Chapter 65 Bastien
sixty-five
Bastien
Freedom tasted like ash and honey on my tongue as I burst through the portal, my massive paws hitting solid earth for the first time in what felt like centuries.
The real world—not that hellscape of endless climbing and surviving—assaulted my senses with colors too vivid, scents too complex, sounds too pure. But all I could focus on was her.
Isabeau. My mate. Our mate. Standing across the battlefield with tears streaming down her face, her amber eyes locked on mine like I was her salvation when she had been ours.
Behind me, the portal pulsed and spat out more of our people.
Marcel was directing the flow with that natural authority he’d never lost despite our bestial forms, his honey-colored fur catching sunlight that I’d forgotten could be so goddamn bright.
Laurent moved with precise efficiency beside him, herding our confused subjects away from the closing rift between worlds.
Our parents stumbled through, disoriented but regal even in their ragged state.
I didn’t give a fuck about any of it.
My attention belonged solely to Isabeau, who had started running toward us, her auburn hair streaming behind her like a battle flag.
Her dress was torn, blood staining the fabric at her back.
Who the fuck had hurt her? They'd be dead soon enough.
She moved like nothing could stop her. Like nothing mattered except reaching us.
“Marcel! Laurent! Bastien!” Her voice calling my name sent a shock through my system more powerful than any magic. I’d heard her in the dreamscape, felt her through our bond, but this was different. Real. Tangible.
I charged toward her without hesitation, my brothers falling in beside me.
We moved as one, as we always had, even in our monstrous forms. The ground trembled beneath our combined weight, but I barely noticed.
The distance between us was too great, the seconds too many.
I wanted her in my arms, under my body, marked and claimed and safe.
Then I saw him.
The prince.
Alain.
He stood to the side of the battlefield, golden light still emanating from him like he was some kind of fucking sun god.
Our connection through Isabeau allowed me to recognize him instantly.
The man she’d taken as her fourth. The man whose essence now flowed through our bond, whose claiming mark matched our own.
I wanted to hate him. Part of me still did.
But I’d felt him through Isabeau. Felt his honor, his sacrifice, his willingness to give her up for her happiness.
Felt his blade strike down that piece of shit Gaspard who’d dared touch what was ours.
The claiming bond didn’t allow for lies or deception between us, and what I sensed from him wasn’t the arrogance I’d expected from royalty.
It was the same fierce protectiveness that drove my brothers and me.
Didn’t mean I had to like sharing.
We were almost to Isabeau when it happened. A warmth started at the claiming mark on my shoulder, spreading outward in golden waves that matched the light surrounding Alain. I faltered mid-stride, confused by the sensation that wasn’t pain but something more profound. More transformative.
“Bastien!” Isabeau cried out, still running toward us despite the strange light now engulfing all three of us.
I tried to respond, but my vocal cords seized.
The warmth intensified, burning through my veins like liquid sunlight.
My bones shifted beneath my skin, an agonizing pleasure that forced a sound from my throat that was neither human nor beast. I was vaguely aware of my brothers experiencing the same phenomenon, their massive bodies contorting beside mine.
Then we were lifted.
Fucking lifted into the air by tendrils of golden light, suspended above the battlefield as the magic worked its will upon us.
I fought against it instinctively, thrashing and snarling.
I was tired of forces beyond my control dictating my fate.
Tired of magic rewriting my existence. I wanted my paws on the ground and Isabeau in my arms, not this suspended transformation that put me on display like some cheap carnival attraction.
Don’t fight it, Marcel’s voice was still bestial but somehow clearer, reaching me through our bond. The curse is breaking.
Breaking.
After all these years of darkness and protecting the forest. After the endless climb, the constant rage, the isolation from everything that made life worth living. After watching our kingdom fall to darkness from behind that shimmering barrier. After believing we might never escape.
The curse was finally breaking.
I stopped fighting.
The golden light seemed to respond to my surrender, intensifying until it penetrated every cell of my body.
I felt my fur retreating, melting into skin that hadn’t seen sunlight in decades.
My paws elongated, fingers and thumbs emerging where only claws had been.
My face—the muzzle that had snarled and roared and frightened everyone except Isabeau—collapsed inward, reforming into human features I barely remembered.
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.