Elena knew it was crazy. She should make sure to stay as far away from Lev as possible. It was madness to go looking for the red and white wolves in order to find the sapphire sword. The power in the gem wasn’t hers to tap. It would probably be no more useful than an ordinary blade against Grigori. But even though logic told her it was silly to seek out the sword, her heart told her otherwise. When she’d been in the courtyard with the blade, she’d felt as if she’d found everything she’d been looking for, even though the black wolf hadn’t been there.
She still hoped to find the alpha wolf. She hoped he would become her champion against the Dark Volkhvy who stalked her. But she couldn’t stop thinking about the woman in the tapestry. She’d held the ruby sword as if she needed no other champion but herself.
It was only an hour before sunset. The castle was darkening by the second. She wasn’t sure where Romanov had gone after their time in the kitchen. She had let him walk away. His resistance made her passionate capitulation more embarrassing. She had held nothing back in her response to his touch. She had been decadent in the way she had ridden his powerful thigh to take her pleasure.
What was worse, she still wanted more.
The idea of his bare, hot skin between her naked legs caused her breath to hitch and her sensual abandon to seem like a permanent result of her time here in Bronwal. God, he was so powerful and he maintained such control. Even while she was crying out with release, he was watching and holding and helping her reach the peak. He had denied himself surcease. And it had tortured her because she wanted him to give in to the pleasure she could give him, as well.
Her imagination could well envision his powerful body completely naked and shuddering beneath her touch. She had tasted the skin of his neck. She wanted to taste more. She wanted to trace every inch of him with her tongue and watch as he lost all control.
For her.
But what frightened her most was that part of her desire was hinged on the idea of waking him and bringing him back to life. He so obviously didn’t want to wake. He was determined to resist the attraction between them and she was bound for disappointment.
She’d gone back to her room for the daggers she’d taken from the practice field. They were tucked in the back pockets of her jeans. She couldn’t imagine using them, but she would if she had to. Against the white wolf or against one of the shuffling souls in the dark hallways of the castle, if either tried to harm her. She would defend herself. Elena reached to reassure herself that the hilts were within easy reach again and again. The daggers reassured her, but they didn’t call to her in the same way that the sapphire blade called.
More than her fight against Grigori had brought her here. Hadn’t she always been fascinated with the Romanov legend? She’d begged for the stories again and again. She’d been obsessed with the book long before she’d known she was in danger.
The key to the tower room hung around the chain on her neck. There was a hideaway available to her. She could duck her head in the sand. She could lock herself away. But that would solve nothing. It would be a temporary redoubt. Nothing more. She had to move. She had to strive for answers.
She couldn’t ignore the sword. It called to her with a subtle song. One of enchantment, but also one of discipline and determination. She came to the main hall where Romanov had first carried her. This time the massive fireplace was lit. Shadows danced on the walls cast by the leaping flames.
The woman in the tapestry had been a warrior, but Elena had recognized the expression on her face and the passion in her eyes. She’d had the face of a prima ballerina. Her own face carried that look. She’d seen it reflected in the other dancers in her troupe. What were they if not warriors? They were graceful, but hardened. They faced a battle against fatigue and weakness and age every day. They fought against every soft, human failing and mercilessly trained it away.
The white wolf rose to his feet when she came into the room. His movement drew her eyes from the shadows on the wall. The red wolf was there, as well. He was already standing. Beside him, the sapphire blade rested across the arms of a throne. A larger throne stood beside it. They were carved from some massive, dark wood streaked even darker with generations of soot. She hadn’t noticed the thrones when the hall had been unlit by firelight before. They were in a raised, recessed alcove that had been black as midnight the evening she’d arrived. Now, the firelight revealed the sword and the thrones and painted them all with shifting darkness that highlighted rather than concealed.
The thrones were as empty as the rest of the castle. And yet they weren’t abandoned. The wolves stood watch, and as Elena stepped cautiously forward the details carved into the wood of the thrones became clear: wolves. There were wolf heads carved on the arms of the larger chair and on the back of the smaller one. Three wolf carvings in all. Their mouths were open wide, and each tooth had been painstakingly crafted, along with each strand of hair in the pelts on their heads.
The red wolf and the white wolf watched her approach.
The sword was on the smaller throne. The wolf head carved on its back was the largest of the three. The alpha wolf watched over the smaller throne and the sword. Elena didn’t know what that meant. The head wasn’t carved as a lifeless trophy. It was snarling and vital. Ready to defend and protect?
“In wood the alpha wolf helps you protect the sword. Where is he in life? Surely he hasn’t faded away,” Elena said.
The red wolf moved when she spoke. The white wolf stood planted in place, but his haunches trembled. Soren paced in front of Lev. He put his body in between his white companion and Elena.
The problem was that both wolves were in between her and the Romanov blade.
Now that she’d seen it, she was even more certain that it had called her here. It wasn’t the wolves that made her heart pound and a thrill like anticipation suffuse her skin. But she needed to hold the sapphire blade again to be sure. She needed to claim it. The tableau of empty thrones and waiting sword and protective wolves wasn’t in her book of legends. Her grandmother had never mentioned the swords. Or the thrones. Yet Elena took another step forward. And then another.
This was a part of the legend she felt rather than remembered.
Somehow this was her part, even though she was a modern woman visiting a castle kept separate from the passage of time. She was no mere visitor. She’d been called. And the call had begun many years ago when she was a young girl listening to stories on her grandmother’s knee.
“I’m here because I’m meant to be,” she said. Her voice was soft but firm. It echoed in the cavernous room, but it wasn’t swallowed or weakened. It was magnified. Lev whined and Soren blinked. Neither moved out of her way.
The daggers in her back pockets were there should she need them. She was pretty sure they wouldn’t faze the giant wolves that protected the thrones. Even if she knew how to wield them.
“I came here for help, but I’m beginning to think that you’re the ones who need my help instead. You’re losing this battle. You’ve almost lost him. He’s more than ready to fade away. It seems as if the alpha wolf is already gone,” Elena said. “Let me have the sword. I won’t take it away from Bronwal. I’ll use it against Grigori. I’ll use it to help you stand.”
Soren listened to her every word. She was sure of it. He met her eyes. He blinked. And then he pressed back against the white wolf’s trembling body. Lev allowed himself to be pushed out of the way. He stepped back, pace after measured pace, until she had a clear path to the sapphire blade.
“It isn’t my imagination, is it? I need the sword. And you need me to have it,” Elena said. “I’ve been distracted by my search for the black wolf. This is what I was meant to find all along.”
She moved carefully closer to the thrones. She made no sudden gestures. She placed her feet softly on the floor. She kept her eyes on the sapphire. It winked darkly in the shadows of flames. Lev whined when she passed, but Soren stood, stalwart, in his white companion’s way. Elena was terrified, but she didn’t pause. It shouldn’t be easy to claim the blade. This was a test for her to pass in order to prove she was worthy of wielding the enchanted sword.
She should have known that Volkhvy enchantments were more complicated than a human could understand. Slavic peasants had practiced simple hearth magic for centuries. But royal craftsman had carved the thrones for the Light Volkhvy’s champions, and Vasilisa herself had conjured the blades and enchanted the stones.
Elena might have felt the call of the sapphire blade since she was a child, but only the alpha wolf could approve or disapprove of her quest.
The rumble began in the soles of her shoes. It radiated upward through muscle and bone. It vibrated her chest until it rose to her ears and she finally heard the audible sound that had begun as a resonate, deep-chested hum.
The growl caused all the blood to flow from her face and arms, leaving them numb. It seemed every drop of life-giving fluid settled in her stomach, where a heavy knot formed as the first growl rolled into another without ceasing.
The light from the giant fireplace and the leaping flames were no longer the only shadows. A hulking darkness fell over her and the wolves. It climbed up and up to paint the entire wall. The darkness coalesced into a shape that engulfed the entire throne alcove.
As she tried to remember how to breathe, the shape became the black-as-midnight shadow of a wolf. The alpha wolf. Materialized out of the Ether to eat her alive. Or so it seemed in those seconds that she tried to remember why Grigori had seemed like any sort of threat at all.
Soren and Lev tucked their tails and retreated behind the thrones. Elena shook and shivered and tried to straighten out the signals from her brain that were alternately telling her to run, faint and stand as still as stone. When she saw the previously ferocious muzzles of the red and white wolves show up beneath the thrones, she was finally able to move.
She turned to face the black wolf.
He wasn’t her alpha. She wouldn’t cower and quake. If she died, she would die with daggers in her hands. They were there, suddenly, even though she had no memory of drawing them from her pockets. And they were steady in her palms. Her tremble was gone.
If Soren and Lev were as large as ponies, the alpha was as big as a draft horse. The doorway into the hall was an arched one, double and grand, and the powerful shoulders of his black body filled it. He stood with paws planted and his teeth showing sharp and white against the black snarl of his muzzle. Had she caused him to materialize from the Ether because she’d come for the sword? Perhaps his instinct to champion had left him, but his protective instincts were more powerful.
“I came for you, but I found the sword. You don’t have to help me against the witchblood prince, but I must wield one of the Romanov blades. I feel the sapphire’s call. Surely, as its protector, you recognize that?” Elena reasoned. “The woman in the tapestry wielded the ruby blade. I’m not trying to steal this sword or take it away. I’ll use it against Grigori, but it will also be in defense of Bronwal. I promise.”
She didn’t cry. She didn’t run away. She reasoned with a monster. And he listened to every word. Like Soren, he was more aware than an ordinary beast. Hope flared in her breast. The knot in her stomach eased. The daggers in her hands dipped down, and she almost sheathed them back in her hip pockets.
Except, unlike the red wolf, the black wolf’s teeth were still bared against her. He stepped forward, not from animal instinct and rage, but for clearheaded, rational reasons she couldn’t understand. Who could interpret a beast’s reasons for determining enemy or friend? She’d tried. He might understand her words, but he refused to bow to the sapphire’s call.
Her knees softened as fear reclaimed her.
Romanov had warned her that the black wolf was deadly. Her hope might have sealed her fate. But there was still one last chance she could grab—The sapphire stone had flared. She’d seen it from the corner of her eye. Even the black wolf had turned his face toward the vivid blue flash. It hadn’t been firelight. The flame’s glow was completely shadowed by the alpha wolf’s body. The stone had lit from within, in the same moment that she’d promised to defend the castle.
The flash hadn’t soothed the black wolf. In fact, it seemed to be the sudden light in the sapphire stone that had set his paws in stalking motion. He paced toward her and one of the wolves under the thrones whined. Soren or Lev? In sympathy or in anticipation?
“You won’t kill a woman the sword has chosen,” Elena said. But she had no idea if her supposition was correct. How long had the alpha been hidden in the Ether? And what did he care about an enchanted sword’s preferences?
There was nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. Even if she’d wanted to flee to the tower, the black wolf’s powerful legs would catch her before she made it out of the room. From the corner of her eye, she saw the red wolf wiggle out from under the chair. He stood staring at her and the alpha wolf as if he wasn’t certain what he should do. But when Lev also came out of hiding and aggressively tried to move her way as if he would stalk her too, Soren stopped him. The red wolf knocked the white wolf to the floor and placed one paw on his neck to keep him supine.
She’d been distracted. When she turned her full attention back to the black wolf, he was only a few feet away. She started, but she didn’t back away. She stood her ground, a tiny, ineffectual dagger in each hand. The alpha wolf stepped closer and closer until his nose was above her head and between the small blades she clenched in her fists. She could do damage with them if he decided to attack. She could hurt him before she died. But the daggers wouldn’t defeat him. At best, they would buy her seconds of time. As she tilted her chin to look into his emerald eyes, her hands were stilled by what she saw there. Intensity burned bright in the gem-like gleam of his irises.
It was an intensity she’d seen before.
“Romanov?” she whispered. Her fingers went limp and the daggers clattered to the floor. The black wolf flinched for all his size and strength. But he didn’t lash out. He didn’t growl or bite.
Ivan Romanov wasn’t the master. He was the wolf. Her search had been over as soon as he’d materialized in front of her on the snowy mountain pass. Answers to so many of her questions suddenly crystalized in her mind.
“You’ve been in front of me all along. What haven’t you told me?” Elena asked. In spite of the deadly teeth, she reached to touch the bottom of his jaw. She cupped his monstrous face in the palm of her hand. Her book of legends had shown her the Romanovs and their wolves. She hadn’t understood. The Romanov brothers are the Romanov wolves. The russet, the white and the black.
The alpha wolf was stiff with emotion. He didn’t relax into her hand. How could he? She had woken him. She had disturbed him from the deep sleep in which Ivan Romanov had buried him in order to maintain his stand as the last Romanov. His brothers were gone, but not permanently into the Ether as she’d supposed. They had shifted and either they had chosen to stay in their wolf forms...or they had been trapped in them unable to return as men.
Soren whined again and Elena looked toward the red wolf. Suddenly, she understood Bell better than she had before. The other woman longed to see Soren’s human face. The clothes in the trunk and the hat Bell always wore...had they been Soren’s long ago? He still had more understanding than an animal would have. He still remembered the man. Lev had forgotten. Would Soren forget eventually too? And now that Romanov had shifted to let the alpha wolf free, would he lose himself too?
“What have I done?” Elena said.
More pieces of the puzzle came together in a painful picture in her mind. Lev, the white wolf, had also been a man. The tragedy she’d stumbled upon in the baby’s room became clear. Romanov had said he wasn’t a pet. He’d never been a pet. But the family who’d lived in the room had been his.
Hot tears filled Elena’s eyes.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked.
She looked back at Romanov, the alpha wolf, and found him staring beyond her head. Not at his brothers. His focus was on the thrones. She followed his gaze to find that it fell on the gleam of the sapphire stone.
“Lev’s wife wielded the ruby Romanov blade,” Elena whispered.
Romanov had shifted to keep her from the stone.
Sympathy had hollowed her gut, but pain caused it to tighten as if she’d been stabbed. Cold ache suddenly burned away and in its place came a sharp stabbing heat. He was here to protect the blade from her. He didn’t think she was worthy of it.
She lowered her hand and clenched her fist. It took every ounce of her strength not to use it to strike him. To share the pain that tore her apart.
“You don’t have to want me. Or accept the blade’s decision. But I won’t be frightened away. Don’t you know that by now? The blade knows. I’m a warrior. Whether you fight by my side or not,” Elena said.
Before any of the wolves could react to her decision, Elena pirouetted. She used her good leg to hold her weight and it spun her as it always had, tried and true. Then she ran and leaped for the dais, even though there were no strong arms there to catch her. She landed gracefully in spite of the pain in her injured knee. And she reached for the blade. None of the wolves tried to stop her. In part because Soren still stood on Lev’s neck, holding him down.
Her hand closed around the hilt of the Romanov blade and the sapphire flared once more. A vision of another woman filled her mind. She recognized Romanov’s mother from the portrait in the hall. Vladimir Romanov hadn’t only betrayed the Light Volkhvy queen. He’d betrayed the memory of a woman who had pledged to protect Bronwal by his side when he’d betrayed her queen. Elena clenched her teeth as she felt a glimmer of what the other woman must have felt. Maybe it was better to be rejected before you fell in love, not after.
She turned with the blade in both hands. She’d never been trained, but it seemed more comfortable in her grasp than it should, as if it had been made for her. She would learn how to wield it even if Romanov didn’t approve.
The alpha wolf stood in front of her. Raised on the dais, she was able to meet his eyes. From her better position, she could see the midnight shine of his wild black fur and the epic proportions of his shoulders. There was no doubt that he was Ivan Romanov. The tale had finally pieced together in her mind from the legend and everything she’d learned since she’d come to Bronwal.
Her spine tingled with the impossibility of a man being able to become a beast, but she couldn’t unsee what she’d seen in the black wolf’s eyes. She’d climbed a mountain to find a legendary castle and this wolf. She thought she’d found his master, but he’d been here, hidden before her very eyes, all along. She held the sword up between them, but she could have easily been pledging her loyalty to him and his cause rather than taking a defensive posture. Her heart pulled her in both directions.
As she’d told Soren, the Romanovs needed her. The sword had somehow known it. It had called her across time and great distance. Now that it was in her hands, she wouldn’t let it go. Not only because she felt safer than she’d ever felt, more ready to take on her evil magical stalker, but also because the pale blue glow of the sword’s gem seemed to illuminate a path she’d been looking for.
“I’ve always longed to be more than a dancer. That’s why the book of legends called to me even before I heard the sword. Let me help you. The sword has spoken. See how it fits in my hands? Help me to learn how to use it. Let’s stand together against Grigori and the Dark Volkhvy. After the Gathering, I’ll leave. I’ll walk away. I’ll let you and the sword vanish back into the Ether without me if that’s what you want. But, for now, teach me how to fight,” Elena said.
Soren whined again. Lev had gone limp. He panted on the floor beneath his brother’s paw from his exertions to get free. Did the red wolf think he would have to rescue her from the alpha too? It would be pointless for him to try to intercede. If the black wolf decided to attack her, his much smaller brother wouldn’t be able to prevent it.
But the eyes she gazed into weren’t an animal’s eyes. Ivan Romanov had risked the shift, but his beast hadn’t swallowed him whole yet. There was a man’s reasoning and a man’s soul in the black wolf’s giant body. Elena faced him and waited for him to decide if he would flee or teach her to fight. Because that was his choice. He could give up and let the black wolf’s savage nature take over, or he could accept her as the warrior called to carry the sapphire blade.
She refused to believe that Romanov, even in his black wolf form, would attack her and try to drive her away if he was still in control. So she stood. She waited. She held tightly to the hilt of a blade she hadn’t been trained to use. And she prayed she wouldn’t have to try to kill the man she’d kissed only hours before.