I searched deeper, past the rational mind that had reasserted itself with my humanity, past the careful control I’d always prided myself on. There, in the darkness behind my thoughts, I felt it. A presence. Not separate from me but a facet of myself I’d come to know intimately during our cursed years. My beast, dormant but alive.
“It’s still there,” I whispered, opening my eyes to find my brothers watching me intently. “I can feel it.”
“How do we call it forth?” Marcel asked, his voice tight with controlled excitement. “Without the curse forcing the change?”
The answer came not from conscious thought but from instinct. I reached for the claiming mark, for the connection it represented not just to Isabeau but to the magic that had transformed us, that had saved us, that had made us whole again. I felt the mark flare with heat, felt something uncoil within me, stretching, awakening.
The change came faster than I expected, a rushing tide of sensation that swept over me like wildfire. Bones cracked and reformed. Skin gave way to silver-brown fur that sprouted in a wave across my body. My face elongated into a muzzle, teeth sharpening into fangs. I fell forward onto hands that became paws, fingers retracting as claws extended.
And then it was done. I stood on four legs, my senses exploding with information my human form couldn’t process. Scents, sounds, vibrations through the earth. It was all crystal clear, all immediate and vital. I was beast again, but this time by choice. This time with my human mind fully intact, in control.
A low growl beside me drew my attention. Marcel had transformed as well, his massive honey-colored form larger than mine, his amber eyes reflective of the sunlight filtering through the trees. And on my other side, Bastien’s dark fur bristled as he shook himself, adjusting to the transformation with typical impatience.
Isabeau’s gasp pulled our attention to her. She stood frozen, eyes wide, the unicorn beside her pawing the ground nervously. For one terrible moment, I feared we’d frightened her, that seeing us as beasts again had triggered memories of fear or danger.
Then her face split into a radiant smile, joy pouring from her through the claiming bond. “You’re beautiful,” she breathed, stepping forward to run her hands through Marcel’s fur, then mine, then Bastien’s. “All of you, just as magnificent as I remembered.”
The unicorn relaxed as it sensed her happiness, moving closer to nuzzle against her side. Isabeau laughed, the sound pure delight, as she buried her hands in our fur, scratching behind ears and under chins as if we were oversized house cats rather than massive predators.
A commotion at the edge of the clearing caught our attention. Alain stood there, his eyes wide with shock as he took in our transformed states and stepped back for a moment. The claiming mark on his shoulder glowed visibly through his shirt, responding to our proximity and our change.
“I feel something happening,” he said, taking a hesitant step forward. His mark began to glow, to call to him too.
Alain’s eyes widened before he closed them, his face a study in concentration as he searched for something he’d never known existed within him. For a moment, nothing happened, and doubt flickered across his features.
Then the claiming mark blazed on his skin, visible even through his shirt as a golden light that spread outward, engulfing his entire body. He gasped, dropping to his knees as the transformation took him. Unlike ours, his change seemed more fluid, less painful, as if the magic knew to be gentle with a body that had never experienced such a shift before.
When it finished, a fourth beast stood before us. Smaller than Marcel's largest form but larger than Bastien's smallest with fur as black as midnight that gleamed blue where the sunlight touched it. His eyes remained the same icy blue, but now they shone from a face that matched ours in its bestial nature.
Alain looked down at his transformed body in shock, lifting paws that had been hands moments before, flexing claws that had never existed until now. A sound escaped him—half whimper, half growl—as he adjusted to sensations no human was ever meant to experience.
“Oh, wow,” Isabeau whispered, approaching him without fear. “You’re one of them now. Truly one of them.”
She reached out, fingers gentle as they stroked along Alain’s muzzle, down his neck to the claiming mark that glowed golden against his dark fur. His eyes closed in pleasure at her touch, a rumbling purr emanating from his chest.
“My beasts,” she said with such tenderness that the claiming bond vibrated with it. “My princes. My mates.” Her amber eyes glowed with the magic of her goddess bloodline as she looked between the four of us. “I loved you as humans and as beasts, and now I can have both. There is no longer loss in my heart when I thought I might never see you this way again.”
I moved closer, pressing my muzzle against her hand, inhaling her scent that was even more complex and intoxicating to my beast senses. She smelled of sunlight and forest magic, of desire and power. The unicorn stepped closer as well, seeming to accept us in this form as it recognized Isabeau’s pleasure, her trust.
“Do you know what this means?” she asked, a mischievous smile playing at her lips as she scratched behind my ears in a way that made my back leg thump embarrassingly against the forest floor. “It means I get to experience everything all over again. With all of you. In both forms.”
The implication sent a wave of heat through the claiming bond, memories of our couplings as beasts, of how she had taken us without fear or hesitation. The primal, raw connection that had formed between us before we ever had human hands totouch her with, human voices to tell her how much we adored her.
Fuck yes,Bastien growled, the words into our shared mind.Best of both worlds.
Marcel huffed what might have been a laugh.There are certain advantages to each form,he agreed, his beast voice deeper in my mind, rougher than his human one.
Alain made a choked sound, clearly still adjusting to both the transformation and the implications of what Isabeau was suggesting. But through the bond, I felt his curiosity, his desire to experience what we had known with her before he joined our unusual family.
“Later,” Isabeau promised, her eyes darkening with desire as she looked between us. “When we’re alone in the castle. For now, run with me. Show me what it feels like to race through a forest that lives and breathes and loves again.”
She mounted the unicorn in one fluid movement, her dress hiked up to reveal tantalizing glimpses of thigh. The creature pranced beneath her, eager to run, to fly across the forest floor with our beasts keeping pace.
I looked at my brothers, at Alain who was cautiously testing his new form’s balance and strength. Then I looked at Isabeau, radiant atop her unicorn, the daughter of a goddess who had saved us all, claimed us all, who loved us all.
And I ran, my beast’s heart joyous and free, following the woman who had taught me that sometimes, the most beautiful transformations weren’t physical at all.
seventy
