Feline Blessing
Story by KitFox on SoFurry
The blessing of the feline gods, passed down through the ages
Feline Blessing
Tiger, Tiger...
“Cool art for the party flyers, man. Where’d you come up with that?”
“Eh, some old book on witchcraft from the library. This is the Lunar Desire Beacon glyph, or some bullshit like that. They have a lot of cool things like this in the book. I photocopied most of them before I returned it. Here. The page it came from.”
“Lunar Desires Beacon? What the fuck? At the instant of the full moon, souls who have eyes on this glyph become entangled in the lunar lattice. If the color of their threads match the needs of a soul who has cast the companion spell, space will bend to bring the two together. Seriously?! Who wrote this bullshit?”
“Does it matter? The thing looks damn legit.”
“Oh, it even has warning labels! Mere impression of this glyph on an entity will engage the spell on them for the duration of the impression. Care should be used to avoid enabling unintentional summonings, as the thread redirection pays no heed to the risk of binding. Oooooooo… just looking at this can get people in trouble. Haha!”
“Get off it. Put the paper down and take this half of the flyers. You post them on the west side of Sessions Street and I’ll get the east side. Don’t go past the river though. This’ll be so dope.”
Nate didn’t have his mind on the world as a whole as he walked down the street. He was thinking well-distractedly of which of his kinky friends he wanted to call. Beneficial friends, of course. Who didn’t like friends with benefits? Though it was a small group of them, they were happier with that. They could make sure they stayed clean and have fun without worry.
The question of the moment was whether he should get Rae to peg him or Shawn to give him the real thing. It was a tough call. Rae using the feeldoe on him was a lot of fun for both of them, but there was definitely something really great about a guy unloading deep in his ass. But Shawn didn’t catch often, and Rae loved it when he filled her after the toy got her all happy. Damnit. Decisions, decisions.
His musing was interrupted by a wind-blown sheet of paper ripping itself off the nearby telephone pole and smacking him on the face on its way by. He raised a fist after the paper. “Yeah, you’d better run away!” he called. Then he glanced at the pole. Damn lot of old pages taped and stapled to it, all faded in the weather. What a mess.
He decided to do a good deed. No reason to leave all this old stuff here. Snagging a plastic grocery bag that was conveniently fluttering from a staple on the pole, he began to clear the old flyers and notices.
“Hope this poor kitty was found. I think that hair salon moved. Tutoring? It’s summer.” It was interesting to see the shielded parts of each page as he peeled away the layers. Where the sun didn’t hit them, the printing was still intact, leading to some fun faux pas. “Ass installation? Ahh! Greg's Glass Repair and Installation.” He pulled that down from in front of a party announcement with a faded date from long ago to reveal a complex and cool-looking tribal tattoo-like thing that was in front of his face for an entire two seconds before the moon reached its peak and height of fullness in the night on the other side of the world.
Nate froze stone-still as the change in scenery was nothing short of mind-bending. One moment he was stuffing a piece of trash into the plastic bag in the middle of the day and his home town. The next moment it felt pitch black and the bag - as well as his clothing, watch, shoes, earring and anything else that wasn’t a part of him - was nowhere to be found. The hustle and bustle soundscape of the city was replaced with the thousands of creature voices calling out the night song of the jungle. The acrid smog and the smell of the street and steel left his lungs before his nostrils were filled with the tangy scent of lush plants and rich earth, populated by a multitude of creatures large and small.
“What the...?” he started to ask, turning as his eyes started to adjust to the moonlight. But the motion reiterated the fact that anything that was not him didn’t come with him. That included the titanium plate that kept his ankle stable. The nerve damage meant he only got a small twinge of discomfort as his foot turned at an unpleasant angle and he stumbled with no further ability to keep himself stable on that leg.
“...FFFFF!” he started, fighting an urge to say it. He didn’t like to cuss. No benefit in it. He just had to tumble gracefully. But his shoulder impacted something that felt like thick gelatin and he slumped down along it to his hands and knees.
The moonlight was starting to reveal more secrets as his eyes adjusted. The leaves and debris that covered the nearby jungle floor were nowhere beneath his feet. Instead, a complex circular glyph was scratched into the dirt of the ground, the scars in the earth bearing a dim, blue glow that flickered and wavered like an alcohol flame. It felt like the ground, but the pale illumination showed it to be staying a few inches below what he was touching, the surface that supported him as invisible as the soft wall that he’d collided with at the edge of the glyph.
The man took a deep breath and looked around, his heart pounding hard. And then he saw them. Two glinting spots of light in the bushes nearby. They didn’t bob or weave at all as they drew closer, then left the deep shadows to reveal that they were the eyes of a tiger that definitely weighed in somewhere between “Oh god, I don’t want to die!” and “I’m just a snack to that thing!”
Instincts that said “Get up and run!” died at the “Get up” part due to the bum ankle. Nate was not getting anywhere upright without crutches with that plate missing. So the instincts changed to “Scoot away on your hands and knees as fast as you can without looking silly!” This was brought short by the four foot diameter glyph scratched into the ground and the impassible wall it created. Nate found this out when he scooted face first into it, his head sliding down along the seemingly-soft but unrelenting surface.
“This isn’t happening!” he muttered, starting to back away and pull his head back up. But the view upside down behind him showed that he was quite too late. The tiger stepped on a fancy rune scratched into the dirt outside the glowing circle and Nate found his Oh Shit level quickly rising as the soft but very solid-seeming air that was previously just a bunch of walls quickly closed in around him fully, holding him tightly in place with only wiggle room to move.
He watched in horror as the tiger paws padded closer behind him. A paw left the ground and he expected it to crush him or shred him with claws in an instant. But it touched his back relatively lightly for how damn big it was. “Maybe it’s confused because I’m not running away,” he murmured as the beast moved. Hot breath left nostrils in a nose as big as his whole hand and then the tiger sniffed at his hip.
“Nice kitty,” Nate whimpered. “You’re not hungry. You don’t want to eat me.”
The cat made an odd noise that sounded almost like a chuckle as it chuffed at him, sniffing his rear.
“N-nice… kitty,” he said, more nervous as the cat’s breath fell on the back of his balls. Then its tongue snuck out to lick them. “Eee! No teeth, please no teeth.”
“Ifferrrrren hungerrrrr,” a deep voice rumbled, startling the man before the tiger began to lap at his puckered hole, careful not to abrade it with a rough tongue.
“Who said…?” he asked timidly, but was quickly distracted by the repeated touch of the warm tongue. “Little f-familiar.” Despite the insane situation, his body was quick to betray him as he watched the tiger’s chin past his dangling sack. Even worse, he wasn’t sure how to feel when the tiger moved enough to give a straight view down its underside and reveal that it was a very happy male tiger, resulting in his own dick telling him to fuck off because it was going to enjoy the licks and excitement.
“Rrrrrr… liiiike….” the voice rumbled as the tiger peeked at him between his legs, and he realized that it was the tiger himself working with difficulty to form the words in his maw.
“You talk?!” he demanded, his eyes widening.
The feline made that open-mouthed chuff that sounded much like laughter again, then his paw left the man’s bare back as he moved forward over the human. Thick, plush fur ran against bare skin as he got himself into a good position and without any word or warning further, found a tight pucker with his hard tip and drove himself in until his sheath pushed back.
“Ohgod…” Nate muttered, sucking in a deep breath as the huge cat started to thrust. The base of the tail that he could see did not move, nor did the massive hind legs, but the feline was adept at keeping up a good, quick rhythm of sliding in and out of the human’s depths. The feeling of a cock inside was already something he liked, but knowing that it was a fucking huge tiger had his cock dripping precum and twitching in response as the cat delved into him. Even the fuzzy balls bouncing against his own enhanced his experience intensely.
“Hhhhoo gooorrrrr…” the tiger growled above him, the best rendition of “so good” that his feline muzzle could produce. He lifted his head and snarled, driving with greater urgency until those furred orbs pulled up and a last thrust reached the proper depth for leaving a load of tiger balm deep inside the translocated human.
Nate’s mind was in sparks of short circuiting as he tried to comprehend the thought of the massive cat cumming deep in his ass. With a whimper and a groan, he surrendered and for the first time in his life, he felt himself cum without a single touch on his cock. The physical feelings and mindfuck from the situation combined to urge his juices from his balls.
“Rrrrrr… ine…” the tiger purred possessively.
“Ourrs,” a different voice said from nearby.
Human eyes widened in surprise as the huge, spotted head of another cat interjected between his gaze and his cock, sniffing at the flesh as it started to relax and the tiger pulled himself out ever so slowly, careful to let his barbs slip and not scrape.
The new feline gave him a lick that elicited another moan and then withdrew its head, sniffing around behind him. “Groken?” it asked worriedly, nosing at his unfortunate ankle.
“O-old injury,” Nate said, swallowing. “I don’t know why it got messed up again. The metal plate is supposed to keep it stable.”
“Hurrrk?” the cat asked.
“Hu...hurt? A little twinge, but not much. Can’t walk on it though.”
In the dark, he couldn’t make sense of what occurred really, but the new cat apparently reared up on its hind legs and stayed there. Then he slumped as the first tiger scuffed out the edge of the runic circle and the force holding him still faded. He didn’t have any time to take note of anything though as two massive hands wrapped around his barrel, under his arms, and lifted him as if he weighed nothing, setting him astride the male tiger. By the time he thought about yelping, it was too late and he was instead worried about his still-seeping cock making a mess of the fur it was against.
The hand put weight on his back, forcing him to lay against the tiger’s back, and the feel of the hand changed on his own back as it did, then the other cat stepped up beside them. In the moonlight, he now could see that it was a huge jaguar.
“Holg on,” it said, taking the lead. Female. Definitely female. And apparently excited.
Nate clung to the tiger’s sides and soon gave up on trying to look around as the felines padded silently through the dark of the jungle. It was not a long trip before the female ducked around a bush and into a cave and the male that he laid atop followed.
“I got suddenly thrown into a jungle at night, my ankle’s busted again, and I got fucked by a talking tiger, and now I’m getting carried into a cave by a tiger and a cheetah. There’s messed up situations and then there’s this,” he muttered, lifting his head as he realized there was a soft glow from around the corner. As they turned the curve, he saw a flickering fire and stores of meat as well as various salvaged items like cooking pans and pots, canteens, a hand cranked emergency radio, and other things.
The female reared up on her hind legs as she stepped into the more-open section of the cave and her body changed instantly, her shoulders spreading and her torso widening as her hips and pelvis shifted to accommodate a bipedal stance. “Jaguar,” she corrected him, speaking clearly now. She even had a simple waist pouch and arm band, which definitely weren’t there before. Then she scooped him up carefully and sat him on bed-like structure made of lashed-together branches and various soft things ranging from plants to old shirts and scraps of cloth.
“Jag… Oh,” he said, his mind trying to wrap itself around the change.
“Jag-uarrr,” she corrected him gently, though she was teasing him now, trying to lighten the mood. She had a very interesting accent even beyond the fact that she had a feline mouth, and like a cat she had little outward sign of her female nature other than what she bore between her legs. “Your ankle does not look good at all. Is that why you used the spell?” She leaned forward and sniffed at his face avidly, making him lean away in reaction. “You smell odd, not like other supplicants. Why do you want the blessing?”
“B-blessing?” Nate asked, barely able to keep his cool. Then he shied away as the tiger stepped up and sniffed his leg.
“Hhmerrs…” the tiger started to say, then paused and stood up as well, shifting into a massive humanoid form. “He smells very afraid, but you’re right. Not like a supplicant at all. No herbs or oils or smoke. Did the spell make an error?”
“Sp… sp… spell???”
The female looked at him quizzically. “You had to have used the glyph of lunar desires to be here, which means you should know magic.”
“N-no, no magic, no talking cats, no suddenly being in the jungle at night,” he protested. “Am I dead? Did I get hit by a car and I’m in a coma, and this is a dream?”
The two looked at each other, no words passing between them as they tried to make sense of this. Then the jaguar held up a hand and extended a claw, tracing some glowing shapes in the air. “You were looking at something that looked somewhat like this just before you arrived?” she asked warily.
His jaw dropped at the image, but this was just weird on top of weird, so the shock didn’t last long. “Um… Yeah, that looks kind of like the marks on the party flyer on the pole.”
Another glance went between the two felines, then she sat beside him and put an arm loosely around him, trying not to be imposing despite the fact that she towered over him. “Tell me the details. Party flyer? Pole? Tell me as much as you can about what happened.”
He shied away from her at first, but she wasn’t being aggressive, so he focused on recollecting the events and told them about how he’d been hit in the face by a loose paper and then tried to clean up the pole, and then he took a sheet down and saw that weird complicated shape, and then suddenly he was in the dark and his ankle was re-busted. He skipped the part about trying to decide who to have fun with before that though.
“You’re not an active practitioner of magic?” she asked. “No voodoo, or witchcraft, or pagan spells, or shamanism, or anything like that?”
“People do stuff like that for real?” he asked, amazed. “I mean, I see you did it… like… on the ground back there, and in the air here, but I thought that was all fake before. Fairy tales and stories.”
“He has no idea what he’s gotten himself into,” the tiger said. “This has to be a failure.”
“No… no,” the jaguar mused. “He has no knowledge, but he still fulfills the needs. This means he does so innocently.” She turned her gaze up to the male. “This is the best possible result. He will be the one.”
“How does that make sense?” the tiger asked.
“No tricks,” the female told him. “No power lust. It’s a deep-seated desire, not a conscious one.” She turned her attention to Nate. “We are werecats. Nature keepers.”
His eyes widened. “For real? I… Wow… that’s creepy.” He looked down and turned introspective. “When I was young and broke my ankle in the forest, I dreamed I was saved by a cat who had the shape of a person. I don’t remember much about it, and they told me they found big cat prints around where I was found, so I was lucky I didn’t get eaten. They just smiled and shook their heads when I told them about the cat who saved me and told me it was just a dream. But I thought, maybe I could do that when I grew up. I forgot all about that when I learned more about the world.” He squirmed, unsure whether to be upset that he was so naive as to believe in such a thing when he was younger, or that he’d convinced himself it wasn’t real when it was.
“See?” the female said to the male. “Innocent desire. He will be ours.”
“Yours?” Nate asked worriedly.
“Our progeny,” she told him. “We want to make you a werecat.”
His eyes went wide again. A forgotten childhood dream, turned reality, and his for the taking. Then he had a thought. “I’d make a pretty limpy werecat,” he said, pulling his busted leg up and wincing at the twinge in his flopping ankle.
“That would be healed,” the tiger said. “The blessing is powerful.” To demonstrate, he lifted his hand to his mouth and opened his jaws, then bit down hard on two fingers. His ears went back in suppressed pain as his teeth crunched through flesh and bone, but when he held his hand away from his mouth, the fingers were already regrown, despite the fact that he spat the two severed digits into his hand.
Nate’s face turned ashen and he gagged at the sight, then turned his gaze away, trying to settle his stomach.
“The wilds have violence and pain too,” the jaguar told him comfortingly. “Do you still want to?”
“It’s… for a good reason, right?” he asked, breathing deeply. “I would not be an evil monster?”
“You would be what you make of yourself, and we would guide you as you learn. Werecats are meant to be protectors and keepers, not destroyers.”
“Would you stop me if I turned bad?”
They looked at each other with a grave weight in their gazes, then the male growled, “We would.”
“You promise?”
The female laughed. “We promise,” she said, ruffling his hair, then she addressed the tiger. “See?”
“What about my life? My apartment and my job and my stuff?”
“Gone. Could you show up to work looking like this?” She gestured at her massive, furred body.
“No, yeah… no…” he admitted. He looked down and leaned against her more, seeking the brief comfort of her strong, warm body. “There’s no going back, but I’ll do it.”
“Then come here,” she said with a purr, pulling him onto her lap and laying back. “Fill me with your seed.”
“That’s how it works?!” he asked, stunned for a moment despite his body promptly abandoning sanity and betraying him yet again.
She said nothing as she turned his body to face hers and ground her wetness against his growing rigidity, simply purring and kneading at his bottom.
“Um, do you want me to rub you, or…?” he asked, startled by the sudden demand of ‘Do Me!’ when he was used to foreplay and his buddy’s enjoyment.
“Your seed. In me. Quick as you can,” she directed him with a husky growl, grasping his hips to lift them as she tilted her own. She got him angled, then didn’t give him a choice but to slip into depths that held heat greater than his mere human body normally kept. Not that he was complaining. She just helped get him in quicker.
“Oh god,” he muttered, clenching his teeth. “Easy, yes, really easy.” He’d be very hard put to keep from popping very fast as he sank deep into the velvety depths of her furred, muscular form.
She tucked her chin and started licking his shoulder wetly, a happy growl and a deep purr urging him on. He pulled against her grip on his waist, giving in to his desire to thrust, and she let him pull back. Then she shifted her grip to his rump and pulled him in again, demanding his performance.
He felt a warmth against his back and then the makeshift bed frame creaked and shifted as the tiger leaned over both of them, making good use of the female’s hands spreading the human’s ass cheeks apart. A hot shaft nestled along the cleft and rubbed, both pushing the man into her more forcefully as well as teasing his puckered hole with the slick flesh. Releasing any urge to hold back and try to enjoy it a little longer, he let himself flow with the feelings as the tiger began to lick his other shoulder avidly.
The teasing at his ass grew more focused as the tiger was now just rubbing his tip along the pucker. Both cats were purring and growling, the licking and slight drooling sending some drips down his skin. He felt a growing pressure in his body and he tensed, trembling as both feline maws parted and held each shoulder tightly.
Then the male met his withdrawal from the jaguar’s depths with a quick shift of his hips and push that drove a feline cock into his depths and ended with hips against his bottom that forced him into the female. His teeth clenched and he clung to her pelt as he saw sparkles in his vision, then his cock bucked and an orgasm like he’d never felt before washed over his body.
With a snarl, both cats tensed and their teeth clenched as well. His shoulders were between those teeth though, and the sharp pain as massive fangs sank deep into his flesh battled the exquisite feeling from the sex. A thought that maybe they were now killing him fluttered briefly in his mind before being kicked aside and stomped on thoroughly by the rest of his thoughts, but this didn’t stop the fact that the bites sent screaming pain searing through his body.
Nate was barely able to squeak out a pained protest as all three of them held still. His cock was still bucking delightedly in her, and he was squeezing the male behind him, but from what he felt, neither of them had cum. The hands that held him tightly gave a comforting and reassuring squeeze and he felt their tongues and drool against his shoulder. Then the male first, and then the female, carefully released their hold on his shoulders and licked avidly and cautiously at the bleeding wounds. The tiger lifted his hips and pulled out of him.
“Ah.. ah… ow?” he said weakly, cringing at the pain though the tongues soothed the massive piercings. He felt dizzy, and hot. Was he going into shock?
“Not how it worrrrks,” the jaguar purred as they both swapped shoulders to get the rest of the oozing blood. “Does help it hurrrrt less.”
Nate was drifting in and out of awareness as they finished licking his wounds and the tiger moved off him. The jaguar lifted him off herself and cradled him as the tiger returned with soft, clean cloth that they both used to bind his wounds. Then she rocked him gently as the tiger licked the drops of his blood off her fur.
He came to, barely, and faded out, over and over. Time didn’t make any sense. He was burning up inside and delirious. It felt like lava was burning him from the inside out. They watched over him, slept snuggled protectively against him, and made sure he drank clean, fresh water and some kind of meaty mush. He was vaguely aware of waking in fits on occasion, their strong bodies pressed to either side of him and hands holding him to calm him and keep him from flailing about.
Dreams of glowing eyes, dancing in the darkness, filled his fitful unconsciousness. They dashed and weaved, blinking in and out as they looked away and back. At first they seemed far away, but the beckoned him. It started with a desperate crawl toward them, and soon enough he was able to lift his body and make better progress on hands and knees. Flashes, moments in surreality, nothing contiguous. But they urged him on, and as he made progress, the eyes, and soon the feline voices called out to him like a mother cat calling for her kittens.
It was impossible to tell time through all this. How often had he drunk water? How many times did he wake, screaming so hard his throat hurt. But he was getting closer to the eyes. Bit by bit, growing stronger. As he moved, the heat started changing from agonizing and burning to comforting warmth.
Then he found himself in the dream again, surprisingly lucid. He looked down at his bare hands, and with an effort, he struggled to his feet in the darkness, his ankle giving him no trouble. Ahead, the eyes were arranged together. Closer than ever before, no longer dancing and teasing.
“You’ve made it,” a voice said behind him as a warm hand touched his shoulder. He looked back to see the tiger standing there. Another hand on the opposite shoulder squeezed gently. The jaguar.
“What is this?”
“The end. And the beginning,” she told him. “Your last moments as a human form.”
“Don’t were… anythings… werecats, werewolves, normally look human?”
“Don’t believe everything in stories,” she said with a smile. “This form is the closest we can get.”
“What are all of those?” he asked, gesturing at the glowing eyes. “They’ve been here through all of this.”
“Werefelinity is a blessing from a cat god,” the jaguar said. “There are many big cats, and thus many forms. When two werecats join to create a new one, all the blessings they have are bequeathed, though only one is the form they take. And only once per pairing. If only one passes the blessing, only one form is passed. If both the creators carry one or more same blessings, only one of the matched blessings is passed. Cats are fickle that way, even as gods.”
The tiger stepped closer. “She has one set of blessings. I the other. If our lineage is true, all of the blessings are held between us. Our progeny would be the alpha, so you can see that we had to be very cautious and choose well. That progeny will be you, if you accept them. You still have a chance to turn back, if this is too much for you. If you fear.”
“As long as you stop me if I turn bad,” he said, swallowing, his mouth dry.
The eyes shifted and moved, closing the distance. As they neared, he was able to see them. Twelve feral wildcats with twelve pairs of eyes that glowed from within more than just reflecting light back at him. It was not just the pupils that glowed. The whole of their eyes glowed. From the smallest being a bobcat and a serval, to the lion and massive tiger, they represented the largest of the wild felines.
“You choose this one to represent us all?” the lion asked, his voice a rumble in their minds.
Nate fidgeted at the silence that followed and finally glanced back at the tiger.
“They’ve never spoken before,” the jaguar murmured, her hand clenching tightly on the man’s shoulder.
“SPEAK, BLESSED,” the tiger god roared, its ears laying back. Nate was not consoled when the two who were holding his shoulders took a step back. They were afraid here.
“This one, yes,” the jaguar said, her voice shaking.
“He has no knowledge or practice with magic. His past carries the soot of man and the oils of the earth in the air,” the lynx said.
“We have had no others in many, many years. Before that, we had only tricksters and those who lusted over power.”
“You offer him because he is the only option? Out of desperation?”
“No,” the jaguar said, her voice firming up. “We offer him because I tightened up the spell. Because he meets the needs. Because he passes our test. Because we trust him.”
“With all the blessings, you would not be able to keep your promise to him to stop him if he turned away from good,” the puma advised them in a low voice. “His power would far exceed yours.”
“I… we…” the jaguar started to say, but she faltered. She took a deep breath and decided. “We still trust…”
“No,” Nate said, pain in his voice. “I’m human. We’re good at fucking things up. There have to be checks and balances or I could mess everything up. I won’t put myself or any of you into that position.”
The felines shifted from paw to paw and a few glanced at each other. Then the tiger god lowered its chin and stared before speaking. “We give the gift. We could stop you,” it said with a menacing growl.
“If you swear you would stop me,” Nate said.
“It would destroy you utterly to stop you. Do you accept this risk with our blessings?”
“If i turned out to be bad, I’d deserve it.”
“You would be asked to do things, even many things in the name of the natural order that you might consider unpleasant or bad,” the cheetah said. “Will you heed the call?”
Nate clenched his fist and looked defiant. “It might have been a dream, but I swear one of your blessed saved my life when I was young. So I owe you my life and I will always honor that.”
“Blessed, we trust your choice,” the jaguar god said. “Chosen… Do you accept our blessings?”
The words “I do” started to come from the man’s lips, but before his voice could make a sound, as the thought even entered his mind,the dozen cats leaped at him. They gave no regard for each other, as they did not run into one another, they only entered him.
Nate threw his head back, his body wracked as hundreds of millions of years of feline existence flowed into him. Felinity was destined to be from the dawn of time, their development from the primordial sludge to the strength and grace of the day guided by their oversight. Though they took the forms of the largest, these twelve oversaw all cats, from the greatest tiger to the tiniest blind calico kitten in a box beneath a railroad bridge. Even the form of werecats changed over the ages, from the first single-celled creatures to the majestic two that were his forebears.
A lush coat of fur warmed him and the ground drew closer as he collapsed on his legs and curled forward. His joints crunched and his skin stretched as this first transformation passed over him, taking from him the last vestige of his humanity. His nerves couldn’t make sense of it. Pleasure and pain, hot and cold, everything and nothing, all at once.
Then it was over.
He lifted his head and his ears twitched. His hand came off the ground and he looked at the fur covering the clawed fingers. His gaze rose and he saw the twelve feline gods arranged before him once again. And he knew something now.
“You lied. If I turn bad, you can’t stop me easily. Many or all of you could die trying. Take this back. I don’t want to risk you.”
“We can’t,” the caracal agreed. “But we won’t. We trust you.”
“What if I turn bad?” he asked worriedly.
“Don’t,” was the simple answer he was given before they all faded away and the sounds of the jungle at night assaulted his sensitive ears. They swiveled as he heard the nearly-inaudible beats of a bird’s wings passing overhead and the gnawing of rodent teeth on a small seed a dozen yards away.
The hand that touched his shoulder felt smaller, even aside from the thick pelt he bore. It was just the fact that his shoulder was much bigger. He looked up to see the weretiger smiling down at him.
“What if… what if I said no to you before?” he asked. “What if I couldn’t take it? Or I hadn’t passed your tests?”
“Then we would have killed you and eaten you, as big cats are liable to do,” the jaguar told him honestly, patting his neck.
“Why didn’t you tell me that?”
“You had to make the choice with no duress. Not choosing to because it would save your life. Choosing to because you wanted to be good and do it.”
“I have a lot to learn and adjust to,” he said softly as he stood, wobbling a little on his new, digitigrade legs. His tail whipped about to help his balance.
“We’re here to help you,” the tiger assured him. “Now that you have the blessing, you will meet others as well. Perhaps even the one who saved your life if it wasn’t a dream.” He looked thoughtful. “It probably wasn’t.”
Nate took a deep breath in, smelling the scents around him. This would take time, but he had that now. He was the greatest of all werecats and had to live up to that. It was going to take work, but he would make the most of this blessing.
This feline blessing.
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