Legendary Beast

by Barbara J. Hancock

  He was a beast. The trashed room declared it. The sketches in her backpack were further evidence. As were the bruises he’d no doubt left on her skin with his urgency.

  He vowed to find their son and help her save him, but she could only wonder, who would save Lev Romanov? He said he could no longer shift, but it was obvious that the white wolf would never let him go.

  Madeline set her jaw and firmed her spine. She pressed her mouth into a hard, thin line to keep from betraying her nerves by nibbling her bottom lip. The move was a mistake. His attention fell from her eyes to her lips and lingered there. This should have meant nothing to her, but her heartbeat stuttered and the nerves in the pit of her stomach whirled out of control.

  Because he didn’t look at her lips like a stranger would. He looked as if he remembered the taste of her kisses from long ago, and parts of her had suddenly leaped to life, longing to remember, too.

  * * *

  Anna Romanov was waiting when Madeline came back down the stairs. She stood at the ready at the base of the spiraling stone stairway, as if she’d been prepared to do battle should the beast in Bronwal’s tower choose to attack her guest. The sword she’d offered to Madeline in outstretched arms was now held by its hilt at Anna’s side, but its ruby stone was still dark and gray.

  “I thought maybe it would wake when you spoke with Lev, but it still sleeps. Not so much as a flicker,” Anna informed her. “It gleamed when you wielded it on Krajina with a fierce ruby light.”

  “I remember. That moment on the cliff is all I recall. Nothing more,” Madeline said. “But I will take the sword. The white wolf has agreed to help me save my son. I won’t travel with him unarmed.”

  She reached for the hilt of the ruby blade, and Anna released it into her hands. Unlike before, it was heavy and awkward in her grip. She held it vertically with both hands at her waist and the blade extended in front of her breasts and face until the tip stretched beyond the top of her head. She looked from the hilt in her hands up to the sword’s sharp point, and then she lowered her gaze to meet Anna’s on either side of the sharp blade. Anna reached to place her hands over Madeline’s on the hilt. The dark ruby stayed gray above their fingers, but Madeline’s heart fluttered when the other woman squeezed her hands.

  She felt...something. A kinship. A connection. To Anna Romanov, if not to the ruby or the blade or the scarred man in the tower above them.

  “I am the red wolf’s mate. I am Soren Romanov’s wife. We are sisters, but we are also part of a sisterhood of warriors. The blade will wake in time. Trust it. Trust yourself and the warrior you’re meant to be,” Anna said solemnly, as if she recited a pledge.

  “It isn’t myself or the blade I distrust,” Madeline replied. Although that wasn’t entirely true. She remembered nothing of how to wield a blade. Her hands seemed to be made for charcoal pencils, not for legendary weapons. It was only that her self-doubt took second place to her doubt of the man who was supposed to be her mate. She accepted the sword as a practical tool, not its Calling. Anna must have sensed her reservations.

  “He never forgot you and Trevor. Not even after he’d forgotten how to be a man. His search carried on until he found you,” Anna said softly.

  Madeline noted the woman’s persuasive tone. No one would be able to negate her memory of the white wolf on the stormy cliff. He’d been prepared to attack. Only the arrival of Vasilisa had seemed to prevent it. Madeline took the sword with her as she moved, and Anna let her go. The other woman’s hands fell to her sides.

  “You are in as much turmoil as Lev. Please. Give him time. Take time to heal before you reject the connection you once embraced,” Anna said.

  “We don’t have time to waste on healing or on each other. Trevor is in danger. We must find him and Queen Vasilisa,” Madeline said. Her hands tightened on the hilt of the sword.

  “There’s a portal that will take us to Vasilisa,” Lev Romanov said.

  Anna’s reaction to his sudden appearance caused Madeline’s chest to constrict and her breath to catch. Anna Romanov stiffened from head to toe, and she raised her hands from her sides.

  Her fingers glowed with emerald light, as if she’d summoned power to meet an attack head-on.

  Madeline had allowed the tip of the sword to droop, but she raised it again now in response to Anna’s defensive stance.

  Lev paused on the last stone step above them. He was already much taller than Anna Romanov. On the rise, he towered over them both, in spite of Madeline’s height. He had changed his clothes. The shredded pants were gone, and he’d replaced them with black leather leggings that fitted his hard muscles like a second skin. He’d also donned a gray long-sleeved undershirt that looked like it had been made for a smaller man—as if it might burst at the seams should he decide to take a deep breath. Over the tightly stretched T-shirt was a black vest, similar to a jerkin but with more modern features, and on his feet were tall black boots. Like hers, his clothing was a mix of old and new.

  Although he was lean—almost starved-looking—his frame was broad-shouldered and his muscles had been built with centuries of strenuous activity. He filled the vestibule in which they all stood with the wild presence she’d already seen in the tower room. Truly, her sword and Anna’s hands seemed like scant defense against the man or the beast he might become at any time.

  But the scarred man didn’t attack. He glanced at Anna, and then his attention was all for Madeline. His gaze settled on her face as it had in the tower room, as if he would memorize her features before she left him again. When he spoke, he looked at Madeline, but his words were for Anna Romanov.

  “The white wolf attacked you once. I remember. His memories are my memories. I won’t apologize. You’re a witch. I was trying to protect my brother. But know this—Soren has married you. You are a witch, but you are also his wife. I would die before I harmed you now,” Lev said.

  “There was a time when I promised not to harm you as well, brother. But know this—I am pregnant, and I will protect my child,” Anna warned.

  Madeline only saw Anna’s glow brighten out of the corner of her eye. She faced Lev without lowering her sword. The white wolf had attacked Anna? She couldn’t imagine the petite woman surviving the white wolf’s ferocious bite. She’d drawn his teeth in her sketchbook many times. Each had easily been as long as her hand.

  Only at that revelation did Lev look from Madeline to his sister-in-law. Her obvious pregnancy must have escaped his notice since he’d returned to the castle.

  “Rest assured, I’m leaving. The baby will be safe when I’m gone,” Lev replied.

  His voice was as gruff as it had been before, his vocal cords roughened by centuries of howls. But the glow in Anna’s fingers faded until it was gone. The other woman lowered her hands before Madeline lowered her sword.

  And the white wolf noticed, even though he was a man. Lev’s attention seemed to be on Anna, but his spine didn’t soften until Madeline lowered the ruby blade down to her side.

  “Ivan destroyed the mirror portal when he found out Elena was going to have a baby. There is no longer a portal in Bronwal,” Anna said.

  Lev came off the stairs and into the vestibule in several long strides. His physicality was startling. Madeline had been awake for a while, but she had yet to encounter another human being with such grace and speed. If he had decided to attack, her sword would have been useless even if she hadn’t lowered its tip to the floor. He might be on two legs instead of four. He might look hollow and hungry. But Lev Romanov was still dangerous. Along with the hunger in his appearance, there was also a deep, dark Carpathian wilderness behind his eyes.

  “There is another,” Lev said. He spoke to Madeline, as if to reassure her rather than to inform. But he couldn’t be sensitive to the sudden clenching in her gut just above the womb, where Trevor had been carried so long ago.

  “Yes. The fountain at Straluci. The fortress is in ruin, but the portal should still be there. It will take you to my mother in the blink of
an eye, wherever she is being held. The portals are connected to her,” Anna said. “There are no roads. Only narrow game trails. You’ll have to take horses instead of all-terrain vehicles. It will take more than a week to reach the pass.”

  The last was said for her benefit. Anna hadn’t taken her eyes off the white wolf in his human form, but she turned to look at Madeline now. Her green eyes flickered with the power she’d previously called to her hands.

  “Then the sooner we leave, the better,” Madeline proclaimed. She wasn’t wearing a scabbard for the ruby blade, and her arm was already tired. The sword was heavy. She felt like a pretender as she stood with it gripped tightly in her hand, but even though her body hadn’t recovered its strength following her illness, her heart was filled with resolve.

  “I could cover the distance in a quarter of that time on four legs,” Lev said. He had fisted his hands, and as he spoke he stepped closer to Madeline. One pace. Then two. He stopped and closed his eyes. His head fell back as if he would howl at the moon. The tendons on either side of his neck stood out in sharp relief as his body tensed. He braced his long legs wide apart, and veins bulged on his muscular arms...but nothing happened. The earth didn’t quake. His human form remained as imposing yet somehow vulnerable in all its scarred hardness, as it had been before.

  Amazingly, his tight shirt hadn’t given way at the seams. It had only stretched with his flexed muscles as he strained.

  “It’s probably best for us all that you can’t,” Anna responded. Madeline didn’t argue. She wouldn’t regret seeking help from Bronwal now that help had been found, even if Anna looked pale and troubled as the giant man beside them sought the shift that still eluded him.

  She would face the threat of the white wolf for Trevor just as Anna had faced Lev for her unborn child. It didn’t matter that she had no Volkhvy power to back up her determination. Her determination alone would have to be enough. She would get stronger. She would get wiser. She would navigate this strange modern world with a deadly beast by her side in order to save her son.

  But she couldn’t help the tightness in her chest, or the way the sword weighed too heavily in her hand. The witch on the train had tried to poison her. If the marked Volkhvy who had kidnapped the queen and her son wanted her dead, she faced more than the white-wolf threat by her side. She had to guard herself from magical stalkers as well. A longer journey would give the marked witches time to make another attempt on her life.

  “The marked Volkhvy might have followed me here. They may try to stop us before we reach the portal,” Madeline warned. She allowed the sword’s tip to rest against the ground, and her arm sighed in relief.

  Nothing escaped Lev Romanov’s notice. He had a wolf’s senses even in his human form. His intense glance went from the ruby blade up her arm to her face. Once again, she felt he must find her wanting compared to his memories of the warrior she’d been. Sketching didn’t require strength. Battling those witches who might try to kill her would, as would protecting herself should the shift come to the man who so desperately summoned it. If the white wolf proved to be the foe of the stormy cliff rather than the ally she sought...

  Her thoughts were interrupted by the tight smile that claimed Lev’s angular face. He had the Romanov nose and sculpted jaw. His beard didn’t hide the perfection of his bone structure, nor did his scars detract from his symmetric features. He was many things—large, muscular and intimidating; scarred, wild and uncivilized—but he was also handsome. The smile startled her. It was a surprising punch to the tightness in her gut. The one-sided upward curve of his lips stole her breath and made her own lips go numb.

  “I welcome them to try,” Lev said. His husky voice was pitched even lower than it had been before. His lids had lowered over his vivid blue eyes, his thick lashes creating dusky shadows on his cheeks. Though Anna was only a few feet away from them, the moment was suddenly intimate, and it was as though no one besides Madeline and Lev was there.

  It was a promise to help her and Trevor. An uttered contract between them. Madeline forced her lungs to expand. She moistened her lips and nibbled the numbness away.

  Lev didn’t blink or look away. He crossed his arms over his broad chest and met her eyes boldly, watching her soak in the promise he’d made.

  She might not know if the white wolf was her friend or her foe, but at that moment, she knew Lev Romanov had been born a champion, and a champion he remained. After all he’d been through in his long, harsh life, he might no longer be her mate, but, shifted or not, he was still a Romanov wolf.

  He would stand against the marked Volkhvy who stalked her, and he would help her rescue their son.

  Chapter 4

  Lev had ridden horses almost from the day he was born. He could ride as easily as he could walk. The question was whether the horses could handle being ridden by a man who had been a wolf for a very long time now.

  As Lev approached, it took several men to settle the two large destriers Ivan Romanov had ordered prepared for his younger brother and the woman who had been his wife. Madeline had already been placed in her saddle on the smaller white gelding. She held on admirably well for someone who had been asleep for centuries. He noted the white-knuckled grip she had on the reins. He also noted the ruby sword in a scabbard that hung from the pommel of her saddle within easy reach should she need it.

  He’d already seen how poorly she held the blade. Her grip had been uncertain, as if she’d never wielded a sword before. Somehow during their journey, he would have to help her remember her prowess with the blade in spite of the fact that she obviously thought he might be the one she would need to wield it against.

  The second horse was an impressive dun stallion. Its polished black hooves stood out sharply from the fringes of long white hair. These were warhorses bred to carry armored warriors into battle. They, too, had been caught up in Vasilisa’s curse. Her spell had prolonged the lives of everyone at Bronwal merely to torture them. The horses looked as out of place in this century as Lev felt.

  “You frighten them,” Soren said as he and Anna came out of the castle behind him. “Ivan does as well. They will calm down once they realize you’re not going to eat them.”

  Although they were twin brothers, Soren had flaming red hair instead of blond. His beard and hair were also neatly trimmed save for a long bang that threatened to flop over his eyes. Lev was conscious of his own overgrown hair and beard. He’d pulled back the unruly waves into a thick queue at the nape of his neck. That was all. He’d refused to try to improve his appearance any more than that. If he looked uncivilized, it was only the God’s honest truth. He was a savage. His years as the white wolf had left him with that legacy.

  Better for everyone to see and acknowledge the wildness inside him, while Soren had embraced more than a witch. His trimmed hair and beard proclaimed his mastery over the red wolf.

  Then again, Soren had always been more man than beast.

  So unlike himself.

  Anna and Soren held hands. Lev watched his brother gently hold his pregnant wife as if she was a treasure he’d found. He’d once treated a pregnant Madeline the same way. He had to close his eyes and swallow against the ghost of tenderness that assailed him. He pushed the unwelcome memory away. Then he opened his eyes to watch Anna Romanov warily. Not as his sister-in-law, but as a threat. As always, the witch made his hair follicles tighten as if she brought with her a charge that fueled the very air around them.

  Soren patted the dun horse on the rump. It did prance at his touch and snort, but then it settled into place without further fuss...until Lev reached for the reins. The side of his hand brushed along the dun’s neck, and the horse whickered in fear. It sidestepped away from his touch, and its front hooves came up off the ground.

  “Okay. Maybe they’re a little more afraid of you than they are of me and Ivan,” Soren said.

  The white gelding’s nostrils flared, and Madeline had to tighten her legs and speak calming words to her mount as Lev hoisted himself up
into the saddle of the frightened dun. He pounced as he would have if he’d been hunting instead of riding. He settled gracefully into the saddle even though it was a moving target, and masterfully brought the horse back under control with his strong hands and thighs—but more so with his aura of authority and strength of will.

  Ivan was the alpha of the Romanov pack, but only because Lev had never vied for the position.

  The horse trembled beneath him, but it stopped trying to rear up on its hind legs.

  “Show-off,” Soren said. He’d come to stand beside Lev’s leg. With one hand, he held the bridle of the dun and placed the other on Lev’s knee. “Come back to us, brother. I searched for you too long and too hard for you to run away now that I’ve seen your face again.”

  “To Straluci,” Lev said, giving his brother no reply. With a deft thump of his heel, he urged his mount to depart. Soren’s hand fell away.

  The dun leaped forward, and Madeline’s horse followed at her direction. Lev refused to glance back at Bronwal or his twin brother. He couldn’t allow his brother’s love for his new wife to cloud his judgment. Her mother was an evil queen who must be destroyed. It was the only way.

  As was his decision to never return. The brotherly connection he felt for his twin tugged at the very marrow of his bones as he rode away, but the wildness that haunted his soul was a stronger force. It propelled him away with the certainty that he could only protect those he loved by reclaiming the shift and leaving them far behind.

  * * *

  Madeline had seen an ATV in the stables. It was a mechanically propelled vehicle with cushioned seats. It wasn’t quite midmorning when she began to obsess about those cushions and regret the necessity of horses on the narrow trails they followed.

  The deep, evergreen Carpathian forest had devoured them shortly after they left Bronwal. Meager spring sunshine barely penetrated the canopy above them as the horses stepped carefully on the path that was frequented by sure-footed deer and wolves and bears, more than domesticated animals.