Beastess

Syd could feel the call of the hunt deep, deep down in her very bones.

Up in the sky, despite being on her last quarter, Mother Moon was there to guide the wolf beastess to her prey. She gave a silent prayer to the Goddess of the Hunt, asking for protection for her pack-mates and the courage for Syd to lead them as their Beta.

She would need all the courage she could get.

“Wolf to everyone, Wolf to everyone—come in,” Syd said, putting a finger to the ankh symbol engraved on the part of the mask next to her temple. Reverberating in her skull through the bone conduction headphones, she heard the voices of her pack-mates one by one reply with ‘Roger’, confirming they had heard her.

“Are you all at your stations?” Syd then asked. “Over.”

“Fox to Wolf—affirmative. I am on the roof of the office building to the south, standing by. Over.”

“Hyena to Wolf—yup, I have eyes on one of the exhaust vents for the central air system, standing by. Over.”

“Lynx to Wolf—I’m chilling in the van, watching the casino entrance, standing by! Over.”

“Bear to Wolf—I’m keepin’ an eye on the rear security entrance, standin’ by. Over.”

Syd looked down at Lexi by her side, expectantly.

“… Oh! Sorry! Coyote to Wolf—I am next to you, watching Bear, and standing by. Over.”

Syd ruffled the top of Lexi’s hood in approval and nodded.

She wouldn’t admit it to her, but Syd was nervous for Lexi. Not because she doubted the coyote girl would be up for the challenge, but simply out of a fear of the unknown. As far as first hunts go, this was a big one for Alpha to assign to Lexi, even bigger than Syd’s own first one. There’s a lot of variables at play here, a lot of risks and ways it could go wrong.

She couldn’t bear the thought of losing someone else. Her eyes grew damp, but she wiped them away with one hand and gritted her teeth beneath her wolf-muzzled mask.

Syd had made a vow to Alpha to protect Lexi. She failed that vow once.

She would not let it happen again.

Especially not to a rapist asshole like Pluto Sebastian.

Heh. More like Fucko Shit-ass-stain. Goddess above, she couldn’t wait to rake that rapist piece of shit over the coals.

“All right, let’s fucking do this!” Syd said. “Fox, are the trackers working in our masks? Over.”

“Affirmative, Wolf,” replied Audrey’s crackly voice. “I have all of your exact locations triangulated on my heads-up display of the schematics of this establishment. Over.”

“Copy that, Fox. Hyena, wait for our signal and update us on your position if it is safe to do so. Lynx, notify us immediately if you see anything suspicious. Coyote, stick with me and follow my orders. Bear, you’re good to go whenever you’re ready. Let’s hunt this prey and raise some hell! Wolf out!”

From their vantage point behind a dumpster—Lexi’s idea, to which Syd teased her for trusting her coyote instincts—Syd watched Meg nod at them. The bear beastess moved surprisingly quickly and quietly for someone even bigger than Syd. They didn’t have to worry about the main security cameras—Audrey had already taken care of those. All the guards inside would see would be video loops of the past hour of footage, if they bothered to look.

Meg raised her left magitech arm to the card reader lock on the back door, flipped open a panel in her arm, tapped a few times on the display, and within seconds the lock turned green with a soft click.

Meg opened the door a crack, looked inside, and put a finger up in the air to silently say ‘one moment’ to Syd and Lexi. In one swift motion, Meg slipped inside and closed the door behind her.

Nothing.

Then a muffled yell of alarm.

Followed by a loud thud. Then a crack. Then a slightly softer thud.

“Bear to Wolf, all clear. Over.” Meg opened the door and beckoned Syd and Lexi towards her.

Syd grabbed Lexi’s hand and together the two cloaked beastesses ran over to the door and followed Meg inside. Immediately Syd had to come to a halt to avoid tripping over the unconscious bodies of two security guards.

“Help me toss these fellers into the utility closet, will ya?” Meg whispered, to which Syd and Lexi nodded. Meg lifted one easily in a fireman carry, while Syd and Lexi grabbed the arms and legs respectively of the larger guard. Together, the three of them placed the knocked-out guards in the closet. It was a bit of a cramped fit, but they would be fine when they woke up.

“Fox to Bear, Wolf, and Coyote,” said Audrey. “Good work. Your next objective is to disable the security systems. The doctored footage I am looping will distract these sentinels, but any alarms will attract their attention straightaway. Down the hallway, to the right, and then the left is the maintenance elevator. Floor 20 is the main security office with the central system—from there you can deactivate the alarms in the whole casino, and the other security stations will be none the wiser. Over.”

“Roger, Fox. Wolf out.” Syd, Meg, and Lexi followed Audrey’s directions and entered the maintenance elevator.

With Lexi between her and Meg, Syd could see just how much she had grown already. When they first met, Syd had a whole two feet on the girl. The top of Lexi’s head had barely came up to the underside of her breasts. Now she was pretty much level with Syd’s armpit. Another few inches would put her over six feet, about the same height as Syd’s collarbone.

And Goddess above, those arms … Syd was glad Meg had chosen to make their jackets sleeveless. The triple combo of nanobots, wild magic, and strength training was really paying off for Lexi in such a short span of time. She was always hot, but now she was getting even hotter.

What Syd wouldn’t give to take a bite out of those supple, toned muscles later …

Lexi caught Syd admiring her and nudged her with an elbow, smiling with her eyes due to the mask. Syd eye-smiled back and bashfully fidgeted with the dog tag of her spiked collar. She was grateful that the fangs of the mask hid how her tongue slipped out of her mouth, as she drooled and panted at the thought of how gorgeous the coyote girl was getting …

Focus, Sydney. Get into Beta mode.

“This seems too easy,” Lexi said. “You’d think a casino, of all places, would have a better security system than this.”

“You’d think that, yeah,” said Syd. “But that’s assuming Pluto Sebastian is a smart guy. Do you think a smart guy would bankrupt his own casino—practically a money-making machine—and keep expanding it?”

“Hush!” Meg said. “We’re here.”

The doors of the elevator opened to Floor 20. Like Lexi remarked, the hallway to the main security office was empty and unguarded. They probably didn’t think anyone would come up here, Syd thought.

“Y’all take the guards on the left,” Meg whispered, “and I’ll take ‘em out on the right.”

With a thumbs up from Lexi and a nod from Syd, Meg pulled out a security card she had swiped from one of the unconscious guards’ pockets earlier. The magitech lock shimmered blue, then green, and Meg swiftly opened the door.

Six guards total. They were outnumbered, but not outmatched.

As the guards whipped around in surprise, but before they could reach for their weapons, the three beastesses charged into the room. Meg clotheslined one guard with her magitech arm before swinging around and uppercutting a second one, a move punctuated with a grotesque crack of his jawbone. Both of them dropped like sacks of flour.

Meanwhile, Lexi had charged for the legs of a more isolated guard off to the left of the room, sweeping him off his feet. She put him into a sleeper hold, leveraging her new strength to strangle him into unconsciousness.

Simultaneously, Syd had grabbed the nearest guard by his shoulders and thrown him across the room. Luckily, he was one of the few in the room armed with a gun, and now his limp body was stuck head-first in the dented metal drawer of a filing cabinet.

As Syd momentarily admired her handiwork, she felt something hit the back of her hood and clatter to the floor next to her. A stapler.

“Hey!” shouted a voice behind her.

She turned around to see who threw it.

Two guards left. Both armed with magitech daggers. Both of whom instantly regretted provoking the beast.

Meg instinctively blocked the exit. When one of the remaining guards tried to hit a button on the console—presumably a panic button—Syd growled at them. With her golden eyes and the bared fangs of her mask, it was convincing enough for the guard to back off.

The wolf beastess slowly approached the guards, step by step, closing the gap between them. Both of the guards tried to look tough … but she could smell their fear. They trembled ever so slightly in place, and if she focused her enhanced hearing just right, she could hear how their heartbeats quickened with each step towards them she made.

However, another smell of fear intermingled with the scent of the guards. Syd looked over—it was coming from Lexi.

Now that the fight had paused briefly, Syd noticed that Lexi was shaking. The coyote girl backed away from the body of the guard she had just strangled, pulling her arms in and hunching her shoulders as she did so.

She avoided the gaze of the other two guards, who immediately clocked her as the weakest link. One of them pulled their magitech dagger out and pointed it at Lexi.

“I can take on this little one,” he whispered to his colleague, “and buy us some time for you to sound the alarm.” Raising his voice, he said to Lexi, “What’s the matter, bitch? You fuckin’ scared all of a sudden?”

Lexi froze. Her confidence was draining as she spiraled. She seemed to forget that she had any strength or skills at all. There’s no amount of combat training that can prepare someone for the real deal, and Syd could tell Lexi was floundering as pure instincts wore off and old habits kicked in. Sparring with Syd was one thing, but it’s different when it’s actually life and death.

Syd could tell what Lexi was doing—minimizing herself. Trying to take up the least amount of space possible. Trying to survive and endure.

The wolf could tell a survivor when she saw one, because she had been there before too. She was just a different kind of survivor. Lexi froze, but Syd fought instead.

Syd wasn’t always this big. When Mac first turned her into a beastess and she joined PAW, she was barely bigger than Lexi was the first time Syd met her. However, Syd always had the attitude of someone unafraid to take up space to survive, because taking up space meant you would be noticed. It meant you couldn’t be ignored.

… It meant you wouldn’t be abandoned again.

Mac just had to teach her how to do it in a way that didn’t involve being a fuckin’ asshole to everyone around you. That was the trade-off: if Syd let Mac show her what true strength was, show her what it meant to be a giver instead of a taker … Mac would give Syd the power to be as big and strong as she always imagined herself to be.

Mac taught her well, and now it was Syd’s turn as Beta to pay forward what she had learned.

Time to teach Lexi a lesson in how to take up space.

[Watch closely, pup,] Syd said into Lexi’s mind, giving her a quick wink. Lexi immediately looked at her beta with rapt attention.

A common theory about beastesses—and Lexi would definitely know this, Syd thought—is that because they are half-human and half-animal, they are really two conflicting beings sharing one body. The theory is that the human half allows the beast half to ‘take over’ sometimes, as if they were riding a tandem bike and they switched who could steer and who could pedal. This theory is endorsed by the Supreme Church, and they see beastesses as poor, misguided young women who must be ‘cured’ of their ‘sinful desires’ by suppressing the ‘wicked beast’ within.

That may be how some beastesses see themselves. It’s certainly how most of the public sees them.

However, this wasn’t Syd’s experience, nor the experience of any beastess in the Four Packs that she’s met.

To her, it was the complete opposite way around. She wasn’t one body with two separate minds—she was one mind with two separate bodies.

After doing it countless times, it was easy to control her transformations. It was a physical exercise, ultimately—simply a matter of muscle memory, refined and honed over time until the mind-body connection was as intuitive as breathing. And just like breathing, Syd found that transforming allowed her to control the shape of her body, expanding and contracting at will.

Inhale … and exhale.

Beast … and human.

In … and out.

Syd was neither human nor beast. She was both. She was a beastess.

And from the moment she became one, she decided she would never let anyone dictate who she was, what she looked like, or make her feel small … ever again.

“Careful, now …” Syd growled, the muzzle of her mask distorting her words like a demon, “… you think you can pick on the runt of the litter while her sisters are nearby?”

Syd grew taller, wider, and bigger with each menacing stride.

... Or rather, from her perspective, the guards seemed to shrink before her very eyes.

Compared to her massive, hulking, monstrous body, they were so ... small.

It would be so easy to wrap just one paw around their entire torso, like a toy doll.

Or to rip their guts out with one claw, like a fresh cut of meat.

Or maybe, perhaps, close her jaws around their fragile little skulls ...

… Like a chew toy.

“You see,” she snarled, towering over the guards as her half-shifted form blocked any path of escape, “you have no power here.” Syd grabbed the guard’s dagger with one hand, bending it in half in her grasp, as blood ran down her paw from the sharp edge.

“We’re on a hunt … and you’ve crossed paths with a pack of hungry beasts.”

Syd grabbed both guards by their collars, one in each paw, and hoisted them up into the air until they were face-to-muzzle with the half-shifted wolf woman. They were both trembling in pure terror. Eyes wide. Utterly helpless in the face of an apex predator.

Good.

Just as prey should be.

She slammed both of their skulls together, knocking them out instantly, and dropped them to the ground.

“Nice one, Syd! Woulda scared the pants off a’ me if I was in their boots!” Meg clapped her hands in applause, flesh and magitech, as she made her way over to the console. After fiddling with the controls and the keyboard, Meg fist-pumped, placed a finger on the side of her mask, and said, “Bear to Fox—security alarms disabled. Bear to Hyena—you’re all clear. Over.”

“Way to go! Like, I totally know you could do it, my big teddy bear!”

“Aw shucks, kitty, you’re too sweet to me!”

“Mmm, sweet like honey?”

“You know bears love their honey, darlin’ …”

“Fox to Lynx and Bear—please use proper radio etiquette, thank you. We are still on a mission here. Over.”

“Hyena to everyone, Hyena to everyone—I’m going in! Over!”

“Fox to Hyena—excellent. Switching to secondary channel to give you directions. Wolf and Coyote, please head to the target. Fox out.”

Lexi stood stock-still, staring at Syd for a second. Wrinkles appeared on the sides of her eyes as she smiled beneath her mask.

“T-thanks, Beta,” Lexi stammered, laughing nervously. Syd smiled back as she shifted back to her human form.

Putting one hand on Lexi’s shoulder, Syd said, “Never forget how strong you really are, pup. And don’t be afraid to take up space. These fuckers can only scare you if you let them. Now speaking of scaring people—c’mon.” Syd gestured for her to follow. “We’ve gotta pay a certain someone a little visit.”

“I’ll hold down the fort here. Y’all give me a holler if ya need me,” Meg said, nodding as if she were tipping her hat to Syd and Lexi. With a nod back, Syd walked back with Lexi to the maintenance elevator.

The wolf beastess punched the button at the top of the button array. After an ear-popping ride to the top, Syd and Lexi exited the elevator and strode down the ornate red carpeted hallway towards the penthouse office.

They must look like two hooded hellhounds coming to drag their victim to the underworld, Syd thought, with their fangs glowing and muscles bulging as they advanced down the hall towards the lair of their unsuspecting quarry.

Rapping her cloth-wrapped knuckles on the large wooden door, Syd announced, “Little pig, little pig, let me in …”

When she didn’t receive an answer, she reared one meaty leg up. With a mighty bang, Syd kicked the door in with her bare feet, almost off its hinges.

Like the rest of Lady Luck Casino, the decor of Pluto Sebastian’s penthouse office was as tacky and gaudy as one would expect from an arrogant man like him. Looking more like a hotel lobby than an office, it was a façade of crystal and gold, a coat of paint upon something already inherently expensive, as if having a penthouse suite office at the top of a casino wasn’t enough to scream, ‘Look how rich I am!’

Two bodyguards on either side of the desk immediately unsheathed their magitech blades as the two beastesses entered the room, holding up their other arms in a blocking position. Despite their suits and ties, their arms had metal gauntlets over their sleeves. Probably ex-paladins.

Standing up from behind his desk was the man of the hour, Pluto Sebastian himself. His straw-yellow blonde hair, too-tight business suit, orange tanned skin, and bleached white smile made him look uncanny, like a department store mannequin.

“Hello, ladies,” he greeted them, too cordially, as he placed his hands on the top of his desk. “I’m so sorry, but you need to book an appointment if you wish to speak with me.” He pointed behind them. “You also owe me for breaking my door. That was solid oak, you know. One-of-a-kind craftsmanship! Hard to get, nowadays … but it’s not like you street mutts would know the first thing about the finer things in life.”

“Shut the fuck up, dirtbag,” Syd snarled. Looking over at Lexi, she nodded in the direction of the bodyguards and said into her mind, [Sic ‘em, girl.]

[Yes, Beta,] Lexi said back, with renewed confidence and a maniacal grin beneath her magitech muzzle.

The coyote girl sprang into action, running at the nearest bodyguard faster than he could react. Dodging a blade swipe expertly, she twisted his arm and kneed him in the gut before he could activate his hologram shield. The bodyguard crumpled to his knees, and with a kick to the face that probably shattered his jaw, he tumbled across the room, motionless.

The other bodyguard had enough time to put up his hologram shield before charging at Syd, but she was prepared. She took a running jump and vaulted over the bodyguard, spinning about-face as she did so to land behind him. Before he could turn around, she had his neck in the crook of one of her elbows. All she had to do was flex, and like a meaty car tire being inflated, her arm muscles swelled to press on the bodyguard’s windpipe as hard as she could. He tried to swipe at her with the magitech blade, but she grabbed his arm with her other hand and sunk her claws deep into his flesh. The guard would have screamed in agony, if he had any air left to spare. After a final squeeze from Syd for good measure, the bodyguard went limp, and she tossed him to the side like a discarded plaything.

Ha, too easy!

Hmm … too easy.

Syd turned just in time to see Pluto frantically pressing a button on the underside of his desk. Fuckin’ Goddess above, she should have seen that coming! Seeing that she had noticed him, the casino owner scrambled over the top of his desk and made a panicked break for the half-broken door of his office.

Before Syd could react, Lexi was already in between Pluto and the door. His only escape route was cut off.

The pup was starting to get her groove back. Using her paladin combat training to take down that bodyguard, and then her quick thinking to block the exit? As her beta, Syd could have shed a tear out of pride right then and there, if she didn’t have … other matters to attend to.

“Lynx to everyone, Lynx to everyone,” came Sabrina’s bubbly voice through the mask’s headphones. “There’s movement on the ground floor. The guards are alerted and more are entering the building. Like, get a move on in there! Over!”

“Wolf here,” Syd whispered, placing a finger to the side of her muzzle. “Roger that, Lynx, we’re aware. Wolf out.”

“Wh-what is it you beastess bitches want?” Pluto spat angrily, trying desperately to maintain his suave composure and hide his fear at the same time, but losing his grip on both. “Did you come here to rob me? … W-Wait! You’re both with the Four Packs, right?”

“What’s it to ya?” Syd growled, taking her place beside Lexi.

Syd watched the businessman’s eyes light up. He was in his element now, or so he thought. Pluto went into negotiation mode, putting his hands up in surrender and backing up into his desk.

“I think there’s been a big, big misunderstanding here,” he said. “I apologize for my poor language earlier. We’ve gotten off on the wrong foot here—or do you people say ‘paw’? Regardless, I don’t know what I did to piss off the Four Packs of Abraxas, but I can make it right! I could even offer … an alliance of sorts. I’ve got power. I’ve got connections—the best connections in the whole megacity. Let’s put this all behind us and make a deal, huh? What do you say?”

Lexi looked at Syd. Syd looked at Lexi. Pluto watched them both, gulping audibly.

The two beastesses threw their heads back in a fit of howling laughter.

Wiping a tear from her eye, Syd said, “Ha! That’s a fuckin’ good one, dude. I almost took ya seriously there for a second.”

“I am serious! What, do you think you can’t trust someone who built all of this?” Pluto asked, gesturing wildly around to his whole casino.

“No, I don’t,” Syd answered coldly. “Because I don’t trust rapists.”

If it weren’t for his fake tan, Pluto Sebastian’s face would have turned as white as his teeth.

“Who told … I mean, what d-do you mean?”

“You’ve got one thing right,” Syd continued. “We are here to rob you. In fact, my pack-mate is robbing you right now, as we speak. But we’re here for another reason.”

She and Lexi had the scumbag cornered. Pluto was leaning against his desk with nowhere to go, and Syd’s gargantuan presence cast a long shadow over him, silhouetted by the light of his office’s multiple chandeliers.

Syd asked, “Mr. Sebastian—or is it all right if I call you Pluto? Pluto, do you know a young woman by the name of Jade?”

“I’ve m-met a few Jades in my life. Can you be more sp-specific?”

“She works here. She’s a cleaner. You should know who she is, Pluto, my man! After all …” Syd leaned in close and whispered, “… you threatened to kill her, for what she saw in this very office.”

“… How the fuck do you know—”

“Her father told us. After you sent your men—” Syd poked Pluto in the chest repeatedly with one finger to punctuate her words, “—to his grocery store in Shadow Town to threaten him into silence, while you raped his daughter over, and over, and over.”

Suddenly furious, Pluto said, “You … you animals don’t know what she saw! It could have ruined me!”

“I don’t give a shit what she saw, you monster!” Syd roared. “Nothing she saw could justify fuckin’ enslaving her. What you did to her is unforgivable!”

“What I did to her was a blessing, compared to what I could have done! That bitch should be grateful to serve Pluto goddamn Sebastian!”

“I’ve had enough of listening to this fuckin’ loser!” Lexi screamed suddenly. She turned to Syd and said, “Is it payback time yet?”

Syd’s golden eyes lit up. Beneath her mask, her lips curled into her trademark wolfish grin.

“Yeah …” Syd said slowly. Calmly. Hungrily. “I think it’s time to teach Pluto here exactly what happens when you go all in on the wrong bet.”

The wolf beastess seized the businessman by both of his shoulders and pinned him to the desk. Each of her hands completely covered each of the shoulders of his starchy suit, and as much as he struggled, he was completely trapped under the weight of the Amazonian animal woman holding him down.

Meanwhile, Lexi waltzed casually behind the desk, giggling softly as she gazed upside-down at Pluto.

“Now, Pluto,” she cooed to the terror-stricken man beneath her grip, “This is retribution. This is what happens when you fuck with people who you think are beneath you, who you think are powerless, who have friends like us lurking in the darkness to protect them. This is payback for what you did to Jade. You get to be the first ever prey of my pup over here.” She leaned down to speak in his ear, her glowing fangs almost touching his face. “Aren’t you so lucky?”

Lexi’s giggles turned to barking laughter.

And her barking laughter turned to just … barking.

“P-please!” Pluto begged. “L-l-let me go! I’ll d-do anything you want! PLEASE!!”

Syd kept her gaze fixed on Pluto, but out of the corner of her eye, Lexi’s form took up more and more space behind the desk.

Nearly eclipsing the penthouse office window.

Brushing the underside of the chandeliers, which must have been a good ten feet off the ground.

“Aww, but Pluto, my man, you did this to yourself!” Syd said. “You’ve placed your bets, and you thought you rigged the game, but you forgot one very important thing about gambling …”

Pluto, suddenly aware of what was happening behind him, tilted his head back.

His jaw dropped and his eyes grew as wide as saucers, as a positively titanic muscle-bound were-coyote loomed over him.

Panting heavily. Twitching impatiently. Growling deeply. Staring at him with those beautiful golden eyes of hers like he was her last meal on earth.

The magitech fangs had automagically receded into the mask with her transformation, just as Meg had designed.

Lexi’s fangs were real now. Long, white, and sharp. And they were drooling with hunger.

Syd grinned at Pluto beneath her mask and slowly whispered in his ear.

“… Lady Luck’s a bitch.”

Lexi roared. Pluto screamed.

The were-coyote pounced on the desk, which buckled under her increased mass, and pinned the man to its wooden surface with a paw as wide as his abdomen, still upside-down relative to Pluto. Syd backed away, both to give her new protégé time to enjoy toying with her first prey … and to admire the view. Lexi’s clothing still clung to her hulking furry form—good job, Meg—and Syd couldn’t help but get a bit flustered while watching the girl she was dating go full beast mode.

Confused as to what to do next, and still operating on instinct, Lexi looked expectantly to her beta with big puppy dog eyes.

Goddess above, she was adorable.

[Don’t kill him, pup,] Syd thought. [This is payback, remember? Go on, you can figure it out.]

Lexi tilted her head for a moment, but then she gave a gruff bark and nodded. She understood the assignment.

Pluto wouldn’t stop screaming, so Lexi muffled him by placing one of her back paws over his face. She took her front paws and grabbed both of his legs, spreading them apart.

She sniffed each of his legs hungrily. Testing the waters. Bits of drool spattered on his expensive business suit.

Eventually, the were-coyote’s long muzzle—the length of Pluto’s shin, Syd noted—stopped sniffing over one spot in particular.

One spot that was very, very important to a rapist like Pluto Sebastian.

Realizing what Lexi was about to do, Pluto’s muffled screaming became even more frenzied, more panicked.

[Attagirl,] Syd thought. [Payback time.]

Lexi reared her head back, let loose a howl that rattled the windows, and in one swift motion …

… The were-coyote snapped her gigantic jaws around Pluto’s entire crotch.

She ripped into the body of her prey with carnivorous delight, tearing the cloth of his pants like butter, pulling away at his flesh and viscera in bloody taffy-like chunks and strands. Her maw was soaked in his blood, which coated her muzzle mask in a sticky crimson syrup. She licked the blood off her chops, lost in the ecstasy of the hunt, and dug her claws into his legs as she continued to feast.

Pluto’s muffled cries of agony were nothing but background noise at this point.

He didn’t matter. He had no power anymore. The public will know exactly what he’s done, thanks to Audrey’s work in leaking his private records to the press. It turns out that recording personal footage of yourself raping various women over the years to jerk off to later was not a good idea if you haven’t updated your computer’s security software in the past decade.

Unfortunately, what Pluto had done to Jade and to Jasper couldn’t be undone. However, at least now the karmic scales were even, and he won’t even dare to mess with them ever again.

Even the best magitech that money could buy won’t be able to fix him up to how he was before. And all the money and all the bribes in the world won’t be able to give that bastard his dignity back.

[All right, Lexi, that’s enough,] Syd spoke into Lexi’s mind. [He’s fainting from blood loss.]

Lexi crawled off of the desk and paced back and forth, watching her beta work.

Syd pulled an auto-injector out from her jacket pocket and plunged it into the side of Pluto’s neck. She cursed under her breath for having to use these precious medical nanobots on someone like him, but Alpha Lea had stressed to Syd that Pluto needed to learn his lesson, and he couldn’t really do that if he was dead, now could he?

Lexi had already shifted back down to human form. The glowing fangs of her muzzle mask extended as her face regained its humanity, and she wiped the blood off of her hands onto Pluto’s expensive carpet.

Damn, Syd thought, she shifted pretty quickly. Lexi was really starting to get the hang of being a beastess—

BANG.

Syd felt a sharp pain in her leg. Like a white-hot poker.

BANG.

The pain doubled. Lexi ran. Ran towards something behind the wolf woman.

BANG.

Syd collapsed to the ground.