As night approached, Elena struggled. The sapphire in her sword didn’t glow. Grigori would be able to find her. But the wolves had vanished and Romanov was nowhere to be seen. The windows in her tower were shut up tight, but they’d been tight the night before when Grigori had flown inside. Only the power of her mother’s sacrifice had kept her inaccessible. With that protection almost completely faded, there wasn’t a tower or a lock on earth that could keep her safe. She could feel her vulnerability all the way to her bones.
But Grigori wasn’t her only concern.
If she went to the black wolf’s lair for sanctuary, she would also be stepping into Romanov’s arms. He had rejected her time and time again as the bearer of the sword. How could she indulge in his kisses and his touch when he was closed off to more?
She briefly considered Bell’s aviary. In it, she wouldn’t be alone. She would have a friend by her side and one of the wolves at her feet. But, in spite of her fear, she couldn’t bring herself to intrude. The orphan and the red wolf seemed to have some sort of special bond. It was obvious that Soren watched over the child his father had saved so long ago, even though she had become little more than a servant to the family. In turn, Bell seemed to watch over the red wolf. They were an odd pair but a pair nonetheless.
Besides, if Grigori followed her to the aviary, she would be placing Bell and Soren in grave danger. Neither of them could stand against the witchblood prince, and no matter her training or her determination, her sapphire sword might not be enough to stop him without its glow.
Frustration bubbled up in her chest and stole her breath. Romanov was too stubborn. He was so busy doing the right thing to protect her that he didn’t stop to think how it placed everyone in greater danger. Herself included.
She had no choice but to seek refuge in the cavern. Grigori wouldn’t dare penetrate the black wolf’s lair. If he found her in her dreams, so be it. At least she wouldn’t have to be helpless under his actual physical touch.
This time, Elena brought her flashlight and a handful of spare candles she’d found in a drawer in her room. Without the sapphire’s glow, the cavern would be too dark.
She tucked them in her backpack, along with her book and her last energy bars and bottled water. She had no idea if Romanov would even be in the cavern when she got there, but, if he was, she had no intention of winding up in his arms.
She struggled for nothing.
The cavern was empty when she arrived except for the bedding Romanov had carried there the night before. When she sank down on the furs and blankets, she tensed because the scent of roses and winter came from the soft bed beneath her. Romanov’s skin and hair always held the scent of evergreen and fresh snow. But he had another headier scent that was purely masculine—a combination of wood smoke, leather and heated muscle.
She couldn’t avoid his scent on the bed they’d shared. She breathed it in and accepted that it was mingled with her scent because their bodies had mingled perfectly together.
Elena had told herself she would resist her desire to be with him tonight, but, now that he wasn’t here, memories rose up swift and hot to claim her. She shifted, still tender between her legs where they had thrust so hungrily for connection. Her body had already responded to mere recall by becoming hot and wet. She gathered the quilts and furs and held them close beneath her in substitution for the hot thighs she’d prefer to straddle. The bulk of the blankets were nothing compared to the solidity of the man. She missed his hard muscles and the heat of his eager erection.
Elena moaned softly as she undulated against the bedding that smelled like the man she desired. She hadn’t come to the cavern for refuge. She’d come for Romanov. She admitted it now that she’d found him gone.
“I tried to stay away.” The voice was almost a growl from the mouth of the tunnel that led to the lair.
Elena stilled, and a hot flush washed over her skin in response to the grit of desire in his tones and to being found in the grips of the sensual memory of riding him.
She pushed herself up from the ground and waited on her hands and knees as he approached. The fur beneath her knees protected them from the hard stone. Nothing protected her from the raw hunger her position inspired. She saw it in Romanov’s eyes as he slowly stalked toward her. Their emerald depths reflected the candlelight, as did the mica all over the walls. The candle’s glow was warmer than the sapphire’s soft blue. Tonight, the mica looked like thousands of flecks of gold.
“I went to find you when night fell. I was going to send you down here alone, while I kept watch outside,” Romanov said.
“I was going to keep my distance,” Elena said. “If you don’t want me to have the sword, then you don’t want me.”
A harsh, raw laugh erupted from Romanov’s chest. It reminded her more of a rumbling growl than an expression of humor.
“I’ve never wanted anyone or anything more than I want you,” he said. But it wasn’t a proclamation of love. It was a tortured confession.
“You can’t have me without the sword. We’ve become a package deal,” Elena said. But she didn’t rise. She stayed as she was, and her body tightened and moistened as he stepped closer and closer.
“You can’t have me without the wolf,” Romanov said. He was close enough to drop down on his knees on the bedding in front of her. He dropped, but he didn’t relax. He towered over her, even on his knees. “I’ve tried to deny it, but the wolf is part of me. We’ve been a ‘package deal’ all along. And the Ether only makes us wilder.”
She gasped when he reached for her hair. He plunged his hands into the silky waves on either side of her head, and he held her head in place when he swooped down to kiss her. She whimpered into his hungry mouth, but she didn’t pull away. Even if he hadn’t held her so tightly, she wouldn’t have moved. She was held as much by anticipation and need as by his strong hands.
If wilder meant that Romanov would finally give in to their connection so that they could truly be together, in every sense of the word—physically, emotionally, partners against the Dark—then wilder was what she craved.
She sought the deep recesses of his mouth with her tongue and gloried in the heat and velvety friction she found. His tension softened. His elbows gave. She was able to press forward as they kissed and climb onto his bent legs. He took her slight weight easily—leaning back to give her a place to sit on his hard thighs. She wrapped her legs around his waist and buried her hands into the mane of hair that had always seemed to reveal the wildness he tried to suppress.
She had never been very attracted to soft, sophisticated gentlemen. Now she knew why. Her heart had held out for a legendary shifter as wild and fierce as the black wolf he could become. She was a warrior. A civilized and polished partner would never do.
His hands left her face and fell to cup the globes of her bottom and pull her even closer against him. He pressed her heat to his already swollen erection. She undulated against him.
“No chance I would stay away. None,” he groaned against her lips. His face fell to her neck, and she threw back her head to give him access to the sensitive pulse point he sought. His lips were hot, even hotter than her flushed skin. He nipped and licked his way to her cleavage, and then he indulged in slower sucking kisses on the swell of her breasts that rose above the low V of her T-shirt.
Elena moaned as the different textures overwhelmed her with sensation—the tickling strands of his snow-scented hair, the rough stubble on his jaw and the soft but firm swell of his lips. The moist velvet sweep of his teasing tongue caused her nipples to peak into hardened nubs that pressed against the fabric of her T-shirt. She sought to satisfy their throbbing urgency by rubbing them against his hot, muscular chest as she continued to rock against his erection.
But it wasn’t enough.
Her body knew what it was like to be filled by his heat and naked against his skin. It would never be satisfied fully clothed again.
She reached between them to undo the crisscrossed laced fastenings of his leather pants. Her fingers fumbled, and he pressed her away to make room for his own hands. She slid down his legs and waited with her knees on the fur and her hands on his thighs. His more practiced movements were able to undo his pants and press them open and slightly down. His underwear came slightly down with the pants and she could see the prize she’d sought. His erection was fully engorged.
Elena took over from there. She grabbed the edges of his fly and opened it farther so that his erection fell free. She looked from the shaft she craved up to his shadowy green eyes. The golden light brought out the flecks of gold in his irises. They matched the mica in the walls. His lips were swollen from her kisses. His hair was mussed. The color in his pale cheeks was high. His flush matched his passion-darkened mouth. But it was the intensity in his expression that seduced her the most. He didn’t avoid her perusal. He met her eyes and allowed her to see all that he felt in that moment. His wild need was as obvious in his eyes as it was in his body.
He wanted her and he’d come here to be with her. Not to protect or reject her. He wasn’t here as a champion or as a cursed man who had to refuse his needs. He was here to mate. She’d returned to the black wolf’s lair to do the same. This was about the oldest enchantment that existed between a man and a woman. No Volkhvy magic required.
When she leaned down to slowly take him in her mouth without breaking the connection of their eyes, he cried out. He grabbed for her hair, but he didn’t stop her or manipulate her movements. He simply held on softly, with trembling hands. He was salty, sweet and fiery hot against her tongue. His mouth fell open to allow heavier respiration to come and go between his swollen lips. His eyelids drooped to half mast, but he didn’t close his eyes. Neither did she. She held her breath and took him deep with a harder suction and she watched his pleasure.
“Elena,” he breathed. It sounded like a prayer.
She pulled back to the head of the shaft she suckled. She held its base with her hands and licked its swollen head.
“What, my wolf? Why do you call my name?” she teased.
“I let the wolf have my heart. I thought he would keep you out. But he is me, and we must have you,” Romanov said.
“I’m here. I’ll always be here. The Ether won’t take me away. And neither will Grigori,” Elena vowed.
She rose up to reach for his tunic and he reluctantly allowed it. His hands slid away pausing only briefly on her face. She pulled his shirt from his large frame, revealing his perfectly sculpted muscles, inch by impressive inch. He’d spent every waking moment over enumerable Cycles fighting Dark Volkhvy and training to keep himself sharp. He’d held the Ether madness at bay all alone for so long.
The candlelight and the reflection from the walls painted his skin with gold.
She leaned to press soft kisses over his hard flesh. On his shoulders. On his arms. On his chest. “I’m here,” Elena repeated against his hot skin. “I’m here.”
He trembled beneath her lips, especially when she kissed over the planes of his lean stomach. His erection wept and she throbbed with the desire to mount him. She stood to quickly pull off her clothes, but the intense gaze that followed her movements caused her to slow down. As she had taken her time with the revelation of his chest and arms, she slowly worked her own shirt off, exposing her stomach inch by inch and then her naked breasts. They were heavy with need, and her nipples were swollen into tight buds, pink with passion against her porcelain skin. She arched her back and stretched her arms over her head to remove the shirt. Then she met his eyes again. She dropped the shirt at her feet making no effort to be modest.
Still on his knees, he reached for her. His calloused hands wrapped around the two soft mounds she’d brazenly displayed for him. He cupped them and weighed them. He gently brushed over her nipples with his thumbs and forefingers, lightly pinching.
It was her turn to breathe out his name like a prayer.
He responded by tracing his hands down her sides until they got to her waist. He continued on the downward track only after he’d grabbed the waistband of her leggings. He pulled them down. Not suddenly. Not impatiently. But, following her lead, he inched them down. He exposed her skin a little at a time until she was trembling as he had done.
Only then did he use the material he gripped to pull her closer. He tugged her to his face. Her quivering intensified when his hot breath tickled over her stomach. Then she cried out because he followed his breath not with the kiss she expected, but with the fiery heat of his moist tongue. He licked her stomach as the jeans continued to come down. When his movements had revealed her hipbones, he licked those and suckled beneath them. Arcs of heat penetrated deep and rushed lower from his teasing tongue to her throbbing mound.
And still, slowly, slowly he worked her jeans down until he reached the top of her panties. His fingers softly gathered the edges so that his movements lowered her panties with the jeans until he revealed the curls they’d covered.
This time when his tongue teased the trembling flesh above those curls, she cried out. But seconds later, when his tongue delved into the curls to find the moist slit at the V of her legs, she silently grabbed the back of his head to keep herself from falling.
He teased in and out with his tongue, mimicking the thrusting she craved and her cries became cries of release. He held her hips and pressed her close to lap up her response with his hungry tongue.
She had to crumple then. He slowed her descent, but allowed her to fall. Once her body was on the bedding, Romanov pulled her leggings off her legs one by one. She thought he would settle between them once she was naked. She tried to reach for him, but he was still on his knees. He caressed her hips and thighs as she recovered from the climax he’d given her with his tongue. Softly, gently his fingers teased.
Elena’s hands gripped the bedding beneath her as her body began to hunger again. She arched her back and closed her eyes. Her legs opened. He rewarded the silent request with a thick penetrating finger. Her eyelids flew open and she saw that he watched her heated reaction to his touch.
“I don’t want to frighten you. But this is only making me wilder,” Romanov said gruffly. She could feel the tension in his hand even though he kept his touch gentle. Too gentle. She wanted more.
“Don’t mistake me for delicate, my wolf. I train to appear graceful, but there’s strength behind the grace. You know that,” Elena said.
She thrust her hips up to increase the penetration of his finger. And her sudden impatient movement was all the encouragement he needed. He withdrew his hand, but only to place it on her hips to roll her over. A thrill of surprise washed over her, but it quickly turned to a thrill of desire when he spread her legs and teased his finger back into her from behind. She undulated against the furs and came again. Her body pulsed around his finger.
“You’re so beautiful when you become lost in your pleasure. I could spend eternity watching you come again and again,” Romanov groaned. This time, he didn’t wait patiently for her to recover. He lifted her hips and she found herself on her hands and knees, as she’d been when he’d first stalked into the cavern.
“I’ve never been so easy to please. You hardly have to touch me. I’m wet when you enter a room,” Elena confessed.
“That you’re always slick for me...it makes me ache,” Romanov said. He illustrated his words by pressing behind her so she could feel the hot length of his erection against her.
“I like to make you ache,” Elena said. “I like to drive you wild.”
“Done,” Romanov said.
And he claimed her with a single thrust from behind. Elena cried out his name and the cavern echoed around them. He held her hips so she didn’t collapse as waves of pleasure shook her body. And then he used his hold to rock her forward and backward for his penetrating thrusts. She had to depend on her good knee to help him, but the soft furs cushioned the other so she felt no pain.
Even from this position, she wasn’t a passive lover. She arched her back and pressed her bottom against his stomach, again and again. Even as he thrust with powerful, frenzied strokes, he matched the rhythm she set with her athletic, muscled movements. Only then did the sword awaken and join the golden glow on the walls with its sapphire blue.
But this time, Romanov didn’t pull away.
And his acceptance of the sword’s glow brought her to a shuddering release. Her body pulsed around his shaft and she cried out his name. He held her hips as her body tried to collapse. He buried himself deep and hard and came at the entrance of her womb.
* * *
When she woke in the wee hours of the morning, Romanov was gone. But the sword still glowed faintly. She used its light instead of her flashlight to walk quietly down the tunnel. The mica shimmered on the walls as she passed. Romanov must have known when she entered the main body of the cavern, but he didn’t say a word. The light from the sword didn’t reach the high cathedral ceiling, but she saw a deeper shadow and recognized the broad shoulders of her lover.
He stood, a silent guard at the outside entrance to the cavern.
Elena went back to the empty bed.
He was still determined to protect her even though he knew she could protect herself. The curse would stand between them forever if she couldn’t convince Vasilisa that it was time to forgive the Romanovs. What she must accomplish at the Gathering wasn’t humanly possible, but she had to try.
For Lev, who was determined to die.
For Soren and the young woman he watched over every night.
For poor Patrice and all the other inhabitants of Bronwal.
But mostly because Ivan Romanov could not continue to stand alone. He was the last Romanov, but he couldn’t continue to punish himself for what his father had done. He deserved peace and happiness. He deserved reprieve. Maybe she couldn’t give him those, but she could give him a partner.
If only he would relent and accept it was her decision to brave the Ether.
* * *
The cool night air didn’t soothe him. He wanted to go to Elena when she slipped from their bed to check on him, but he held himself back instead. She didn’t speak. Once she saw him, she stood for only a moment, silently watching, before she went back to bed.
The Gathering was tomorrow night.
All the Dark and Light Volkhvy would come to dance in the power of the Ether that Bronwal radiated and to bask in the humiliation and subjugation of Vasilisa’s curse.
Ivan fisted his hands. They were still warm from the memory of touching Elena. If he closed his eyes, he could see her pleasure, but he could also sense the intensity of his feelings for her.
He’d denied the wolf for so long. He’d denied any and every emotion. He’d had to turn away from his heart to go on and on and on. Earlier, when he and Elena had made love, he’d let go of that control.
The resulting connection had shaken him to his core.
He had never been the stoic ruler of Bronwal. He’d been pretending all along. He’d always pined and longed and hungered for something more. Elena was the answer to his hunger. She fed his wolf and his human soul.
And he could never experience that connection again, not if he was going to succeed in letting her go.
She deserved to be free from Grigori and also free from him and the Romanov curse.