Legendary Shifter

If he wouldn’t help her find the alpha wolf and fight Grigori, she would have to find the wolf and face the witchblood prince on her own. Romanov was a living, breathing legend, but he was finished. Fed up with the love and loss of this world and all the people in it. He wanted her gone because he wanted to die.

She jumped up when he turned toward the door. She couldn’t be caged. It was too much like her nightmare. But instead of running for the door, she rushed to her backpack. She unzipped the top and rummaged until she pulled her precious book from its depths. Instinct drove her now as instinct had driven her to follow its stories into the mountains. Her grandmother had been a wise woman. She’d treated the legends with respect. Romanov was at the door when she turned to show him the book. He needed to be reminded of what his family had been in the fight against the Dark Volkhvy. Of what he could be still.

“Stop,” Elena commanded. She held the book toward him and opened it as if she was the witch casting a spell. But in this cold, dark stone fortress, the book had lost its magic. It seemed small. Its colorful pages were more worn and faded than she remembered. It opened on her favorite scene. A lush forest of dozens of paper trees popped up from the page, and from between the trees three wolves ran. The white. The red. And the black. But they paled in comparison to the real wolves in the room, and they were so crumpled from use that they didn’t leap from the page as they had when she was a child.

Romanov looked from the book as the trees fluttered in her trembling hands up to her face.

“This is what brought you here?” he asked. The whole hollow castle seemed to still around them. His soft, pained voice echoed down the quiet stairs.

“My grandmother’s stories brought me here. She told them while we looked at this book,” Elena explained. The book itself wasn’t as impressive as her grandmother had been. In the same room as the last Romanov and his wolves, it wasn’t impressive at all.

But she couldn’t explain the pulse beneath her skin that had drawn her to his castle as if it were magnetized and she was raw ore dug up from the earth by an unseen hand.

He turned away again, from her and the legend, and Elena closed the book and dropped it onto her chair. She wouldn’t be locked in the tower. She would fight if she had to. The wolves led the way. They disappeared down the stairs in front of their master. Romanov’s large body blocked the door. He turned back to face her when he crossed the threshold. He slowly reached for the door to swing it closed.

“No. Wait,” Elena said. She rushed forward, but he shut the door too forcefully for her to prevent its closing. The lock clanked home as her hands gripped the iron vines. She pressed her face to the space between the bars. Romanov stood inches away from her, separated by the thick oak of the bottom of the door and the scrolling iron at the top, but also by centuries of experience that had left him jaded and untouchable.

Roses. She saw them closely now. Dozens of iron roses “grew” along the vine-shaped bars. The door was an ancient artisan’s masterpiece and a horror at the same time. She was trapped. The only thing that kept the scream from rising up from her gut was the absence of bloody feathers. As long as she was still herself, she could fight.

“You can’t keep me in here,” Elena protested.

Romanov leaned down. The firelight illuminated his face once more. He leaned so close that his raven hair brushed her cheek through the bars. He was older than she could imagine, even though he looked barely older than she was. He was more savage than anyone she’d ever encountered with his leather and furs and several white jagged lines from battle scars on his face, but he was also fiercely handsome. His rough, masculine beauty caused her to gasp at the sudden intimacy of his closeness. The door was between them but it felt like nothing at all.

She’d come looking for a legend, but he was real. She breathed in the scent of wind and snow held in his hair. And then she held her breath to keep from appreciating the wild bouquet. Of its own volition, her gaze cataloged every scar, every dark eyelash that lushly rimmed his eyes and the oddly vulnerable swell of his sensual lips. His eyes were hooded and hard, but the tenseness in his jaw eased when he noticed her catch her breath and hold it. He must have seen her sudden surprise at the physical attraction she felt for him in spite of her desperation. His gaze tracked over her face. She held her body still. She bit a lip that suddenly tingled because his were so kissable and so close. His attention dropped to her lips and then to her tight-knuckled grip on the bars. When he spoke, his voice was quiet.

“I’m not locking you in the tower, Elena Pavlova,” he said softly. His voice still vibrated against her even though they weren’t touching. It was deep, low and raw with some restrained emotion she couldn’t name. He looked back up, into her eyes. His gaze held her for long moments so that when he lifted an iron key scrolled with tiny vines and roses that matched the bars, she released her breath in surprise. The key dangled from a delicate silver chain and it bumped her hand again and again through the bars while he waited for her to move. She released the bar to open her hand for the key. Her fingers were shaking. Rather than dropping the chain, he lowered it slowly down into her palm to pile on top of the cool key in a slow, lazy coil of precious metal. For several seconds, his large hand rested over hers. His touch was light and warm. He stilled her trembling. She’d thought she knew his story, but his tale was still unfolding right before her eyes. She’d become a part of it, and it was a tale rife with danger.

She’d responded to the call. She’d come to the mountains for a legend and his wolves.

She’d found a man.

“The tower is for your protection. You hold the key while you’re here. Don’t be fooled by your pretty book. This isn’t a fairy-tale castle. Bronwal is cursed. Those who come and go from the Ether are forever changed and even while we’re in this world the Ether isn’t fully dispelled. Whatever you do, don’t consider this a refuge. The Volkhvy, both Dark and Light, aren’t to be trusted and neither am I. The Romanov curse is real...and deserved. Don’t forget that while you’re here,” Romanov said. He was warning her away. He wanted her to keep her distance. But he uttered the warning only after he’d leaned down until their lips were even closer together—nearly touching—between the iron bars. The door was nothing. It didn’t seem to exist at all. She looked up into his eyes and rather than repel, they caught and held her more thoroughly than any cage.

Perhaps it wasn’t the castle that was the magnet.

She’d been wrong. He was worn, not jaded. And he was touchable. Very touchable. It took all her self-control not to touch him now when he seemed to invite it.

“Sometimes the month passes in the blink of an eye and sometimes it stretches on in an endless trial. But however our time passes, it ends with a Volkhvy Gathering. If you came here to escape a Volkhvy prince, it was a mistake. They all come to dance on our graves. Or wasn’t that bit a part of the tale you were told?” Romanov whispered. “The Volkhvy, Dark and Light, are drawn to power. And Bronwal glows cruelly and seductively with power to their eyes. You’d do well to stay locked in this tower until the storm passes and you’re strong enough to leave.” His voice had dropped even lower and one sigh would have brought her to the taste of his lips. She held very still. She didn’t move. He dared her to greater intimacy, but she refrained. Because she could see that he was only torturing himself. He had no intention of kissing her. She wondered if he knew how much he tortured her too. His body was pressed to the outside of the door and hers was pressed against the inside. She could have sworn their body heat mingled even as they were kept apart.

“When you’ve caught the attention of a witchblood prince, there isn’t any place safe on earth,” Elena said. “I thought I was looking for refuge, but I’m not. I’m looking for a fighting chance.”

She straightened back from the bars and lifted her chin. She hadn’t come here to tempt a legend to kisses. She’d come to find a wolf and she didn’t intend to give up.

Chapter 3

Elena placed the key’s chain around her neck and let her means of freedom dangle down between her breasts like a pretty bauble. She couldn’t leave the tower immediately to hunt for the black wolf. She didn’t want to follow Romanov and the other wolves down the stairs. After the moments of intimacy through the bars of the door, she thought it best if she avoided the alpha wolf’s master. He wanted her to go away...and he didn’t at the same time. His actions didn’t match his words.

She found herself wanting to prove to Romanov that he was still alive. As if he could be woken from his stubborn vigil of despair by a kiss or a touch or an embrace. She hadn’t expected to find that sort of temptation at Bronwal. Romanov was a dangerous distraction she couldn’t afford. The pain in her knee was also a distraction she couldn’t afford. She always carried supplies to deal with her injury. In her backpack, she had first-aid cold packs, pain medication and a neoprene sleeve to offer support when she overdid.

Mountain climbing definitely qualified as overdoing.

She needed to treat her knee before she tried to do more. The strange compulsion that had called her to Bronwal now seemed to urge her on the hunt. She needed to resist that compulsion until she was sure that Romanov was farther away from her room.

Patrice surprised Elena before she could pull on the orthopedic sleeve. She opened the door with a key on an iron ring that hung from a braided leather belt around her waist. She led the way in front of a haphazard team of servants. They carried a large hip tub and a seemingly endless supply of steaming pitchers and pails full of hot water. Two large men in mismatched livery placed the wooden tub beside the fire. They both nodded in her direction before they left the room. Patrice gestured and the other servants walked forward one at a time to pour the water they were carrying into the tub.

Observing the procession was like watching time pass before her eyes. The people had hair and garb from varying centuries and all of them looked worse for wear. Elena’s chest tightened in sympathy. The curse had punished all of the Romanovs’ people, from the head of the powerful family to the tiniest chambermaid. It looked as if anyone who was able chipped in to do the work that had to be done even if it hadn’t been his or her original specialty. The liveried men had obviously been something other than maids in the past.

Once the tub was filled, Patrice pulled a corked vial from one of the numerous pockets in her shabby apron. When she opened the vial and upended it over the water, a light, fresh scent filled the air. Mint. Elena breathed deeply as the aromatic steam rose.

“That’ll warm your bones, Miss,” a pretty young girl said. When she smiled, a dimple graced her cheek alongside a sprinkling of freckles. “If you need anything while you’re here, they call me Bell.” She was last in line and emptied her chipped pitcher with a nod of accomplishment before turning to leave the room. Her dress was nicer than most. It had been patched and mended. And her brown curls were clean beneath a faded cap. The cap and her boots looked like she’d borrowed them from a boy twice her size. Elena supposed there was no one left to protest if a maid chose unconventional attire.

As before, Patrice didn’t say a word. She followed the last servant toward the door.

“Thank you. Thank you all,” Elena said.

She was surprised when the older woman paused at the door to look back over her shoulder. There was a crinkle in her forehead as if Elena’s thanks and the steaming tub confused her. Poor Patrice. Not all there, but still present enough to perform old duties long expected of her. She must have been a housekeeper to the Romanovs before the curse descended. Elena ached for her confusion, but then the puzzled look eased and Patrice turned back to walk out of the room. She closed the door behind her and the lock engaged.

So if the lock on the door wasn’t to protect her from Ether-addled servants, what did it protect her from? The Volkhvy, the Romanov wolves...or Romanov himself?

Elena reached up to grasp the iron key Romanov had given her. She closed her fingers around it, easily remembering the brush of his hand and the closeness of his lips as he’d warned her to stay locked in the tower of her own volition.

Those that come and go from the Ether are forever changed.

She’d seen dishonor walking with the witchblood prince. Romanov seemed its opposite in every way. Yet she couldn’t help if an insistent thrill of fear electrified the blood in her veins. He wasn’t what she’d expected. He was cursed by a dark enchantment she couldn’t imagine having endured for so long, but he was also undeniably attractive. Her urge to hunt that wouldn’t ease might well be blamed on the memory of the almost-kiss. He’d seemed so hungry for contact and so determined not to succumb. Still, she had to focus on the black wolf, not his master. She could fight Grigori without Romanov, but she couldn’t win without the alpha wolf.

A wolf hunt loomed, but Elena’s knee throbbed and she was cold to the marrow of her bones. She released the key and ignored it and her memories of Romanov’s nearness as she took off her long underwear. She was alone. The door was locked. She couldn’t resist soaking her whole body, including her knee, while she waited for the right time to leave the tower. There was no doubt that she would. She had come to Bronwal for a wolf champion. She wouldn’t leave without finding him first.

* * *

It was probably not wise to wander around a strange castle after midnight looking for a witch-eating wolf. Sometimes wise wasn’t an option when you were hunted by a witchblood prince and running out of time.

Elena had dried herself with rough towels the servants had left near the tub. She’d pulled on the one change of clothes she’d packed—underwear, jeans, a T-shirt and a loose-knit sweater. Soft-soled sneakers completed a look that was practical and completely out of place. If the servants had presented a hodgepodge of passing centuries that had briefly influenced castle life, she was fairly certain she would be the first person to walk Bronwal’s halls in jeggings.

Even after the bath, her body was exhausted. She might have opted for a quick nap before she left the tower to refresh herself if it wasn’t for the possibility that her sleep would be disturbed as usual by nightmares.

She wasn’t a swan.

She was a woman.

And hiding in a tower wasn’t going to solve her problems.

Her knee still ached, but she washed several pills down with a bottle of water she’d also packed in her bag. Patrice hadn’t thought to offer her food or drink and Romanov hadn’t returned with a tray. Thank God. She couldn’t handle another tête-à-tête with or without bars between them. Eventually, moonlight filtered through the wavy glass that must have been an extravagance when it was installed in the narrow tower windows. Had it been placed by magic before Vladimir’s betrayal? The whole castle was evidence of enchantment later darkened by the curse. The wavy stained glass glowed beautifully by the light of the moon while hungry ravens circled perpetually outside.

When Elena decided it was relatively safe to leave the room, she pulled the chain over her head and used the key to unlock the door. The sound of the tumblers moving in the lock echoed down the stairs with loud metallic clinks. She placed the chain back around her neck while she paused to wait for a reaction. No one came to stop her. From the top of the winding stair, she could only see torch-lit shadows flickering on the walls. Distant sounds came to her ears. Singing and sighs and soft sobbing from somewhere far away. The castle didn’t sleep. The atmosphere was one of restlessness and regret. Patrice wasn’t the only one who wandered. Romanov had warned her that it wasn’t safe. She risked running into Light or Dark Volkhvy or humans caught up in the curse and driven mad by their endless returns to the Ether.

Yet it was running into Romanov again that she most feared. His magnetism was at least as strong as the original pull that had drawn her to the mountains, but the curse had changed everything. She had to be careful about the darkness she’d found, in Romanov and in his castle. He was right. She had to resist her attraction to her host, but she also had to find the alpha wolf. Her resolve to resist Grigori was useless with no power to back it up.

* * *

Elena Pavlova would leave tomorrow. The training courtyard was the emptiest, most hollow place he had to endure during a Cycle and tonight it was rapidly becoming covered in a frigid blanket of snow. Nevertheless, Ivan had trained in it for hours. He rarely wasted a Cycle with sleep, but this time his restlessness had another cause. He would be haunted by her small, perfectly formed breasts for the rest of his days on earth. Her nipples had been hard from the cold and damp. Their rosy darkness had been vivid against the thin white silk of her unusual undergarments. He’d had to force himself to look away. And now he needed the snow and exertion to keep him sane.

She had been completely innocent of her inadvertent seduction. Not in the manner of a child, but in the manner of a woman who had more urgent matters than seduction to attend to. She had said she was a dancer. It showed in her every move. Even her limp was graceful, a careful shifting of weight and form. He was captivated by her manner of movement and her urgency. She’d flushed when she’d noticed his reaction to her disrobing. It had been a simple, practical removal of wet clothes not intended to shatter him completely.

But it had.

And then to pile torment on top of torment, she had paused in her desperate bid to ask for his help to tremble and stare. Her eyes had widened. She’d held her breath and captured the soft swell of her lower lip in her perfect white teeth. He’d been alone for a long time, but he knew the signs of desire when he saw them. Especially when he was burning with it himself.

First, she’d looked at him like she was searching for something he could never be. Then she’d looked at him as a woman looks at a man, and he’d wanted to respond to the hunger that had risen in her eyes.

He’d been blissfully numb before she came. He couldn’t remember the last Cycle where he’d felt anything but the growing wish to fade away. He’d gone through the motions. He’d cared for Lev and Soren. He’d endured the “honor” of the Volkhvy Gathering that was, in fact, a celebration of his eternal torture and the aura of power released by the Ether every materialization. But it had all been done in a haze of endurance as if he ran a marathon of epic distance with one stride more, then one more, then one more before the final finish line.

His haze had been cruelly lifted.

He struck again and again at the scarred oaken practice figures in the moonlit courtyard with the sapphire sword. The gem in its hilt was flat and plain. It was an enchanted sapphire, but it was only moonlight that occasionally caused its surface to glow. The Light Volkhvy queen, Vasilisa, had given the sword to his father as a gift for his mate. When Ivan’s mother had wielded the blade, the power in its gem had been dazzling. Now it was dulled by the curse.

The dead stone was doubly cruel because its moonlit dark blue reminded him of Elena’s serious gaze leveled on him with expectation and hope.

He couldn’t help her. He couldn’t revive the sword. His blows rained down on the oaken cross that had once been used to train the Romanov guard. Clouds of white burst into the air as every blow shook the wood and kept the snow from settling. They were all gone now. The Ether had eaten them. A devora. It had taken his father first. Perhaps justly, for it was Vladimir Romanov who had tried to betray the Light Volkhvy queen, Vasilisa. It hadn’t been strictly a political betrayal. It had been a betrayal of the heart. Ivan’s mother had been killed by the Dark Volkhvy king. Afterward, his father had become Vasilisa’s lover. But his father had craved more power. He hadn’t wanted to be a mere champion. He’d wanted to rule.

In retribution, Vasilisa had punished him and his offspring and all of his people.

Sweat poured down Ivan’s face like the tears he’d never allowed himself to shed as a teen when the weight of the world had fallen on his shoulders. Steam rose off his heated skin as the salty moisture hit the night air. He’d been raised to fight the Dark Volkhvy. As the oldest, he’d assumed leadership. He’d become the alpha. Even as a teen, he’d already been a battle-scarred warrior in those days. But he’d been unprepared to fight against dishonor, nothingness and despair. He’d carried on. For years, he’d tried to earn redemption while one after another after another of his people and loved ones faded away, Lev and Soren by his side.

He hadn’t been able to hold back the darkness. The Ether won, again and again. The curse was triumphant. Bronwal had been under siege for centuries and it wasn’t until Elena arrived that Ivan had realized, for him, it would never be over.

Because in that moment, at the door of her room, he’d known he had no intention of succumbing to the beast as his brothers had done. Neither would he vanish quietly into the Ether. He was the last Romanov. He would stand. Alone. Forever. To ensure that the curse ended with him. If he allowed himself to disappear into the Ether for good, the castle, the wolves and the sword would be undefended against anyone who might try to claim them when they materialized each Cycle. His brothers, Lev and Soren, had given up their humanity to escape permanently into their wolf forms. Either they couldn’t remember how to be men or they didn’t want to. The shame of their heritage was too great.

He would never abandon them, but would never join them.

He wasn’t free to help Elena Pavlova in his wolf form because he had to maintain his control and his human faculties. He had to defend Bronwal and keep possession of the sword. Until his unnaturally long life finally came to an end in death and dust.

He also wasn’t free to be a man with Elena. He had to resist the mutual attraction that had flared between them. The only way to break the Romanov curse was to guard against passing it on.

The cross he attacked with powerful blows finally disarmed him. With one last swing, he buried the sword too deeply to retrieve and he released its hilt. The dulled sapphire seemed to mock his resolve in the moonlight. Snowflakes immediately began to adhere to its surface now that it was stilled. Let it be there, buried deep in the oak, when the Dark Volkhvy came to try to steal it. Every Cycle, they came. And he was always ready. This time would be no different.

He was the alpha wolf that Elena Pavlova sought. But he wasn’t free to be wolf or man with the woman who needed his help.

Chapter 4

The lighting in the castle was as haphazard as the servants who had helped her the night before. With servants influenced by their time in the Ether, it was no surprise that jobs such as maintaining torches and lanterns went undone or half-done. The entire castle had an air of hushed neglect, but there was also a sense of expectation as if dust and cobwebs and candles waited and waited for care that never came.

Elena walked quietly on her sneakered feet. She placed her weight on her toes, unconsciously tiptoeing down gloomy halls. There had to be hundreds of empty rooms. She explored them, one by one. But the weight of what she found settled heavily on her heart. Her chest constricted and her breathing turned shallow. Again and again she found knitting laid to one side and never taken up again. She found dusty books marked with faded ribbons. There were chessboards waiting for next moves that would never come and clothes laid out that would never be worn. Toys abandoned.