by Marian Tee
But to see with his own eyes that Star was also aware of his fall...
It didn't fucking sit well with him at all, and only the knowledge that it was sorrow and not pity on her face that kept Lysander from snarling at her.
"Um..."
His self-contempt subsided when his heightened senses picked up a sudden, violent spike from her mood. Something was disturbing her, he thought, and this made him ask sharply, "What is it?"
"I heard...you were looking for a Lyccan princess to be betrothed to?"
Lysander stiffened. "And?"
"Is it true?"
"And if it is?" If he were indeed looking for a Lyccan princess, what then? Would she turn out to be like everyone else, thinking he was now so damn desperate he would willingly ingratiate himself to the first woman with deep enough pockets to approach him?
Disappointment and rage rose to the fore, but he forced himself to rein his emotions in as he heard her ask about the type of princess she was looking for. Star was different, he strove to remind himself. And so he managed to answer in a tight but fairly calm voice, saying, "At this point, I'd be willing to marry anyone who could help protect my race."
And let it be the end of that, if she knew what was good for her.
But she obviously did not, since she was already asking him her next question, and it was even sillier than the first one. “But what about what you want?”
"This is what I want," he couldn't help snapping. Was she fucking stupid or what? Didn't she realize that what he wanted no longer mattered?
"Ah." She then flashed him a brave smile, and this threw him off. What the fuck did she have to be brave about when she wasn't the one burdened by the need to find a kingdom for her own race?
"Then..." Lysander frowned as he watched her chest rise and fall in rapid fashion, heard her heart hammering against his chest, and his puzzlement grew.
"You'd want me."
Lysander's brows shot up.
"Because I'm a Lyccan princess, and my name isn't really...well, it's Star but not in English." He watched her draw another shaky breath just before the words came rushing out. "My real name is Estrella Moretti, and I'm the younger sister of..."
Domenico Moretti, Lysander thought in disbelief.
"Domenico Moretti."
Domenico Fucking Moretti.
The wolf prince that Misty had left him for.
It was a hard two years, and there hadn't been a single day, hour or minute that Lysander was not on the brink of collapsing and surrendering his body to the beast's command. Countless times, the urge to free himself from the pain tempted him beyond belief, but then...it would happen. It would be just as the jinn said, the anchor of his soul tightening around him and keeping him alive for just another moment. And it did so by making him remember.
Star.
The memories of her played again and again in his mind. They made him breathe a little more easily. Made him forget the pain. Made him hope. And when the memories weren't enough, he would imagine. Flashes of heat, fantasies of her naked body rubbing against his, her lips nibbling on the head of his cock before taking him all the way in, deep into her throat---
They were not real, but it didn't matter. They would be real. One day. Someday. Soon.
And it was this hope that made him hang on just a little longer.
Until finally, the day came that it was the beast which bowed down to his will, its power fusing with his soul.
Finally.
He closed his eyes. Waited until her scent reached him. And then he started to run.
3
At first, everything was black and white. There were Halloween decorations adorning the lightposts and the store fronts, but the jack-o'-lanterns only appeared in various shades of grey, and their candlelight glares were nothing but bright blazes of white.
The strangeness of it agitated him, and the sound of honking horns and screeching wheels began to fill the night as he thundered down the road in all fours, and drivers desperately swerved to avoid him.
The ground shook underneath him as he clawed to a stop, nails digging into the soil while his bestial gaze devoured his surroundings.
Steel gates hanging precariously from its last unbroken hinges. Flowers lining the hotel driveway. And an armored truck, with its doors flung open.
But no matter where he looked, she was not there, and he raised his horned head to better recapture her scent.
Ah.
Because she was and would always be his only mate in this lifetime, she possessed a fragrance that no one else would ever be able to duplicate. And this scent of hers, it was getting stronger.
Closer then.
He waited and prowled with anger-laced impatience, and just when he was ready to tear the house down with his bare hands, that was when they started leaping out. Men who reeked of evil but were too weak for the likes of him. Their hearts, which beat loudly against their chest, were like noisy targets that he could so easily skewer with a single claw.
Weak. Too damn weak. They interested him none at all, but just as he turned away, his mate's scent desperately swirled around him and her loud, erratic heartbeat sounded in his ears like a wordless, unconscious plea for help.
He swung back with a roar, and that was when he saw her, kicking and screaming as more of the masked men tried to force her into the armored truck.
Rage blazed from within.
And the beast inside him took over.
At first, terror and pain was all he could hear. Men he was hell-bent on killing for daring to hurt what was most precious to him. Their screams drowned everything else, and that was just fine with both man and beast. They liked hearing such creatures suffer, would've been glad to torture the men for hours until...
Lysander.
The voice was faint but familiar, and both man and beast stirred.
Can you hear me?
The sound beckoned.
Lysander? It's you, isn't it?
But its strengh lied foremost in its unwavering, healing sweetness, with the way she spoke to him like he was no different from the man that had first glimpsed her eighteen-year-old self climbing down from a terrace.
Her voice wooed and tamed without meaning to, and the rage burning inside him responded to it, its flames gradually dissipating until the beast inside him had settled into a calmer, albeit watchful state, and his vision began to clear.
Multiple bodies around him littered the ground, bloodied and dismembered, but he felt no remorse. They had dared to harm what was his, and death was the penalty they had to---
"Lysander?"
His gaze snapped towards the voice, and this time complete recognition struck: same dark hair, but longer this time; same eyes, too, but brighter - because of tears.
Crying?
The mere thought made him growl, and the sheen in her gaze agitated him. The urge to hold her throbbed inside of him, and he was already unconsciously starting to dshift when he saw her badly trembling lips began to move. "Please t-tell me it's y-you?"
Her voice contained a wealth of fear. Worry. Yearning. But the most incredible thing about all of it...everything, each and every one of those sensations was for him.
She was afraid for him. Worried for him. Yearned for him.
All of those...even if he was no longer man nor Fae but something monstrously, irreparably different.
At first, she thought she was imagining things. Maybe even losing her mind, with the way she was hearing words that hadn't really been spoken.
STAR.
But when she heard it again---
STAR.
Oh my God. She was finally being true to her name. She was shining. Or rather, she had The Shining---
A hoarse, rough bark of laughter interrupted her thoughts, and then---
Sorry...to disappoint. But it's...just...me.
The voice was deep - so much deeper than what she remembered - and a strangely, gravelly rustiness to it that didn't quite feel human.
But even so.
Even so.
Despite all these hanges, that voice was something she would never mistake for anyone else---
Her eyes started to blur even as her gaze flew up to frantically confirm what she believed, what she knew and her heart was absolutely convinced of.
Even with the curved horns, the razor-sharp fangs and claws...even after feeling the bestial and almost heathen-like power which simmered underneath all the fur - a beast in every way, she thought dizzily...
The voice alone told her, and those lavender-colored eyes...
Those eyes were all she needed to know it was him.
"Lysander?" Estrella's voice came out in an incredulous whisper, and her body started shaking uncontrollably in stunned relief as the beast before her slowly lowered its head in a nod.
It really was him.
Her prince.
Her husband.
Her Lysander.
It was hard to keep still as Lysander felt her green eyes run over him with seemingly desperate need. She was not quite in shock, but she wasn't completely alright either, and the urge to comfort her was as instinctive and basic as the need to breathe.
Star.
The sound of his voice came out all wrong even to his ears, almost as if he was no longer used to speaking with a human tongue, and the Fae in him...it struggled to accept such barbaric changes. To the point that he almost didn't want to speak at all, knowing that the sound of his own voice would only fill him with self-disgust.
But when he saw the way her lips started to tremble, he didn't even have to think about it.
STAR.
And then he waited, knowing that this time she would either accept him as he was or---
Oh my God. I'm finally being true to my name. I'm shining. Or rather, I have The Shining---
She could also think her life had just become a page straight out of Stephen King's book.
And Lysander laughed.
For the first time in so many years, he laughed, and though it sounded fucking awful in his ears, it felt good. And right. Just goddamn right that it would be his mate to make him laugh. Just so fucking right that while he had been terrified she wouldn't be able to accept that his soul was one with a beast's, her first reaction was to think that she had suddenly obtained powers described in a work of fiction.
Looking down at his mate, he told her gravely, Sorry...to disappoint. But it's...just...me.
He waited for her to laugh, thinking she'd act embarrassed, but instead her gaze flew up, and he was stunned to see that her eyes were suddenly shining with tears. A moment later, and her gaze was moving over him frantically, and with her mind completely bared to him, her thoughts played out like a movie shot in 4K. He saw her take the changes in him, and he stiffened. The ram-like horns, fangs that could tear out flesh, claws that could gouge out a man's innards - he saw her staring at them one by one, and he sucked his breath. There could be a chance she'd still run away from him. Still a goddamn chance---
Until he heard her whisper his name.
And he realized that despite seing all of these...she still also only saw him.
Her prince. Her husband. Her Lysander.
Those were her exact thoughts, the words like silent notes of music that serenaded his tired soul, and dark, raw pleasure blazed through both beast and man.
My...beautiful...faithful...Star. He just had to say it. Just...fucking...had to.
And the moment he did---
She threw herself in his arms.
"Yes," she sobbed. "I'm your Star." And her arms tightened around his neck like she would never let go.
4
Police sirens continued to wail as the twins spoke to human authorities and explained the reason behind the carnage. Abduction attempt. Hired assassins. Private matter. Estrella heard these words spoken over and over, not just by law enforcement officers walking within the yellow-taped perimeters of the crime scene but also by the crowd of human spectators that had gathered a respectable distance away.
They numbered by the hundreds now, and human crowds such as this would usually be more intrusive. No heckling or fights breaking out. No drunk catcalls or frenzied pleas to be turned. It was just silence, and it was all because of him.
Even with his deceptively couchant stance, Lysander's current form was still a disquietingly ferocious sight to behold, so massive and tall that Estrella, who at his command had come to sit on his back sidesaddle, still had her feet dangling in the air.
It had the humans gawking at them, their fascination as involuntary as their terror was instinctive. And they were right to feel frightened. Both man and beast did not feel right with the new order of the world, and only the feel of Estrella's fingers unconsciously stroking their fur kept them from snarling at the crowd. The humans reeked of fear, and the undercurrents of violence stewing underneath it wasn't helping put Lysander in a good mood.
Meanwhile, Estrella, who couldn't help being aware by Lysander's growing displeasure, was doing her best to rationalize the less-than-stellar behavior of some of the humans before them.
One of the reasons why most human governments have entered into an agreement with L'Alliance is because of our maximum tolerance policy. She bit her lip, not wanting Lysander to know how conflicted she still felt about this. Many human miscreants had come to take advantage of this frequently and treated preter gatherings as a free outlet for their rage. These people would often show up in rallies and protests in a rowdy and drunk mood, hell-bent on inciting violence that they knew they would not be made accountable for.
In the rare occasion that cases were filed against them, human courts tended to dismiss them as long as no severe physical assault was involved, and they went as far as citing that the defendants' actions, while unfortunate, were also pardonable, being an unpremeditated and possibly uncontrollable manifestation of psychological trauma caused by the "adjustment process".
The only reason none of it was happening right now was because Lysander's beastly appearance didn't fit the mold of any shapeshifters officially identified by L'Alliance, and the unconcealed sight of the bloodstained tips of his silver horns wasn't making them feel any safer.
The only reason they're not doing anything now, she told Lysander ruefully, is because they don't quite know what to do with you. Otherwise, they'd have probably started throwing eggs at us by now---
A rumbling sound interrupted her, and she stiffened, her gaze immediately scanning her surroundings for any kind of assailant. It was only when she heard the rumbling sound again, loud and clear inside her mind---
Oh. She kept forgetting that Lysander could read her thoughts now, and she looked down, realizing that those sounds she was hearing were Lysander basically showing how this whole thing was pissing him off.
If...they...dare...harm...you...
The harsh, savage bite of his voice was still a little jarring, its sound calling to mind biblical images of pagan gods and primordial beasts.
Eat them...alive.
Estrella gulped back a nervous laugh, thinking that it was so not like the old Lysander to think of something so bluntly and inelegantly...vicious. Please don't. I doubt they'd taste to your liking.
Lysander bared his fangs, and the sight had at least a third of the crowd screaming in terror as they ran away. He heard Estrella quickly coughing to hide her own laughter and knew that she believed he was only playing with the humans and that his threat hadn't been real. She was wrong on both counts, of course, but he had no plans on telling her so. It was never a good thing to argue with one's mate this early, and besides, since his Star had asked for it, he would naturally do his best to let the humans be.
But he wasn't going to make any promises either.
Lysander had always despised humans for their weak, cowardly ways and having Ammon inside of him didn't change that. The beast itself had numerous encounters with humans over the centuries, and and well...suffice to say, those encounters had done nothing to endear humanity to Ammo
n.
But with the way the world was now, it might be that neither of them would be given a choice. Apparently, humans knew of them now, and just remembering the ludicrous term associated them almost had Lysander baring his fangs. Preters? Did no one realize how similar it sounded to 'critters'?
By the time the twins came back, it was not a moment too soon, with Lysander having already risen on all fours in a rather combative stance. That he was restless and on the edge wasn't lost on the twins either, and Alain said right away, "We can go now. The van's here."
Estrella was startled to feel Lysander's clawed paw reaching for her as the twins fell into position, with Alain taking point to lead the way while Aluin hung back to guard their rear. It was obvious the twins.A moment later, and there were gasps all around, with the humans unable to believe their eyes as they watched Lysander rise to his full height and place Estrella on his left shoulder just before following Alain's lead.
I think I've seen this in an anime, she heard a human whisper, and apparently, Lysander did so, too, for the prince had just growled his dislike in her mind.
Anime. The word sounded as if it had been spoken between fangs grinding against teeth. They compare us...to...anime?
Estrella fought hard to keep her face blank. I guess so. A part of her couldn't help reflecting on how crazy this night had been. A ball where she had to deal with asshole rulers, a failed abduction attempt, her husband of two years coming back with a beast inside of him, and now they were talking about anime comparisons to preters.
She had a feeling the more proper reaction to the whole thing was something louder and more hysterical, but she just didn't feel like doing either. Right now, all that mattered was Lysander was finally back.
Let it be good for this time, please, God.
Her prayers came loud and clear, with not only Heaven listening in but Lysander as well. It was obvious that she had forgotten he could read her mind...and just as obvious was how infatuated she still was with him.