Married to a beast, p.1
Married to a Beast, page 1
Table of Contents
Married to a Beast (Alphas of L'Alliance)
Married to a Beast
Glossary
Once upon a time...
My Dear Child,
The Prince
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Epilogue
Author's Note
Note: Previously published as Beast of Mine
I married a prince...but the husband who came back to me has turned into a beast.
Shy, quiet Estrella is used to being ignored...until she received a letter from the one man she has ever loved: Prince Lysander Allardi.
Marriage to him, however, comes at a price: a quest to save his people has Lysander leaving his bride without even a wedding night, and when he comes back to her years later, he is no longer Fae...but a beast with the soul of a god.
This new husband of hers is monstrously possessive but infinitely gentle, and Estrella finds herself falling more deeply in love. The beast in Lysander demands that she stay by his side at all times, and his wrath is only appeased when their bodies are joined together.
But just as Estrella has allowed herself to believe that her husband finally returns her feelings...that's when she finds out Lysander never wanted to marry her in the first place.
Married to a Beast
by Marian Tee
Note: Previously published as Beast of Mine
Copyright 2023 by Marian Piñera
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Glossary
Caros - Classification: preter, sub-classification: blood drinker, governing body: Brethren
Faes and Faeries - Classification: preter, sub-classification: winged, governing body: The High Circle (formerly)
Lyccans - Classification: preter, sub-classification: shifter, type: wolf, governing body: Lyccan Council
Panthera - Classification: preter, sub-classification: shifter, type: panther
Sceleri - Classification: preter, sub-classification: sin eater
Souris - Classification: preter, sub-classification: winged, type: mortal descendants of angels
Vampire - Classification: preter, sub-classification: blood drinker, origin: Caros that had taken human lives in exchange for immortality
Vidange - Classification: preter, sub-classification: winged, type: mortal descendants of angels who chose to turn their backs on God
Viver - Classification: human, sub-classification: mystical, governing body: Vatican
Once upon a time...
There were humans who knew of non-humans.
They were admittedly few, but what existed was enough. With these humans' help, an alliance was formed, joined by all the known races: the shifter packs, the Caros, the Souris, and of course we, the Viver, stood by them, too.
When the first vampires were born - ancient twins of the blood-drinking race of Caros - the will of the alliance prevailed. But from their ashes came the most unwelcomed premonition.
Three strikes, the vampires would inflict against our fragile world, one stronger always than its predecessor, and try as we might, not even the most powerful among us were able to overturn this.
The twins were the first strike.
The vampire-led carnage of the Great War decades ago was the second, and while the world was saved, many had died, and the ties that once bound allied races were shorn by distrust, despair, and devastation.
And now, the last and most terrifying battle is upon us, and our hearts weep at how destiny, for reasons known only by the gods, had once again cursed the Faes and Faeries to be its harbinger of doom.
- An excerpt from the prelude of A Viver's Accounting of History: Volume MDCLXXVI
My Dear Child,
I wish I were writing this letter under better circumstances, but alas, recent circumstances have forced my hand, and I am left with no choice but to disturb your repose.
Over a fortnight ago, my Church had received the most troubling news. The evil that we knew to be coming has finally revealed its name: Danilo Moretti, a werewolf prince once believed to be dead. We had all mourned and revered him for his kindness, and it was only after his return that we realized how gravely mistaken we had been about him.
He is Sceleri now, and without an ounce of humanity left inside of him, he might as well be the Devil's right hand come to kill us all.Our hunters' reports tell me that even though he has already amassed for himself a great army, he still seeks to have his numbers swell. And he is succeeding, I'm afraid. Fear mongering is his favorite tool of persuasion, and there is no longer any race in this world that has not been compromised.
While the Lyccans are now united under the prophesied prince Domenico Moretti (who, ironically, is the sin eater's twin brother), not all shifter packs are as fortunate. The Jaguars, in particular, are vulnerable, with no alpha to lead them. And while the Caros have mostly kept to themselves, in-fighting among the members of the Brethren may make it vulnerable to an attack.
But alas, hardest hit yet again are none other than the Faes and Faeries. Betrayed by their own kind, their race is now without a home and if their plight is not readily addressed, perfidious individuals among them may persuade the last surviving Faes and Faeries to deflect...as a whole.
Dark times are ahead of us now, and my weary, cynical instincts tell me it shall only grow darker.
For the sake of the world I know you hold dear, please do heed our call.
We need you here.
Yours truly,
Milton
The Cardinal of Viver
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—-
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.
The Princess
ESTRELLA MORETTI - Allard: A Modern-Day Penelope...But For How Long?
by S.J. Wells
If I had told you that we would one day live among blood drinkers, shapeshifters, and faeries, would you have believed me?
Probably not, and honestly?
I wouldn't have believed myself either.
But that's exactly what our world has come down to, and for many of us, acclimating to this new reality wasn't as inconceivable as one would've expected.
Then again, the clues had been around us all for ages. There's a reason why Game of Thrones was such a massive hit. It's the same reason why people dug Westworld even if they only understood a fraction of it, and it's also why The Walking Dead still isn't, well, dead.
Life as we knew it had become unbearably and uninspiringly mundane, and it used to be, Hollywood was the only way to even remember what words like adventure and magic meant. Or at least it had been so...until the preters.
Preters are the most commonly used term nowadays to refer to beings who look like but are not quite humans, and though they've been "out" for over two years now, our insights about them are still vastly limited.
Just as we have different races, so do preters, who - despite being vastly smaller in number - are a lot more diverse. We've got Lyccans and the Caros, the Souris and the Fae, and - if the rumors are true - a few more that remain hidden. Regardless of one's race, however, preters in general are viewed by many of our kind as the closest thing to having gods walk among us. And who can blame them, really?
Preters are faster and stronger, their senses a dozen times sharper, and in all honesty, I've yet to see a single preter who's unequivocally unattractive. So yes, it's understandable why they have humans so enamored...to the point that men have online shrines dedicated to female preters like, say, Estrella Moretti - Allard.
Despite being one of the younger sisters of billionaire heartthrob Domenico Moretti, Estrella had managed to lead a fairly private life. This all changed, however, when the preters' existence became public knowledge.
Aside from being a Lyccan princess by blood, Estrella had also become the ruling princess of the Faes and Faeries by virtue of her marriage to Lysander Allard. According to my sources, Fae society remains one of the most archaic among preters, and a good example of this are the factors that determine the legitimacy of a persons' claim to the throne.
Following the dissolution of the High Circle, the Fae had elected Lysander to become its ruling prince. This also meant that his bride, Estrella, could rule in his stead if the situation called for it...but only up to a certain point.
A female consort may only rule the Fae for twelve lunar eclipses. Afterwards, if the princess is unable to submit unquestionable proof that her husband still lives, she is to marry another before the thirteenth - or be forced to relinquish the throne.
In Estrella's case, eleven eclipses have already come to pass since Lysander last appeared before his people, and this had both humans and preters alike see the princess as some modern-day Penelope. With Estrella's Odysseus showing no signs of returning, the entire kingdom of Faes is now up for grabs, and the only way for any man to become its ruling prince is to have Estrella wear his ring on her finger.
Self-proclaimed experts of preter politics say that Estrella's Moretti upbringing is likely to have her choose a malleable male who wouldn't make the mistake of challenging her rule. And while such news had been scathingly dismissed by the princess' reps, it caused a stir nevertheless, with men (mostly humans) lining up outside the gates of her residence in Coral Springs.
To date, no official announcement has been provided by either the Lyccan or Fae camp, and so the world continues to wait with bated breath. Will Estrella choose to give up the throne in order to remain Lysander Allard's bride - or has the taste of power become so addictive, she would not hesitate to forsake her alleged first love in order to remain queen?
