Legendary Beast. Barbara J. Hancock

reaction to his sudden appearance caused Madeline’s chest to constrict and her breath to catch. Anna Romanov stiffened from head to toe, and she raised her hands from her sides.

      Her fingers glowed with emerald light, as if she’d summoned power to meet an attack head-on.

      Madeline had allowed the tip of the sword to droop, but she raised it again now in response to Anna’s defensive stance.

      Lev paused on the last stone step above them. He was already much taller than Anna Romanov. On the rise, he towered over them both, in spite of Madeline’s height. He had changed his clothes. The shredded pants were gone, and he’d replaced them with black leather leggings that fitted his hard muscles like a second skin. He’d also donned a gray long-sleeved undershirt that looked like it had been made for a smaller man—as if it might burst at the seams should he decide to take a deep breath. Over the tightly stretched T-shirt was a black vest, similar to a jerkin but with more modern features, and on his feet were tall black boots. Like hers, his clothing was a mix of old and new.

      Although he was lean—almost starved-looking—his frame was broad-shouldered and his muscles had been built with centuries of strenuous activity. He filled the vestibule in which they all stood with the wild presence she’d already seen in the tower room. Truly, her sword and Anna’s hands seemed like scant defense against the man or the beast he might become at any time.

      But the scarred man didn’t attack. He glanced at Anna, and then his attention was all for Madeline. His gaze settled on her face as it had in the tower room, as if he would memorize her features before she left him again. When he spoke, he looked at Madeline, but his words were for Anna Romanov.

      “The white wolf attacked you once. I remember. His memories are my memories. I won’t apologize. You’re a witch. I was trying to protect my brother. But know this—Soren has married you. You are a witch, but you are also his wife. I would die before I harmed you now,” Lev said.

      “There was a time when I promised not to harm you as well, brother. But know this—I am pregnant, and I will protect my child,” Anna warned.

      Madeline only saw Anna’s glow brighten out of the corner of her eye. She faced Lev without lowering her sword. The white wolf had attacked Anna? She couldn’t imagine the petite woman surviving the white wolf’s ferocious bite. She’d drawn his teeth in her sketchbook many times. Each had easily been as long as her hand.

      Only at that revelation did Lev look from Madeline to his sister-in-law. Her obvious pregnancy must have escaped his notice since he’d returned to the castle.

      “Rest assured, I’m leaving. The baby will be safe when I’m gone,” Lev replied.

      His voice was as gruff as it had been before, his vocal cords roughened by centuries of howls. But the glow in Anna’s fingers faded until it was gone. The other woman lowered her hands before Madeline lowered her sword.

      And the white wolf noticed, even though he was a man. Lev’s attention seemed to be on Anna, but his spine didn’t soften until Madeline lowered the ruby blade down to her side.

      “Ivan destroyed the mirror portal when he found out Elena was going to have a baby. There is no longer a portal in Bronwal,” Anna said.

      Lev came off the stairs and into the vestibule in several long strides. His physicality was startling. Madeline had been awake for a while, but she had yet to encounter another human being with such grace and speed. If he had decided to attack, her sword would have been useless even if she hadn’t lowered its tip to the floor. He might be on two legs instead of four. He might look hollow and hungry. But Lev Romanov was still dangerous. Along with the hunger in his appearance, there was also a deep, dark Carpathian wilderness behind his eyes.

      “There is another,” Lev said. He spoke to Madeline, as if to reassure her rather than to inform. But he couldn’t be sensitive to the sudden clenching in her gut just above the womb, where Trevor had been carried so long ago.

      “Yes. The fountain at Straluci. The fortress is in ruin, but the portal should still be there. It will take you to my mother in the blink of an eye, wherever she is being held. The portals are connected to her,” Anna said. “There are no roads. Only narrow game trails. You’ll have to take horses instead of all-terrain vehicles. It will take more than a week to reach the pass.”

      The last was said for her benefit. Anna hadn’t taken her eyes off the white wolf in his human form, but she turned to look at Madeline now. Her green eyes flickered with the power she’d previously called to her hands.

      “Then the sooner we leave, the better,” Madeline proclaimed. She wasn’t wearing a scabbard for the ruby blade, and her arm was already tired. The sword was heavy. She felt like a pretender as she stood with it gripped tightly in her hand, but even though her body hadn’t recovered its strength following her illness, her heart was filled with resolve.

      “I could cover the distance in a quarter of that time on four legs,” Lev said. He had fisted his hands, and as he spoke he stepped closer to Madeline. One pace. Then two. He stopped and closed his eyes. His head fell back as if he would howl at the moon. The tendons on either side of his neck stood out in sharp relief as his body tensed. He braced his long legs wide apart, and veins bulged on his muscular arms...but nothing happened. The earth didn’t quake. His human form remained as imposing yet somehow vulnerable in all its scarred hardness, as it had been before.

      Amazingly, his tight shirt hadn’t given way at the seams. It had only stretched with his flexed muscles as he strained.

      “It’s probably best for us all that you can’t,” Anna responded. Madeline didn’t argue. She wouldn’t regret seeking help from Bronwal now that help had been found, even if Anna looked pale and troubled as the giant man beside them sought the shift that still eluded him.

      She would face the threat of the white wolf for Trevor just as Anna had faced Lev for her unborn child. It didn’t matter that she had no Volkhvy power to back up her determination. Her determination alone would have to be enough. She would get stronger. She would get wiser. She would navigate this strange modern world with a deadly beast by her side in order to save her son.

      But she couldn’t help the tightness in her chest, or the way the sword weighed too heavily in her hand. The witch on the train had tried to poison her. If the marked Volkhvy who had kidnapped the queen and her son wanted her dead, she faced more than the white-wolf threat by her side. She had to guard herself from magical stalkers as well. A longer journey would give the marked witches time to make another attempt on her life.

      “The marked Volkhvy might have followed me here. They may try to stop us before we reach the portal,” Madeline warned. She allowed the sword’s tip to rest against the ground, and her arm sighed in relief.

      Nothing escaped Lev Romanov’s notice. He had a wolf’s senses even in his human form. His intense glance went from the ruby blade up her arm to her face. Once again, she felt he must find her wanting compared to his memories of the warrior she’d been. Sketching didn’t require strength. Battling those witches who might try to kill her would, as would protecting herself should the shift come to the man who so desperately summoned it. If the white wolf proved to be the foe of the stormy cliff rather than the ally she sought...

      Her thoughts were interrupted by the tight smile that claimed Lev’s angular face. He had the Romanov nose and sculpted jaw. His beard didn’t hide the perfection of his bone structure, nor did his scars detract from his symmetric features. He was many things—large, muscular and intimidating; scarred, wild and uncivilized—but he was also handsome. The smile startled her. It was a surprising punch to the tightness in her gut. The one-sided upward curve of his lips stole her breath and made her own lips go numb.

      “I welcome them to try,” Lev said. His husky voice was pitched even lower than it had been before. His lids had lowered over his vivid blue eyes, his thick lashes creating dusky shadows on his cheeks. Though Anna was only a few feet away from them, the moment was suddenly intimate, and it was as though no one besides Madeline and Lev was there.

      It