Legendary Beast. Barbara J. Hancock

and abdomen. The marks seemed impossible because his flesh appeared too hard to brand. He was stone, a living, breathing statue to commemorate where a man used to be.

      He glared at her with intense blue eyes that blazed from behind a shocking white streak of hair. The rest of his hair was blond. It fell in wild locks all around his face and shoulders. His beard was as untamed as his hair.

      She couldn’t read his expression. The set of his features was hidden. But the set of his body was not. He stood as if he was in midbattle, always in midbattle, prepared for the next blow and the one after that.

      The meaning of his words, the bandages and the blood finally hit her, and Madeline breathed out a long shaky sigh. He was hurt. The blood on his ripped trousers was his own. His feet were crimson, and the flagstones on the floor were marked by his bloodied footsteps. A cold breeze filled the room, and there was glass from the broken windows all over the floor.

      “No. I will not allow you to bleed. Nor will I go away and leave you alone. Trevor needs the white wolf to save him,” Madeline said. Her voice sounded almost as rough as his had sounded. As if she hadn’t spoken in an age. But at least it didn’t tremble. She was shaken to her core by Lev Romanov’s appearance, but her voice was firm.

      She wasn’t prepared for the savage man in the middle of the room to approach her right away, though she should have been. He was obviously racked by adrenaline and fully committed to waging a war only he could see.

      He moved too quickly. Between one stunned blink and the next, he had crossed to her and taken her shoulders in his hands. His grip was too fierce. His fingers pressed into her flesh to hold her in place as he intently examined her face. And it wasn’t only his hardness or his hold that was intimidating. He was well over six feet tall, and she was too used to being the tallest person in the room.

      Suddenly, she was small and soft in comparison to him. She was also not nearly as braced for anything as she’d thought she was. He was midbattle. Her fight had just begun.

      “Madeline,” he said, and it sounded like a secret they would share, but she couldn’t grasp its meaning. The intensity of his gaze was suddenly fully focused on her face. He scanned her features as if he would memorize them. She was caught and held by his blue eyes, just as he held her with his hands as if he would never let her go.

      For weeks, she’d been handled with care by Vasilisa and the entire palace of Volkhvy. She’d been given time and space and consideration as she’d tried to understand the world around her.

      Lev Romanov met her with an urgency that stunned her. He was wild with some need she couldn’t begin to understand, when all else was confusion. He fought something with every rise and fall of his broad chest. His fight showed in the grip of his hands and the tension in his entire body.

      He pulled her closer, the better to look deep into her eyes, but the move also brought her nearer to his large body. She had seen him nude in the rain, but her vision had been blurred. Here, now, only inches from her, she saw him clearly—every scar, every angle, every plane—and it was all too sudden and intimate for her senses, which had been sleeping for a very long time.

      Her breathing had gone shallow, but the scent of the wind trapped in his hair still filled her nose. The room was chilly, but his masculine body heat enveloped her where they stood.

      This man had thrown everyone and everything out of his room, but now he grabbed her and pulled her close. He looked deeply into her eyes as if he was preparing to...

      Her insecurity over her memory loss flared back to life and resonated all the way to her bones.

      “I don’t remember you at all,” Madeline said. “I’m not here for you. I’m here for Trevor. He needs the white wolf.”

      Her heart pounded, and the fear crowded out all else that might have been long ago and far away. She needed this savage stranger to help her. She didn’t need to remember him or what they had shared.

      His hands tightened for a split second and then released just before she cried out in pain. The sudden squeeze had been reflexive. He noted her pain and let her go as suddenly as the spasm had begun. She thought she saw regret flash in his eyes, but then he dipped his head, and his hair was in the way. Did he use his wild mane as a shield between them? If so, it was only somewhat effective, considering the rest of him was exposed.

      “The white wolf is gone,” Lev said. “I can’t shift. I can’t help you. This human body has me again, and it won’t let me go.”

       Chapter 3

      Madeline shivered as he stepped away, taking all his feral body heat with him. This was the fight she’d sensed in him. He battled the hold of his human form second by second, minute by minute. He fought to shift, and he’d been fighting since she’d seen him on Krajina. But the white wolf was close beneath the surface of his scarred skin. She could feel its ferocity, and she had seen the glimmer of wildness in Lev’s eyes. She could sense the potential beast, barely contained.

      The wolf was still there in him. She was certain of it. But needing the white wolf’s help and wanting him to appear were two very different things.

      “It doesn’t matter. You are the white wolf. Whether you have four legs or two. And Trevor needs you,” Madeline said.

      “You know who the babe is to me? Who you once were to me?” Lev asked. His stance had gone deceptively distant. He’d taken several steps back. She could still see his tension. She could still feel his attention on her face, even though his hair hid his eyes.

      “Vasilisa told me everything. That we were together once, but that the Romanovs betrayed her. She protected Trevor and me during a long illness,” Madeline said.

      “An illness? You think the Volkhvy queen saved you,” Lev said hoarsely. He stepped toward her once more, without even seeming to realize he moved. “It isn’t only our son you want to save. You want me to help you save the witch.”

      The tension in his body had gone so tight and so still that he had truly become a living statue. It seemed as if his scars were cracks in a marbleized form, and he might shatter into a million pieces if she said the wrong thing. Anna had said he hated all Volkhvy, but surely he would be grateful to the queen who had saved his former wife and his son?

      “The ruby sword is dead and I don’t remember how to wield it, but I’m awake now and I’m going after the Volkhvy that took my son,” Madeline said. “I want you to go with me, but if you refuse, I’ll go alone.”

      Her bag had been knocked crooked on her shoulders by Lev’s strong grip on her arms. When she tried to straighten it, the zipper of its main compartment gaped open and her sketchbook fell on the floor. Before Madeline could stoop to retrieve it, Lev moved to scoop it up himself.

      Madeline bit her lip against the cry of distress that rose to her lips, as if her prize possession had been stolen right before her eyes. Only Lev wasn’t stealing it. He wasn’t ripping it up to fling down the stairs. He was flipping through it. He turned and examined page after page of the sketches she’d drawn of the white wolf. Her every charcoal stroke had been infused with the overwhelming feeling of danger and the threat she’d woken to that day.

      His attention was riveted on the sketches. She allowed the hand that had reflexively risen to retrieve the sketchbook from him to fall back to her side.

      She’d tried to be brave, but now he knew her deepest fears. They were displayed in drawing after drawing. He had searched her eyes for the warrior he had known. But here was evidence that the warrior was gone. In her place was someone mired in doubt and confusion, along with a deep, abiding helplessness she didn’t know how to dispel. She could only press her way through it and hope to come out on the other side triumphant. For Trevor.

      “You came anyway,” Lev said after he had flipped to the last page. He slowly and carefully handed the