The Royal Shifters Complete Series Boxed Set

by Alice Wilde

My body trembles as sobs wrack my body, my heart shattering into a million pieces. This is all my fault. If I hadn’t insisted he go with Li and Ero, Roan would still be alive. I shouldn’t have let any of them go. What’s the point of saving the world if I can’t even save the lives of the ones I love? I destroy everyone and everything I touch.

  “Lass?”

  My heart leaps into my throat as my eyes fly open, but I can hardly see through the blur. “Roan?”

  Li releases his hold on me, and I reach blindly for Roan’s body as I wipe at my eyes with brutal ferocity.

  “I’m here, lass.”

  Li hurries to run his hands over Roan’s wound, looking perplexed.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  “He shouldn’t be alive,” Li says in astonishment. “He’s lost far too much blood, I don’t even know how he’s talking to us right now.”

  “What should we do?” I ask, cupping Roan’s cheek in my hand as I stare into his face.

  “I…I don’t know.”

  “Kiss me,” Roan breathes, in a barely audible whisper.

  I don’t hesitate, and lean over him, pressing my lips softly against his own. Roan’s lips are as cold as ice, and my first instinct is to pull away, but I don’t.

  I kiss him harder.

  At first, Roan doesn’t move, but as I continue to kiss him I suddenly feel warmth returning to his body as it slowly drains from my own.

  “His wound is healing,” Li exclaims. “How…”

  I pull away from Roan to look, but almost within the same instant Li forces my lips back against Roan’s. I struggle against his hold, but he doesn’t release me right away.

  “Li!” I gasp when he drops his hand from the back of my head and I’m finally able to sit back up.

  “Look,” Li says excitedly, examining Roan’s shoulder as if he has no recollection of forcing me into kiss a second ago. My annoyance with him vanishes, replaced with bewilderment as soon as I see that Roan’s wound is now nothing more than a set of deep scars.

  “How?”

  “It has something to do with you,” Li says. “I thought I noticed it before, but…I’ve never seen a wound like that heal.”

  “Me?”

  “I can’t quite explain it, but when you kissed him, it quite literally healed his wound and brought him back from the brink of death. Even I can’t do that.”

  “How do you feel?” I ask, turning back to look at Roan, tenderly caressing his face with my hand.

  “Like death.”

  “Don’t even joke about that,” I laugh through an unexpected sob. Roan pulls me down against his chest, his skin still slightly cool to the touch. Perhaps he wasn’t joking when he said that. I let him hold me for a moment longer, savoring the feel of his arms around me, and then I force him to let me sit up again.

  “What is it, lass?”

  “I’m going to kiss you,” I state, “and I’m going to keep kissing you until you’re better.”

  “If you must,” Roan says with mock dismay.

  “Perhaps I should go—” Li starts to say.

  “No. Stay,” I insist, reaching out to grab his hand before he can walk away. “I need you here, too.”

  Li’s eyes flicker, glancing downward at Roan and then back up at me. “If you insist.”

  “I do.”

  Roan watches me without saying a word as Li perches on the edge of the large chair, looking out over the gold-filled room uncertainly.

  “Lass?”

  I smile softly, my eyes betraying the distress I feel as I turn my attention back to him. I run my fingertips lightly down the center of his chest, watching as his goosebumps ripple across his skin. Leaning down, I kiss his scarred shoulder. Guilt seeping through me as I look at it. Carefully, I move closer to Roan, drinking in every feature of his stunning face. The deep, twinkling emerald of his eyes, the height of his cheekbones, the sharpness of his jawline…the softness of his lips.

  We kiss, this time Roan kisses me back. Gradually the quiet stillness of our kiss turns to something hungrier and Roan’s body suddenly grows hot beneath my touch. My own body feels weary, but I can’t bring myself to end the passionate moment between us. Not now, not after I nearly lost him. Roan grabs me around my waist, shifting me on top so that I’m now straddling him.

  “I want you, lass,” Roan whispers, pushing my hips down to meet his.

  “Not now,” I say softly.

  “Why not?”

  Roan kisses me again and presses me more firmly against his groin, his own rising to meet me. My mind races to remember all the reasons why we shouldn’t, but between Roan’s efforts to convince me and the own exhaustion of my body, I can’t think of a single reason. I start as Roan manages to slide a hand into my pants and between my legs.

  Li clears his throat loudly, and I blush fiercely and struggle against Roan’s hold. He releases me immediately and I roll off onto my back beside him. We lay there in uncomfortable silence for a few seconds.

  “I’m sorry,” Roan says, his voice wounded.

  “It’s not that I don’t want you,” I say. “I hope you know that…but we can’t, not now.”

  “If you say so.”

  I sit up, my sudden movement causes both Li and Roan to flinch.

  “What’s wrong?” Li asks, standing up from his awkward position on the edge of the chair.

  “Ero! We can’t leave him alone out there!”

  “Hell,” Roan says, wincing as tries to pull his shirt together. “I’d completely forgotten.”

  “There’s not much we can do anyway,” Li says.

  Roan and I freeze.

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  “Only that it’s impossible for us to leave this room until Longwei comes back to unlock the door.”

  “Oh.” I sit back, crestfallen at the thought of leaving Ero out there all alone. “What happened out there?”

  Li and Roan look at each other and then back at me.

  “Are you sure you want to know?” Li asks.

  “Of course!”

  “Very well.”

  I listen intently as Li tells me about the Nian and everything that went down in the forest, but something about the story doesn’t quite sit well with me.

  “I’m pleased you were able to save the children,” I say thoughtfully, “although you shouldn’t have put them in danger in the first place.”

  “I know, it was a severe lapse in judgement on my part,” Li concedes.

  “I have to ask...why did you leave Ero alone with those beasts?”

  “We had every intention of going back for him,” Roan answers hurriedly.

  “But why did you leave him there to begin with?” I ask, my eyes searching first Li’s and then Roan’s face.

  “I’m not entirely sure how to put this,” Li says, “but neither of us were able to communicate with him after he shifted. Even if we wanted to tell him to follow us or try to link with him, we couldn’t…we still can’t.”

  “Oh.”

  “You don’t seem very surprised.”

  “I wish I could say I was, but something happened on our way to find the two of you that made me wonder how safe shifting is for you all.”

  “Lass?”

  “There was a moment, back when we still had no idea where were you were, that Ero was tracking you in his leopard form,” I say. “At one point, it was almost as if Ero was no longer there…all that was left was animal instinct, and…”

  “Did he hurt you?”

  “No, of course not,” I reply hurriedly, “but he almost did.”

  Li and Roan share a look.

  “It’s getting worse then,” Li sighs. “We’ve noticed the change in our powers as well, but I thought it had more to do with the strain of our journey.”

  “Are you losing your ability to shift?” I ask.

  “It’s hard to say. There’s very little known about this type of magic or how it comes to be…all we can do is try to be more careful.”

 
; “And Ero?”

  “Ero’s not a weak one,” Roan says, placing a reassuring hand on my shoulder, “if anyone can fight off a Nian and make it back alive and well, it’ll be him.”

  “But—”

  A resounding click rings through the room and we turn toward the door as it splits and slides apart. Longwei standing in the middle of the opening. “Come with me, and make haste!”

  Li glances over at us and then hurries toward the door, Roan and I racing to keep up.

  “What’s happening?”

  Longwei doesn’t answer, locking the door as soon as we step outside and then spinning on his heel to make his way out and over the rope bridge. I notice the two stone platforms on either side of the building entrance are still empty. The bridge sways sickeningly from side to side as I watch it from the safety of solid ground.

  “Do you need my help?” Roan asks softly from behind as Li and Longwei reach the middle of the bridge without us.

  “No, thank you,” I answer as confidently as I can, but as I take a single step onto the swaying planks, I reach back and Roan takes my hand without a word. Together, we make our way to the other side and I inhale deeply, having subconsciously held my breath the whole way across.

  My heart is still racing as we rush to keep up with Longwei as he makes his way down the steep, stone steps, and I wonder what it is that’s sent him into such a frenzy. The sky is still dark, dawn not yet having arrived, but the streets are full of villagers murmuring and clinging to one another as we push through them and over the bridge to the other side of town. As we reach the edge of town, I finally see what it is that’s drawn all of their attention.

  “Ero!” I cry, running a few steps forward before Roan pulls me back. “Let me go to him.”

  “Wait, lass,” Roan says. “That’s not a request.”

  I press my lips together in displeasure but then notice the being standing behind Ero. How I didn’t notice the strange man before is beyond me. He’s taller than Ero by at least a head, his skin a strange pale-green that almost appears to glow in the moonlight. The man’s hair gleams like a million gold threads and floats around him as if he’s standing at the bottom of a pool. My stomach twists painfully as the man’s eyes suddenly meet my own, and I have to force my eyes away before I make myself sick.

  A single look is all it takes to see there’s nothing but death and wickedness left in this creature’s soul. For a moment, I’d almost felt the tendrils of darkness trying to creep their way into me once again.

  “Annalise,” the red-eyed man says, his voice slippery, oozing down my spine and leaving a sour taste in my mouth.

  I heave, but nothing comes out, my stomach empty from lack of food.

  “What do you want?” Roan growls, placing a hand against my chest and pushing me behind him.

  “Annalise,” the man says again, the corners of his mouth turning up in a cold toothless smile.

  “You can’t have her.”

  “Oh,” he says, “you misunderstand me. I don’t want her. I simply wanted to know which of you mortal creatures is the source of all this chaos.”

  I peer out from behind Roan’s back and notice the man is holding something in his arms that looks like a body.

  “Is that her?” I ask, ignoring the man’s remark as I fixate on the limp form.

  The man’s smile disappears and for a second, he almost looks human. “Yes.”

  “Why are you here?” Longwei asks, interrupting the moment.

  “Isn’t this what you wanted?” the man laughs, darkness returning to his features.

  “You’re…the Nian?” Longwei gasps.

  “Nian? There are Nian? This time of year?” the villagers cries of distress and surprise grow loud and panicked.

  “Yes, that is one of our names,” the man says, smiling a terrifyingly toothy grin as the townsfolk become ever more hysterical from the realization.

  “Why do you look like…like this?”

  “Would you have preferred me to come back as the beast that I am?”

  “I…I don’t know.”

  “Ero,” Li says, stepping forward. “Can you please explain what’s going on?”

  “Nothing is going on,” Ero says calmly, not looking any of us in the eye. “The Nian have agreed to return, that is all.”

  Li, Roan, and I share an uneasy look.

  “What’s the catch?” Roan asks.

  “Nothing for you to worry about,” Ero says. “Longwei, please lead us back to their…homes.”

  “There’s no—”

  “Now,” Ero growls, and Longwei takes a step back in surprise before spinning on his heel and shouting for the crowd to make way. Roan, Li, and I watch as Ero leads the Nian between us and through the crowd, and we anxiously follow behind them, the villagers closing in behind us. Guards step in as soon as we reach the alley and we continue on alone, once again crossing the rickety bridge to Longwei’s isolated fortress. This time I manage to make it across the bridge without much thought, my focus drawn to the Nian.

  The green-skinned being places the female body on one of the pedestals, rearranging her limp body tenderly and I can’t help but feel a little wrong for observing such an intimate moment. Then, he turns back to look at all of us and moves to stand on the platform on the opposite side of the door. We all look back and forth between the two strange beings in confusion.

  “Is that it?” Roan asks.

  “Almost,” Ero replies, looking out over the town and surrounding landscape. Just then, the sun breaks over the horizon, long rays of light pouring out over the world. As the sunlight spreads up and over the town toward us, a groan turns us back to look at the Nian. They’ve both shifted into their beast forms, their bodies slowly hardening into stone as morning light slides up their bodies until they’re no longer creatures of flesh and bone.

  Longwei’s mouth has fallen agape.

  “We’ve upheld our end of the deal,” Ero says. “Now, take us to the dragon.”

  “How…” Longwei trails off and then looks at us. “What did you do to get them back so easily?”

  “Does it matter? Now, our deal.”

  “Not so fast, you haven’t quite finished your side of the deal.”

  Ero steps menacingly toward him.

  “Wait, Ero,” Li says, placing himself between them, “Longwei is right.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I…I may have promised him one of us,” Li says.

  “Li,” I ask, my eyes widening in horror, “how could you?”

  “Not…permanently.”

  I stare at him in confusion.

  “So, which of you will it be?” Longwei asks, his voice breaking ever so slightly.

  “Li…what do you mean by not permanently?”

  “I’ll take care of it,” Li says, not answering me.

  “Li?”

  “No, no,” Longwei says, his eyes darting over to Roan and Ero. “Our deal was for one of them.”

  “What is he talking about?” Roan asks his eyes narrowing.

  “Do you want to meet your dragon or not?”

  “Remember what we talked about the first time we left the town?” Li asks without looking at us.

  “What…” Roan trails off and then takes a step backward. “You can’t be serious?”

  “Would one of you please explain what’s going on?” I ask in exasperation.

  “Part of the deal we made was… that one of us would…”

  “He wants to sleep with one of us,” Ero says bluntly, finishing what Li is having a hard time getting out.

  “But you can’t!” I exclaim, my blood boiling.

  “Then I’m afraid we’re at an impasse,” Longwei shrugs.

  “It’s not fair.”

  “A deal is a deal.”

  I glare at him, my eyes narrowing as I step toward him. “We’ve done more for you than we ever had to, now give us the information we need.”

  “That’s not how these things work.”


  “You never expected them to deal with the Nian, did you?” I ask after a moment of silence.

  “I admit, I had little hope everything would turn out as well as it has,” Longwei says. “However, I’m a man of my word.”

  “You changed the terms—”

  “As did your men, asking me to put children in the way of the Nian,” he spits. “The deal stands.”

  “I’ll do it,” Ero says, stepping forward.

  “No!” I cry.

  Ero ignores me, stepping forward and pulling away from me as I try to hold onto his arm.

  “Let’s get this over with,” Ero says.

  “Really? Right this way,” Longwei says in surprise, unlocking the door to his house and gesturing for Ero to enter.

  My heart is pounding in my chest, the world spinning around me as Ero steps inside and Longwei pulls the doors shut, locking it behind them…and stealing a piece of my heart with him.

  Ten

  Ero

  I stand, stalk-still in the middle of the room as Longwei circles me in anticipation, looking me up and down with eager eyes. He continues to do this for several more minutes, my patience beginning to wear thin.

  “What do you want?”

  “Don’t speak,” Longwei says, taking a nervous step toward me.

  I clench my teeth together, staring straight ahead and trying to keep my mind blank. Longwei presses a hand flat against my chest, and I can feel him trembling as he gradually runs his hand up over my shoulder and then steps around to continue touching my back. I suppress a shudder, allowing him to continue feeling me.

  Longwei places a hand on both of my shoulders and then runs them down and then back up my arms while standing behind me. He steps closer, slipping his arms around my chest and clutching me against his own body. The sensation is odd and I wonder how Annalise puts up with three men when I can barely stand one. I grimace as his hold on me tightens, and his hot breath forcing the hairs on the nape of my neck to rise and an involuntary shiver to run down my spine.

  Longwei slowly releases his hold and for a split second, I’m relieved, until he slips them inside the drop collar of my shirt and against my skin. His fingertips search my chest until they meet with one of my nipples and it takes every ounce of control not to tear him to pieces as he urges my flesh to respond to his touch.