Rejected By the Shifter King (L’Alliance Royals #2)

The Prince

THE WOODS THAT BORDERED the lands of the Panthera were akin to a dark and dense maze of colossal proportions.

But instead of serpentine paths and hedges to befuddle one's senses, there was just the absence of light.

Trees towered all around, with crooked, claw-like branches curved towards each other as if to shun the sun and drown the world underneath in a sea of blackness.

The way Misty spoke of the place, she had made it seem that finding the jinn would be a walk in the park. And maybe it had been, for someone like her who was favored by Lady Luck.

But for the Fae prince, it was disastrously turning out to be the opposite.

In his quest to find the one creature that could be the last true hope of his race, Lysander had found himself battling against Nature herself.

Thunder and lightning came after him like ravenous hounds unleashed by an unseen deity.

Quicksands and sinkholes appeared out of nowhere in a devious attempt to hold him captive, and as if those Herculean challenges were not enough, landslides and earthquakes constantly reshaped the ground he trekked, and with such treacherous silence it was as if they had been specifically devised to trap him.

By the time Lysander made it to the jinn's dwelling space - just a cave, but at the same time something else, like crawling into the center of a dreamcatcher, Misty had said - the prince was bruised and wounded all over, his strength down to its last, dying embers.

It was all he could do to just catch his fucking breath, and when he finally saw her, running towards him on all fours with such speed that she was nothing but a metallic blur—-

I'm fucked.

But still his hand had gone to grip the handle of his sword.

If this is how my last fight would go, then so fucking be it.

A wild-looking creature leapt into the air, and those five seconds in which their gazes locked, it was as if he was staring at something not of this world entirely.

Five...

The was bronze all over - her hair, her skin, even her nails.

Four...

It made her seem hard and fluid all at once.

Three...

Naked but not naked.

Two...

Human but not quite.

One...

The jinn landed nimbly on her feet, close enough for the bronze strands of her hair to graze his cheek...and draw blood.

Fuck.

She leaned back and straightened, and Lysander instinctively tightened his grip on his sword even as he forced himself to stay still as her calculating gaze swept over him from head to toe.

Moments passed, each one spanning an eternity.

And then her lips started to crack, into the eeriest version of a smile.

"Son of the Faes..." The jinn's voice was rusty, her accent unmistakable but indeterminable, like something older than time itself. "Well...done."

It took a moment for him to understand what those words meant. All of it had been a test, he realized. All those instances back in the forest when it seemed Nature was out to kill him...it had just been the jinn—-

"Wish."

His gaze snapped back to hers at the word. That was the cue, Misty had told him.

She would ask you what you wished...

And maybe that was how it had happened for Misty, but...

It didn't seem like the jinn was asking a question right now, with the way she was looking at him, circling him. And her movements...alternating between crawling and undulating, like a creature unused to working with human limbs—-

"AMMON."

The roughly whispered word had Lysander's head jerking up.

He was right then.

This creature already knew.

And almost as if the jinn could hear his thoughts, he saw her head bobbing just as her lips stretched back in another smile that was both ghastly and ethereal.

"You come for it."

Lysander slowly nodded back. "I did."

"Your blood runs from the line of Allards, a family I know to be kind and brave."

"Yes."

"Your people have been good to me, and so I say this to you." She lifted a finger, pointing straight to his heart, which almost stopped the moment he heard her voice inside his head.

The beast you wish to take into you is ancient, its power inextinguishable.

Once it rises, it will try to tear out of the cage of your soul.

It will try to devour your body from within.

You must find a way to tame the beast without breaking its spirit; make it bow to your command before it drives you past the abyss of madness and despair.

****

STANDING AT THE EDGE of the woods were a pair of men, identical in every way save for their eye color.

Their rough, good looks, coupled with their deceptively lazy posture, drew attention away from the way their gazes constantly scanned their surroundings, their senses alert for any possibly hostile presence. ..

A twig broke under the heavy fall of footsteps.

...or the return of their prince.

The twins lunged into perfectly synchronized motion, Alain and Aluin dropping all pretenses of nonchalance when they saw a badly bruised Lysander coming up to them.

For all that their prince was commonly dismissed as nothing but a handsome, exceedingly well-dressed fop, those closest to the Allard heir knew that his elegant countenance and playful charm were nothing but a camouflage.

Underneath it all was a lethal and ruthless killer, and so it begged the question—-

"What the fuck happened in there?" Aluin demanded tautly under his breath. Lysander's swordsmanship was unparalleled, and for him to come back looking like Hell had chewed him up to pieces...what kind of fucking monster could that jinn be?

"Doesn't matter what happened," Lysander said, his voice taking on a sardonic tone despite his exhaustion. "The outcome's all that matters..."

The twins drew their breaths sharply, both of them knowing what the prince's mission was - and what the jinn had to do with it, if she chose to be involved.

"She agreed..." Alain guessed. "But there's something else, is there?" Because there always was one and always would be, with creatures like jinns.

Lysander's face turned impassive as memories of the jinn's last words played in his mind like a taunting melody.

Above all else, you must find a mate to anchor yourself to this world.

Without a mate, the beast will take over, and you as you know yourself will disappear for all eternity.

Heed my words or throw your life away.

It is, in the end, your choice.

The words hammered the walls of his mind, and Lysander's jaw clenched. If only he had been asked to do this even just a few months ago, then it wouldn't have been a problem at all. Countless women would've fought for the chance to be his bride.

But now...

When the prince spoke their names, the two men simply waited in silence. Whatever Lysander commanded, they would obey, their trust in him implicit and as unwavering as it had been from the first day it was forged in blood between three childhood friends.

Lysander carefully pulled his ring off and handed it to Aluin.

"What's this for?" the other man asked tightly.

"Apparently..." Lysander's tone turned ironic. "My quest requires that I find myself a mate."

"Don't you mean a bride?" Alain asked with a frown.

The prince's lips tightened. "I mean exactly what I said." Because when this was over, and assuming he survived, he would no longer be the kind of man for whom a mere bride would do.