The wolves temporarily broke the control of their Volkhvy masters because their instinctive fear of the white wolf was so strong. But their masters weren’t far behind. Once the witches caught up with their pack, they retained control by tightening their grip on the Ether in the wolves’ blood.
Madeline could see the marked Volkhvy. They had appeared on the sections of the wall that still stood. One. Two. Three. Then a dozen more. Anna had marked them all. She could see the shadowy bands of bellflowers shining darkly against the pale skin of one forehead after another. An ozone-scented breeze came with the witches. Their manipulation of the Ether had kicked up an unnatural storm. Instead of rain, drops of Ether appeared above their heads and fell in an oily drizzle. The ruby aura of her sword protected her. Since the wolves weren’t fortunate enough to have a shield, their fur became matted with oily residue.
But they ignored it.
The witches had halted their temporary milling about They massed into a cohesive force once the marked witches appeared. And with violent, synchronized gestures, the Volkhvy set their tainted pack on their prey.
Madeline and the white wolf stood between the pack and the fountain. They couldn’t afford to die and leave Trevor unprotected. But they could at least reduce the number of wolves that would follow them through the portal.
As soon as the first tainted wolf leaped and the white wolf tore him in half, Madeline knew they could do more than reduce the numbers. The white wolf wouldn’t let any of the tainted wolves pass. With him defending the portal, she was free to go after the witches. They would divide and conquer as they’d done before, only on a much larger scale. Then again, as large as Lev Romanov was as a man, he was a giant as a wolf. She would have to live up to his size and strength.
She had taken down one witch with a dead ruby sword. The confidence of the white wolf pulsed through her. They were connected. They’d always been connected; she just hadn’t known it. Now she didn’t just know, she embraced it. Her confusion and fear no longer stood between them. She and Lev were a perfect team. Her sword glowed, and all the strength and agility she’d rebuilt over the last few weeks was enhanced.
Thirteen witches were nothing to a Romanov warrior and her wolf.
She took the marked Volkhvy down one by one. Even though she wielded an enchanted blade, it was her determination that propelled her on each climb up the deteriorated wall. The witches had given themselves over completely to controlling the pack. Their focus was on the battle with the white wolf. Madeline took advantage of their distraction and killed them. One after another. By the fourth witch, she was drenched with sweat and shaking. By the tenth, she was barely able to make the climb. The white wolf was no longer white. His coat was marred by the black oil of Ether taint and by the wolves’ blood. The witches had already killed the wolves. They had become zombie vessels poisoned to death by the Ether that controlled them.
The white wolf laid their desecrated bodies to rest one by one just as she sent the evil Volkhvy into the Ether. She stabbed all of them through their black hearts with her ruby blade to ensure that they would never be able to hurt another wolf or another child.
The last three witches finally realized what was happening and disappeared, risking the Ether that already filled them to travel away from her blade.
Madeline collapsed to her knees. The ruby light faded, but not entirely. The gem was alive with the power of her connection with Lev. It had taken the white wolf’s ferocious devotion to her to feel it. Lev had fought the connection. For her. He’d wanted to give her the chance to turn away.
He hadn’t realized the white wolf would never turn away, no matter how much it hurt to stay by her side.
The white wolf was Lev’s heart. He confessed it without saying a word. Madeline struggled to her feet and went to the monstrous beast who had helped her defend the portal. He shied away from her hand, either because he was covered in grime or because he would never be tamed—she couldn’t be sure.
Madeline let him slip away. He stopped several paces from the fountain and turned around to face her. The ruby’s light was still in his eyes, even though she had cleaned and sheathed her blade. It wasn’t a reflection. Her eyes would look the same. The ruby’s power was in them as long as they accepted it.
For now, they couldn’t afford to push it away.
They still had a baby to save.
Madeline approached the fountain, giving the white wolf his space. He watched her suspiciously, as if she might try to put a collar around his neck if she came too close.
“Were you always this ridiculous, you silly beast? I’m only going to wash my face,” Madeline said. She scooped up water from the fountain and did just that. The white wolf sidled closer. “You could use with a face-washing yourself.”
And then Madeline splashed the huge white wolf that dwarfed her and the statues of all the Romanov wolves.
“It wasn’t you I feared. It was Vasilisa all along. I felt your fear of her. It woke me. It colored all my perceptions of you. And your anger at yourself. You shared that with me as well,” Madeline said.
It was time to step through the portal. But she had one more thing to say to Lev. She’d already told the man. Now she told the wolf.
“It wasn’t your fault. You weren’t to blame. But you know that in your wolf form better than you know it in your human form, don’t you? You didn’t focus on fault. You focused on being ready when the time came,” Madeline said.
The white wolf blinked at her. She saw Lev in his eyes.
“Come back to me when it’s time,” Madeline said. “Just as I came back to you.”
The white wolf whined. He lifted a giant paw and placed it in the icy water that flowed up from somewhere deep inside the mountain beneath them.
“I understand. It’s time to go,” Madeline said. “And I’m not sure how much you can understand, but I have to try.” She reached and grabbed the white wolf’s fur before he could slip away. She tightened her hold, and he turned his massive head toward her. She wasn’t afraid. He wouldn’t hurt her. The certainty of that filled her as surely as she could sense the powerful beating of his heart beneath her hand. “Vasilisa is helping Trevor. She’s preventing him from waking too soon. I know Lev hates all witches. He distrusts them. For good reason. But to protect Trevor, we can’t harm Vasilisa.”
The white wolf blinked at her. His muscles trembled beneath her grip. She didn’t let him go.
“I don’t know what we’ll find on the other side of the Ether when the portal takes us to Vasilisa. I only know I won’t allow you to harm her. We must save Trevor. We must protect him,” Madeline said. “He needs Vasilisa’s help.”
The white wolf whined again, and she allowed him to pull away from her hand. He didn’t jerk. He didn’t leap. Instead, he pulled gently.
“As big as you are, I suppose I should be grateful of the consideration, but seriously, haven’t you learned by now I’m not going to break?” Madeline asked.
Her body did protest when she leaped into the fountain to stand beside Lev. This time she didn’t try to hold him. He wasn’t tame. He wasn’t a companion or a pet. He was her wild wolf. And in this form, he barely knew his name.
He might not have understood her words about the queen. It might be dangerous to allow him to step through the portal as the white wolf, but somehow, she thought the wolf was more malleable than the man. Lev might not be capable of standing down. When he saw Vasilisa again for the first time since he’d found his family, he might react more ferociously as a human father. It was a risk she had to take. To trust the wolf. Because there was no way of knowing what they would find on the other side.
There was no place close to Vasilisa’s portal for the plane to land. Aleksandr had to risk the Ether in order to reach his quarry before it was too late. His body was already filled to overflowing with the black rush of the Ether itself. He could feel it travel inside him, along with his blood. Its chill coated his heart, slowing its beat. All of his visible veins gleamed darkly beneath his skin in a spidery network. And now, as he rose from his seat on the plane, he looked down to see that the viscous liquid was seeping from his pores to flow in thick tendrils on top of his skin.
He no longer knew how he escaped the constant vacuum. Every step took effort. Every inhale and exhale was bubbly and wet. But he couldn’t abandon his chase. If the white wolf and his warrior reached their baby and triumphantly reclaimed their connection, he would lose everything. He’d sacrificed his autonomy to win. He had all but given himself to the Ether. All he had left was his goal: to defeat Vasilisa and rule the Volkhvy in her stead.
Aleksandr stood in the center of the plane, which was rocketing over the Carpathian Mountains. Far below, Lev and Madeline Romanov had all but defeated his witches and their wolves. Only a few had escaped through the Ether as a last-ditch effort to retreat. He’d felt the ripples of their travel in the Ether that flowed in his body. He’d heard their warning screams in his head.
The white wolf had appeared. Lev Romanov had shifted. Perhaps Aleksandr should have retreated as well, but the Ether rode him too insidiously to consider escape. There was no going back. There was only the battle ahead.
It required no effort to channel more Ether to surround him. All of his effort was spent trying not to be devoured as the black sphere formed. He couldn’t risk traveling through the Ether. He would travel with it instead.
Within moments, the sphere was thick enough to protect him. Never mind that he trembled within the black hole it created inside the plane. He fought its hunger, continued to fight it as the bubble sank through the floor of the plane and out into the Carpathian sky.
The sphere of Ether fell with him inside it. It carried him to the ground. At impact, the sphere burst, expelling him as if it had given birth. The ground was drenched in oily fluid, but in moments it had become thicker. Its cold embrace was drawn back to his body, and he was suddenly covered with flowing Ether as he’d been before.
Only this time, the Ether rooted itself into his pores, settling more firmly against him like a living, lurching second skin. Aleksandr was hundreds of pounds heavier than he’d been before. It took all his remaining strength to pick up his feet and put them down again in a shambling march as he set out to find the portal that would take him safely through the Ether to Vasilisa’s side.
Safely.
Oily laughter erupted from Aleksandr’s black lips at the thought. He tamped down the panic that rose with the eerie outburst of humor.
He was no longer sure the laughter was his own.