Legendary Beast

“There’s something bad in your tea,” she gasped as her eyes watered.

The woman grabbed the cup from Madeline’s fingers before she could drop it. She raised it to her own face and sniffed.

“I only smell tea. Nothing else. You can’t possibly smell the poison. Not unless...” The woman’s eyes widened, and she rose so quickly that the bad tea slopped on the floor. “They told me it was safe to approach you alone. They said you’d lost your connection to the wolf.”

Madeline sat frozen as the woman’s movements caused a black mark on her forehead to be revealed. She’d seen the same mark on the foreheads of the corrupt Volkhvy who had attacked Vasilisa’s island. She’d sketched the ashy flower all around the wolf drawings in her pad.

“My son. Where is my son?” Madeline asked. Her sharp demand caused the other passengers to shuffle and murmur. She and the witch who had apparently tried to poison her were now the objects of everyone’s attention.

But the Volkhvy was already backing away. Her eyes were round with fear.

“It doesn’t matter. Your connection to the wolf won’t stop us. I’ll be back, and next time I won’t be alone,” the marked witch threatened. She continued to back away toward the door, her gaze spinning wildly around the passenger car as if she expected the savage white wolf to suddenly spring from thin air.

Madeline knew there was no wolf connection coming to her rescue, but before she could rise and go after the witch, armed with nothing but a sketchbook, the train entered a tunnel. The darkness wasn’t complete, but it was enough cover for the Volkhvy assassin to disappear.

When the train exited the tunnel and daylight streamed through its windows once more, the sun found Madeline clutching her backpack to her chest as if it was the baby she’d lost.

Her uncertainty in her abilities didn’t matter. The assassin’s fear meant she was on the right path. The white wolf was her only hope.

The savage wolf was a shape-shifter, and at one time he had been her husband. In this whole wide world she navigated alone, there was only one other who might be able to help her save Trevor from the marked Volkhvy who had stolen him away.

His father.

Vasilisa said he was wild and he couldn’t be trusted, but Madeline had no one else to turn to for help.

Chapter 2

Lev had thrown most of the furniture out of the tower room. Niceties enraged him. He was currently dissatisfied with the shredded bed he’d kept in the middle of the room. The gemlike stained-glass windows he’d shattered with his fists lay all around the floor in glittering shards, while the biting wind howled through the ramparts and into the room he’d opened to the elements outside. The cold air didn’t bother him. He welcomed it. He craved discomfort. In fact, he wanted to run away from the care and concern of everyone around him, but reduced to two legs and two feet cut by the glass he’d walked over as he paced back and forth for days, how far could he possibly go?

Not far enough. Never far enough.

On four legs, he’d finally found her. She had greeted him as an enemy. She had raised the ruby sword against him...and he’d wanted its blade to fall. He’d stood on the edge of the cliff as the white wolf, and then he’d kneeled there as a broken man. He deserved her hatred. He should have thrown himself into the raging sea far below the cliff’s edge.

But Soren had brought him home.

Bronwal. The Carpathian castle Vasilisa had built for her enchanted warriors so long ago. It still stood. Only now it remained ever-manifest in an isolated mountain pass where once it had come from the Ether because of Vasilisa’s curse.

His twin brother wouldn’t give up on him. He never had. As the red wolf, Soren had been relentless in his pursuit. If Lev could have shifted back into his wolf form in those moments, he would have fought Soren tooth and nail to remain at Madeline’s mercy.

But the shift wouldn’t come to him no matter how hard he tried to summon it.

He was still a man. He’d been trapped in his human form since the day he’d found Madeline on Vasilisa’s island. His human body was unrecognizable to him. He’d been a battle-hardened warrior in long-ago days he could barely remember. He’d lived a demanding life in the saddle and on the battlefield, even when he wasn’t a wolf. But none of that had compared to the relentless life he’d lived for hundreds of years as the white wolf. That life was written on his scarred skin and ruthlessly toned physique. Only now could he look back and realize he’d been as relentless as Soren. The red wolf had hunted him. The white wolf had hunted for his lost wife and child even after he’d forgotten their faces and names.

Witches had done this to him. They had tortured him for centuries by taking his family and leaving him with a mad hunger for his wife and son that couldn’t be satiated no matter how much blood he spilled. He’d thought them dead. He’d searched anyway.

Never resting. Never stopping. Never giving up.

Only to discover his long-lost love hated him when he finally found her. It was a suitable end to his legendary tale. The only one he deserved. He hadn’t protected Madeline or Trevor from Vasilisa. He had howled and howled against the Volkhvy queen, but he had never been able to find the family she’d stolen from him. And still he howled. He couldn’t shift and he couldn’t leave Bronwal, not while Madeline, Trevor, Soren and his entire family were at the mercy of witches.

Lev jumped up from the bed and wrenched one of its solid posters free from its frame. His long years as the white wolf had given him incredible strength. His muscles were lean and firm and roped with veins. They bulged as he tore apart the bed and flung its pieces down the winding stairs.

He had felt her fear. It had been a part of him. It had driven him back into the human form he’d shunned for hundreds of years.

Servants would come. They would clear the busted wood away. They would bring him food and drink. They would bring him clothes to replace the shirts and trousers he tore from his skin. They would try to bathe him and bandage the wounds on his feet.

But his rage always won in the end. They always ran away and left him alone. Even his devoted brother, Soren, when he came to check on Lev like clockwork every night, would eventually leave him to howl alone at the too-distant moon.

He’d lived with torment for many years, but it was far worse now that he had felt Madeline’s fear.

Without the help of some of Vasilisa’s loyal servants, who had also survived the attack, Madeline never would have found Bronwal. The servants had given her the money she would need and explained how to use it. In spite of her illness, she was quick-witted and only needed to see or hear something once to understand how to do it herself. They explained that at one time, there had been a mirror portal between Krajina and the Romanovs’ castle, but it had been destroyed.

Madeline was desperate to save Trevor, but she was also terrified to see the white wolf again. The long journey helped to prepare her for what she might have to face. Still, once she hiked to the protected pass where the castle the world had forgotten stood, she stared up at its towered heights with trepidation.

The sword seemed like a dream. Her ability to wield it seemed like a joke. Her hands seemed much more suited to charcoal pencils than deadlier things. But she no longer had the luxury of taking the time to rediscover herself. It was time to decide who she would be. Right here. Right now.

Madeline decided she would be the person who saved her son.

She had dreaded seeing the white wolf again. She hadn’t stopped to imagine what it would be like for all the other citizens of Bronwal to welcome her “home.” She recognized no one. For her, it was exactly as if she’d approached the castle for the first time. She wondered at its breadth and depth. She marveled at its immensity. Only Volkhvy enchantments could have kept it hidden from the outside world for so long.

But by far, it was the whispers and exclamations and expressions on people’s faces that seemed like the greatest barrier between her and the shape-shifter she sought.

“Please, ma’am. Wait here,” an elderly servant advised.

The great hall she entered was cavernous, but its details were swallowed up in shadows.

When someone came to meet her, Madeline finally saw her first familiar face. It was one of the people the white wolf had threatened on the cliff during the storm when she’d woken up to confront him—the warm presence that had taken the sword from her numb fingers.

This was Anna, the Light Volkhvy princess, and Vasilisa’s daughter.

“We didn’t expect you so soon,” the curvy, dark-haired woman said. Her hair tumbled around her face in a chestnut cap of curls. And her lush figure was enhanced by the obvious swell of pregnancy that rounded out the loose tunic she wore. In her arms, she carried a long bundle wrapped in scarlet cloth. The cloth was embroidered with thorny vines. For some reason, the design made Madeline’s heartbeat quicken.

“I’m surprised you expected me at all, but I have no choice. Marked Volkhvy attacked Krajina. They’ve taken Trevor and Vasilisa,” Madeline said. The other woman’s eyes widened and her face blanched. Madeline’s urgency for her son had caused her to be inconsiderate. She should have been gentler when she told Anna about her mother’s kidnapping.

“I marked them. They’re worse than Dark Volkhvy. They were once Light, but they’ve been corrupted by their thirst for power,” Anna said. “You’ve come for Lev’s help,” she continued in a softer tone. She had frozen several steps away. She held the scarlet bundle with one hand while the other had fallen on her stomach as if she was protecting her own baby from harm. “He hasn’t recovered. He might never recover. He is still...lost,” Anna warned.

It hadn’t been concern for her mother that made Anna Romanov go suddenly pale. It had been the very idea that Madeline was here to seek out the white wolf’s help.

She didn’t need the other woman’s fear to remind her of the white wolf’s ferocity. She had sketched his snarl a thousand times from her memories of that day on the cliff. Anna’s fears put hers in perspective. She was more afraid for Trevor than she was of the wolf. She was ready to face him. She had to be.

“I’m also lost. I can’t remember my former life. Vasilisa said my recovery would take time, but I no longer have that luxury. I’m here because I can’t rescue my baby alone,” Madeline said.

“Soren can help. And Ivan. They can help you,” Anna said. “Elena and I—”

“No. The black wolf and the red wolf have to protect their own families. You’re ready to have a baby yourself, and Vasilisa told me that Elena has a newborn,” Madeline said.

“I don’t think Lev will help you,” Anna said. “I don’t think he can.” Her grip on the scarlet bundle was white-knuckled as she spoke, and she took another step toward Madeline, as if she would try to persuade her to go away.

“I’m not here to ask for his help,” Madeline said. “I’m here to demand it.”

Anna paused again. She was shorter than Madeline by half a dozen inches, but even though she was forced to tilt her chin to meet Madeline’s eyes, her direct green gaze still seemed formidable. It took all of Madeline’s will not to back down. For Trevor she stood. For Trevor she didn’t resist when Anna raised the bundle between them and held it horizontally supported on her forearms. The scarlet cloth fell aside to reveal what had been nestled carefully in its soft folds.

Madeline recognized the ruby sword. She reached for it automatically as if she could do nothing else, but when her fingers brushed over the large ruby in the sword’s hilt, nothing happened. It didn’t wake to greet her. It was dark and dull, more grayish black than red, as if it was tarnished by shadows.

Her hands dropped away from the one thing she remembered besides her baby and the white wolf. Its darkness seemed like a rejection. She wasn’t the woman she used to be, and the sword knew it. She wasn’t a brave warrior who had fought for the Light Volkhvy and Queen Vasilisa. She was a confused woman weakened by her long illness and her memory loss.

But she didn’t back away.

“I wondered at its dormancy. I thought maybe it would wake in your presence,” Anna said. She didn’t wrap the cloth back around the sword. She still seemed to watch and wait for some sign that the ruby wasn’t dead.

“I didn’t come for the sword. I came for the white wolf,” Madeline said. Her concerns over her memory loss had risen with her frantic heartbeat to fill her chest and then her throat with a tight heat she could barely speak around. But she wouldn’t allow it to stop her.

“Lev is in the tower room,” Anna replied. “Or what’s left of it. I’ll take you to the stairs. That’s as far as I’m able to go. He rages at the sight of me. Or any Volkhvy. Maybe you’ll receive a better welcome.”

Her tone didn’t sound hopeful. Madeline swallowed against the knot of fear that had solidified at the back of her throat.

Anna turned. She led the way out of the room and toward the back of the castle. Madeline took a deep breath to try to dispel the tightness in her chest and followed. When they came to a large archway that framed the beginning of a spiral staircase, the pregnant woman paused and then stepped aside to make way for Madeline. The stone stairway twisted up and around until its treads curved out of sight.

Anna still held the sword out in front of her as if it was an offering for Madeline. Madeline refused it as she stepped forward.

“Whatever you find at the top of the stairs, you should know that he never stopped searching for you,” Anna said. “He never rested in all the years you were sleeping.”

Madeline paused for a moment. Her back was turned to Anna, but she heard. She also doubted. Vasilisa had warned her that the white wolf was feral. She’d woken to his rage. If he had looked for her and Trevor, he hadn’t had benevolent intentions.

Madeline climbed the stairs. This time, she wouldn’t raise a sword against the white wolf as she had done on the edge of Krajina’s sea cliff. The sword was as closed off and dead to her as her past was to her mind and heart. She only had her love for Trevor to guide her and strengthen her as she climbed up toward the tower room. Her maternal feelings offset her fear. She didn’t know what she would find at the top of the stairs, but she knew she had to try.

Soft electric torches glowed from the soot-blackened walls where flaming torches used to be. Madeline could almost see them flickering. She could almost remember the scent of scorched tallow-soaked cloth as she forced herself to take step after step toward her greatest nightmare.

But any gentler memories were overwhelmed in her mind by visions of the white wolf’s snarl and his red glowing eyes. He was a massive monster with long fearsome fangs and bloodstained fur. She had been filled with the absolute certainty that a dangerous presence had threatened her and Trevor and everyone else there that day. Madeline’s response had been visceral, from the howl that had woken her up as it ripped itself from her body, to the intent that had claimed her to lash out with her sword and kill the beast that seemed to be the only threat she could see.

Anna had stopped her. The white wolf’s shift had stopped her. For some reason, she hadn’t been able to strike at the man as the rain fell and the wind whipped around them. She’d been racked by an internal storm as fierce as the one that tossed the ocean and the atmosphere around Krajina.

The ferocity of her emotion had seemed too big for her body to contain, until Vasilisa had soothed it away with her cool magic.

As she neared the top of the stairs, Madeline had to step around and over the busted-up debris and shredded remains of furniture and clothes. Feathers from pillows that had been torn apart swirled up and floated down around her feet like snow. Ripped-up pages of books joined this feather “snow” to cover the stairs.

And still she climbed.

Her body was heavy. The uncertainty in her chest and throat had expanded until it seemed to flow through her veins to every part of her. Her legs felt weighted down, but she moved them anyway. Her heightened anxiety pressed against her shoulders as if it tried to hold her back. She ignored the pressure. Once again, it seemed as if her body could barely contain the emotions it tried to feel.

But her discomfort and the danger she faced didn’t matter.

Trevor, Trevor, Trevor, Trevor.

He was all that mattered.

Each ringing step of her boots on the stone staircase seemed to echo with her baby’s name. She only paused when she came to the top and found a door torn from its hinges and lying to the side. The door had been crafted with heavy wood on its bottom half and scrolled iron bars on its top half, but for all its sturdy artisan construction, it had been busted loose and practically splintered by whatever force had shoved it aside.

“Go away. I want nothing. I need nothing. How many times do I have to tell you to allow me to bleed?”

Every ounce of trepidation that had filled Madeline’s body drained away when she heard the ragged rough voice ring out and echo down the stairs. Its deep reverberations flowed through her like rushing waters, leaving her hollowed out in their wake. For long seconds, she wasn’t afraid. She wasn’t anything. She was only an empty husk that might float down to settle with the feathers and torn papers on the stairs.

And then a basket whizzed past her head. Bandages and tape spilled from it, and the whole mess bounced down the stairs and out of sight. Silence fell, broken only by Madeline’s own respiration. Her breathing was quicker than it should have been. She’d thought the fear was gone, but she found it again, a more silent, calmer disquiet than the overwhelming emotion of before.

She was certain that she was in trouble. She was also certain she would face any trouble imaginable to save her son.

This time it was easier to take the last few steps that brought her into the tower room. She only had to reach up and hold the straps of her backpack and put one foot in front of the other.

And then she saw him again. For the first time in six months.

The trash on the stairs should have prepared her for what she would find, but her breath caught in her throat in a gasp when she saw Lev Romanov. Her fingers went numb on the straps of her bag, and her knees wobbled. She willed her joints to turn to steel, and she managed to stay on her feet.

She’d seen him on the cliff, completely nude and kneeling in the rain. According to Queen Vasilisa, she’d known and loved him, and if that was so, she’d certainly seen him thousands of times before.

Yet she was certain the man before her would have been a stranger even to the warrior she used to be.

He was braced for battle in the middle of the room, with his feet planted wide and his fists clenched at his sides. He wore only torn and bloody trousers low on lean hips. The rest of him was bare. And every inch of his exposed flesh was tensed and hard with ropy muscles that seemed to scream from past exertions she couldn’t imagine. He also had fine white scars etched all over his arms, chest and abdomen. The marks seemed impossible because his flesh appeared too hard to brand. He was stone, a living, breathing statue to commemorate where a man used to be.

He glared at her with intense blue eyes that blazed from behind a shocking white streak of hair. The rest of his hair was blond. It fell in wild locks all around his face and shoulders. His beard was as untamed as his hair.

She couldn’t read his expression. The set of his features was hidden. But the set of his body was not. He stood as if he was in midbattle, always in midbattle, prepared for the next blow and the one after that.

The meaning of his words, the bandages and the blood finally hit her, and Madeline breathed out a long shaky sigh. He was hurt. The blood on his ripped trousers was his own. His feet were crimson, and the flagstones on the floor were marked by his bloodied footsteps. A cold breeze filled the room, and there was glass from the broken windows all over the floor.

“No. I will not allow you to bleed. Nor will I go away and leave you alone. Trevor needs the white wolf to save him,” Madeline said. Her voice sounded almost as rough as his had sounded. As if she hadn’t spoken in an age. But at least it didn’t tremble. She was shaken to her core by Lev Romanov’s appearance, but her voice was firm.

She wasn’t prepared for the savage man in the middle of the room to approach her right away, though she should have been. He was obviously racked by adrenaline and fully committed to waging a war only he could see.

He moved too quickly. Between one stunned blink and the next, he had crossed to her and taken her shoulders in his hands. His grip was too fierce. His fingers pressed into her flesh to hold her in place as he intently examined her face. And it wasn’t only his hardness or his hold that was intimidating. He was well over six feet tall, and she was too used to being the tallest person in the room.

Suddenly, she was small and soft in comparison to him. She was also not nearly as braced for anything as she’d thought she was. He was midbattle. Her fight had just begun.

“Madeline,” he said, and it sounded like a secret they would share, but she couldn’t grasp its meaning. The intensity of his gaze was suddenly fully focused on her face. He scanned her features as if he would memorize them. She was caught and held by his blue eyes, just as he held her with his hands as if he would never let her go.

For weeks, she’d been handled with care by Vasilisa and the entire palace of Volkhvy. She’d been given time and space and consideration as she’d tried to understand the world around her.

Lev Romanov met her with an urgency that stunned her. He was wild with some need she couldn’t begin to understand, when all else was confusion. He fought something with every rise and fall of his broad chest. His fight showed in the grip of his hands and the tension in his entire body.

He pulled her closer, the better to look deep into her eyes, but the move also brought her nearer to his large body. She had seen him nude in the rain, but her vision had been blurred. Here, now, only inches from her, she saw him clearly—every scar, every angle, every plane—and it was all too sudden and intimate for her senses, which had been sleeping for a very long time.

Her breathing had gone shallow, but the scent of the wind trapped in his hair still filled her nose. The room was chilly, but his masculine body heat enveloped her where they stood.

This man had thrown everyone and everything out of his room, but now he grabbed her and pulled her close. He looked deeply into her eyes as if he was preparing to...

Her insecurity over her memory loss flared back to life and resonated all the way to her bones.

“I don’t remember you at all,” Madeline said. “I’m not here for you. I’m here for Trevor. He needs the white wolf.”

Her heart pounded, and the fear crowded out all else that might have been long ago and far away. She needed this savage stranger to help her. She didn’t need to remember him or what they had shared.

His hands tightened for a split second and then released just before she cried out in pain. The sudden squeeze had been reflexive. He noted her pain and let her go as suddenly as the spasm had begun. She thought she saw regret flash in his eyes, but then he dipped his head, and his hair was in the way. Did he use his wild mane as a shield between them? If so, it was only somewhat effective, considering the rest of him was exposed.

“The white wolf is gone,” Lev said. “I can’t shift. I can’t help you. This human body has me again, and it won’t let me go.”