Pain shot through my entire body as my bones broke and reset themselves, joints popping, muscles tearing and reknitting. I would have screamed if I could form the sound, but my throat was reconstructing itself, vocal cords transforming from beast to man. The agony was exquisite, a baptism of fire burning away the monster to reveal the prince beneath.
Memories flooded back with each transformation. Not just the recent ones of Isabeau and our claiming, but older ones. Memories of hunting with my brothers in human form. Dancing at royal balls. Arguing with my father about border disputes. Teasing our sister about her first crush on a stable boy. The mundane details of a human life I’d thought I lost forever.
My sister.
Where was she?
The thought flickered through my mind like lightning, there and gone as another wave of transformation seized me. My spine straightened, vertebrae cracking as they realigned from quadruped to biped. I felt suddenly smaller, more compact, yet somehow more complete than I’d been in my massive bestial form.
When the light finally released us, depositing us gently back onto solid ground, I stumbled like a newborn colt. My limbs felt wrong. Too light, too weak, too human. I looked down at hands instead of paws, fingers flexing experimentally. Skin instead of fur. Human nails instead of lethal claws.
I was naked, I realized belatedly. We all were. Our bestial forms hadn’t needed clothing, and the transformation hadn’t provided any. I should have felt vulnerable, exposed. Instead, I felt reborn. Reclaimed. Restored to what I was always meant to be.
“Bastien.”
Isabeau stood before me, her eyes wide with wonder and brimming with tears. She reached out a trembling hand, hesitating just short of touching my face. Like she couldn’t believe I was real. Like she feared I might dissolve if she made contact.
“Touch me,” I said, my voice rough from disuse, the human words feeling strange on my tongue after so long. “Please.”
She closed the distance, her palm pressing against my cheek. Her touch was electric, sending shocks through my newly human skin. I leaned into it, greedy for the contact, for the proof that this was real. That we were both here, in the same dimension, without barriers between us, without my beast between us.
“You’re beautiful,” she whispered, tracing the lines of my face like she was memorizing them. “I knew you would be.”
I laughed, the sound strange to my own ears. Human. Emotional. “I’m exactly as you saw me in the dreamscape. Exactly as you made me.”
Her hand moved to my shoulder, fingers brushing over the claiming mark that still pulsed with golden light. “No. You made yourself. I just helped you remember.”
I wanted to kiss her. To claim her mouth as I’d claimed the rest of her. To taste her without the limitation of a beast’s muzzle. But before I could act, Marcel cleared his throat beside me.
“Brother, perhaps we could continue this reunion after acquiring some clothes,” he suggested, his voice deeper than mine but smoother, controlled even in this extraordinary moment. That was Marcel. Always the diplomatic one, always aware of the bigger picture. His dark brown hair fell in waves around his face, honey-colored highlights catching the sun just as his fur had done moments ago.
I turned to see Laurent on my other side, his hair more blond than either of ours, his lean frame already standing with more confidence than I felt in this rediscovered human body. His eyes—still amber like mine, like all of ours—were scanning the crowd, assessing potential threats even in this moment of victory.
“Fuck clothes,” I muttered, but I knew he was right. We stood in the middle of a battlefield, surrounded by subjects from our realm and soldiers from Alain’s. This wasn’t the place for the reunion I wanted with Isabeau, and what her smile was doing to my groin.
As if reading my thoughts, Isabeau blushed, her eyes dipping briefly to take in my naked form before returning to my face with obvious effort. “I think your brother has a point,” she said softly, removing her torn cloak from whatever claws ripped through it and into her flesh, offering it to me.
The garment wouldn’t cover much, but I took it anyway, draping it around my waist more to ease her embarrassment than my own. I had never been shy, even before the curse, and decades as a beast had eliminated any remaining modesty.
A commotion nearby drew our attention. The raven was surrounded by the same golden light that had transformed us. Its black feathers melted away like ink in water, its form expanding and reshaping until a young man knelt where the bird had been. Dark hair, olive skin, and eyes that held too much wisdom for his apparent age.
“Lestat,” Marcel said, genuine pleasure warming his voice. “You survived as well.”
The former raven—Prince Lestat—looked up with a crooked smile. “Someone had to keep an eye on things in this realm,” he said, his voice musical despite the strain evident in his face. “Though I must say, feathers were an adjustment.”
“You know him?” Isabeau asked, looking between us and the transformed bird.
“Marcel’s closest friend,” Laurent explained.
“Turned into a fucking bird while we got to be predators,” I added, unable to resist the jab despite the solemnity of the moment. Old habits died hard, and teasing our friend had been a favorite pastime before the curse.
Lestat rose unsteadily to his feet, someone’s discarded cloak already wrapped around his shoulders but not his flaccid cock. “Says the man who spent decades only being allowed in his castle in the morning,” he shot back, but there was no real heat in his words. Only relief. We had all suffered under Enid’s curse, just in different hells.
“When you bit me…” Isabeau began.
“It was to unlock your magic, letting it feel mine to manifest it forward.” Lestat didn’t have an issue with being naked in front of our girl, but my jealousy did. I threw a horse’s saddle blanket athim and he laughed. “As much as I would love to stay and catch up, I too have a kingdom to return to.”
“Regroup, Lestat. We’ll send you with supplies once we’ve organized this chaos,” I offered, and he bowed in acceptance.
