Legendary Beast

by Barbara J. Hancock

  She remembered nothing, but it wasn’t hard to imagine his hard body pressed against her curves. She also couldn’t deny she’d been staring at his lips. She could easily fantasize how Lev’s soft, sensual mouth had felt on her skin.

  But when she opened her eyes again, his mouth had hardened. His whole demeanor had changed. His stony visage surveyed the thick trees around them as if he could penetrate the shadows her eyes could not. Then she noted the rise and fall of his chest and knew he was testing the scents on the air as well as observing with his glittering eyes.

  “They have circled around us. We’re riding into the pack, not away from it,” Lev said.

  Madeline went for her sword, but Lev reached to stay her hand.

  “No. Release the scabbard from the saddle instead. It’s time for us to send the horses to safety,” Lev said.

  His hand was calloused and warm on hers. He allowed his fingers to linger for only a moment before he let her go. In the tension-filled atmosphere of frightened horses and looming threat, his desire to touch her made her breath catch. Still, she quickly unknotted the leather holding the scabbard in place while Lev dismounted.

  His dismount was an athletic leap onto the trail.

  “We’ll remove their tack and send them back the way we came. They’ll be more than happy to leave the wolf pack behind for the safe stalls waiting for them at Bronwal,” Lev said.

  He was already loosening the dun’s saddle when Madeline’s feet hit the ground. She looped the scabbard’s strap around one shoulder so that the sword fell across her back, out of the way of the tasks ahead. The gelding’s saddle joined the dun’s on the side of the trail. The bridles followed. Madeline held the gelding’s mane in one hand to keep him steady. She firmly patted the side of his neck with the other. Then she released her hold.

  Both horses needed no urging to fly. They had also caught wind of the wolf pack and had known they were being ridden into danger. Thundering hooves against packed earth filled the air with dust as the destriers eagerly headed toward home.

  “Here. Let me help you,” Lev said. He came toward her and reached for the leather strap on her left shoulder. He tightened it, arranging the sword diagonally so that its hilt extended above her left shoulder, where she could easily reach across and draw the blade with her right hand. He tied the scabbard firmly against her back, wrapping more leather strapping around her waist to hold the lower end of the scabbard in place. “This will enable you to run if you need to. Or leap without a long sword bumping your legs.”

  His movements were hurried, his hands all business and no flirtation. But his nearness still made her breath shallow and her pulse skip. Once the sword was settled, he stepped away to survey his handiwork. Only then did she feel the familiarity of the blade’s position. She hadn’t been satisfied with its position on the saddle even after she’d rearranged it multiple times. But this was different. The scabbard seemed to fit against her back as if the curves and contours of her muscles welcomed it.

  “This is how I carried the ruby blade long ago. Not at my hip, but on my back,” Madeline said softly. She reached for the hilt and drew the blade. It was a practiced move. An action of habit. One that flowed easily from neck to shoulders to wrist. She was tall; her arms were long. She realized that her move was nearly as athletic as Lev’s dismount moments before.

  “Yes. Just so,” Lev said hoarsely. She looked from the dull ruby along the extension of the tarnished blade all the way to the tip, and then her gaze lifted to meet Lev’s eyes. Appreciation seemed to glow in his irises. His lips had softened again, and one corner of his mouth tilted up into a half smile. Perhaps there was more of the warrior left in her than she’d thought, even if the wife had to be banished to the past.

  “I might remember how to handle a sword, but I’m not going to be able to outrun or outleap a wolf pack,” Madeline warned. She sheathed her weapon, for once regretting its lack of enchanted power in her hand.

  “You won’t have to,” Lev replied.

  He stepped to her side and bent to scoop her up into his arms before she understood his intentions. His powerful arms cradled under her knees and around her back, scabbard and all.

  “We only have to take the Volkhvy by surprise. They’re expecting a slaughter on the trail up ahead. They aren’t expecting us to take an alternate route. We’re lucky it’s the witches and not the wolves that are in control. Left to their own devices, the wolves would have flanked and surrounded their prey. Their witch masters aren’t used to hunting. We’ll use their ignorance against them,” Lev said.

  Madeline tried to follow his logic, but it was hard to think clearly with her arms wrapped around Lev Romanov’s neck. He was such a formidable man. His impossibly muscular body had intimidated her from the start, even as the contrast between his muscles and his scars had also fascinated her. How horrible must his adversaries have been if they’d been able to mark his steely flesh? And now her body was pressed intimately against his. Her softness conformed to his hard chest. Lev’s body heat radiated out to envelop her in his masculine aura.

  And then he started to run.

  She was not a small woman. She was as tall as many men, and her build wasn’t lithe. She had a solidity that she now realized had come from years of training and fighting with a sword. Her arms and legs were strong and her hips were sturdy. Lev carried her effortlessly as if she was no burden at all. And there was no argument that he ran faster than she could have.

  They came to a fork in the trail she hadn’t seen from horseback, and Lev veered toward the left. The trail was barely a path. It would have been too narrow for the horses, and it was almost too narrow for Lev’s broad shoulders and the length of her body, even curled as it was into his arms. Branches caught at her hair, but she didn’t complain. Not when Lev managed to duck and weave and gracefully avoid most of the obstacles they came upon in a blur of movement she could hardly observe.

  He was a Romanov wolf even when he wasn’t shifted.

  He was legendary on two legs, as if phantom paws propelled him over the rough, overgrown ground he traversed.

  Madeline held on. They moved faster than she would have been carried on galloping horseback. But there were howls in the distance, and they were coming closer. One was louder than all the rest, just shy of sounding like the white wolf’s howl. The ferocious cry shivered from her ears down her spine, sending a wash of fear in its wake. She’d left her backpack tied to the saddle. For a second, it seemed as if her sketches might have sprung to life and crawled from the abandoned book to hunt her.

  But no, the predators chasing them weren’t supernatural. They were merely the apex predators of the Carpathian Mountains. Even an experienced swordswoman would have no chance of defeating an ordinary pack of wolves, much less a massive horde brought together by Volkhvy magic.

  If that experienced swordswoman also had a supernatural ally...then maybe she would have a chance.

  Suddenly, the forest opened up to the gape of a deep and wide ravine. Far below, water rushed in a rocky river. Madeline had heard the roar in the distance for a long time as they’d traveled. It had become such a part of their environment that she hadn’t separated it from the gurgle of the smaller creek they’d ridden beside. In fact, now that she was near the rush, she couldn’t believe she’d heard it at all, but she had. For days. Lev must have as well.

  Lev stopped in the lee of a large hollowed oak tree. His breathing wasn’t labored, but it was heavy. His exertion must be extreme, even for an enchanted shape-shifter. His form was human even if his heart was not. His heat and the woodsy scent of the forest radiated off his skin in visible steam.

  “They know what we’ve done. They’ve set the wolves on us now. I don’t want to kill them. They’re innocent wild beasts caught in the witches’ plot,” Lev said. He breathed deeply in between sentences. Madeline understood he was oxygenating his system for another push. Where? Where could they run now that the trail came to an end?

  “We have
to save Trevor,” Madeline said. Her sympathy for the wolves was tempered by maternal instinct. It would be horrible to have to kill wolves that were being forced to attack them, but she would. For Trevor. Just as she had traveled from Krajina to Bronwal to face the white wolf.

  “We will,” Lev promised. He must feel empathy for the wolves, having once been a wild beast caught in a witch’s plot himself. He met her eyes in the forest shadows. His breathing had slowed. “But we can also defeat these witches who hunt us. They want us to fight because we might be injured or killed. Even if we take out dozens of wolves, there are dozens more to rise and take their place. I have a better plan.”

  His hands loosened on Madeline, and she slid until her feet met the ground. She thought to let her arms slide away from him, too, but he had other ideas. His hands came up quicker than she could blink and held her forearms so that her palms were still against the sides of his warm neck. Without thinking, her fingers caressed the skin there, hidden beneath his wavy hair, and Lev sucked in a sudden, surprised gulp of air.

  Wolves howled and Madeline jumped because the sound was much closer and louder than she’d expected.

  “We’re trapped. It’s a dead end,” she said.

  Lev loosened his hold, allowing her arms to slide away. But he caught one hand before she’d gone far. He used their clasped hands to pull her around the giant oak. The river was wider than she’d thought. The ravine was so broad that a suspension bridge had been built at one time from their side to the other.

  Unfortunately, the bridge was in ruins.

  The ropes that had once supported the structure were frayed and weather-beaten. The planks that made up its walkway had fallen to the midway point, and even there, thousands of feet above the rushing water below, the wood looked ramshackle and rotten.

  “It won’t support our weight,” Madeline said. Her stomach felt like it had already fallen onto the rocks below.

  “Not for long, but we won’t need long to cross,” Lev said. His chin jerked up, and he looked back the way they had come. Madeline’s horrified gaze was locked on the remains of the bridge, but she could hear the wolves coming. Lev had said the pack had massed together from numerous smaller packs. It had to be their numbers and their witch masters that caused the usually graceful creatures to make such noise chasing them through the woods.

  “It will collapse beneath the pack. They’ll die even if we don’t fight them,” Madeline said.

  “Not if you cut the ropes when we reach the other side,” Lev declared.

  He scooped her up again without giving her a chance to protest. There was no more time for argument. To save Trevor, they had to risk their lives, but she’d been prepared to do that all along.

  Except Lev didn’t head toward the bridge. He turned and ran toward the wolves. Madeline gasped, but it took only a moment to realize that he planned to get a running start for the impossible leap from the edge of the ravine to the first plank on the bridge. The white wolf could easily make that leap...and then eat her when they made it to the other side.

  “I will not let you go,” Lev promised. Madeline tightened her grip around his neck, but she didn’t promise the same. She intended to let him go as soon as she could. Now more than ever, she could see and feel the white wolf close to the surface of his skin. His voice was more gravelly than it had been before. His eyes gleamed. His teeth flashed white against his golden-blond beard when he clenched them.

  The wolves are coming, but the white wolf is already here.

  She didn’t make a sound when Lev jumped. There wasn’t time to scream. His legs pumped like the pistons of the mighty train that had brought her to Romania. Only the fuel that propelled him was Volkhvy-manipulated Romanov blood. Vasilisa had crafted her wolves out of Ether’s energy and bone.

  Madeline reached for the hilt of her sword—enchanted blood wasn’t enough.

  Vasilisa had also forged the ruby sword because Lev Romanov couldn’t fight the Dark alone, and Darkness drove the pack that hunted on their heels.

  She didn’t make a declaration she couldn’t keep. This was for now. This was for Trevor. The ruby burst to life and suffused their bodies in its glow just before Lev’s feet left the ground. They didn’t fly. Madeline could feel the pull of gravity on her body as Lev’s momentum propelled them through the air. But they also didn’t fall before his toes were able to find purchase on the edge of the first board on the walkway of the bridge. It cracked beneath their weight, but it held long enough for Lev to push forward onto the next and the next. The rotted boards fell away from their progress. Madeline watched the splintered pieces tumble and fall end over end until they splashed in the river.

  The wood debris was so much slower than Lev. It fell slowly, illuminated by sparkling ruby light.

  And then the man who held her against his chest landed hard on the solid ground of the other side. Madeline drew the Romanov blade as Lev’s feet dug two streaks in the earth to stop his momentum. She leaped from his arms as he released her. The rope was already tattered and weak.

  Her heart pounded as she raised the sword above her head, because she caught a glimpse of what they’d left behind them. Most of the walkway was gone. Wolves poured from the trees like a black, gray and russet flood. But before the wolves could try to use what remained of the bridge, Madeline lowered the ruby sword and severed first one support and then the other.

  By the light of the ruby, the sword’s blade was no longer tarnished and dull. It sliced cleanly through the rotted rope. Where there should have been at least some resistance, there was none.

  And the suspension bridge fell away from their side of the ravine. Since mostly rope remained, the bridge seemed to float down to the other side of the abyss. The wolves tumbled and rolled over and under and around each other as they came to the edge. Even evil witches spared the pack from the cruelty of sending them onward for nothing. Either that or they had abandoned their horde when they realized it would fail.

  A howl shook the earth under Madeline’s feet. She stumbled back from the edge and fell to her knees. She knew that howl. It froze her blood and hollowed her bones. The ruby died. Its light went out like someone putting out a fire. Although the blade still gleamed as if it had been polished, the ruby was once more dead and dull.

  Madeline used the sword like a cane to push herself up from the ground. She turned to face certain death in the form of the giant monster she’d seen on Krajina months ago. She’d known the white wolf was close to the surface since the moment she first saw Lev Romanov in the tower. It had only been a matter of time before he would wake.

  Except she didn’t find the white wolf preparing to attack her when she turned around. She found only Lev Romanov. He stood with his shirt and pants shredded at the seams. Bulging muscles must have been near the shift when he made that impossible leap. His hands were fully human, but they were violently curved like claws, and the tendons on the sides of his neck were tensed and distended.

  He howled again, and the wolves across the ravine responded with submissive yips and yowls. Their sounds trailed away as the pack disbanded back into the forest they’d come from. Or so she imagined. She didn’t look across the ravine. Her attention was riveted on the savage man on this side. He looked worse than he’d looked in the tower room at Bronwal. Thunder clouded his forehead, and fury blazed from his eyes. His teeth were bared.

  This was the beast that had broken and thrown all the furniture down the stairs. These were the violent hands that had shredded clothes and books.

  Unlike the wolves, she wasn’t free to run away.

  She had to face the white wolf, because she needed him.

  Chapter 10

  Madeline didn’t sheath her sword, but it was dead in her hand again. Its glow was gone. Lev’s howl had snuffed it out. The sword had been created to channel Ether’s energy into the warrior who fought beside the white wolf. But the connection between the wolf and the woman and the ruby had to be embraced to be complete.

&n
bsp; She wouldn’t embrace it. She couldn’t. The connection wasn’t safe for Trevor. It wasn’t safe for her. The fear she’d woken to on Krajina wasn’t only a memory. It stared across the ravine and howled in the form of a man.

  Lev dropped to his knees, his head bowed down into his hands. He grabbed fistfuls of wild blond mane in his fingers. Was he fighting the shift or begging for it to come and take him away?

  Madeline tightened her grip on the sword’s hilt and raised the tip in defense. Lev still hadn’t looked her way. Her heart still pounded from the death-defying leap they’d made together. Her chest rose and fell as heavily as Lev’s, as if she’d also exerted muscle and will to cross the bridge.

  Her fear hadn’t stopped her from using the connection to aid in the leap across the ravine. In those moments, she discovered the rush of accepting the sword’s Call. The ruby was hers. Ether’s energy had been channeled through the gem to enhance the white wolf’s power. Lev had barely made it to the remaining planks on the bridge midway across the ravine.

  But he had made it.

  The superhuman feat was more evidence that she couldn’t take the connection between them lightly. It was real. It was powerful. And she had to reject it. Lev would shift again. It was inevitable. The white wolf was a part of him. It wouldn’t stay dormant for long. She could see the wolf in his eyes, could feel it in his muscles. When he’d leaped from one disintegrating board to the next on the bridge, he’d been more wolf than man. His grace and fury had saved them, but at what cost?

  Madeline waited for the ground to shake. She waited for Lev’s human form to morph into the creature that stalked her nightmares. If he attacked her, she would have to fight. But even with her remembered skill with the blade, she wasn’t sure she’d survive.

  Lev’s breathing had slowed. He straightened and dropped his hands from his head. And still the shift didn’t come. He looked up at the sky and his back expanded, then relaxed as he inhaled deeply. Then he rose to his feet. Slowly, he turned toward her.