Anna barely tasted the perfectly browned roasted meat or the crusty bread. It all turned to dust in her mouth whenever Ivan looked up from his plate. The sword’s Call sounded deep within her hollowed chest. It pulsed with her heartbeat. It inhaled and exhaled on her every breath. As the alpha, how could Ivan not hear it, too? Her mother had known. She’d seen the echo of it in her daughter’s eyes.
The thread of enchantment between her and Soren seemed to sing. He sat right across from her, ignoring it. If either of them gave it permission, the connection between them would click into place and become complete.
Instead, they chewed and swallowed and did their best to ignore the powerful magic that was as uninvited in the room as she was.
“Patrice has done wonders with the team of cooks I’ve hired for the kitchen. We suggested she might want to retire, but she’s been baking almost nonstop with the new appliances,” Elena said. When no one responded, she continued calmly, as if she was used to talking to herself. “We’re doing all we can to help everyone with the transition to modern life. It’s challenging but not impossible.” She looked pointedly at Soren’s tunic, but he kept eating as if he didn’t notice.
Anna wanted to tell her that it was more complicated than clothes or table manners. It wasn’t just habit they were trying to overcome. It was post-traumatic stress. It was heartache. It was severed companionship that could never be mended.
Before she realized what was happening, Anna’s hands began to tingle in response to her stress. If her gloves had been off, the glowing veins would have given her away. As it was, only Soren noticed her sudden stiffening and panicked tension as she tamped back down the inadvertently summoned power from the Ether.
“Thank you for dinner, Elena. Everything was delicious. But I’ve traveled a long way and I’m exhausted,” Anna said. She dropped her utensils and stood abruptly. Her chair was knocked backward, but she let it lie where it had fallen. She held her hands in front of her, clasped with threaded fingers, and backed toward the door.
Ivan stood.
It was the polite thing to do. It was also dangerous. Because Anna’s power responded as if to a threat. Beneath her gloves, the power threatened to burn to the surface of the hands that sought to contain it. She’d tamped it down. It didn’t matter. She’d yet to master complete control of her abilities and Ivan was the greatest potential threat she’d faced. Even greater than the feral white wolf.
Whether she saw Anna’s fear or whether she felt Ivan’s tension, Elena reached to place her hand on the alpha’s arm. He looked from Anna to his wife, and his tension melted. He smiled and the wolf in his eyes receded.
Soren slowly rose to his feet as if he knew a sudden move would be dangerous. His eyes locked onto hers.
“I’ll escort Anna to her room,” he said. He spoke her true name as if it was difficult, as if every time he referred to her as “Anna” he also reminded himself to guard against her.
“Just like old times,” Anna managed tersely.
No one laughed. It was a poignant joke. One that hurt more than it helped. She’d had less trouble controlling her Volkhvy abilities on her mother’s island. Probably because no one there saw her as the enemy. And because she’d been far away from Soren. His nearness magnified the Call of the emerald sword.
“Come back to us, brother,” Ivan said, as if he knew they planned a dangerous mission.
“Always,” Soren promised. He circled around the table without taking his intent gaze off Anna. She stood, trembling with the effort of resisting the sword’s Call and the Ether’s energy. No one asked her to return. Not even Elena.
Soren came to her side, but he made no move to reach for her arm or to extend his. He waited, watchful and still, until she stiffly thanked Ivan and Elena for the meal and turned for the door. If he had touched her, gloves or not, she might have glowed brighter than the candlelight that illuminated the room. As it was, she was able to force the power to recede as they stepped into the cool dark corridor to head for the spiral staircase that led to her bedchamber.
They had placed her in the tower room. Either for her own protection or for theirs. She wondered if the aviary on the roof had been modernized as well, but she wasn’t comfortable enough to ask to see it or to go exploring. The roof had been Bell’s sanctuary. They all seemed to think Bell was lost. Ivan and Soren treated her as an entirely new threat. The difference in perception stung because it echoed the doubts she had in herself.
So she stepped lightly up the winding stone stairway with Soren by her side. She was glad she wouldn’t have to see him in the place they had been closest. He had kept watch on the floor at the foot of her bed in the aviary for too many years to count. He’d been privy to her dreams and nightmares and all her quiet confidences in the dark when no one else was around.
The tower was a less personal space.
They climbed silently until they reached the upper room. There, the heavy old artisan-crafted door had been repaired and replaced on sturdy hinges after Ivan had crashed through it to save Elena from the witchblood prince Grigori. Its bottom half was polished oak. Its top half was scrolling iron bars in the shape of thorny vines and roses.
The thorns and roses were Vasilisa’s motif. She had built the castle for her champion wolf shifters after all.
Soren stopped. Anna paused for only a second, expecting him to speak. When he didn’t, she continued on. She opened the door, paused again and then closed it as he continued to wait in silence. Perhaps he wanted to be certain she was locked away for the night where she could do no harm.
Soft electric lamps lit the dark curves of the round room, and they reflected off the gem tones of the stained glass windows that had been retrofitted into the tall narrow openings of the windows that ringed the room.
The heavy door had clanged as it shut. There was an antique key in its lock. She waited for Soren to reach and twist it. But she waited in vain. Her relief was palpable. If he’d reached for the key, she might have had to stop him. He barely moved, only blinking and breathing as they stood face-to-face with the bars between them.
“There are people in this castle who haven’t forgiven your mother for what she did to us. It’s a mistake to consider Bronwal free from the curse. It’s no safer for you to go wandering at night than it was before. Perhaps less so. Do you understand?” Soren said quietly.
Anna’s heartbeat was loud in her ears. This wasn’t concern for her well-being. It couldn’t be. He must seek to hurt her with the knowledge that he wasn’t the only one who didn’t welcome her here. The curse was broken, but its effects lingered on. As Bell, she’d had the run of the place with her loyal red wolf by her side. They’d slipped throughout the massive structure, gleaning and foraging and exploring whenever they materialized. It had been a hard-knock subsistence full of deprivation and dust.
But, hard or not, it had been hers and his, together.
Standing there, looking at Soren’s face through the bars of what would be her prison this night, with a full stomach and fine clothes and all the power of the Ether a finger flick away, Anna wanted to weep. Or to rail at the fate that had separated them forever.
“I’m tired. My only plan is to sleep before our journey tomorrow,” Anna said.
He stepped closer to the bars, and she didn’t back away. Her feet seemed to have rooted to the ground right when she needed them to be nimble and quick. He was only a foot away, and the barrier of the iron vines seemed like no barrier at all. His amber eyes were dark in the shadows. So dark they were almost black. They stood out against his russet hair and beard. She couldn’t help it. Her gaze dropped to find his lips where they peeked from the