Most remarkable was the network of paths that had appeared overnight, wide, smooth trails connecting our castle to Thorndale, to the Noble City of Durand, and to the villages that had once feared to approach the Forbidden Forest’s edge. The forest itself had created these roads, bending trees and compacting earth to invite travel where once it had repelled it.
“The western fields have started producing,” Marcel said, following my gaze toward the distant shimmer of golden grain. “Potatoes, wheat, vegetables of all kinds. The village granaries will be full before autumn.”
That had been Isabeau’s doing, though she denied taking deliberate action. Her connection to the forest as its new guardian meant her desires, her concerns for the people, manifested in tangible ways. The fields had sprung up where villagers returning to their abandoned homes had worried about food for the winter. The forest provided, as if apologizing for two decades of fear and isolation.
“We still need to find Estelle,” Bastien said abruptly, his face darkening with the thought of our missing sister. The one person who should have returned with everyone else when the curse broke, but hadn’t. “And Alain’s sister.”
The missing princesses. Two young women, one who should have been freed when Hades was banished, when the curse was broken, but who remained lost. Estelle, our headstrong, vibrant sister who had been seventeen when the curse struck. Odette, Alain’s sister who had vanished years ago and somehow fallen into Gaspard’s clutches, stuck. Their absence was a wound that wouldn’t heal, a shadow across our otherwise joyful reunion.
“Theron believes they’re connected,” Marcel said, referencing the Crown Prince of Durand who had proven himself a valuableally in the search. “Two royal women, both taken by the Dark Lord’s agents.”
I nodded, recalling Theron’s grim face when he’d returned from Thorndale three days after the battle. “Any leads from what he found at Gaspard’s home?”
“Nothing concrete,” Marcel replied. “The house was mostly cleared out. Anything of value or magical significance was gone.”
Bastien kicked another branch, harder this time, sending it flying into a nearby tree trunk where it shattered. “Fucking Alf. When I find that goon, I’ll rip his throat out.”
Alf. Gaspard’s right-hand man, according to Isabeau and Margaret. Though, Isabeau never saw him in the home, she knew him as Gaspard’s shadow in town. Alf, the servant who had apparently been more than he seemed.
According to Margaret, the woman who had been Gaspard’s unwilling bedmate for years, Alf had disappeared the night before Gaspard’s death, taking with him several locked chests from Gaspard’s private study. He must have sensed the changing winds, known that his master’s protection wouldn’t last.
“Margaret couldn’t tell Theron much,” I reminded them. “Only that Alf always handled the private things, that he was the one who helped Gaspard communicate with... whatever was on the other side.”
“The wraith,” Marcel said grimly. “The trapped princess.”
I looked toward the castle again, thinking of the new protections Isabeau had established around it. Barriers against dark magic, against scrying, against any attempt to spy on us or harm us. She’d grown more confident in her powers each day, guided by instinct and the occasional whispered advice from her mother’s spirit that she swore she could sometimes hear in the rustling leaves.
“We’ll find them,” I said with more confidence than I felt. “Both of them.”
Movement at the treeline caught my attention. Isabeau emerged from the shadows, her yellow dress a splash of light against the greenery. Beside her trotted the unicorn that had become her familiar in the days since the curse broke. The magnificent creature had refused to leave her side, its spiral horn glowing with an unnatural light, turning to a shade matching Isabeau’s eyes when she worked magic.
My breath caught at the sight of her, as it did every time. The claiming mark made it impossible to hide my reaction when her dresses never covered her shoulders, sending ripples of desire through the bond that connected us all. I felt my brothers respond in kind, their bodies tensing with awareness.
“There you are,” she called, a smile lighting her face as she approached. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you four. What are you doing so far from the castle?”
“Discussing affairs of state,” Marcel answered, his formal tone contradicted by the heat in his eyes as he watched her approach.
“Naked?” she asked, one eyebrow arching as she surveyed our unclothed forms with undisguised appreciation. The unicorn nickered beside her, seeming almost amused.
“Best way to discuss anything,” Bastien replied with that wolfish grin that hadn’t changed from beast to man. “You should try it sometime, princess. I hear we should do it when we fight too.”
She laughed, the sound like water over stones, clear and bright. “I believe I have, though not usually while discussing politics.”
I smiled, watching her fingers thread through the unicorn’s mane. The creature leaned into her touch with obvious pleasure, its eyes half-closing. Since bonding with Isabeau, it had become more than just a magical beast. It was an extension of her will, her guardian when we couldn’t be at her side. A familiar in thetruest sense, bound to her magic as surely as we were bound to her heart.
“We were wondering,” I said after a moment, the thought that had brought us to the forest in the first place resurfacing, “if certain aspects of the curse might have lingered. In beneficial ways.”
Her eyes sharpened with interest. “What kind of aspects?”
Marcel stepped forward, his expression thoughtful. “The transformation. Our beast forms. We were wondering if that ability remained, now that the curse is broken.”
“Or if we’re stuck as boring humans forever,” Bastien added, stretching his arms above his head in a way that emphasized the muscled planes of his chest and abdomen.
“I wouldn’t call any of you boring,” Isabeau said with a smile that held secrets, memories of our shared bed. “But I’ve wondered the same thing. The forest feels different now. More... responsive. Like it recognizes me, us. And, when we couple…”
Her words trailed off as a flush took hold of her. She meant how we still locked inside of her, pumping her womb full of our seed.
The claiming mark on my shoulder pulsed with warmth at her words. I closed my eyes, reaching inward for something I wasn’t sure still existed. The beast had been part of me for so long. Decades of fur and claw, of heightened senses and primal instincts. Had that all vanished when we returned to human form? Or had it merely retreated, waiting to be called forth again?
