Legendary Beast. Barbara Hancock J.

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       Chapter 1

      Madeline’s fingers were smudged with charcoal from the hundredth pencil she’d worn down to a nub. She used her thumb and forefinger to blend the shadows around the figure of the white wolf she’d drawn. He was large on the page. Much bigger than a natural wolf. As always, he loomed, ready to pounce. She’d lost count of how many times she’d committed her memory of him to paper. No matter how many pages she filled with his savage likeness, she never exorcised him from her mind.

      Good. She needed to remember so she would be prepared to protect Trevor if the white wolf should ever return.

      That stormy day she’d first woken after hundreds of years, it had been Vasilisa who had broken the crystal chamber that had been her bed for so long. The queen had taken Trevor from her arms to keep him safe while Madeline confronted the threat of the white wolf. It had been horrible to wake up and find her baby gone, but she was glad the queen had protected him from harm.

      Vasilisa had been the cool presence that had helped her. Madeline’s body had woken from a long illness, but her mind hadn’t. Every sight that met her eyes had dazzled and confused her.

      The queen encouraged her drawings. She said the sketches came from the recesses of her mind that were still sleeping. Besides the wolf, there were sketches of a life she’d forgotten—a life very unlike the world she had woken to on Vasilisa’s island, Krajina.

      Vasilisa was the Light Volkhvy queen, and Madeline had trusted her from the moment she realized it had been the queen who protected Trevor from the white wolf. Her queen. Her beloved liege. Vasilisa had rushed to break the crystal and take the baby from Madeline’s arms when the white wolf appeared on the island. His appearance had woken Madeline too harshly from her long sleep. She had risen to face his attack, but she hadn’t been strong enough. Vasilisa had explained everything as she helped Madeline recover. Healthy food and exercise seemed to clear her head a little more each day. As her health improved, Vasilisa gently tried to help Madeline recover the memories she’d lost.

      But, most of all, the queen had continued to take care of Madeline’s infant son, who was still sleeping. She’d explained that Trevor needed to wake up slowly, and that soon he would be smiling, gurgling and grasping Madeline’s finger once more.

      Madeline had forgotten a great many things, but she hadn’t forgotten her baby.

      Trevor, the white wolf and her ruby sword—everything else in this strange new world she had to relearn, but not those things. Knowledge of them flashed behind her eyes with every blink and pounded in her chest with every beat of her heart.

      Madeline finished the sketch and pulled her blackened fingers away from the page. The white wolf’s snarl was threatening, even though she’d created it herself with charcoal and paper. She calmly looked into the beast’s eyes for a few moments. Remembering his savagery made her stronger.

      She had quickly come to love Vasilisa, who treated her as a daughter and Trevor as a beloved grandchild. But she wouldn’t depend on the queen to keep Trevor safe. Madeline was his mother. Facing the threat of the white wolf was her responsibility, and she was determined to be ready.

      She closed the sketchbook and placed it on the window ledge that overlooked the ocean below.

      Vasilisa was walking on the beach. She held a tiny bundle in her arms—Trevor. Even far away from her breast, Madeline could feel the tug of the invisible heartstrings that held her and her baby together. Yet she trusted the queen with him; Vasilisa visited with him every day, often taking him on walks beneath the Mediterranean sun.

      The queen’s footsteps took her and the baby closer and closer to the cliff where the white wolf had appeared. Though Madeline trusted Vasilisa entirely, her breath still came quicker and her pulse leaped in her throat.

      Vasilisa said the white wolf had once been her champion, but he had become a wild and savage monster that couldn’t be trusted any longer.

      Madeline looked from the empty cliff down to the kind queen, who crooned to the sleeping baby she held against her chest. Queen Vasilisa’s enemies were Madeline’s enemies. It was a truth she felt to her bones.

      She stepped back from the window and stretched before dropping down to the floor. She caught her weight with her hands and then pressed up and down until her shoulders protested from the effort. Then she pressed up and down a dozen times more.

      When she’d woken up, her vision had been blurry and weak, but her instincts had driven her to rise and climb to the top of a cliff, where she’d found the white wolf. His presence had drawn her like a magnet—a terrifying magnet with vicious teeth and glowing red eyes.

      She’d confronted the wolf with the ruby sword in her hands, but she hadn’t killed him. When he’d shifted into his human form, she’d been taken by surprise. Then Vasilisa had appeared to bring her back to the palace, along with Trevor. The white wolf’s brother had taken the beast back to his home.

      Letting them go had been a mistake.

      But her weakness that morning had only guaranteed she would work hard to heal so she could fight the white wolf another day.

      Madeline brought her legs up beneath her and used them to lift her body back to a standing position with her arms outstretched. She exercised in secret because she didn’t want Vasilisa to worry she was overexerting herself. She grew stronger every day. Her arms, back and legs were responding to her efforts. Madeline straightened her shirt and stepped back to the window. She smoothed her hair back from her face.

      The queen was heading back to the palace. As she came nearer, Madeline turned to go outside and meet them. In midmorning, she always sang to Trevor and watched his little face for signs of waking.

      A sudden quaking of the earth beneath Madeline’s feet shook the entire palace and sent her to her knees. It was a testament to her persistence in recovering that she was able to leap back up again within seconds. As soon as she was back on her feet, she raced to the window, but the beach was empty, as was the stone stairway that led from the sand up to the palace portico.

      Vasilisa and Trevor were gone.

      Her gaze flew up from the sand to the cliff, but it was also deserted.

      If the white wolf had returned, he hadn’t appeared in the same place as last time.

      Madeline abandoned the window, but before she could make it to the door of her room, the screams had already begun. She wrenched open the door anyway and headed toward the noise of battle. She didn’t have the ruby sword by her side, and she was far from as strong as she could be, but she’d fight for Trevor with her bare hands if she had to.

      He was all she had left of a life she couldn’t remember.

      The palace was under attack, but it wasn’t the white wolf. Madeline searched for Trevor as witches all around her battled each other with bolts of energy from their hands. The transformation of the beautiful Mediterranean palace into a battlefield jarred her already tender senses, but she didn’t allow the shock to slow her down. She wasn’t Volkhvy, and her sword was gone, but she was quicker on her feet than she would have been because СКАЧАТЬ