Chapter Three
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 strength 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 shift 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 changes, 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.