The girl he’d loved...
...has become a woman he despises
Once upon a time, Anna was an orphan girl, her only friend a shifter. Then the red wolf Soren Romanov learned that the girl he loved was the daughter of his family’s greatest foe... Now grown and beginning to master her own power, Anna knows that only Soren can help her stop a great evil. Can he learn to trust the woman—and the witch—she’s become?
“You are a stranger to me,” Soren said softly. “One I do not wish to know.”
Perhaps she could blame the sword’s Call to the power in her blood on her attraction to this man who obviously despised her. Or perhaps not. The years that had passed didn’t prevent her from remembering the way she’d felt about him when she was a girl. He’d been boyishly handsome then and princely to her Cinderella.
Now he was hardened and scarred and angry.
And, still, she yearned.
Her eyelids opened. She couldn’t hide from this meeting by closing her eyes. His gaze locked on hers and she was caught by the swirl of emotions behind the golden brown.
If there was only anger and distrust left between them, why did she want to touch his frowning face?
Barbara J. Hancock lives in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, where her daily walk takes her to the edge of the wilderness and back again. When Barbara isn’t writing modern gothic romance that embraces the shadows with a unique blend of heat and heart, she can be found wrangling twin boys and spoiling her pets.
Also by Barbara J. Hancock
Harlequin Nocturne
Brimstone Seduction
Brimstone Bride
Brimstone Prince
Legendary Warriors
Legendary Shifter
Legendary Wolf
Harlequin E Shivers
Darkening Around Me
Silent Is the House
The Girl in Blue
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Legendary Wolf
Barbara J. Hancock
Dear Reader,
I’ve always been fascinated with legendary couples and timeless fairy tales, so it’s been a wonderful adventure to bring them together for Harlequin Nocturne. Because the Legendary Warriors series spans centuries, I’ve been able to explore love, fate and what eternal devotion really means.
What kind of hero would love forever? What kind of heroine would inspire his devotion?
Oh, my, what a big heart Soren Romanov has. It goes along with his big bite. Anna, the Light Volkhvy princess, has weathered so many years with her beloved’s heart just out of reach. I enjoyed going along for the ride as she determined she was worthy of happily-ever-after, even though her “ever after” took some unexpectedly long detours.
I love writing survivors. Anna and Soren never gave up. Not on life or on each other! They are my legendary lovers. Hang on tight while they come together in a fiery modern-day reunion with a Little Red Riding Hood twist.
Sincerely,
Barbara J. Hancock
For the believers. And for those that want to believe. Hang on—you’ve got this.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Excerpt from Tempting the Dark by Michele Hauf
Chapter 1
The thick evergreen wood was nearly impenetrable save for the hollowed-out paths that wound through the snarled low-hanging branches and twisted tree trunks. Wild animals had made the paths—the deer headed for clearings where grass and water could be found, and the predators, who naturally followed in the deer’s footsteps, hungry for hot blood.
Anna was neither predator nor prey, although she was on the hunt.
It was dawn and a cool, damp mist rose around her and the gnarled spruce trunks as the sunrise heated the mountain air. The white fog curling down the same pathways she tried to traverse contributed to the forest’s shadows. It would disperse eventually. It was autumn and the temperature would rise high enough to dry the air, even in the Carpathian Mountains of Romania, where the chill of winter settled in earlier than elsewhere.
But it wasn’t warm yet.
Her breath, quickened by the uncertainty of low visibility, came from her parted lips in visible puffs. The hood of her scarlet cloak protected her hair from the damp, but the cool misty air still managed to brush her face and encroach with fingerlike tendrils on her neck and chest. Her hands were encased in long black leather gloves. They kept her fingers warm...although that was merely a side benefit.
She might be forced to take them off.
She dreaded taking them off here, of all places, but she would if she had to.
There were wolves in these woods. Natural ones that posed a certain amount of danger and the deadly unnatural ones she sought. Those were the ones that made her dread taking off her gloves while possibly making their removal necessary all at the same time.
She clenched her hands into fists at the thought of using her newfound Volkhvy abilities at all, but against one legendary wolf in particular.
The forest was silent around her.
No birds called. No breeze stirred the evergreen needles. Only the silent mist swirled and eddied as if it was caught in the maze created by massive trees and winding pathways. Anna felt trapped, too, but it was a familiar feeling. One she was well used to accepting and persisting through. She’d been trapped in a cursed castle for centuries. This ancient wood was nothing in comparison.
Or, at least, it would be nothing in comparison, if she weren’t here to find Soren Romanov.
Her connection to the Romanov wolves—and the red Romanov wolf in particular—was a decidedly tortuous entrapment. She’d wanted to avoid Soren for the rest of her life after they’d discovered that her mother was the Light Volkhvy queen, Vasilisa, who had cursed the Romanovs for centuries.
The Volkhvy were a race of witches that drew their power from the Ether, an invisible plane that surrounded the earth with energy. But the Ether was like a black hole. Its vacuum expelled energy and, at the same time, it took. Light witches managed this hunger carefully, most of the time. Dark witches...didn’t. And sometimes even a Light Volkhvy could be consumed by the Ether’s Darkness.
Her mother was a powerful witch who had made Dark decisions and her actions had cost Anna and the Romanovs tremendous pain and sacrifice. Elena Pavlova and Ivan Romanov’s love had defied the Light Volkhvy queen’s rage. They had broken Vasilisa’s curse six months ago.
But all was not forgiven.
Soren’s rejection of Anna following the revelation of her blood when the curse was broken would haunt her forever—and witches, like legendary w
olves, lived a very long time.
She had embraced her new name and accepted her position as the Light Volkhvy princess because this was her life now. There was no place for her with the Romanovs.
If she could stay far away from the red wolf who had once been her most loyal companion, she might be able to recover. She might be able to come to grips with the power in her blood and maybe even learn to control it. She might forget Soren...eventually.
But the emerald sword had other ideas.
Even now, with her chest rising and falling too quickly in almost-panicked respiration, the sword’s Call couldn’t be ignored.
Her mother had created the legendary Romanov shifters as champions of the Light Volkhvy. With her magic, she had crafted three enchanted swords for the warrior women who would eventually become the enchanted shifters’ wives. The sapphire sword had Called Soren’s brother’s mate from across impossible time and distance to fight by his side. Elena was a human, but she had risked her life to find Bronwal and the legendary black wolf so he could help her defeat an evil witchblood prince who stalked her. She and Ivan had then worked together to break Vasilisa’s curse.
It was cruel irony that the red wolf’s sword would decide to Call the one woman who would prefer to stay as far away from the Romanovs as possible.
Her.
They had been her friends and companions. The red wolf had helped her survive a curse that had trapped her at Bronwal. The curse had threatened her life and her sanity for hundreds of years. Waiting to see Soren Romanov’s human face again had helped her endure.
Only to have him turn away from her in his wolf form and desert her once the curse was broken—because as the curse broke, it was revealed that Vasilisa was her mother.
Anna was a witch.
She’d had to deal with the red wolf’s desertion, and at the same time she’d nearly been overcome by the horror of her true parentage. He had run. But, she’d had nowhere to run from the horrible truth and no one to run away with.
Anna had come to a place in the forest where the path widened because it intersected with several other paths. Those trails led off in different directions, then disappeared as if the thick woods they tried to penetrate swallowed them.
She flexed her leather-encased fingers. The gloves on her hands helped to focus and contain the fledgling powers she was only beginning to understand. She hadn’t had the luxury of rejecting who and what she truly was. Her Volkhvy heritage was in her blood. Once she knew, it couldn’t be ignored.
She’d thought herself an orphan for too long.
Soren’s father, Vladimir Romanov, had kidnapped her and kept her as insurance against the queen he planned to overthrow. Anna had grown up alongside his children as a foundling they called “Bell.” She’d been ignorant of her witch heritage. When her mother had learned of Vladimir’s part in destroying the village where her baby daughter had been hidden from the threat of the Dark Volkhvy, she had cursed Bronwal to punish Vladimir for “killing” her daughter. Anna had been caught up in the curse, as well.
The knowledge that she was loved so much that her mother would weave a horrible curse as punishment for her supposed murder was a hot knot in her chest that was composed as much out of relief as it was of guilt.
But she was also filled with fear. She wasn’t just any witch; she was the daughter of the most powerful witch in existence. How could she trust herself to use the power her own mother had abused?
She forced the tingling in her fingers to ease off. She willed away the energy she inadvertently tried to channel because of her nerves. Before she’d discovered her identity, her powers had been dormant. Once her mother had begun her training, the power was always there, just beneath the surface of her skin, waiting to be released. It was entirely up to her to keep the energy she could channel in check. As she focused on control, the silence in the forest screamed a warning that roared deep in her ears along with the pounding of her heart.
There were wolves in the quiet wood.
She carefully picked her way down the path, heeding the warning that flared at the edges of her perceptions. She wasn’t alone. Ivan was busy at Bronwal. He and his new wife, Elena, were helping all the people who had survived the curse reclaim a modern life. She’d been there first and witnessed the construction, education and modernization that Vasilisa herself was helping to bring about as she tried to make amends.
That left Anna alone in the woods with Ivan’s brothers, the red wolf...and the white.
Coming back here was a mistake.
Her pounding heart most dreaded seeing Soren again, but her head knew that Lev—the white wolf—posed the greatest danger. He was feral. Completely out of touch with the man he’d once been. If it wasn’t for Soren, she would already have her gloves off and her hands would be free in case the white wolf decided to go from stalking to attack.
She could feel hungry eyes on her back. She’d tried to dismiss the feeling as imagination, but it persisted. Gooseflesh rose on the back of her neck, and it wasn’t the damp air that made her shiver. While she hunted for Soren, she was being stalked herself. Something was definitely out there, hiding in the trees and shadows. It might be the white wolf. Watching and waiting for the perfect moment to attack.
At the castle, they had told her that Soren was out looking for Lev. That he spent every waking moment trying to catch his wild twin brother and bring him back home. Coming into the woods after Soren Romanov had felt like a risk she had to take, but now she wasn’t so sure.
Suddenly, a long ululating cry broke the silence.
The howl came from far away, rising and falling in a weak, thready tone that she immediately pegged as coming from a natural wolf’s throat. She’d heard the Romanov wolves howl. Their shift from human form to wolf could shake the earth. Their vocalizations were much more powerful than this one. The weak howl fell away to nothing, and silence reigned once more.
Mist swirled. Shadows lurked. Her ears strained to pick up the slightest sound.
Every instinct she possessed screamed that she wasn’t alone, even as the hush deepened around her.
The sudden howl had caused her to freeze. Adrenaline rushed to her extremities and, in spite of her cloak, she shivered again against its cool, familiar flow beneath her skin. Her fear had helped her survive Bronwal during the curse. Now it caused her to stand motionless for only a moment before she reached to remove a glove. She couldn’t afford to be frozen by fear. She had to be fueled by it.
The long shafts of her leather gloves reached almost to her elbows. She pushed the left glove down to her wrist, but then another noise interrupted its removal.
A step sounded behind her.
A twig snapped.
She registered the quality of the sound before she whirled to face her stalker.
The snap had been caused by the tread of a boot, not a paw.
Her fingers fell away from the loosened glove. She hadn’t fully removed it. It was abandoned in a bunch around her wrist. She forgot her intention to free her magic as her hands dropped to her sides. They fisted in response to a strange yet hauntingly familiar face as a man materialized from the shadowy path behind her.
She should be glad it wasn’t Lev.
She should be relieved she wasn’t facing the feral white wolf.
As her chest tightened until she could hardly breathe, it wasn’t relief that claimed her. The large man who stepped toward her seemed as feral as the wolf she’d expected, and his altered appearance stabbed through her with a jolt of shocked recognition that pinned her in place.
She’d last seen Soren as her beloved companion, the red wolf. Before that, she remembered him as the handsome teenager who had been her loyal friend. They’d grown up together at Bronwal before the curse fell. She’d been an orphan. He’d been one of the legendary Romanov wolves, practically royal but somehow also hers.
T
he man who stalked her now had a heavy thundercloud brow and a mane of wild red hair around his bearded face. He was well over six feet tall with a muscular build and broad shoulders. He was Soren, but he wasn’t her Soren. He was changed. She backed up several paces until her spine came up against a tree. Its old, solid trunk wouldn’t allow her to retreat any farther.
This man was different, but as he approached she could see the giant wolf she’d known so well in his coloring and his movements. He was large but graceful. He was furious, but his fury was contained. She’d seen the red wolf stand against the Dark Volkhvy in just this way hundreds of times before. She had gloried in this moment, again and again. She had seen him confront and drive off countless marauders intent on stealing his brother’s enchanted blade.
The difference was that she had been by his side then and not the object of his fury.
“You aren’t welcome here, Volkhvy. Why have you come back?” Soren asked.
His voice. His human voice. When she’d heard it last, the world had been so much younger. There hadn’t been airplanes or automobiles. There hadn’t been blue jeans or cell phones. She had believed in loyalty and friendship. They had survived the passage of centuries together until his reaction to the truth had torn them apart. And now he sounded like an angry stranger. His voice was hard and rough. He spoke as if he’d howled alone at the moon far too many times.
“I had to come. There’s something you need to know,” Anna said. Her voice didn’t waver. Her whole body trembled from the shock of seeing him as her adversary, but her voice was as firm as it had to be. So much had changed, and she wasn’t sure if she would ever be comfortable with the power in her blood, but she had faced down a curse without cowering. She wouldn’t be timid now when she most needed to stand.
“There’s nothing you have to say that I need to hear,” Soren said. Shock had stabbed her, but it was his sharp words that penetrated the tightness in her chest. With every harsh syllable, he found the tenderness she hid, and the arrows kept coming. Her heart was pierced a thousand times, but she didn’t sink to the ground. In fact, she straightened away from the trunk she’d used as support longer than she should have. She stood, straight and tall. He didn’t need to see her distress at his transformation. She didn’t need to show him her fear or her pain.
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