Anna had thought they might need to travel through the Ether many more times before they reached the Dark Volkhvy fortress, but the power from her connection with Soren and the fear of the white wolf propelled them the rest of the way.
This time when they materialized, they both fell forward onto hard, rocky terrain. The impact knocked the air from her body and grazed the side of her face where her cheek slid on the ground as she fell. She tasted blood. The fall had also busted her lower lip. She bathed it with her tongue as she struggled to draw air into her shocked lungs.
The emerald sword is near.
“Are you okay?” Soren asked. He was already up. The impact had barely made him pause. He reached out his hand toward her and she managed to take it, although everything was blurry in front of her. She blinked. She focused as he pulled her easily to her feet.
A mountainous landscape swam into view all around them. As did a sprawling home on the side of a sheer cliff about a mile away. It had been crafted of cement and glass. There were no obvious doors, and a few seconds’ observation revealed that it was more fortress than house. The cement curved attractively, but it also walled off the glass high from the ground. It took her a second to understand that the odd rainbowlike ripples on the glass were in fact reflections of the eerie atmosphere that hung above the canyon the cliff faced.
“It’s the Ether. It’s visible here,” Anna said. Shock and wonder filled her voice, but it was also colored by horror. The power of the Ether buffeted her senses. She couldn’t imagine choosing to live so close to its manifested presence. Although the energy it expelled probably helped to fortify the building bathed in its light.
“Ivan said the witchblood prince lived near the Ether. He grew up in this atmosphere,” Soren said. Anna could tell he felt the Ether’s power, even though he wasn’t a witch. She moved closer to him, instinctively wanting to block the rainbow light from touching his handsome features.
“We have to go to the fortress. That’s where the sword is being held,” Anna said.
Soren’s eyes had narrowed when she’d positioned herself between him and the shimmering aurora borealis–like atmosphere. She stood facing him with her back to the deceptively beautiful rainbow. He looked at it over her shoulder, and then his gaze came back to her face.
“How bad is the vacuum you fight in this place?” he asked.
He hadn’t let go of her hand when he’d pulled her to her feet. His fingers tightened around hers as if he would hold her if the Ether tried to take her away. He looked as if he could. Not only because of his broad shoulders, muscular arms and powerful frame, but also because of the intensity of determination that shone from his eyes. The usual warm amber of his irises suddenly looked like chips of agate crystal, and his grip on her hand seemed unshakable.
It was an illusion.
No one could hold out against the vacuum of the Ether forever—not even an enchanted legendary wolf or the witch who loved him.
She could feel its pull, colder and stronger than she’d ever felt it before.
But she lied.
“I’m not going anywhere. Our connection will give me the power I need to resist the vacuum. I can use the Ether’s energy without succumbing to it. At least long enough to retrieve the sword,” Anna said.
She wouldn’t reveal that she’d had another grim thought about how she could release the sword. Death or disintegration in the Ether—they were one and the same. To save Soren she would have to sacrifice herself. She just had to choose—the white wolf’s hunger or the Ether’s.
* * *
Soren knew Anna was lying. He could see the fight she waged against the Ether’s vacuum in her body and her eyes. Her jaw was tense. Her shoulders braced. Her hand gripped his as if she dangled over the edge of the cliff he faced. He just wasn’t sure why she didn’t tell him the truth. He would spare her this if he could. He would give her the sword and his heart and pledge to her his teeth and his claws for eternity if he wouldn’t also condemn his family to Volkhvy danger at the same time.
“If it wasn’t for the baby, we would leave this place...” Soren began.
“For the baby, for Elena, for Ivan and for Lev. And for you,” Anna said. “I won’t leave until I’ve done what has to be done. For all of Bronwal.”
Suddenly, she spoke truth. He could hear the difference in her voice. He could see the change blazing in her emerald eyes. He could hardly remember when they’d been a soft hazel with only a hint of green in the firelight or the sunshine. Her power was such a part of her now. He couldn’t imagine her without it.
They’d had to use her power to find the sword and to travel to it. They would have to use her power to wrest the sword from the Dark Volkhvy’s control. They would have to use it to destroy the sword. In their lovemaking, he’d had an intimate connection with her Volkhvy abilities and the way she channeled the energy of the Ether.
Her power had pulsed through him.
But for all that, he couldn’t forget what Vasilisa had done. The horrible curse and the damage she had inflicted with her Volkhvy abilities would haunt him for the rest of his days.
Anna stood between him and the atmosphere that shimmered colorfully and coldly behind her. It was beautiful and it was a horror, one he’d endured for more years than most men lived. The contradiction of its nature was represented in the woman he loved. She was lovely, from her power-tossed curls highlighted by the dangerous rainbow atmosphere to her emerald eyes, from her soft curves to her hard determination to survive. She was also deadly. Even without the emerald sword, she was the queen’s daughter. With the emerald sword magnifying her abilities, she would be unstoppable.
What they prepared to do had to be done, even if it hollowed his chest and sickened his gut.
He would lose her, but she would live. And his family wouldn’t be joined to a Volkhvy clan that had already tortured them for centuries.
* * *
Soren had the experience of centuries behind his perceptions. Anna fought to keep her intentions to herself. If he knew she was even contemplating sacrificing herself to save the sword for him, he would try to stop her. Her only hope of stopping its destruction was to move forward as if she still intended to follow their original plan.
“They’ll know we’re coming. The emerald will give us away,” Anna warned. She would distract him with action until they had the sword. If they defeated the Dark Volkhvy, then she would worry about facing Soren’s reaction to the truth—that she couldn’t allow him to sacrifice any chance at future partnership and happiness because she was a witch.
And deep in her chest, her heart beat the question: The Ether’s cold or the white wolf’s bite? The white wolf’s bite or the Ether’s cold?
She shivered at the very idea of allowing the Ether to take her after fighting against it for so long.
Her love for Soren was the only reason she could even contemplate such a fate.
“Oh, they’ll know we’re coming by much more than that,” Soren said with a dark smile.
His hand loosened and slipped from hers. He backed several paces away. His move placed him fully in the glow of the Ether’s light, and the eerie shimmer illuminated the intention on his face. Like the windows of the fortress, Soren’s amber eyes reflected the rainbow. His russet hair was tipped on the sun-lightened ends by gold and lavender and blue.
He was fully the legend she knew and loved in that moment before he shifted.
Anna’s heart expanded—not torn, not shredded after all.
And then the sudden shaking of the earth tossed her to her knees. She stayed, kneeling on the hard ground, while she watched Soren shift into her giant red wolf. Her body screamed with empathy as he cried out with the pain of his limbs and spine and face morphing into the massive canine shape, so familiar, so beloved, but even more so now that she loved the man.
“Soren,” Anna said as he leaped and landed in front of her on four paws.
The shift was horrible. The result was perfectly beautiful either way. Whether Soren went from a man to a wolf or vice versa, he was breathtaking once the shift was complete. The red wolf nuzzled her hair as if to say “Hello.” Anna thought maybe Soren breathed in her scent in a deeper, more appreciative way with his wolf’s nose than he could with his own.
She reached for his russet scruff and fisted both hands in it to help raise herself to her feet. She’d made such a move hundreds of time before. They danced a dance of familiar partnership as she stood and he made way for her beside his large shoulder.
“You know what we have to do,” Anna said. He didn’t know. Not really. Her intention was still a hot, hard secret in her chest that rose up into her throat every time she tried to speak.
The red wolf turned his face to look at her, as if he heard something in her voice that Soren hadn’t been able to hear as a man. She forced herself to look into his amber eyes. She placed both hands on either side of his enormous head.
“Retrieve the sword,” Anna said.
That was one part of the mission on which they both agreed.
What she chose to do after was her own decision as the woman who wielded the sword.