Legendary Beast. Barbara Hancock J.

as quiet as the plane’s flight, the constant metallic screeches of the train strained her ears.

      Only her sketches soothed her.

      She finished a particularly menacing charcoal drawing of the white wolf, and then she closed her sketchbook and pushed it into the backpack that sat beside her in an empty seat. She put the pencil in a side pocket of her pack, even though it was probably spent. It rattled against a handful of others that had been used up. She had a few good ones left—soon she would sharpen another and sketch some more.

      Soon.

      Trevor and Vasilisa had been ruthlessly ripped from her life by an attack that had taken even the queen of all Light witches by surprise because it had been perpetuated by a traitorous Light Volkhvy who had turned to the Dark. Vasilisa had told her that long ago she’d been a warrior for the Light. Madeline felt that truth in her heart, but it wasn’t echoed by any sort of ability in her muscles and mind. She hadn’t been prepared for the old servant who had knocked her out and hidden her from the fight.

      She’d failed to protect her son. She’d failed to help the witch queen who had done so much for her.

      “Care for some tea, miss?” an older woman sitting across from her asked. She poured herself a cup from a steaming metal container as Madeline shook her head. Her stomach was too knotted to keep the liquid down.

      She’d put her sketchbook away and zipped her backpack closed, but the white wolf’s snarl was still vivid in her memory as the train took her closer and closer to the monster himself.

       Lev Romanov.

      She didn’t know him. She couldn’t remember him at all. But Vasilisa had told her the legend of the Romanov wolves. The Light Volkhvy queen had created champion shape-shifters to help her stand against the Dark. She had forged three enchanted swords to be wielded by their warrior mates.

      Madeline’s heart beat too quickly in her chest, and her breathing was shallow. As usual, when she wasn’t sketching, she wasn’t sure what to do with the adrenaline that urged her to some vague action. She had forgotten too much for too long. Vasilisa had encouraged her to take her time. She’d told her to remember how to live first. The simple mundane tasks of daily life that so many took for granted had challenged Madeline for months.

      But now she must do so much more.

      She had to save Trevor.

      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

      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