Legendary Beast

Her secret exercises seemed silly now, poor preparation for what lay ahead. She was physically stronger, but her memory loss left her vulnerable.

Her arms were empty. She needed to sketch or she would go mad. She clenched her smudged fingers into fists and placed them on her lap. She only had a few pencils left, and she needed to ration out the precious charcoal as a starving man would his last crumbs of bread.

Vasilisa had urged her to take her time to recover all she had lost, but her time had run out.

“Here. You look like you could use a hot drink more than I could,” the old woman insisted.

Now that her sketchbook was tucked away, Madeline really looked at the woman across from her for the first time. She raised her hand to accept the proffered cup as the older passenger nodded in approval.

But something was wrong. The woman wasn’t as old as she had seemed. Her hair wasn’t gray. It was white like Vasilisa’s, and her eyes were sharp, not elderly and vague as they focused keenly on the cup in Madeline’s hands.

Steam rose from the hot tea, but as she brought the cup closer to her face, its wafting fragrance wasn’t the aromatic scent of strong tea she expected. Instead, an unpleasant bitter scent assailed her. Madeline’s nose crinkled, and she lowered the cup without sipping.

“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 (#u6c7e6480-fd97-5698-89ec-a039af1b7cf8)

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.