The tip of her sword clanked onto the floor once it was no longer lodged in Grigori’s skin. Soren and Lev had leaped too late. They both whined and snuffled the floor where Grigori and the black wolf had stood. Lev limped, but he wasn’t slowed down by his injuries. He snuffled and whined as urgently as the red wolf. Maybe more.
“He warned me how bad the Ether was. I didn’t understand why he was so determined to spare me from it even if it meant losing himself,” Elena said.
“He’s strong. He’ll come back. He always does,” Bell said. She had run forward to catch Elena before she crumpled to the ground. The small servant was much stronger than she seemed. But Elena had known almost from the start. Like calls to like, and they had been fast friends because they saw each other better and more clearly than others saw them.
“I’m sorry. The Ether is seductive. The Light Volkhvy resist its allure. I used it to curse Bronwal. This is all my fault,” Vasilisa said.
“You always wear purple. It’s the color of mourning. Who do you mourn, my queen? You didn’t do this because Vladimir betrayed you. There’s a secret behind your greatest pain. One deeper than your love for Vladimir Romanov,” Elena said. She leaned against Bell. Her friend took her weight without protest.
The queen looked from Elena to Bell and back again. But then her gaze was drawn to the petite servant in green silk. Her eyes traced the bellflowers embroidered onto the stained gown.
“Vladimir killed my daughter, Anna. I had placed her with a mortal family for her protection. I knew something was wrong. Vladimir had begun to act strangely. I was afraid he would betray me, and I wanted her well away from danger. But I never imagined my greatest champion would murder a Light Volkhvy princess in cold blood,” Vasilisa said. “He destroyed the whole village of Sovkra. No one survived. It wasn’t until then that I realized he might have killed my consort, as well. My prince died in the same battle as Vladimir’s wife. The Dark Volkhvy had managed to surround them and the gray wolf never reinforced them.” Tears streamed down her perfect pale cheeks. “I didn’t know. I turned to him for comfort only to receive an even greater betrayal.” And still she didn’t blink or look away from the bellflowers on Bell’s dress.
“He didn’t kill your daughter,” Elena said. Anna’s story was too similar to Bell’s to be a coincidence. Sovkra had been Bell’s home. It was only the ending of the tale that Vasilisa had gotten wrong. She straightened. Bell’s hands had fallen away from her shoulders.
“No,” Bell said. “It isn’t true.”
The curse had traumatized Bell for centuries. The queen was the devil in her eyes. No better than Grigori was to Elena. A tormentor. A horror.
Her eyes tracked the movements of the red wolf as they always did. But, at her agonized denial, he stopped and stared. He whined. Elena reached out to Bell as her friend’s face petrified into a look of disbelief.
“He didn’t kill your Anna,” Elena said. “He brought her to Bronwal. Maybe he thought her presence would shield them from your wrath once you knew he’d betrayed you. He didn’t stop to think that you might not know she’d survived his attack on the village.”
“Dark witches killed my family. The gray wolf saved me,” Bell said.
Soren whined. He took one step toward the girl he’d protected for centuries.
“The gray wolf killed them all. He didn’t save you. He kidnapped you,” Elena said. The puzzle was finally complete. “Vladimir was darker than the darkest witch.” She looked at Soren when she said it. “I’m sorry, but it’s true. He risked you all for a power grab that failed. He killed his wife, Naomi, and the prince consort by delivering them to the Dark Volkhvy king and then refusing to come to their aid during the battle. He seduced Vasilisa. She was vulnerable. She had lost her warrior, her husband and the father of her child. But when she began to suspect Vladimir wasn’t what he seemed, he kidnapped the baby she’d hidden. The only reason he didn’t kill Anna was that he thought he could use her. When his whole plan failed, he gave himself to the Ether rather than face the consequences of what he’d done.”
“My...daughter?” Queen Vasilisa said. “I remember the fields of bellflowers. It seemed a safe place, a happy place to shelter her.”
She reached for Bell, but the shocked girl jerked away. She stumbled back from Elena’s supportive grasp and from her mother.
“I could never forgive Vladimir for murdering my daughter. Even when I realized I needed to free his sons from my wrath. Now, the curse is broken. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” Vasilisa cried.
“I put on this dress because I wanted to claim a place in Bronwal. I’ve been an orphan and a servant most of my life. Scrambling to survive. But I was wrong about needing to claim a place. I had a place. And a wolf by my side,” Bell said.
Soren had backed away from them. His legs were spread wide and, when Bell took several steps toward him, he growled deep and low. Lev limped to join him. His ferocity had always been tempered by Soren’s civility. Now, his growl rumbled up from his chest to join with the red wolf’s. Both of them looked fully capable of turning on the Light witches they’d been fighting for seconds ago.
“She can’t help who her mother is any more than you can help who your father was,” Elena said. But the red wolf didn’t relent, and Bell lowered her hand.
“I didn’t know,” Vasilisa said.
“But you did know that abusing the Ether’s power was wrong,” Elena said. “And you sacrificed Madeline and Trevor because you thought Vladimir had killed your baby.”
“No,” the queen said. She blinked and pulled her attention from her daughter. “They have been protected from the Ether all this time. They sleep on my island home. I protected her and her baby even though I thought no one protected me and mine.”
“Madeline isn’t gone,” Bell said. She spoke as if she begged the red wolf to hear her, but Soren and Lev had edged farther and farther away from the witches their animal instincts obviously warned them not to trust. They were almost out the door and Bell couldn’t follow. Not when both wolves had their teeth bared against her. But she held back from her mother. She stood, all alone, deserted by her wolf and claimed by a Light Volkhvy queen. Elena wondered if Bell would ever feel at home at Bronwal again now that she knew the truth. Or if the others would welcome her, as a princess, or at all.
“Romanov should be back by now. Where is he?” Elena suddenly asked. Long minutes had passed since the black wolf had disappeared into the Ether. She couldn’t follow him. She didn’t know how. Like Lev, she was left to watch and wait for her love to return.
“Grigori was nearly consumed. I saw the Ether in his eyes. The only way he could have defeated Romanov was to devour him in the vacuum. He would have to sacrifice his life to kill the wolf,” the queen said.
“He would do it to hurt me,” Elena said. “If he can’t have me, he would destroy me instead.”
The sapphire in her sword still glowed. It was the only sign that she had any hope of seeing Romanov again. She refused to sheath it. The Light Volkhvy were tending to their injured and sending the dead into the Ether. Elena looked away from their rituals and their pain. The Dark Volkhvy had all vanished without ritual. They had fled, leaving their dead and injured behind. Those that had been left disintegrated. Either they traveled through the Ether to the place they called home or they were consumed.
Elena didn’t care.
She waited for the black wolf to return with her sword drawn and ready.
Romanov couldn’t disappear. Not when their connection was finally causing the sapphire to shine, brilliant and strong.
Even though secrets, revelations and reunions took place all around her, her attention was riveted on the spot where the black wolf and Grigori had disappeared. No one tried to move her. They wouldn’t have dared. She was finally the warrior who truly wielded the sapphire sword.
And she would watch and wait for her mate to return for an eternity if need be.
She willed him back to her with every beat of her heart and every breath that passed through her slightly parted lips.
When the air wavered in front of her eyes, she raised the sword. But instead of the black wolf she expected, it was Ivan Romanov who appeared. He held a struggling Grigori with his powerful hands clasped around the witch’s chest from behind. The witchblood prince had a black viscous liquid running down his cheeks from his obsidian eyes. Elena didn’t think it was blood. She thought the energy from the Ether had filled him to the brim and now it overflowed. He screamed and cursed incoherently as he fought the man who held him.
“I brought him back to you,” Romanov said. His legs were widely braced and his muscles bulged, but it wasn’t physical power that he fought against. Grigori was weaker in muscles and form. It was the Ether. Grigori caused them to flicker in and out of existence as he’d caused Elena to do during their dance. It was the disintegration Romanov fought. Tendons strained in his neck and his jaw was clenched. He spoke through clenched teeth. “I was wrong. When I saw him torturing you with the Ether, I knew that standing between you and the sword’s call was wrong. I will stand with you forever, as the black wolf and as a man, but you must fight this fight. He is your demon to slay.”
As Romanov spoke, he and Grigori flickered in and out of existence again and again. Every time, Elena’s heart seemed to follow Romanov into the cold. But it was the frigid memory of Ether in her chest that told her what to do. She lifted the sword and braced the back of the hilt against the palm of her free hand. She timed her thrust against the flicker of here and gone again to be sure she penetrated Grigori’s heart while it was materialized. The sapphire blazed, and Romanov let go of the witchblood prince. Her legendary shifter remained solid in front of her as the evil Volkhvy who had stalked her since she was a young teen disintegrated in a sudden implosion. Every molecule of his body was sucked into the black hole of Ether her sword had unleashed from his corrupted heart.
The bright blue light of the sapphire’s glow wrapped around her and Romanov. It held them tight in this world until the black hole that had been Grigori disappeared in on itself with a hissing pop.
And, after, the glow continued as her lover stepped toward her. She lowered the sword so he could take her into his arms. They were solid and real. She pressed into his chest to absorb his heat. She placed her cheek against him so she could hear the steady beat of his heart. He’d always been more than a story. The sword had called her to his side, but it had been the legend that had awakened her to the sword’s call.
“I’ve loved you longer than I realized,” Elena said. “I heard the sword’s call because I loved you before we’d even met.”
Romanov held her as if she anchored him in this world. He didn’t yet know that the curse had been lifted. He would have to be told about Lev and about Bell. There was good news and bad to share. For now, she shared her embrace and her heat. She shared the modern world she’d brought to him and her dancer’s strength.
“I think I knew when I first saw you climbing in the snow. I hadn’t felt so alive in ages. I had to go to you. But I couldn’t accept the evidence of my own eyes when the sword first glowed. It’s too cruel. The Ether...you don’t deserve that fate, Elena, my love,” Romanov growled.
“No one does,” Elena said. “Except maybe those like Grigori who court its darkness.”
She pulled back to look up into Romanov’s emerald eyes. They were haunted as they always were, but there was a new light in them too. Maybe it was the sapphire’s glow influencing the gold flecks in his irises, but she decided to call it hope.
“Bronwal is free,” she said softly. His eyes widened. Only then, did he look away from her to see what had been happening while he was fighting Grigori. His hands tightened on her back when he saw the queen and Bell standing side by side. His brothers were by the door, alive even if they weren’t quite well.
“You came to us for help, but it’s you who saved us all,” Romanov said.
He looked back at her, and Elena wrapped her free arm around his neck. She pulled him down to her mouth and their lips met in a kiss that was long and leisurely. They’d fallen in love as a ticking clock counted down their last moments together, but every moment from now on was theirs to enjoy.
“I was afraid to call the wolf, but I didn’t let that stop me,” Elena said, when they finally came up for air.
“I was afraid when you picked up the sword, but that didn’t stop me from loving you with all my heart, even when the black wolf ruled it,” Romanov said. “He is me and I am him. Can you love an enchanted shapeshifter after all Volkhvy magic has forced you to endure?”
“My mother’s sacrifice taught me that the greatest power is love. She bought me time to find my way to you. And now our love is more powerful than Volkhvy enchantments. We’ll fight for the Light together with the sword and the wolf,” Elena said. “There are still difficulties ahead. Bell is Vasilisa’s daughter. Your father kidnapped her for leverage. The queen thought he’d killed her. That’s why her rage was so long and deep.”
Ivan Romanov stiffened at the news of his dead father’s further treachery. He looked at the queen and her daughter. Elena followed his gaze. Their reunion wasn’t warm. In fact, Bell looked as if she’d rather be swallowed up by the Ether.
Soren was gone. He and Lev had slipped away once Romanov was safe. The white wolf didn’t know that his wife and baby had been found. He might be too far gone to ever know. Soren was his lost brother’s only hope and yet the red wolf had his own heartbreak to face.
“Bronwal stands,” Romanov said. His attention came back to Elena.
“And whatever comes as we recover from the curse, we will fill this castle with love,” Elena replied.