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Leo stumbled into the ring. His knife fell useless somewhere behind him.
“Leopold Tamias Lynister.” The voice had the same power as before—even more. Like the words had taken up his whole chest and gently nudged him out of it. Pieces of himself blinked into view as if asking for approval. Open. Vulnerable. Ready to change if necessary. But for now, the voice only purred with dark delight. “You are a noble beast indeed. A hunter. A warrior . . . I will let you keep those threads for now, but you must understand there is a hierarchy to these things. You might be higher than your human peers . . . but there are others higher than you.”
Leo didn’t disagree. He couldn’t.
He knelt by the fae man in the ring, nothing but the words to cling onto. “Yes. That is what you are. So fierce, but yet so small. You believe yourself to be a prince, but I believe I could see you as a cat. A little hunter. A little prince. Can you see it too?” The fae made an open gesture with his hand, like he really was asking for Leo to add his input and join him at his work.
Leo frowned, but with his mind so adrift, he didn’t want to argue. He wanted something to cling to. And the fae could be right. Leo was a strong hunter, but he had always been wiry and favored the bow. There were some in his father’s court who still considered him a child—even so close to reaching his majority. So perhaps he could be small, and he certainly should be smaller than the powerful being before him.
Then it seemed his body was eager to make that change, once his mind was on board.
Something inside him twisted. He closed his eyes with the strain. It wasn’t comfortable, but it wasn’t really pain. Like being stretched. Compressed. All with the knowledge that he would be more complete and more himself when it was done.
The fangs were all right. Who wouldn’t want fangs?
The claws—just another dagger he could never be separated from.
But he stumbled a bit with the fur.
There was a tsking sound, like he was a disobedient child. “There now. There is no need to fight me here, my little prince. You always had an obscene amount of hair, and now you will have fur.” The fae man seemed more insistent now. Impatient. Uncompromising. Fae never lied, but perhaps Leo had never understood before—how it could work both ways.
The fae never lied because any word they uttered had the power to become the truth.
Leo sprouted fur and a tail, and there was nothing more to fuss about. He would only look silly if he stayed between forms and didn’t allow the transformation to continue.
As a prince, Leo always wore the latest fashions and would never allow himself to look silly.
The voice—inside his head as much as out—approved. “There. Not such a big change—you are only enhanced. You were always a cat, were you not? You see that now, don’t you?”
Leo opened his eyes. The colors around him had shifted, blending together. His tail twitched experimentally. Perhaps he could believe he had always been this way.
After all, cats were sensible creatures and rarely concerned themselves about anything outside of the present.
He was a cat, and the fae man stumbled back from him—a real stumble instead of an elegantly limping deer. Leo marked the stink of blood and sweat. The emerald eyes had lost some of their inner luster, but the man still held the satisfaction of a fight well-fought and won.
He picked Leo up by the scruff of his neck. “You were Leopold Tamias Lynister, and perhaps you would like to know me as well. I am also a prince. A prince of shifters. A prince of beasts. And you are a cat. I have given you a part of my magic. A part of me. And in exchange, you will be a fine pet for me. A little hunter. A little prince. So fierce and yet so small. You see it, don’t you? And you will hunt for me.”
Leo kicked his back legs uncomfortably. He didn’t know if he objected to the words per se, but the name didn’t seem to belong to him so much anymore—now that he was a cat.
No. He had always been a cat, and any cat knew that they didn’t like being held this way.
“Sh . . .” The fae man tried to calm him. “There is no need to worry, little prince. I’m not going to hurt you. You must realize that now. Magic has a certain order to it, and I have made you one of my own. Hurting you? Why, that would be like cutting off my own hand.”
Still the man’s grip tightened, and Leo continued to kick—like a fighting rabbit.
“However . . . there is someone who leaches my power without my consent. Someone who is more like a parasite than one of my own. If you could kill this man for me or bring him close enough that I can kill him myself . . . Really, there could be nothing more natural. It is the way of beasts.” In their exuberance and exhaustion, the emerald eyes seemed more focused on their own desires now. They didn’t seem to notice how the words were landing.
Or that his captive audience was fighting for an escape.
The fae man held Leo higher and closer to his face, trying to lock eyes again. “You will do this for me, won’t you? Your enemy is my enemy, and you will enjoy hunting out the rats until you find the root of your kingdom’s curse. You will return to me in triumph and then . . . I will find a better place for you. I will reward you. You will be my pet but also hers.”
Leo stopped kicking. This wasn’t working.
Perhaps if he was human . . . Perhaps if he still had his iron knife . . .
But he was a cat.
And cats weren’t above scratching the face of any prince stupid enough to try to dominate them. His front paw swung. His claws extended.
