Lev was hurt, and he couldn’t shift to speed his healing. The wolves had ravaged his body. He was beaten and bruised everywhere he wasn’t bleeding, and the grueling run to escape the wolves had taxed his abilities after the attack. As the white wolf, he could have carried Madeline farther and faster. But even the wildest of the Romanov wolves had his limits.
Straluci was close. The Volkhvy and the wolves they controlled were also drawing closer. He’d outrun them for now. Even injured, he could beat natural wolves. But he thought he could detect the ozone scent of Ether’s energy on the early morning breeze. The wolves weren’t natural wolves. Not anymore. If the wolves that tracked them now were also being flooded with Ether channeled into them by their Volkhvy masters, it wouldn’t take them long to catch up.
Lev waited for Madeline to wash up in the stream he’d found. He’d done the same, but the tainted mouths of the wolves that had attacked him had done more than rip his skin. He could feel his Romanov blood fighting the black stain of infection the wolves had shared with him. The shift would clear it in an instant, but in his human form, his body had to wage a slower fight. He would still heal, but it would take too long.
They needed to reach the portal and use it to find Vasilisa and Trevor before the wolves and the marked Volkhvy caught up with them. But the portal would take them through the Ether itself, and he wasn’t strong enough to fight the vacuum, not when tendrils of Ether’s energy had invaded his blood like a disease.
Madeline couldn’t go alone. Not with nothing but a dead sword by her side.
He mentioned nothing to Maddy when she came back from the stream. The skin around her eyes was already pinched with worry and fatigue. They would press on to Straluci and be there by nightfall. Once there, he would reevaluate his condition.
He would gladly risk his life for Trevor and Madeline. But if he disappeared into the Ether before he could rid them of the Volkhvy threat, he would fail greater than he’d failed before.
He wouldn’t allow that to happen. They were awake now. They needed him. Ether-tainted blood or not, he needed to succeed.
He would make certain that Madeline and Trevor were safe from Vasilisa. And then he would disappear to keep them save from the white wolf as well.
Something was wrong.
Madeline put her sword in its sheath and tightened the straps around her chest. Then she shrugged into her nearly empty backpack. But the entire time she prepared for travel, she could sense increased urgency in Lev. He’d been up with the sun, and to the stream and back before she rose. His hair had already dried in a wild blond mane around his face. The streak of white in front startled against his golden beard when the wind blew. But it was his hard, unsmiling face that drew her attention again and again.
Perhaps he regretted the night before.
It certainly hadn’t been wise for them to get carried away with memories and physical attraction. Even now, she had to fight the urge to go to him, brush his hair back from his face and kiss the frown from his lips. Long ago, she would have done exactly that. She knew that now. Just enough of her memories had been unlocked for her to know that she’d loved Lev Romanov once. He had been the wildest of the Romanov brothers—the most likely to shift and stay shifted for long periods of time. He’d also been a ferocious fighter. She’d loved all of those qualities about him. She’d remembered their combustible desire last night, but she’d also remembered the face of a softer, younger version of the man who was currently made of steel flesh. The Lev Romanov she’d loved as a young woman had been wild, but he’d also been much easier to tame.
Waking to this older and more ferocious version of Lev had been overwhelming.
But she suspected it was more than their past and the present stolen moments of intimacy coloring his mood.
Lev was hurt.
She’d become so accustomed to his powerful grace over the last few days. This morning he moved slowly and carefully. His shoulders were as stiff as his face, and he grimaced several times when a particular reach or stoop strained at the wolf bites on his skin. Lev healed more quickly than an ordinary man, but the wolves he’d fought had been more savage than ordinary wolves.
“Straluci is half a day’s hike up the mountain. We should get started,” Lev said. If he noticed her appraising his condition, he didn’t acknowledge her concern. He merely started out, one long stride after another, and she was forced to hurry to keep up. Her stride wasn’t exactly short, but Lev was over six feet tall. “We need to keep up a brisk pace. Let me know if you need help,” Lev said.
The fact that he didn’t carry her spoke volumes about his condition. Or maybe it spoke volumes as to how he felt about last night. Madeline vowed to keep up or die trying rather than be a burden. Not only did she want to spare him the extra effort, but she also didn’t want to spend hours in his arms, pressed to his chest, the two of them so close together.
Last night had been a mistake. She was certain they both knew it. She was also certain it would be only too easy to make the same mistake again. He wasn’t the same man. She wasn’t the same woman. But their bodies were still drawn together even after all this time.
“Our stalkers are out there. I can pick up a hint of their scent on the morning breeze. But we have time to reach Straluci. If we hurry,” Lev said. “I think.”
Madeline hastened her pace to match Lev’s as his increased. They were practically jogging up the mountain toward the place where she thought she’d seen a hint of tarnished copper towers in the distance last night. The terrain was rough and rocky. They left the scent of flowers behind and walked once more into air tinged with spruce and pine.
But Madeline’s nose twitched occasionally. It was impossible, but she thought she detected a whiff of Ether’s stormy ozone scent every now and then as they hiked. It had to be her imagination, though. She didn’t have Lev’s nose. She only had visions of the attack from yesterday—the wolves leaping on Lev as the Ether forced into them by the Volkhvy drove them mad.
She was being hunted by a pack of tainted wolves and their Volkhvy masters, but it was her thudding heart that spurred her onward. It beat for her baby. Not for the man who led the way toward Straluci. He was once again a stranger to her this morning. His thoughts and feelings were shielded behind his stony face. Perhaps he had loved her and Trevor at one time, but the white wolf had long since taken over his heart. He helped her now because he sought vengeance against the Volkhvy.
His reasons shouldn’t matter. She should just be glad for the aid. This way she could accept his help and easily say goodbye once Trevor was saved.
If only there wasn’t a pang between every heartbeat that seemed to whisper Lev’s name.