Barbara Hancock - Legendary Beast

She slept...

...his love didn’t

Once upon a time, Madeline was trapped in an enchanted sleep, her baby wrapped tight in her arms. Then the white wolf woke her, and her son disappeared. For centuries, Lev Romanov searched for his wife and their child, and the search drove him half-mad. Can Madeline trust the wolf to be the man who can help her save their son?

BARBARA J. HANCOCKlives 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

Brimstone Seduction

Brimstone Bride

Brimstone Prince

Legendary Shifter

Legendary Wolf

Legendary Beast

Darkening Around Me

Silent Is the House

The Girl in Blue

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk

Legendary Beast

Barbara J. Hancock

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-08216-7

LEGENDARY BEAST

© 2018 Barbara J. Hancock

Published in Great Britain 2018

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

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www.millsandboon.co.uk

For the lovers who mean it

when they pledge their hearts “forever.”

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

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

Epilogue

Extract

About the Publisher

Madeline woke to the sound of a howl. The horrible cry trailed off and died out. Coughs racked her body, and her raw throat throbbed. The terrible noise had ripped its way out of her own chest. She struggled to breathe. The howl had been too big and too rough for her throat. It had ripped through her throat so that every breath that followed was a harsh rasp.

Seconds later, terror caused even those shallow breaths to catch. She forgot the rude awakening and the raw pain in her throat.

The baby was gone.

Trevor. Was. Gone.

She struggled to open her eyes. The world that met her was blurry and vague. She could feel the loss of the baby better than she could see her empty arms. His weight against her chest was missing.

She’d held him for such a long time.

But another familiar weight was still beside her.

Madeline reached for the ruby sword. The gem in its hilt flickered weakly, oddly illuminating her blurred surroundings. When her fingers closed around it, its red light flared. She could suddenly make out her strange crystalline bed. Someone or something had shattered the enclosure and taken her child.

The sword vibrated with power, but she held it easily, from practice and skill. The scarlet light grew and became an aura around her whole body as she rose.

She wasn’t dressed for battle. Her gown and kirtle were much more cumbersome than the leggings and tunic she would have worn for fighting. But it didn’t matter. There was no time to search for more practical clothes. Trevor was gone, and she could sense a great and horrible danger bearing down on her.

Crystal shards fell away from her as she stood. Madeline could barely make out the tangle of bushes around her, though the scent of roses filled the air. But none of those sensations mattered. She was pulled out of the garden as if by an invisible hand toward the threat she sensed.

She was a warrior. Every instinct she possessed drove her forward. Her vision was still blurry; her heart pounded painfully beneath her breast. Her throat felt as if it had been torn apart by her howling scream. But she brandished her ruby sword and made her way to the battle that waited for her.

“Lev, no!” someone shouted.

The meaning of the shout didn’t penetrate her understanding. Her attention was focused on a great and terrible beast on the edge of a cliff as she climbed up a steep rise above the garden where she’d been sleeping. Everything else was indistinct to her perceptions except the massive figure of a monstrous white wolf that snarled and growled and threatened the people nearby.

Rain began to fall. It plastered the wolf’s hair against his giant body, and even though the red aura of her ruby sword deflected much of the moisture from her face, her vision was even more obscured as the rain hit the barrier of energy and became rivulets of water in front of her eyes.

The tempestuous storm and the creature’s sudden loud and long howl seemed to echo the tumult in her own chest. She had to clamp her jaw against the urge to howl again along with the beast, as his sound made the very ground on which she stood vibrate.

Madeline raised her blade against the monster and against the fury that threatened to tear her body apart because she couldn’t contain the enormity of it all.

But then the white wolf was gone.

Her anger didn’t disappear, but a pain so intense it overshadowed any she had felt before joined it. Her sword arm weakened beneath the onslaught of emotion, and she lowered it until the tip of her blade met the ground so that the mighty ruby blade became more cane than weapon. It was the only thing keeping her on her feet.