Legendary Beast. Barbara Hancock J.

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СКАЧАТЬ enough to face him, but now she had to be concerned over something else: the way Lev Romanov made her feel.

      His vivid blue irises blazed from behind the shock of white in his hair. His gaze was full of secrets about the woman she’d been. Those secrets called to her, but she had to ignore them. She had to ignore the tingling in her arms where this stranger had grabbed her, a tingling that had nothing to do with adrenaline and everything to do with his feral warmth.

      He was a beast. The trashed room declared it. The sketches in her backpack were further evidence. As were the bruises he’d no doubt left on her skin with his urgency.

      He vowed to find their son and help her save him, but she could only wonder, who would save Lev Romanov? He said he could no longer shift, but it was obvious that the white wolf would never let him go.

      Madeline set her jaw and firmed her spine. She pressed her mouth into a hard, thin line to keep from betraying her nerves by nibbling her bottom lip. The move was a mistake. His attention fell from her eyes to her lips and lingered there. This should have meant nothing to her, but her heartbeat stuttered and the nerves in the pit of her stomach whirled out of control.

      Because he didn’t look at her lips like a stranger would. He looked as if he remembered the taste of her kisses from long ago, and parts of her had suddenly leaped to life, longing to remember, too.

      Anna Romanov was waiting when Madeline came back down the stairs. She stood at the ready at the base of the spiraling stone stairway, as if she’d been prepared to do battle should the beast in Bronwal’s tower choose to attack her guest. The sword she’d offered to Madeline in outstretched arms was now held by its hilt at Anna’s side, but its ruby stone was still dark and gray.

      “I thought maybe it would wake when you spoke with Lev, but it still sleeps. Not so much as a flicker,” Anna informed her. “It gleamed when you wielded it on Krajina with a fierce ruby light.”

      “I remember. That moment on the cliff is all I recall. Nothing more,” Madeline said. “But I will take the sword. The white wolf has agreed to help me save my son. I won’t travel with him unarmed.”

      She reached for the hilt of the ruby blade, and Anna released it into her hands. Unlike before, it was heavy and awkward in her grip. She held it vertically with both hands at her waist and the blade extended in front of her breasts and face until the tip stretched beyond the top of her head. She looked from the hilt in her hands up to the sword’s sharp point, and then she lowered her gaze to meet Anna’s on either side of the sharp blade. Anna reached to place her hands over Madeline’s on the hilt. The dark ruby stayed gray above their fingers, but Madeline’s heart fluttered when the other woman squeezed her hands.

      She felt...something. A kinship. A connection. To Anna Romanov, if not to the ruby or the blade or the scarred man in the tower above them.

      “I am the red wolf’s mate. I am Soren Romanov’s wife. We are sisters, but we are also part of a sisterhood of warriors. The blade will wake in time. Trust it. Trust yourself and the warrior you’re meant to be,” Anna said solemnly, as if she recited a pledge.

      “It isn’t myself or the blade I distrust,” Madeline replied. Although that wasn’t entirely true. She remembered nothing of how to wield a blade. Her hands seemed to be made for charcoal pencils, not for legendary weapons. It was only that her self-doubt took second place to her doubt of the man who was supposed to be her mate. She accepted the sword as a practical tool, not its Calling. Anna must have sensed her reservations.

      “He never forgot you and Trevor. Not even after he’d forgotten how to be a man. His search carried on until he found you,” Anna said softly.

      Madeline noted the woman’s persuasive tone. No one would be able to negate her memory of the white wolf on the stormy cliff. He’d been prepared to attack. Only the arrival of Vasilisa had seemed to prevent it. Madeline took the sword with her as she moved, and Anna let her go. The other woman’s hands fell to her sides.

      “You are in as much turmoil as Lev. Please. Give him time. Take time to heal before you reject the connection you once embraced,” Anna said.

      “We don’t have time to waste on healing or on each other. Trevor is in danger. We must find him and Queen Vasilisa,” Madeline said. Her hands tightened on the hilt of the sword.

      “There’s a portal that will take us to Vasilisa,” Lev Romanov said.

      Anna’s 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 СКАЧАТЬ