Barbara Hancock - Legendary Beast

“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.

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.