Legendary Wolf. Barbara Hancock J.

but his first instinct was to stand between his brother’s imminent shift and the witch who was supposed to join him in the courtyard soon.

      “She’s meeting me here at dawn,” Soren said. He exuded calm in spite of his inner tension. He met the black wolf’s potential fury with ice and then tried to diffuse it. “That’s why I’m holding two horses.”

      Ivan blinked and stepped back as if he’d only just noticed the giant destriers his brother held. Their reaction to the alpha’s close presence had intensified. Soren had to tighten his hold on their halters. The warhorses were afraid. Ivan noticed their fear, and the wildness in his eyes subsided. Soren watched as the black wolf retreated deeper within his brother, leaving a calmer leader in his place.

      “I won’t ask where you’re going. If you’d wanted me to know, you would have shared that information last night,” Ivan said. Suddenly, he stepped to Soren and placed a heavy hand on his shoulder. Instead of rearing, the horses calmed. Perhaps they could smell the man now that he had controlled his wolf. Ivan met him face-to-face, gaze to gaze. His seriousness was palpable. Soren’s forced calm only got icier with the eye contact. His brother was building to something big. He could think of only one thing that would cause the alpha to leave his warm bed and meet him at the break of dawn. “Make certain she doesn’t return,” Ivan continued.

      Soren was the red wolf. He heard the alpha’s command in his brother’s voice. He saw the black wolf deep down in Ivan’s eyes. His whole body went numb from the cold of the calm he forced through sheer willpower alone.

      Who had told Ivan about the sword?

      The alpha was warning him away from an unacceptable mate. Soren agreed. Hell, Anna agreed. So why was his internal response a long, echoing howl of refusal? He tamped it down. He clenched his teeth. He held himself still, because if he moved a millimeter, it might become a shift to challenge the alpha’s authority. Ivan’s eyes widened. In spite of Soren’s best efforts, his brother was wise beyond his apparent years. He looked like a twenty-five-year-old man. He was, in fact, much older. He must have sensed or seen Soren’s visceral response to his order.

      A noise interrupted before the standoff could erupt into violence. They both broke away from the stare to look up. Elena appeared at a window high above them. She’d thrown it open, and several ravens had lifted off from their sentinel perches on its ledge. White curtains billowed outward around her blanket-wrapped form. They were too far away to see her face, but the sound of Ivan’s name drifted with the sound of flapping wings.