Legendary Beast Read online

  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?

  And then she saw him again for the first time.

  The state of 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 those joints into some semblance of 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 him, she’d 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.

  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

  Legendary Beast

  Harlequin E Shivers

  Darkening Around Me

  Silent Is the House

  The Girl in Blue

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  Legendary Beast

  Barbara J. Hancock

  Dear Reader,

  What would happen if a legendary shape-shifter lost his soul mate? Once upon a time, Lev Romanov had a warrior wife who fought by his side. Together, they stood against the Dark and began a family in spite of the harsh life they lived.

  The second I wrote the first passage about Lev, the savage white wolf, I knew he would never give up on his mate, Madeline, or his baby, Trevor. No matter time or distance.

  This is a story about loving forever after. Beyond “till death do us part.” Yes, a wild heart beats in the white wolf’s chest, but it has always beat for one woman…if only she would remember.

  My husband was deployed during the Iraq War. We were apart for a year that seemed to last an eternity. I’ll never forget the thrill of him coming home. Legendary Beast is also a homecoming story. After all, we find home in the arms of those we love.

  Sincerely,

  Barbara

  For the lovers who mean it when they pledge their hearts “forever.”

  Contents

  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

  Excerpt from Witch Hunter by Shannon Curtis

  Prologue

  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.

  Until a warm body braced against hers on the other side.

  Trevor was gone. The white wolf was gone. Her numb fingers no longer held the ruby blade. The same person who helped her to stay on her feet had taken the blade from her and tossed it aside. It was lying on the ground, several feet away. The protection of its red aura was gone. R
ain pelted her face and soaked through her hair and her dress.

  And then a cold, calm, powerful presence was also there. All the terrible, overwhelming pain was soothed away by a cool psychic touch inside her mind. Her legs gave out beneath her, but it didn’t matter. The cool presence approached and took her weight from the smaller, warmer one.

  Vasilisa and her daughter, Anna. The knowledge of their names was placed in her mind by the cool presence. Her thoughts were as hazy as her vision and as impossible to process, but the explanation calmed her slightly. She should trust her queen. Her instincts were screaming other things, but they were rusty from disuse, and the psychic touch chilled them into silence.

  Madeline accepted the coolness in her mind. It came from the woman who held her on her feet, Vasilisa. She exuded an aura that numbed all else. Vasilisa turned Madeline, and they walked away together. But Madeline wasn’t entirely soothed. She had failed. She hadn’t killed the white wolf. The monstrous beast must have been the terrible threat that had woken her.

  And now he had escaped.

  Her mind was able to hold on to only one clear thought: wherever Trevor had gone, he wouldn’t be safe until the white wolf was destroyed.

  Chapter 1

  Madeline’s fingers were smudged with charcoal from the hundredth pencil she’d worn down to a nub. She used her thumb and forefinger to blend the shadows around the figure of the white wolf she’d drawn. He was large on the page. Much bigger than a natural wolf. As always, he loomed, ready to pounce. She’d lost count of how many times she’d committed her memory of him to paper. No matter how many pages she filled with his savage likeness, she never exorcised him from her mind.

  Good. She needed to remember so she would be prepared to protect Trevor if the white wolf should ever return.

  That stormy day she’d first woken after hundreds of years, it had been Vasilisa who had broken the crystal chamber that had been her bed for so long. The queen had taken Trevor from her arms to keep him safe while Madeline confronted the threat of the white wolf. It had been horrible to wake up and find her baby gone, but she was glad the queen had protected him from harm.

  Vasilisa had been the cool presence that had helped her. Madeline’s body had woken from a long illness, but her mind hadn’t. Every sight that met her eyes had dazzled and confused her.

  The queen encouraged her drawings. She said the sketches came from the recesses of her mind that were still sleeping. Besides the wolf, there were sketches of a life she’d forgotten—a life very unlike the world she had woken to on Vasilisa’s island, Krajina.

  Vasilisa was the Light Volkhvy queen, and Madeline had trusted her from the moment she realized it had been the queen who protected Trevor from the white wolf. Her queen. Her beloved liege. Vasilisa had rushed to break the crystal and take the baby from Madeline’s arms when the white wolf appeared on the island. His appearance had woken Madeline too harshly from her long sleep. She had risen to face his attack, but she hadn’t been strong enough. Vasilisa had explained everything as she helped Madeline recover. Healthy food and exercise seemed to clear her head a little more each day. As her health improved, Vasilisa gently tried to help Madeline recover the memories she’d lost.

  But, most of all, the queen had continued to take care of Madeline’s infant son, who was still sleeping. She’d explained that Trevor needed to wake up slowly, and that soon he would be smiling, gurgling and grasping Madeline’s finger once more.

  Madeline had forgotten a great many things, but she hadn’t forgotten her baby.

  Trevor, the white wolf and her ruby sword—everything else in this strange new world she had to relearn, but not those things. Knowledge of them flashed behind her eyes with every blink and pounded in her chest with every beat of her heart.

  Madeline finished the sketch and pulled her blackened fingers away from the page. The white wolf’s snarl was threatening, even though she’d created it herself with charcoal and paper. She calmly looked into the beast’s eyes for a few moments. Remembering his savagery made her stronger.

  She had quickly come to love Vasilisa, who treated her as a daughter and Trevor as a beloved grandchild. But she wouldn’t depend on the queen to keep Trevor safe. Madeline was his mother. Facing the threat of the white wolf was her responsibility, and she was determined to be ready.

  She closed the sketchbook and placed it on the window ledge that overlooked the ocean below.

  Vasilisa was walking on the beach. She held a tiny bundle in her arms—Trevor. Even far away from her breast, Madeline could feel the tug of the invisible heartstrings that held her and her baby together. Yet she trusted the queen with him; Vasilisa visited with him every day, often taking him on walks beneath the Mediterranean sun.

  The queen’s footsteps took her and the baby closer and closer to the cliff where the white wolf had appeared. Though Madeline trusted Vasilisa entirely, her breath still came quicker and her pulse leaped in her throat.

  Vasilisa said the white wolf had once been her champion, but he had become a wild and savage monster that couldn’t be trusted any longer.

  Madeline looked from the empty cliff down to the kind queen, who crooned to the sleeping baby she held against her chest. Queen Vasilisa’s enemies were Madeline’s enemies. It was a truth she felt to her bones.

  She stepped back from the window and stretched before dropping down to the floor. She caught her weight with her hands and then pressed up and down until her shoulders protested from the effort. Then she pressed up and down a dozen times more.

  When she’d woken up, her vision had been blurry and weak, but her instincts had driven her to rise and climb to the top of a cliff, where she’d found the white wolf. His presence had drawn her like a magnet—a terrifying magnet with vicious teeth and glowing red eyes.

  She’d confronted the wolf with the ruby sword in her hands, but she hadn’t killed him. When he’d shifted into his human form, she’d been taken by surprise. Then Vasilisa had appeared to bring her back to the palace, along with Trevor. The white wolf’s brother had taken the beast back to his home.

  Letting them go had been a mistake.

  But her weakness that morning had only guaranteed she would work hard to heal so she could fight the white wolf another day.

  Madeline brought her legs up beneath her and used them to lift her body back to a standing position with her arms outstretched. She exercised in secret because she didn’t want Vasilisa to worry she was overexerting herself. She grew stronger every day. Her arms, back and legs were responding to her efforts. Madeline straightened her shirt and stepped back to the window. She smoothed her hair back from her face.

  The queen was heading back to the palace. As she came nearer, Madeline turned to go outside and meet them. In midmorning, she always sang to Trevor and watched his little face for signs of waking.

  A sudden quaking of the earth beneath Madeline’s feet shook the entire palace and sent her to her knees. It was a testament to her persistence in recovering that she was able to leap back up again within seconds. As soon as she was back on her feet, she raced to the window, but the beach was empty, as was the stone stairway that led from the sand up to the palace portico.

  Vasilisa and Trevor were gone.

  Her gaze flew up from the sand to the cliff, but it was also deserted.

  If the white wolf had returned, he hadn’t appeared in the same place as last time.

  Madeline abandoned the window, but before she could make it to the door of her room, the screams had already begun. She wrenched open the door anyway and headed toward the noise of battle. She didn’t have the ruby sword by her side, and she was far from as strong as she could be, but she’d fight for Trevor with her bare hands if she had to.

  He was all she had left of a life she couldn’t remember.

  * * *

  The palace was under attack, but it wasn’t the white wolf. Madeline searched for Trevor as witches all around her battled each other with bolts of energy from their hands. The
transformation of the beautiful Mediterranean palace into a battlefield jarred her already tender senses, but she didn’t allow the shock to slow her down. She wasn’t Volkhvy, and her sword was gone, but she was quicker on her feet than she would have been because of her secret exercise regimen. She used that quickness to dodge and weave and make her way around the fighting witches.

  As she ran, she noted that the witches who had attacked Vasilisa’s palace had black marks on their foreheads. Were all Dark Volkhvy marked? She couldn’t remember.

  She only knew Vasilisa’s enemies were her enemies. She memorized the mark for later reference, but for now, she had to find Trevor and keep her baby from harm.

  “This way,” a voice whispered from one of Vasilisa’s sitting rooms. Madeline reacted just in time, sliding inside the narrowly opened door before a contingent of marked Volkhvy could see her. She blinked when the door clicked shut, enveloping her in darkness. The marked Volkhvy ran by, their booted feet ringing down the hall.

  “I’m looking for Trevor,” Madeline said into the darkness.

  “They’ve taken him. And the queen. Her last order was that I should keep you safe,” the voice explained.

  Madeline could finally make out one of Vasilisa’s older servants. The woman allowed the energy in her fingers to glow only slightly, lighting up the room enough to illuminate her face.