She was tired and sore to the bone. Her body ached with every heartbeat, or maybe it was only heartache that resonated outward with her Volkhvy blood as it pumped through an organ that was useless save for circulation.
She loved Soren.
Her mother was right.
But her love had to be denied.
They had been nothing but companions for centuries, a girl and her wolf. In truth, they had always been more. There was a connection between them and it was one that could never be severed, not even with the sword’s destruction. But their connection couldn’t be indulged. Not now when she’d seen time and again how fiercely Soren fought against it. And not ever if she wanted to avoid becoming too powerful to control her abilities.
Anna turned the hot-water tap on full blast and sat on the edge of the large claw-foot tub in her bedroom’s bath. As the steam rose to fill the room with swirling, soothing fog, she remembered the way they’d had to heat water on the kitchen fire and carry it in containers to wooden tubs for bathing. It had been an arduous chore and, more often than not, baths had been taken in an inch or two of rapidly cooling water. To fill a tub for soaking would have been a pure, selfish luxury they couldn’t afford in a cursed castle where the clock was always counting down as they ran out of time.
Volkhvy blood rose like black smoke from the skin to disappear into the Ether when it was spilled. She ran the tub full of hot water more to cleanse her thoughts and soak her sore muscles than to wash. Her hair had loosened and tumbled down from her dinner coiffure during the battle. She took the bulk of it in her hands and wound it in a pile on top of her head, where she pinned it with a clip she’d found in the vanity drawer. Her nightgown was already hanging from her shoulders. The fight had been too rough for the delicate material. With only a tug, she pulled what was left of it free and allowed it to puddle on the floor.
And then she thought of Soren.
Of course she did.
The steam had fogged up the room and the full-length mirror that sat opposite the tub. The ghostly reflection of her nude form mocked her in the glass. The bath wouldn’t soothe her. Its heat wasn’t the heat she craved.
Anna lifted a leg and stepped into the water anyway. What else could she do? Soren had run away from her again. He’d been right to run. When they were together, it was hard to remember why they needed to stay apart.
The water welcomed her with a hot embrace that made her gasp, then sigh as she sank down into the tub. She leaned back against the highest end of the warmed enamel and propped herself with her arms on either side. She closed her eyes and knew it for a mistake as soon as memories of Soren’s kisses came flooding back to life in senses heightened by the lack of visual distraction.
* * *
The hot water lapped just over the rounded globes of Anna’s breasts. The rest of her was a pale, shimmering mystery under the steaming liquid as vapor continued to rise. Soren drew in a shaky breath to steady himself in the doorway, and the heat and humidity infiltrated his lungs with languorous, heavy air.
He grabbed the frame of the door with both hands to hold himself where he should stay.
“I came back,” he said softly. Anna opened her eyes. He thought to reassure her, but she wasn’t startled. Some part of her must have already known he was there. “It isn’t safe for you to be alone. There’s no way of knowing if there are others who might attack before the night is out.”
“I can take care of myself,” Anna replied. She hadn’t locked the doors to keep him out. She’d hoped he’d return. Besides, her abilities protected her from a Volkhvy threat better than any lock and key.
She didn’t sink deeper into the water. She didn’t cover her nudity with her hands. She simply watched as if she waited to see what he would do. She didn’t order him away. His grip tightened on the doorjamb without him consciously deciding that he needed to tighten it. The slightest hint of rose scent tantalized, because he knew it would be sweeter and muskier breathed in deeply from the skin of her neck.
“I know,” Soren said. “But you shouldn’t have to. Not as long as I’m with you. I’ll fight by your side.”
He couldn’t promise that he’d be by her side forever. He could only promise that while he was with her he would have her back as he’d always done.
“I don’t need a champion. You saw me. You saw what I’m capable of,” Anna said. Her voice trembled. He could hear her fear. He watched as her jaw tightened against it.
His hands loosened. He allowed them to slide down the door’s frame. Anna’s eyes tracked his hands. Then her gaze flew to his face. She sat up in the water. She was no longer reclined. The moist pink areolae of her breasts were exposed.
“Then I offer no champion. Only a partner. Only a friend,” Soren said. He didn’t feel friendly. His body was on fire with need and anticipation. He hadn’t consciously come back to the palace to finish what they’d started earlier in the evening, but he couldn’t walk away.
She was a sultry vision in the bath. Her nipples were still barely submerged, but their peaked tips caused his lips to go dry. He hardened, and only then did he realize he’d come to her still naked from his shift. His erection was a confession that drew her gaze and caused a flush to rise on her damp cheeks.
“Only a friend?” Anna asked. Her lips curled slightly into a smile that was at once familiar and electrifyingly new.
And that was when he knew they’d won a fight with the Volkhvy, but his battle against his desire for one special witch had been lost.
* * *
Soren appeared in the doorway like a god fallen from the heavens. His tall, muscular form was as she remembered it from the day she’d almost died, but this time, she was fully conscious and able to appreciate every curve and angle. He was perfect, from his damp russet hair to his long pale legs dusted with darker hair. His angular face was graced only with a trimmed red shadow of a beard that highlighted his cheek and jaw—and the tension in his jaw as he held himself in the doorway.
He wanted to join her.
She saw the need in his hard face and his glittering eyes even before she saw it elsewhere.
His arms were braced and bulging with muscle. His knuckles were white as he held on.
But it was the direction of his gaze that caused her to melt. Her nipples hardened with need as he moistened his lips. His grip loosened and his hands dropped from the door. And then his penis jutted proudly from a nest of dark red curls.
Anna stood at exactly the same moment that Soren stepped into the bathroom. Water sluiced off her skin, but she didn’t have time to shiver. Because Soren took several more steps. He paused beside the tub. He lifted one hand to her face. She drew in a shaky breath as he cupped her cheek.
“We aren’t alone. There are guards stationed outside your door. They allowed me to pass,” Soren said.
Anna imagined their shock when a nude legendary wolf had made himself at home in their midst.
“So we won’t steal a night together,” Anna decided. “We’ll claim it. We’ll take it. After all this time, we deserve a taste of what might have been.”
“I would walk away now, if you wished it,” Soren offered. His touch was gentle, but his body was hard with tension. Heat radiated off his naked skin as he held himself in check.
“One day soon we’ll both walk away. But not now. Not tonight,” Anna whispered. She met his gaze. Steam had dissipated. The water around her legs had grown cold. But she didn’t shiver. The heat in Soren’s amber eyes warmed her.
“Not tonight,” Soren agreed.
Anna reached for him. Soren dropped his hand, and she placed her palms on his shoulders. She measured their broad span for a stunned second. Then she looked into Soren’s eyes. They had narrowed slightly with humor at her reaction, crinkling at the edges.
“I don’t remember you being this...big,” Anna said. Her face flushed as she thought of other ways he was big in addition to his shoulders. The crinkles at the edges of his eyes grew deeper. But then his humor disappeared. He leaned to place his forehead against hers.
“I would never hurt you,” Soren said. “One of the reasons I run is to know myself again. To get used to this body. I work every day for precision and control.”
Anna’s heartbeat kicked up a notch. She knew. She saw. His strength and grace. His power and his perfection. Oh, he had scars. He had lived a very long time and fought many battles. But they only added a storied past to his perfection. Legends behind his handsome face.
“I want to know you,” Anna confessed.
Soren stilled. His breath caught and his movement ceased. He continued, unmoving, as she caressed from his strong neck down to the rounded curves of his biceps. She measured them on both sides with the spread of her fingers, which didn’t reach even halfway around. Then she paused to hold his obvious strength in the palms of her hands.
Only then did he release a long, slow exhale. He lifted his forehead from hers. She looked up at his sudden movement away from her. But it was only temporary. When her chin lifted and her lips became accessible, Soren leaned in again to capture her lower lip. He suckled it while he watched her reaction and then when she gasped, he bathed it with his rough, moist tongue.
“I’m yours. For tonight,” Soren said against her mouth as he released her. The intimate offer caused a hot coil of desire to suddenly tighten in the pit of her stomach. Her chest also tightened, but she ignored that darker emotion in favor of pressing her mouth to his for a deeper taste.
He’d sensitized her lips with his suckling. His tongue had shattered her equilibrium. She was light-headed even before the crackle of the Ether’s energy arced from her mouth to his. The jolt was only an amplification of the chemistry that already existed between them. But it enhanced, from the slide of their tongues to the tingle in her nipples to the fire at the juncture of her thighs.
Soren cried out his pleasure in the slight electric pain of the arc that must have enhanced what was already happening to him, too.
“Tonight might kill me,” he growled. She tasted perspiration on his lips.
“No. We’ll die tomorrow and the next day and the next. Tonight we live. We savor,” Anna said.
Soren reached for the towel she’d left on a chair near the tub. He wrapped her in its soft folds and lifted her into his arms. She didn’t protest. She held on as he carried her into the bedroom beneath the stars.
It was dark before dawn. The moon had disappeared, and only the persistent twinkle of stars remained visible through the glass dome over their heads. Suddenly, Anna held tighter to Soren’s neck as she thought of her aviary. And all the times they’d sat together on the ramparts of Bronwal beneath the stars.
“Is it too much? The difference in me?” Soren asked. He had paused in the middle of the room. The shadows hid his face but not his concerns.
“I could ask you the same,” Anna said. “My answer is yes and no. You are Soren, the red Romanov wolf. You are the same in all the ways that matter, and you are new in ways that shake me to my toes.”
She pressed her lips to his shoulder and flicked her tongue out to taste his skin. She licked his neck and then suckled where his pulse throbbed. He shuddered beneath the sensual attack. He brought a hand up to thread into her hair and hold her as she nuzzled and nipped his skin.
“You are wholly new to me, but that’s because I didn’t know you—all of you—before. You are a woman and a warrior and a witch. I thought you were my Bell, but you are Anna. Never to be mine, but precious all the same,” Soren said.
Anna’s eyes burned with unshed emotion.
He might not love her, but he didn’t hate all Volkhvy. Not now. Not while he held her and felt her lips on his skin. He carried her to the bed, but he didn’t lay her on it. Instead, just as he’d done when he’d stepped into the mirror, he turned to back up to the bed and sit on its edge. He lay back on the mounded coverlet. He took her with him into the soft bed. They sank together. The canopy’s diaphanous coverings were translucent, but they still created a sense of privacy and retreat.
They’d found an intimate hideaway in a chaotic world.
“I’ve wanted you in this bed,” Anna said. His arms loosened, and she was able to rearrange herself as she liked. She liked. A lot. There was so much man beneath her that she didn’t know where to begin, but she naturally settled her heat against his flat, hard stomach. His erection bumped against her, fiery, hot and ready.
But he’d given her a gift, and she intended to collect.
“You’re mine? For tonight?” Anna asked.
“Yes,” Soren replied. He held himself still again. She could tell he was waiting to see what she wanted and wished. Heady anticipation filled her, hardening her nipples and pulsing between her legs. She arched her back and rocked against him, energy flaring along with her desire, arcing between their bodies everywhere they touched. “Yes,” Soren repeated, this time breathless with need.
He was long and hard against her bottom. Thickened and slick. She was slick, too. Her excitement had quickened her core. She slid against his stomach as she undulated, and the sweet scent of her musk rose in the air.
“Mine,” Anna said. And this time she wasn’t asking for clarification or permission.
She slid off to lie beside him, but even as he groaned a protest, she claimed her wolf. She leaned over him to explore his naked chest with her lips. Although her heartbeat fluttered, she wasn’t tentative. Nearly overwhelmed by the feast before her, yes, but not intimidated.
Anna took her time, but only in order to memorize every inch of him. She would never be able to make love to him again. Every kiss. Every caress. Every hot gasp she drew from his naked body had to be remembered forever.
She kissed around the hard swell of each pectoral muscle. Even though his muscles were hard, she could feel his heartbeat beneath her lips. She tasted the perspiration of his excitement. She rode the rapid rise and fall of his shallow breathing as she leaned into him.
The starlight wasn’t enough. She couldn’t see him as well as she’d like. She could only depend upon her lips to trace and her tongue to taste.
And her hand to follow.
She controlled her power. She only allowed the lightest of electric shocks to arc between her fingers and his skin. The green glow lit up the contours of his muscled chest, his rippled abdomen and the dip that led to...
Anna tamped down her power and took his hot erection in her hand. He was excited and well-endowed. He more than filled her hand with several inches revealed beyond the grip of her fist. Soren tossed his head back in abandon and jerked his hips up to thrust himself into her fist. She leaned over him to muffle his moans with her kisses. She licked his gasps from his lips and teased her tongue into his mouth. He reached to hold the back of her head and deepen the kiss while she stroked the smooth, steely length of him.
“Yes. Anna. Yes. Please,” Soren moaned into her mouth.
He was an enchanted shape-shifter, powerful and dangerous and more than most women would brave. But Anna wasn’t most women. She was a warrior. And it seemed like she’d been waiting for Soren to beg for her touch for a long time.
Anna rose up on her knees and Soren stilled again as if he knew what she wanted to do. He stopped thrusting. He fell silent. Until she leaned to take the head of his erection in her mouth. She closed her mouth over him. She licked and suckled and he cried out once more.
Suddenly, she was afraid of her hunger to please him. One night wasn’t enough. It would never be enough.
But it was all she had.
Anna’s fear fled.
She moved her hand out of the way so she could envelop him deeply. She took all of him into her mouth. And then she found a rhythm that made him call out her name. He took up most of her bed. He could fight a whole horde of Dark Volkhvy. But his sweet, salty pleasure was hers and hers alone. He was hers. For tonight. She brought the legendary wolf to earth, to fully inhabit his human body.
* * *
For her.
Always for her.
Soren shook as he fought his release, every muscle and every cell tensed against it until he collapsed back on the bed. Anna didn’t protest. She allowed him to pull her back up to lie across his chest.
“If you kill me, you’ll have to go after the sword alone,” he teased. Her hair had tumbled down. If he drowned in silky rose-scented curls, he would die happy, but she didn’t need to know that. He already tingled from the effects of her power. It vibrated beneath his skin, making him breathless the same way a rush of adrenaline would.
He didn’t hate it.
That alone should make him get up and walk away.
“You like my power, but you don’t like that you like it,” Anna guessed.
“I’ve shifted twice in the last few days, but making love makes me feel very human. Maybe too human,” Soren said. “I want this feeling to last.”
The last was a confession. One he hated to make. Because it didn’t matter what he wanted. Tomorrow they would leave the island to go in search of the emerald sword.