Legendary Beast

It hadn’t been concern for her mother that made Anna Romanov go suddenly pale. It had been the very idea that Madeline was here to seek out the white wolf’s help.

She didn’t need the other woman’s fear to remind her of the white wolf’s ferocity. She had sketched his snarl a thousand times from her memories of that day on the cliff. Anna’s fears put hers in perspective. She was more afraid for Trevor than she was of the wolf. She was ready to face him. She had to be.

“I’m also lost. I can’t remember my former life. Vasilisa said my recovery would take time, but I no longer have that luxury. I’m here because I can’t rescue my baby alone,” Madeline said.

“Soren can help. And Ivan. They can help you,” Anna said. “Elena and I—”

“No. The black wolf and the red wolf have to protect their own families. You’re ready to have a baby yourself, and Vasilisa told me that Elena has a newborn,” Madeline said.

“I don’t think Lev will help you,” Anna said. “I don’t think he can.” Her grip on the scarlet bundle was white-knuckled as she spoke, and she took another step toward Madeline, as if she would try to persuade her to go away.

“I’m not here to ask for his help,” Madeline said. “I’m here to demand it.”

Anna paused again. She was shorter than Madeline by half a dozen inches, but even though she was forced to tilt her chin to meet Madeline’s eyes, her direct green gaze still seemed formidable. It took all of Madeline’s will not to back down. For Trevor she stood. For Trevor she didn’t resist when Anna raised the bundle between them and held it horizontally supported on her forearms. The scarlet cloth fell aside to reveal what had been nestled carefully in its soft folds.

Madeline recognized the ruby sword. She reached for it automatically as if she could do nothing else, but when her fingers brushed over the large ruby in the sword’s hilt, nothing happened. It didn’t wake to greet her. It was dark and dull, more grayish black than red, as if it was tarnished by shadows.

Her hands dropped away from the one thing she remembered besides her baby and the white wolf. Its darkness seemed like a rejection. She wasn’t the woman she used to be, and the sword knew it. She wasn’t a brave warrior who had fought for the Light Volkhvy and Queen Vasilisa. She was a confused woman weakened by her long illness and her memory loss.

But she didn’t back away.

“I wondered at its dormancy. I thought maybe it would wake in your presence,” Anna said. She didn’t wrap the cloth back around the sword. She still seemed to watch and wait for some sign that the ruby wasn’t dead.

“I didn’t come for the sword. I came for the white wolf,” Madeline said. Her concerns over her memory loss had risen with her frantic heartbeat to fill her chest and then her throat with a tight heat she could barely speak around. But she wouldn’t allow it to stop her.

“Lev is in the tower room,” Anna replied. “Or what’s left of it. I’ll take you to the stairs. That’s as far as I’m able to go. He rages at the sight of me. Or any Volkhvy. Maybe you’ll receive a better welcome.”

Her tone didn’t sound hopeful. Madeline swallowed against the knot of fear that had solidified at the back of her throat.

Anna turned. She led the way out of the room and toward the back of the castle. Madeline took a deep breath to try to dispel the tightness in her chest and followed. When they came to a large archway that framed the beginning of a spiral staircase, the pregnant woman paused and then stepped aside to make way for Madeline. The stone stairway twisted up and around until its treads curved out of sight.

Anna still held the sword out in front of her as if it was an offering for Madeline. Madeline refused it as she stepped forward.

“Whatever you find at the top of the stairs, you should know that he never stopped searching for you,” Anna said. “He never rested in all the years you were sleeping.”

Madeline paused for a moment. Her back was turned to Anna, but she heard. She also doubted. Vasilisa had warned her that the white wolf was feral. She’d woken to his rage. If he had looked for her and Trevor, he hadn’t had benevolent intentions.

Madeline climbed the stairs. This time, she wouldn’t raise a sword against the white wolf as she had done on the edge of Krajina’s sea cliff. The sword was as closed off and dead to her as her past was to her mind and heart. She only had her love for Trevor to guide her and strengthen her as she climbed up toward the tower room. Her maternal feelings offset her fear. She didn’t know what she would find at the top of the stairs, but she knew she had to try.

Soft electric torches glowed from the soot-blackened walls where flaming torches used to be. Madeline could almost see them flickering. She could almost remember the scent of scorched tallow-soaked cloth as she forced herself to take step after step toward her greatest nightmare.

But any gentler memories were overwhelmed in her mind by visions of the white wolf’s snarl and his red glowing eyes. He was a massive monster with long fearsome fangs and bloodstained fur. She had been filled with the absolute certainty that a dangerous presence had threatened her and Trevor and everyone else there that day. Madeline’s response had been visceral, from the howl that had woken her up as it ripped itself from her body, to the intent that had claimed her to lash out with her sword and kill the beast that seemed to be the only threat she could see.

Anna had stopped her. The white wolf’s shift had stopped her. For some reason, she hadn’t been able to strike at the man as the rain fell and the wind whipped around them. She’d been racked by an internal storm as fierce as the one that tossed the ocean and the atmosphere around Krajina.

The ferocity of her emotion had seemed too big for her body to contain, until Vasilisa had soothed it away with her cool magic.

As she neared the top of the stairs, Madeline had to step around and over the busted-up debris and shredded remains of furniture and clothes. Feathers from pillows that had been torn apart swirled up and floated down around her feet like snow. Ripped-up pages of books joined this feather “snow” to cover the stairs.

And still she climbed.

Her body was heavy. The uncertainty in her chest and throat had expanded until it seemed to flow through her veins to every part of her. Her legs felt weighted down, but she moved them anyway. Her heightened anxiety pressed against her shoulders as if it tried to hold her back. She ignored the pressure. Once again, it seemed as if her body could barely contain the emotions it tried to feel.

But her discomfort and the danger she faced didn’t matter.

Trevor, Trevor, Trevor, Trevor.

He was all that mattered.

Each ringing step of her boots on the stone staircase seemed to echo with her baby’s name. She only paused when she came to the top and found a door torn from its hinges and lying to the side. The door had been crafted with heavy wood on its bottom half and scrolled iron bars on its top half, but for all its sturdy artisan construction, it had been busted loose and practically splintered by whatever force had shoved it aside.

“Go away. I want nothing. I need nothing. How many times do I have to tell you to allow me to bleed?”

Every ounce of trepidation that had filled Madeline’s body drained away when she heard the ragged rough voice ring out and echo down the stairs. Its deep reverberations flowed through her like rushing waters, leaving her hollowed out in their wake. For long seconds, she wasn’t afraid. She wasn’t anything. She was only an empty husk that might float down to settle with the feathers and torn papers on the stairs.

And then a basket whizzed past her head. Bandages and tape spilled from it, and the whole mess bounced down the stairs and out of sight. Silence fell, broken only by Madeline’s own respiration. Her breathing was quicker than it should have been. She’d thought the fear was gone, but she found it again, a more silent, calmer disquiet than the overwhelming emotion of before.

She was certain that she was in trouble. She was also certain she would face any trouble imaginable to save her son.

This time it was easier to take the last few steps that brought her into the tower room. She only had to reach up and hold the straps of her backpack and put one foot in front of the other.

And then she saw him again. For the first time in six months.

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 her joints to turn to 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 and 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.

He was braced for battle in the middle of the room, with his feet planted wide and his fists clenched at his sides. He wore only torn and bloody trousers low on lean hips. The rest of him was bare. And every inch of his exposed flesh was tensed and hard with ropy muscles that seemed to scream from past exertions she couldn’t imagine. He also had fine white scars etched all over his arms, chest 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.