loud in the deep recesses of his body. Its savagery had helped him fool Elena, but even the wolf didn’t want to let her go.

  All the while, he’d stood facing the mirror, unable to turn around. He hadn’t seen Elena’s face. Worst of all, he hadn’t been able to go to her when Vasilisa saw the mark of Grigori upon her. The black wolf did more than howl when the Light queen said that the witchblood prince had claimed Elena. It had clawed and chewed and shredded his soul with its vicious teeth trying to get out.

  He had exposed Elena. To protect her from the queen, he’d betrayed her to Grigori. And the only way he could put it right was to loose the alpha wolf to prowl, even if that allowed Bronwal to fall.

  * * *

  Grigori knew where she was.

  The afternoon faded into evening, a
nd every second seemed to tick away like a bomb she was powerless to defuse. Her connection with the sword had hidden her from Grigori. Now that the connection was gone she felt exposed. It wouldn’t matter if she tried not to sleep. She’d tried that before. She’d used coffee and caffeine pills. More and more until her hands shook and her heart raced. And still she had always eventually slept. He hadn’t been able to physically touch her, but he was always there as soon as her eyes closed. One blink too languorous at 3:00 a.m. and suddenly she was gone into a nightmare world she couldn’t escape.

  And that was when she’d been protected by her mother’s spell.

  The Dark Volkhvy woman had touched her.

  Elena remembered the shock of the power flowing through her and the knowledge that her mother’s protection was almost gone.

  Elena trained for hours all alone in the courtyard with a sword that didn’t sing. But once the sun went down, she retreated to the tower room. The key to the lock was still around her neck. She’d recognized the roses and thorns on the mirror in the chapel. It wasn’t odd that the Light queen’s motif was worked into the construction of Bronwal. It had been built for her champions.

  There was no use in locking the door. She did it anyway. Grigori wasn’t welcome. She wanted to make that perfectly clear even if her will didn’t matter to him at all. He might not need her permission, but it still felt empowering not to give it. Eventually, after hours of waiting as wakefully as she could in a chair, she moved to the bed she’d shared only the night before with Romanov. The sheets had been changed. Patrice or Bell had come and gone. She didn’t even have the comfort of his scent on the pillows.

  She placed the Romanov blade beside her. It was a cool comfort, but a comfort nonetheless. Even powerless, it reminded her of whom she had chosen to be. She wouldn’t allow Grigori to take that from her even if he hurt her in her dreams. The fear that he might be able to physically touch her now caused her stomach to clench.

  But then she heard toenails on the stairs.

  First Lev and then Soren appeared at the door. She saw their great white and red heads position themselves on either side like sentries. They weren’t as big or as powerful as Ivan, but they were here. Perhaps their presence would keep Grigori away.

  * * *

  He found Lev and Soren where he’d ordered them to stand. They were wide-awake and alert even though it was well past midnight. He quietly approached and looked in the door. He didn’t try the handle. He needed to believe it was locked against him. One glimpse of Elena asleep on the bed they’d shared made him want to join her there and pull her into his arms.

  He didn’t.

  Instead, he turned and placed his back against the door. He crossed his arms over his chest.

  Her whereabouts might be visible to Grigori once more, but if he tried to appear he would face all three of the Romanov wolves.

  Chapter 15

  She had wings again. They were large and white and beautiful in the moonlight...until they were covered in her own blood. The cage was too small. Smaller than it had ever been. It constricted her movements including her ability to draw breath into her plump, feathered breast. Elena frantically beat against the bars of the cage. It was useless. She didn’t care. After weeks of freedom, the confinement was worse. Much worse.

  Because Grigori was there.

  He wasn’t with her in the nightmare as he usually was. He was with her body where it slept in the tower.

  “Your wolves won’t save you,” he said. His voice was sultry and low and so close to her that she realized he was bending close to her ear in real life. She felt his heated breath against skin, not feathers. In this nightmare, she was a swan in a cage. In real life, she had fallen asleep and Grigori had found her. He was there. Leaning over her helpless, sleeping form. “I’m only here to remind you that you’re mine. You can’t escape me. Your wolves are an inconvenience. No more. No less. And no matter what he’s done to you, it hasn’t erased my mark.”

  She stilled in her cage. Her tiny swan heart fluttered in distress. She needed to take to the sky. She needed to flee. But she was helpless. When the press of his hot lips came against her cheek, she could only react as the swan. She erupted in a furious, frantic explosion of bloody feathers. She flapped her wings even though they caught against the bars of the cage. She struggled even as she bled. She fought. She screamed as a swan with wordless cackles and cries. And Grigori laughed. He enjoyed her anger and her pain.

  But it wasn’t his laugh that woke her from the nightmare.

  Romanov called her name as Grigori’s soft and silky touch began to slide along her helpless arms. Romanov’s familiar voice rang out and delivered her from her sleep paralysis.

  She sat up. She struggled against a tangle of sheets.

  Thud.

  The scent of ozone filled the air, but it was dissipating through an open casement window. She had checked all the latches before she got in bed. It was pitch-black outside.

  Thud.

  Once she was free of the sheets, she ran to the window to latch it again, but that’s when she saw the shadowy form of a large raven distinct against the grayer black of the night sky. It circled around the tower, calling and calling.

  Thud.

  Its call sounded like Grigori’s laughter. It hadn’t been a dream. The witchblood prince had been in her room. He had touched her. Only Romanov had stopped him from continuing to molest her as she slept, trapped in a nightmare she couldn’t escape from by waking.

  “Elena!”

  The tower room door splintered in a loud crash as Romanov came into the room. He’d used his shoulder against it. She’d heard the thuds, but hadn’t processed what was happening. She’d only heard her name.

  “He was here. Physically here. He kissed my cheek,” Elena said. “He touched my arm.” Her insides were hollow. Her heart barely seemed to beat. “He was never able to do that before. My mother’s protection has faded away.”

  It was like losing her mother all over again. The shield had been powered by blood, but it had been love that had strengthened it and made it hold against Grigori. Her mother was gone.

  Romanov came to her. He reached for the sword in her hand that she hadn’t even realized she’d carried with her to the window. Its stone responded to his touch when his hand closed over hers. The pale blue light rose up and illuminated his face.

  Elena stepped forward to press against him. She needed his solidity and his strength.

  The stone’s glow increased. But Romanov didn’t pull away. His hand tightened over hers on the sword’s hilt, and his other arm came up to wrap around her back. He held her. He pressed her against his chest. Only then did she feel the trembling that racked her body. It wasn’t fear. It was anger. Pure fury that Grigori had dared to touch her. He’d done much worse in her nightmares for years. She’d experienced every depravity he could think of in her dreams. But nothing was worse than the actual violation of his lips on her skin.

  “I will kill him. I’ll spill every drop of his black blood,” Elena swore.

  Romanov didn’t argue. He held her while his brothers paced around the room. The large wolves were obviously shaken by the invading presence they could sense had been there.

  “I was just outside the door. We thought you were safe. Until you cried out in your sleep. The window should have made a noise. Lev and Soren should have smelled him,” Romanov said into her hair.

  “They’re used to the scent of ravens. And Ether. I’ve smelled it in the hallways. It’s like ozone after a storm. Grigori had never been able to get close enough to me for me to smell it before,” Elena said. “But he reeked of it.” Suddenly, she buried her face against Romanov’s chest. Long locks of his hair hung down. She snuggled into them, breathing deeply of his wintry, masculine scent. His scent drove Grigori’s away.

  The glow of the stone responded to his reaction
to her nuzzling. It grew brighter, bathing both of them in its light. The entire room was lit by the softest haze of blue now. It couldn’t be ignored.

  “The stone knows what you try to deny,” Elena said softly. She pulled back to look up at his face. His eyes held hers in the low light; they seemed a darker green in the shadows.

  “I’m not ruled by Vasilisa’s blade,” Romanov said.

  “You’ll die if I can’t wield the sword,” Elena said.

  “You’ll die if Vasilisa thinks that I care for you,” Romanov replied.

  He leaned down to kiss her and her lips opened eagerly beneath his. The kiss wasn’t tender. It was bruising and angry and all the more sweet because he lost control for a few seconds before he regained it and pulled away.

  Elena looked over his shoulder at the crushed tower door. It had come halfway off its iron hinges. The latch hung busted to the side. More evidence of the powerful feelings he wouldn’t share.

  “This was never a refuge, but it’s even less of one now that Grigori has tainted it. I can’t sleep here again,” she said. She reached for the key around her neck with her free hand. She lifted its chain from around her neck. The key dangled from the silver chain, more useless than it had ever been. She’d never been willing to use it against Romanov. While he watched, she dropped it on the floor at their feet. There would never be bars between them again.

  “You can’t be alone. This happened even with me and my brothers outside the door,” Romanov said. He held her too tightly but she didn’t pull away. If his ferocious grip was all he could offer, she wouldn’t push him away. “Come with me. The sword will light our way.”

  He didn’t let go of the hand that held the sword. It ended up gripped between them by both of their hands as they walked down the stairs. The faint blue glow spilled over the steps in front of them and they followed it away from the ravens, the key, and the wrought-iron bars made of thorns and roses.