The Royal Shifters Complete Series Boxed Set

by Alice Wilde

  Roan bites his tongue, hanging his head as he glances away. “No.”

  “That’s what I thought. Look, if we play our card right, no one will get hurt,” I insist, although inwardly I’m sure of no such thing. If I was being perfectly honest with them, I’d tell them I’m not even certain we’ll survive the Nian.

  “Alright, so now that we know where the Nian attacked,” Ero cuts in, “where are we going to keep a lookout for them?”

  I look around the area, and sniff the air. “We need to find a spot downwind, preferably one where neither the villagers nor Nian will spot us… especially if we have to shift in a hurry.”

  “We’re literally standing in an open grassy field,” Ero says. “Where the hell are we going to find a hiding spot like that?”

  He’s right, aside from the sloping hill leading down to the village and the forest on the other side, there aren’t any decent hiding spots.

  “We’re going to have to make one,” I say. “Hurry, we should be able to find some empty crates or casks back in the town to create something.”

  Ero and Roan follow me back to the village where we scour the small alleyways and garbage for materials we can use. There isn’t much to be found, but we do manage to find a few pieces of bamboo and an old worn quilt. I snap the bamboo into shorter pieces and drive them into the ground at the far side of the field and then hanging the quilt over them, creating a makeshift wall for us to hide behind.

  “This is the worst hiding place I’ve ever seen,” Ero says, frowning.

  “It’ll have to do. The sky is already growing dark, and we don’t have time to make something else. Just…try not to shift until you’re out of sight of the villagers. I doubt they’ll take too kindly to seeing us suddenly become leopards.”

  “About that—”

  “I’ve managed to do as you requested,” Longwei says, interrupting Ero as he and a group of townspeople climb the hill to stand beside the playing field. His arms are wrapped around the shoulders of two little, wide-eyed boys.

  “Damn it,” Ero groans.

  “They can’t be more than five years old,” Roan says in a biting whisper.

  “Thank you,” I answer, ignoring Ero and Roan’s remarks.

  “Go play,” Longwei says, giving the two boys a nudge toward the field. They look up at him questioningly and he smiles encouragingly. That’s all it takes. The boys grin and race into the middle of the field, grabbing some of the leftover toys and starting play gleefully. The villagers who followed Longwei up shake their heads and spit on the ground, shooting venomous words our way as he directs them all back down toward the village.

  As soon as the villagers are out of sight, we turn our attention to the boys and forest, hunkering down behind the stinking cloth and peering out of the moth-eaten holes in intense anticipation of what’s to come next. The sun slowly dips below the horizon and my stomach twists as I realize how foolhardy this plan really is. Just as I open my mouth to say so, Roan grabs our forearms.

  “Look,” he hisses.

  My heart dies in my chest as I see the movement of a shadow at the edge of the forest…and then another. Whatever is lurking just beyond view is even bigger than I had expected. Nothing could have prepared me for this.

  “Wo cao,” I mutter in Chinese, losing my composure momentarily.

  Roan and Ero glance over at me in surprise, but a cry instantly draws our attention back to the two boys. Our mouths fall open as two massive beasts leap out of the forest on either side of the children.

  “Hell no,” Roan exclaims.

  “Damn it, Li!”

  All I can do is stare. The Nian’s bodies are swathed in a deep emerald that resembles armor more than scales, and they’re as big as elephants, if not bigger. One of the Nian has two craggy horns sticking out of the top of its head from a thick, floating mane of gold while the other has a single horn jutting from its forehead. Their long cat-like tails swish back and forth, their massive claws digging into the earth as they crouch into position, following the boys’ movements with glowing, red eyes and snarling mouths full of fangs as long as my forearm.

  The Nian leap, each taking a boy in their mouth and then bounding back into the forest.

  “What the hell are we waiting for,” Roan yells, jumping into action. He and Ero tear through the blanket toward the forest while I stare blankly after them. I force myself to snap out of shock and race after them, forgetting my own advice and shifting into my leopard form before I’ve even reached the middle of the field.

  We tear off through the forest, Ero and Roan hurrying to flank the Nian on either side while I race after them from behind. The children are still alive, their cries echoing in my ears. For such colossal, heavy-looking beasts, the Nian are moving effortlessly through the trees and keeping up with them is proving to be far more complicated than I’d anticipated. At this point, the most we can reasonably hope for is that our endurance outstrips theirs.

  “We’re losing them,” Roan pants, linking with me.

  “Don’t you dare let them get away from us,” I growl in answer. “Ero, how are you holding up?”

  Ero doesn’t respond to either of us and I can’t seem to link with him at all.

  “Where is he?” I ask Roan.

  “He won’t respond to me either. Leave him alone,” Roan says after a few seconds of silence. “He’s managing the best of all three of us, let him focus.”

  “Fine.” I sever the link between us, trying to clear my thoughts of anything but the hunt. It seems to work. Suddenly, my body snaps into rhythm, and I’m flying through the foliage with record-breaking speed. My paws barely sinking into the wet earth before I’m mid-leap again. The fragrance of the forest is powerful and seeps into the depths of my mind. The thrill of the chase saturating every inch of me.

  I can smell them. The Nian, their metallic, molten taste flooding my senses, the heat of their bodies and the crashing thunder of their pounding footsteps. They’re slowing down. The Nian’s footsteps abruptly vanish, and I speed forward, ever faster in a frenzy. I can’t lose them.

  I bound out of a thicket just as Roan and Ero leap into the space from either side, all three of us plowing into one another and collapsing into a pile on the forest floor. We scramble to our feet, staring around at one another in confusion. Ero’s lip curls as he snarls at us, and then a twig snaps and we all look up into the trees.

  The Nian are staring down at us, the boys still hanging limp from their mouths, claws digging into several trees as they each try to support their bodyweight among them.

  With a fierce scream, Ero springs up into the nearest tree and climbs toward them. The single-horned Nian lashes out at him with a heavy paw but misses as Ero lunges and sinks his teeth into it. The beast lets out a blood-curdling roar, almost dropping the child before shaking Ero off and jumping to another clutch of trees. But the new trees can’t hold the monster and it crashes to the forest floor.

  The second Nian cries out and drops down beside it, as the three of us begin to circle them. Both of the creatures have released their hold on their prey, the two boys lying unconscious beside them on the damp earth, as the Nian nuzzles its injured partner. I watch vigilantly for an opportunity to strike when I suddenly realize the first Nian doesn’t appear to be breathing.

  “Did we kill it?” Roan asks, linking with me as soon as he notices as well.

  “I didn’t think it was possible,” I say, “but it looks like it.”

  The Nian still standing looks up at us, its eyes glassy and full of pain and rage.

  “I think that answers our question,” Roan warns, severing the connection just as the Nian lashes out at him. There’s a nasty tearing sound and the smell of blood as the beasts claws barely manage to catch Roan’s shoulder. Roan lets out a wild scream and then whips around and lunges at the creature, missing in his fury as the Nian shifts out of the way, narrowly avoiding crushing one of the boys in the process.

  I seize the opportunity to launch my
self in-between the monster’s legs, grabbing the boy by the scruff of his shirt and wrenching him out of harm’s way as it stomps around in an effort to guard against our attacks. Roan lunges at the Nian’s throat but is swatted away, his body impacting with a sickening crack against a nearby tree just before Ero sinks his claws into the creature’s side and climbs his way up its back, biting into the scruff of the beast’s neck.

  The next moment Ero’s teeth are no longer around a Nian’s neck, but that of a man with emerald tinted skin and shimmering golden hair. Ero release his hold and draws back in shock, the vicious battle suddenly over as we stare at each other in disbelief.

  Roan whimpers in agony as he pulls himself to his feet, once again human. I shift back as well, but Ero just looks at each of us and gnashes his teeth before bounding off into the forest.

  “Who are you?” I ask the strange man, blood still streaming down his back from Ero’s bite.

  The man doesn’t answer, instead dropping to his knees next to the body of…a woman.

  “What the devil is going on?” Roan asks, making his way over to me all the while keeping his sights on the two beings.

  I open and close my mouth several times, trying and failing to think of an answer. So, we both watch in awkward silence as the man runs a tender hand over the woman’s body.

  She doesn’t move.

  The man jerks his head around to look over his shoulder at us, his eyes red, the golden strands of his hair floating ethereally around him. “You killed her. She’s dead. You murdered my wife!”

  Neither of us speak as the man slowly gets to his feet and turns to face us, his hands balling into fists and his shoulders tight and raised.

  “We weren’t trying to kill you, either of you,” I say cautiously as he takes a step closer. “It was an accident. All we wanted was to catch you before you hurt any more children.”

  The man lets out a shrill laugh that sends my skin crawling, his lips parting to reveal multiple sets of razor-sharp, pointed teeth.

  “Holy hell,” Roan says under his breath.

  “We don’t want to hurt you any more than we already have.”

  “Hurt me?” the creature sneers. “What can you possibly do to hurt me now?”

  I try to swallow, but my mouth is so dry I nearly choke.

  “Look,” Roan says, “you’re the ones who’ve been stealing and eating children.”

  “And what would you do if that was your diet? Starve?”

  “Not eat children,” Roan snorts.

  “Don’t speak on things you have no understanding,” the man snarls, taking another step toward us. I can almost swear he’s growing taller by the second.

  “All we’re asking is that you return to the village with us,” I say, raising my hands up in an attempt to help ease the mounting tension. “We don’t want any more harm to come to any of us.”

  “It’s a little late for that now, isn’t it?” he fumes.

  “Run!” I shout, grabbing the boy laying at my feet and rolling out of the way just as the man lunges at us, shifting midair. I look up from the ground as a flash of white slams into the half-shifted Nian, knocking him to the ground. “Grab the other boy!”

  Roan doesn’t hesitate, scrambling to his feet and scooping the other boy into his arms as we take off through the forest.

  “What about Ero?” Roan calls, branches whipping past our faces.

  “We’ll go back for him,” I say through clenched teeth, my heart pounding in my chest. “We need to get the children to safety first.”

  I glance over at Roan and instantly regret doing so. I can tell he’s thinking the same thing I am.

  We’ll be lucky to escape the forest alive…but it’ll take more than a miracle for Ero to survive.

  Eight

  Ero

  I knew this was a bad idea from the start, but at least now there’s no one close to me that I don’t want to hurt. I circle the demon as he spits dirt out of his mouth and wipes blood from the corner of his mouth. He grins toothily at me, his eyes full of pain, hate, and disgust.

  “You’re the one who killed her, aren’t you?” I bare my teeth at him. “I thought as much. Show me your face.”

  I shake my coat, the fur on the back of my neck standing up as I growl and continue to pace around him. He watches me closely, narrowing his eyes and cocking his head to the side. “You can’t shift like the others, can you?”

  My pace falters and my growl fades for a split second, but it’s enough to give me away. His grin stretches even wider across his face, in a way that is far from humanly possible.

  “Then we’ll talk like this,” he says, speaking into my mind.

  “Get out of my head,” I snap at the voice in my head.

  “So, you can speak. Good, because I’m opposed to killing another magical being without first saying my peace.”

  “Oh, but you can kill children without a second thought.”

  “They’re mortal,” he says, “born to die. Do you question the lives of the veal you eat?”

  “Veal isn’t human.”

  “And neither am I…and if we want to get technical, neither are you.”

  “What in all of Valhalla are you talking about? Of course, I am.”

  “But are you, really?”

  “Yes,” I snarl.

  “Come now, do you want your last few moments to be as much of a lie as the rest of your life has been?”

  “What do you know of my life?”

  “More than you think,” the man says, his red eyes glinting in the moonlight. “It takes more than a mortal human to kill a Nian.”

  What is he talking about? It’s obvious that we’re not normal by human standards, but we were born to human parents. Whatever magic that flows through our veins was purely coincidence…wasn’t it?

  The demon-creature smiles even wider as he watches me intently. “You’re curious, aren’t you? You want to find out what I know about you and your…condition…whether or not you’re more beast or human.”

  “No,” I snort, tearing my eyes away from his unnerving expression.

  “Whether or not you’re losing your humanity,” he whispers quietly into my mind, “and becoming more like me.”

  I snap my head back around to glare at him. “I’ll never be like you.”

  “Is that so?” he asks, raising an eyebrow. “Then shift, right now. Show me how human you really are underneath that leopard pelt of yours.”

  “I don’t have to prove anything to you,” I snarl. “Least of all before I kill you.”

  I pounce, baring my claws, but tumbling in the dirt as he maneuvers out of my way. “Come now, we’re still talking.”

  “Our conversation is over.”

  “No, I don’t think so,” he replies. “At least, not until I say so.”

  “What do you want?” I roar.

  “I want my wife back.”

  I stare at him in stunned silence for a long moment. “But…you said she’s dead.”

  “Oh, she is…but I think you can help me.”

  “How?”

  “Let’s make a deal.”

  I watch him skeptically as he walks over to stand beside the female’s body, his disturbing expression suddenly changing to one of affection and tenderness as he looks down at her.

  “What kind of deal?” I ask skeptically.

  “I thought you’d never ask,” he says, his eyes sparkling as he turns back to look at me, the same gut-wrenching smile spreading across his face once again.

  Nine

  Annalise

  “Where’s Ero?” I ask Roan and Li worriedly as the door slides apart and they step inside the gold room. They share a look that feels like a dagger to my heart, and I can barely keep the tears from welling up in my eyes before they’ve had a chance to speak.

  “We don’t know.”

  “What do you mean you don’t know?” I ask, my voice cracking. It’s only now that I realize Roan’s shirt is covered in blood. “Gods, Roan…
your shoulder!”

  Roan stares at me for a moment and then looks down at his shoulder in bewilderment, his eyes widening as if he’s only just realized he’s bleeding as well. “Oh, right.”

  “Li, please, help him before he bleeds out.”

  Li wraps an arm around Roan’s waist, and guides him over to the golden throne where we help Roan lie down.

  “He’s in shock,” Li says in alarm, tearing Roan’s shirt open and checking the deep gashes in his shoulder. “This is worse than I thought.”

  “How can it be worse than you thought?” I ask in a panic. “Why didn’t you help him as soon as he was injured?”

  “It wasn’t that simple,” Li says, running his hands over Roan’s torso as calmly as possible.

  Roan’s lips have started to turn a bluish purple, his complexion decidedly ashen.

  “He’s dying, Li,” I whimper, clutching Roan’s hand in both of my own and pressing it to my cheek. “Please, Roan. Don’t you dare leave me. You promised.”

  Tears spill out onto my cheeks as his skin grows colder with each passing second.

  “I…He’s…” Li trails off, straightening and leaning back from Roan.

  “Don’t you dare!” I scream, climbing onto the huge chair and laying myself across Roan’s body, pressing my ear flat against his chest. I hold my breath, forcing my own heartbeat to quiet as I listen.

  Nothing.

  “Annalise…”

  “No,” I breathe, pushing myself off his chest and looking at his motionless body in alarm.

  “Annalise—”

  “No!” I scream, pounding my fists against his chest, my eyes blind with emotion. “No. No… No!”

  Li grabs me, wrapping his arms around my body and pinning my hands to my chest as I weep unconsolably against him. “I’m sorry.”

  “This isn’t supposed to happen,” I sob. “You…none of you are supposed to leave me.”

  “We’re not immortal,” Li whispers. “Death may not come for us as quickly as it does others, but eventually, it does.”