Beastess

Don’t think. Just act.

As soon as she had heard the first shot, Lexi ran as fast as she could towards the unexpected intruder. She juked one way before the guard could respond and turn his revolver on her. She tackled him to the ground and put his arm in a hold. With a wrenching motion and a loud snap, she broke his shooting arm. Lexi grabbed the gun he had dropped and used it to knock the screaming man unconscious with a swift strike to his temple.

Enemy subdued. Next—

Lexi heard a moan through gritted teeth behind her.

Syd!

The coyote girl rushed to her beta’s side, placed the revolver down next to them, and helped her up off the floor.

“Are you okay, Syd?” Lexi asked.

“Agh … fuck, I don’t think so,” Syd replied. The wolf woman was limping and relying on Lexi to hold her up.

Shit, shit, shit! This is bad! Syd is hurt, and they need to get out of here, but Goddess above, how the hell was she supposed to—

Her nerves were coming back.

Breathe. Calm down.

Don’t think. Just act.

Call for help.

“Mayday, mayday, mayday!” Lexi said, with one finger to the ankh symbol on the side of her muzzle mask. “This is Coyote! Wolf has been shot, repeat, Wolf has been shot! Over!”

After a brief pause—which seemed like an eternity as Syd clutched her bleeding leg—Lexi got a reply.

“Lynx to Coyote—is she conscious? Where was she hit? Over.”

“Coyote to Lynx—yeah, she’s awake. She’s been hit in the leg … twice … and one shot grazed the side of her as she was falling. Her leg is bleeding real bad. She can barely walk. Over.”

Another pause.

“Lynx to Coyote—can you check the gun? What bullets was she shot with? Over.”

Lexi, after guiding Syd to lean against the desk next to Pluto’s unconscious body, bent over and carefully picked up the gun she had placed down. Recalling what little gun training she remembered from the academy, she pointed the barrel away from her, pressed the cylinder release switch, and popped opened the cylinder of the revolver.

Three empty chambers, three rounds left. Rounds that Lexi recognized from her paladin training.

Oh shit, those must be …

“Coyote to Lynx—they’re silver bullets. Over.”

“Goddess fuckin’ above … Lynx to Coyote—I can treat her, but you need to get down here, like, pronto. Over.”

“Coyote to Lynx—Wolf can barely walk! What do we do? Over.”

“Bear to Coyote—I’m coming up. Stand by. Over.”

“Lynx to Coyote—put pressure on her wounds and don’t move until Bear gets there. Hurry, honey bear! Over.”

“Coyote to Bear and Lynx—thank you. Coyote out.”

Lexi sighed and put the gun back down. She grabbed a throw blanket from one of the armchairs in Pluto’s office—what kind of office has multiple armchairs, anyway?—and used it to apply pressure to Syd’s bullet wounds. The wolf woman flinched and hissed as the cloth was pressed against her leg, but didn’t protest further.

“Silver bullets, huh?” Syd grunted.

“Afraid so,” Lexi replied. “He probably snuck up on us while we were distracted with Pluto. Otherwise we might have heard him coming.”

Syd gave a weak laugh, then coughed and winced. “Fuck’s sake. This was supposed to be an easy first hunt for you. I didn’t mean to throw you into the deep end so quickly, pup.”

Trying to keep her beta’s spirits up, Lexi laughed as well, and said, “Beta, listen—less than two weeks ago, I realized I was trans, became a beastess, betrayed the paladins, and joined your pack. All in one night! Trust me—these are shallow waters compared to the rapids I’ve been swimming through lately.”

Fuck. Silver bullets were magitech armor-piercing rounds, and expensive even on the black market. Even paladins weren’t given access to that kind of ammunition except in dire circumstances, and they had government funding from the Church. Of course one of Pluto’s guards had them. Hell, for all she knew, all the guards in Lady Luck Casino could be packing silver bullets!

Beastesses can heal quickly, Lexi recalled, but silver bullets were magitech ammo. They’re not so easy to shrug off.

Their heist had just gotten a whole lot more dangerous, way too quickly for Lexi’s liking.

“How did that guard make it past Meg?” Lexi wondered out loud.

Syd nodded to the entrance of the office, which spilled out into the hallway, and replied, “The main elevator. We used the maintenance one.”

“Which means …”

“Yeah. The cavalry is probably on their way up here. Meg had better hurry the fuck up.”

“Speak of the devil,” Lexi said as Meg ran into the penthouse office. The bear beastess crouched down next to her beta and wrapped the blanket around her leg wound in a tourniquet. Placing her shoulder under Syd’s chest, she wrapped her left magitech-augmented arm carefully around Syd’s good leg and held onto Syd’s wrist with her other arm. With a brief grunt, the large woman stood up, balancing her equally massive beta on her shoulders in a fireman carry.

“C’mon,” she said to Lexi as she made careful yet surprisingly casual strides towards the maintenance elevator.

Stunned by the feat of strength from the behemoth bear woman, Lexi followed close behind and pressed the button for the ground floor once they entered the elevator cabin. As the sliding doors closed and they started heading down, Meg continued to hold Syd without apparent strain.

“I thought you said these clothes were bulletproof!” Syd said.

“They are,” Meg replied, “but not like paladin armor. Hell, even if you were wearin’ armor, you’d’ve been knocked on yer ass from the kinetic force alone. Them’s some powerful rounds.”

“I’ll heal up quick. Even silver bullets can’t take down this werewolf. You can put me down now, Meg. I’ll—fuck—I’ll be fine …”

“No can do, I’m ‘fraid. Ya got bullet wounds and blunt force trauma, and yer lucky they only hit ya where they did. We gotta get ya back to the van.”

“Hyena to e—ryone, Hyen—to—eryone!” came Roxy’s voice through Lexi’s headphone, a bit more crackly and broken-up than usual. “—eed backup! Repeat, I nee—ackup! Over!”

Fucking hell, what now?

Lexi touched the side of her mask and said, “Coyote to Hyena—Wolf is hurt, we’re a bit short on numbers here. Can’t Fox come in and help? Over.”

“Fox to Coyote—according to my tracking software, Hyena is deep within the bowels of the casino, and you are all in much closer proximity to her. As it stands, I won’t be able to assist her in time as quickly as you all. Over.”

Goddess above. How were they going to reach Roxy in time? With Syd incapacitated, Meg carrying her, Sabrina tending to Syd’s wounds, and Audrey too far away to help, that just left …

… That just left …

Lexi looked at Meg and Syd with determination, clenching her fists and straightening her muzzle mask on her face.

“Coyote to Hyena—I’m on my way. Coyote out.”

Syd’s eyes widened.

“… NO!” Syd yelled. She reached one hand to grab Lexi’s jacket. “No, no, no!”

Lexi placed her comparatively smaller hand over Syd’s.

“Beta,” Lexi said calmly, “I’m the only one here who can help Roxy.”

“I swear to the Goddess, there is absolutely no fuckin’ way I’m letting you out of my sight again! I promised Alpha! I promised you!” A single tear streamed down the wolf woman’s cheek. Her hand shook under Lexi’s touch. Her voice became strained as she whispered, “I-I don’t want to lose you …”

Lexi stroked Syd’s cheek and wiped away her tears with her thumb.

“What did I say that night at the doctor’s office, big wolf?” Lexi asked. “I’m not going anywhere. You couldn’t get rid of me …”

“… If I tried,” Syd replied.

Lexi smiled beneath her mask, and said, “Trust me, Syd—I’m not weak like I was before. I can defend myself. Audrey will be tracking my location the whole time anyway.”

“But you froze up in the control room! I don’t know if—”

“I’m over that now. You’ve been sparring with me. You showed me how to take up space. You showed me how strong I’m getting. You’ve been training me to believe in myself this whole time. It’s all thanks to you, big wolf. Now—will you please let me go help my pack-mate, beta?”

Syd stared into Lexi’s eyes. In Syd’s golden orbs, Lexi could see her reflection once more. It reminded her of that night in the abandoned train station, when she had fearfully gazed into the ferocious eyes of the wolf woman who had captured her, and saw something in her reflection that was different from every time she had seen herself in the dorm room mirrors back at the academy.

What she saw back then was her potential.

And now? In the gaze of the beautiful woman and magnificent monster she was falling in love with?

She was the real deal.

Admittedly, sure, she was still a work-in-progress, still in the beginning stages of her journey.

But Lexi could see, somehow into her very soul, that she was becoming the strong woman she had always wished to be.

… And she could tell that Syd saw that too, now.

“Go,” Syd said, “and may Mother Moon be with you.”

Lexi nodded and hit a button for a floor between where they currently were and the ground floor.

As the coyote girl stepped out of the elevator doors, Meg, who until now had been letting Lexi and Syd have their moment, chimed in and said warmly, “We’ll get Syd patched up jus’ fine. Be careful, Lexi. But don’t be ‘fraid to raise some hell if ya need to, girl!”

“Planning on it!” Lexi said over her shoulder, and blew Syd a kiss just before the doors closed.

Right. Now to find Roxy.

“Coyote to Fox—where is Hyena right now?”

“Fox to Coyote,” came Audrey’s perpetually erudite voice over the headphones. “I’ve just lost her signal. However, right before her transmission cut out, I detected her in a secluded part of the casino where Mr. Sebastian keeps his most priceless possessions locked up tight, located seven floors above you. You will need to enter through the HVAC ducts, climb the ladder in the maintenance elevator shaft to the correct floor, re-enter the duct system, and search for Hyena there. Over.”

“Coyote to Fox,” Lexi said as she tore off a metal grate in the hallway leading to the ducts. “Roger that. Any idea why her signal cut out? Over.”

“Fox to Coyote—the safe room is lead-lined, and possibly has some magitech jammers to thwart remote hacking. Communication with us may be inaccessible. Do you have every confidence in yourself that you can handle this? Over.”

“Coyote to Fox—Honestly? No. I’m kinda scared, actually.” Lexi hoisted herself up and climbed into the duct. “But being scared my whole life got me fuckin’ nowhere. I’m scared, yes … but I’m gonna do it anyway. Over.”

As she reached the maintenance elevator shaft, Lexi heard over her headphone, “Fox to Coyote—truly inspiring stuff, Alexandra. Over.”

“It’s just Lexi.”

“Fox to Coyote—proper radio etiquette, please, and do try your best to solely utilize our agreed-upon sobriquets. Over.”

Lexi rolled her eyes and said, “But you just called me Alexandra.”

“Fox to Coyote—astute observation, pup.” She could hear the proud smile in Audrey’s voice. “Best of luck. Fox out.”

As Lexi climbed the ladder up the elevator shaft rung by rung, she noticed how tired she … wasn’t. The wild magic from her Goddess worked in perfect synergy with the magitech of the nanobots that Sabrina had injected her with prior to the heist. It was a breeze to climb up seven floors, even after having fought off multiple guards and transforming into her beast form. She didn’t even feel hungry, probably because …

Eugh. She tried not to think too hard about what she did to Pluto earlier.

Once she reached the correct floor, Lexi slid into the HVAC duct and started crawling. It was probably a good thing she hadn’t grown too much since becoming a beastess. If she were Syd’s size, she probably would have gotten stuck in here.

After a couple of minutes of crawling, Lexi heard yelling up ahead. She hurried forwards and turned left to follow the voices, only to come across an unlatched service grate in front of her that opened up directly into the room below.

Carefully, peering over the edge of the opening, she could see below a massive steel vault door covered in magitech runes. Two security guards were knocked out on the ground already, but three more had their guns pointed into the vault itself. If Lexi tilted her head and focused her enhanced hearing just right, she could hear the breaths—and even the faint heartbeat—of someone from deep within the vault.

“Come on out, missy,” one of the guards yelled. “We have back-up on the way with silver bullets. Surrender now and we’ll go easy on ya.”

A single golden goblet came flying out of the vault, narrowly missing the speaking guard’s head as he dodged out of the way and retaliated with suppressive fire.

“Fuck you and fuck off, ya lyin’ scumbags!”

Yup—that’s Roxy.

Lexi pivoted her body so her feet faced the gap, and after a deep breath and a brief prayer to the Goddess of the Hunt, she let her hunting instincts guide her. Time dilated. She focused her mind and flexed her limbs in anticipation. Muscle memory from her years of training and sparring was coming back to her body—muscle memory that her brain had refused to register because her old body didn’t align with her mind.

Three words, carved into stone by ancestral claws older and stronger than she could comprehend, crowded out all other thoughts:

Survive.

Thrive.

HUNT.

She dropped down onto the shoulders of the guard directly below her who had been yelling. He toppled to the ground before he know what hit him.

On the left, a second guard was turning to her in shock. Using the fallen guard below like a trampoline, she pounced on the second guard and dug her claws into his neck.

Claws? Yes, claws—she needed them, and there they were. Simple as that. Her body was listening to her.

She pulled one hand loose, like kneading dough, and the guard’s blood spattered across the steel door in crimson streaks and drops. With his back against the wall and his jugular vein torn and exposed, he dropped his gun and clutched his throat in raspy, gurgling screams. She kicked the gun away and tossed her fallen prey aside.

BANG.

Flinching, Lexi expected pain, but found none. A hit to her back, sure, but it barely made her stumble.

… Ah.

They didn’t have silver bullets. Good to know.

She turned around, anticipating another shot or strike, but the two other guards—the first having gotten up off the ground, winded—just sorta … stood there. Frozen.

Absolutely petrified of her.

Lexi realized in an instant just how much taller and bigger she was than them. How the room seemed ever so much smaller, like she had passed through a funhouse mirror when she had dropped down from that open grate. Hell, if she stood on her tip-toes, she would probably have been able to kiss Syd at this height without any trouble.

She smiled. The magitech fangs of her mask had retracted. Her mouth, her whole face, was longer. Muzzled. Full of teeth. Sharp teeth.

Not quite human, but not full beast either. Half-and-half.

So this is what it was like to take up space.

The third guard, sporting a thick mustache and also the only uninjured one, was within arm’s reach. Side-stepping away from where his gun was pointing, she growled and swiped at his shooting arm, forcing him to release his gun and sending it flying.

The first guard pulled his gun and yelled, “H-hold it!” He attempted to shoot as he did so, but unfortunately his movement was telegraphed almost as loudly as his voice. Lexi grabbed the mustachioed guard by the sides of his torso and hoisted him into the air as a human shield. Her new shield cried out in agony and she threw him away like a garbage bag, straight at the other firing guard, as they both collapsed into a heap on the floor. The first guard, now disarmed, tried to extricate himself from underneath the mustached guard, but the latter’s bullet wound made him writhe with every movement, tangling them further and further. The shouty first guard kept glancing between Lexi and the exit even as he struggled to free himself and retrieve his weapon.

How adorable. They think they can get away from a trained huntress like her.

The half-shifted coyote woman crouched down in front of the two of them, her limbs bulging as new muscles flexed and extended, her golden eyes wide and manic with the thrill of the hunt. With a toothy, drooling, crazed grin, she laughed in their faces.

“What’s the matter, boys?” she snarled. “Are you really scared of little ol’ me?”

She grabbed both of their craniums with hands as wide as their faces, and slammed their skulls into the steel vault door behind them with the force of a jackhammer. Their limbs dropped as their eyes glassed over. Sliding down with a sickening squeak from two small but very bloody dents in the magitech runes of the vault door, the remaining guards fell unconscious.

Lexi sniffed the air.

“Roxy?” she said, poking her muzzle into the vault. “Are you okay?” Now that she was calming down, she surprised herself with how deeply her voice rumbled in her chest in this form.

“Yeah …” Roxy said as she emerged from deep within the vault, casually running the fingers of one hand through her messy black-and-red mohawk. “Thanks for coming back for me, I owe ya—holy shit! You learned to half-shift already?!”

“Oh!” Lexi looked down at the hyena beastess, who was much shorter than her at the moment. “Uh … yeah, I guess I did! Haven’t figured out how to shift back though. Going full beast mode is more all-or-nothing, but this?” She gestured down, with her hands and arms covered in tan fur, at her newly massive muscular physique. “I sorta stumbled into this without thinking and got stuck.”

“Don’t worry about it for now. Damn.” Roxy wolf-whistled. “You look fierce as hell, babe. Took me a whole cycle after my first shift to be able to do that.”

“Thanks! I, uh … I really like how I feel like this.”

The half-shifted coyote girl blushed and tentatively flexed one of her mammoth biceps, watching in amazement as the fur-covered limb nearly doubled in size. That was really her arm?! Wow. If she were fully human right now, this Amazonian form of hers was pretty damn close to the body of her dreams.

“C’mon,” Roxy said, “let’s scram!”

Lexi and Roxy ran down the corridor outside of the vault room. On Roxy’s back was a large sack with two straps for her shoulders, which Lexi had briefly glimpsed beneath her jacket earlier. The sack had multiple bulges and protrusions poking through the fabric.

“Good haul?” Lexi asked as they ran, keeping pace with the surprisingly speedy hyena woman.

“Hell yeah.” Roxy patted one side of the sack. “Turns out this shithead has a huge collection of gold statues and jewels. He must rotate them out so he can show them off to all his rich friends whenever he wants. I grabbed what I could before the guards noticed me. Glad one of ya heard me on the radio—all I got back was static on my end, and I was cornered there for a bit.”

“Sorry about that,” Lexi said as they rounded a corner. “We probably should have anticipated the signal would be weaker in there.”

“Goddess above, don’t worry about it!” Roxy said. She gently punched Lexi’s beefy shoulder. “I can’t believe you took out those guards all on your own, pup—I’m seriously impressed! Wait …” Roxy and Lexi came to a stop just before an emergency exit door. “… Where’s Beta? You were supposed to stick with her, right?”

“Oh right, you couldn’t hear me. Um … Syd’s been shot, Roxy.”

“But she can heal fast. All of us can. Unless …”

“Yeah. Silver bullets.”

“Fuuuck. Is she okay?”

“Meg is bringing her down to Sabrina as we speak.”

“Thank the Goddess.” Roxy kicked open the emergency exit door, revealing a spiraling concrete staircase with landings at each floor. “Let’s go meet up with them and get the fuck out of—”

With a loud thud, another heavy door opened up downstairs, just as forcefully, and the sound of multiple footsteps hitting concrete echoed in the stairwell. Roxy peered over the edge of the railing, swore under her breath, and looked back at Lexi while pointing upwards.

“There they are, I spotted one! Don’t let them get away!” came a voice from down below. The hair on the back of Lexi’s neck stood on end.

Immediately taking the hint from Roxy, Lexi followed the hyena beastess up the stairs another couple of floors before ducking into a floor labeled Casino Mezzanine.

Compared to the cramped corridors of the back maintenance areas, the public-facing side of Lady Luck Casino was open and spacious, full of all sorts of entertainment and gaudy decor—gambling tables, slot machines, bars, CRT televisions, fountains, pole dancers, red carpets, marble statues, glass elevators, and so much more than Lexi could possibly take in all at once.

Both the mezzanine floor, which was essentially a gigantic balcony, and the main floor below were both situated in a ginormous atrium the size of a small park. Unusually for a casino, which normally tried to hide the time of day from its guests, the atrium was almost entirely enclosed in large glass panes to provide a view of the starry night sky up above—Mother Moon shone brightly, her last-quarter phase a knowing smile in the darkness—and it featured many hanging golden chandeliers that sported neon tubes of light instead of candles.

As they ran along the carpet looking for a way down, Lexi had to make a significant mental effort to consciously focus her attention and tune out all distractions, as a continuous bombardment of smells, sights, and sounds attacked her enhanced senses. She had never really liked crowds, and even though in her half-shifted form she could now see over most people’s heads for an escape route, this huge casino was testing her patience. However, it had probably worked in her pack’s favor that the casino was so large—the guards had taken far longer to find her and her pack-mates in the backrooms of the towering building during this whole heist.

They weren’t as lucky out here in the main atrium. After dodging and weaving quickly around guests who gave some very confused looks at their attire, a pit boss for the mezzanine floor, hovering at a craps table nearby, saw them right away as they rounded a corner.

Speaking into a handheld radio as he pursued them, Lexi pulled her hood aside slightly and tilted her pointed ears at just the right angle to hear the pit boss say in a gruff voice, “I’ve found them. Mezzanine. Secure all exits on this floor.”

Lexi leaned down and said to Roxy as they ran, “We need a plan. They’re covering all the exits.”

“Got any ideas, smarty-pants?” Roxy asked.

Scanning over the heads of the crowd at her new height, she saw various guards in business suits making a beeline for their position, including the pit boss. It seemed that every door she looked at was blocked by more guards.

… Well. Every door on this floor, at least.

Fortune favors the bold, indeed.

“They haven’t blocked the front entrance yet!” Lexi said. “You thinking what I’m thinking?”

Roxy grinned. She quickly half-shifted as well, sprouting claws and a fanged muzzle as spotted tan fur coated her limbs. She gave a high-pitched cackling giggle—the laugh of a hyena who knew she was about to have some fun.

“Lead the way, pup!”

With a running leap that elicited a cry of shock from the casino guests around them, the two beastess women vaulted off of the mezzanine balcony railing and landed atop two different chandeliers dangling down from the ceiling several feet above them. Maintaining their momentum, they swung back and forth until they had enough leverage to each jump to the next lowest chandelier, and the next lowest, and the next.

Below them on the main floor, guests and staff stopped gambling and were staring up at the acrobatic animal women swinging on the lighting fixtures. Some started applauding with each successful jump Lexi and Roxy made, thinking it was part of some secret new performance the casino was testing out.

After many swings, the two of them were low enough to land perched atop two golden statues, each depicting Lady Luck herself, on the apexes of two fountains on either side of the lobby area.

Straight ahead of them was the ground floor entrance, and holding the door open was—

“Make haste, comrades!” yelled Audrey, waving at them frantically. A guard from outside attempted to grab her, but a swift kick to the groin from the vixen beastess disabled him immediately. It likely also rendered him infertile, Lexi thought, given how high in the air he rose.

Hell yeah, Audrey! She must have gotten their signal back and tracked their location, Lexi thought to herself.

Lexi and Roxy jumped down onto the carpet and made a mad dash for the exit. They ran past Audrey, who closed the door behind them and barred it shut with a nearby stanchion. Around them in the porte-cochère, guards and staff of the casino in various states of consciousness moaned and twitched, no doubt taken out moments earlier by Audrey. Together, the three beastesses fled down the street, climbed up the fire escape of a nearby building, and jumped down into the alleyway where their van and Syd’s motorcycle was parked.

Poking her head out of the side of the van, Sabrina cheered, “You made it! Holy crap, you guys are, like, totally amazing!!”

They … they did! They did make it!

Lexi laughed out loud from the sheer triumph of their hunt. She high-fived Roxy and leaned against the side of the van to catch her breath.

“How’s Syd?” Lexi asked.

“She’s restin’, but she’s gonna be jus’ fine,” said Meg, wheeling Syd’s motorbike around from the side of the van. “Sabrina is takin’ care of her—wow.” Meg stopped the bike and stared at Lexi. Sabrina and Audrey also looked the coyote girl up and down wordlessly.

Oh, right. They hadn’t seen her like this yet.

From within the van, with her leg bandaged up and elevated in front of her, Syd—now maskless—grunted and propped herself up on the seat a little.

“You half-shifted already?” Syd said, dumbfounded.

Lexi ran over, ripped her mask off, pulled her hood down, and kissed the wolf woman as best as she could with her half-formed muzzle.

“Missed you too, big wolf,” she said. “And I told you I could take care of myself!”

Syd smiled warmly, her eyes watering, and said, “Thanks for proving me wrong, pup.” She kissed Lexi back, harder this time.

Roxy threw her sack of stolen valuables into the trunk of the van and slammed the door shut.

“Audrey,” Roxy said, “you’re gonna have to drive the van while Meg rides Syd’s bike back. We need to skedaddle.”

“Go with Meg,” Syd said to Lexi. “We’ll meet you back at the den.”

“Got it,” Lexi said, nodding.

Something in her chest tightened. Her heart rose up into her throat.

A volcanic eruption of emotion threatened to burst out of her mouth.

“Syd, I … ”

“What is it, Lexi?” Syd asked, tilting her head.

She wanted to say it. Oh, how she wanted desperately to tell her beta—that beautiful, gorgeous, amazing werewolf woman who could sweep her off her feet with nothing more than a glance and that damn fucking wolfish grin.

No … now isn’t the right time.

But it will be.

One day.

“I’m … I’m really glad you’re okay,” Lexi finally whispered. Syd smiled wider, kissed her again, and rubbed her cheek.

“I’m glad you’re safe too,” Syd whispered back. “Now go! And that’s an order, pup!”

“Yes, Beta,” Lexi said, giving Syd an overly-serious salute before grabbing her motorcycle helmet from Meg. She blew Syd kiss, put the helmet on as she sat on the back of the bike—it was a snug fit around her half-muzzle—and grabbed Meg tight around the waist. Sabrina shut the back door of the van while Audrey and Roxy piled into the front, and together Lexi and her pack-mates sped off in their respective vehicles as fast as they could into the streets of Abraxas.

Goddess above.

She was here! She was alive! Their heist—no their hunt—was a success, and Syd was going to be okay!

She glanced up at Mother Moon in the night sky above.

Who needs Lady Luck anyway, when you have the Goddess of the Hunt by your side?

Fortune favors the bold, sure.

… But the huntress favors her pack.

Lexi tilted up her helmet’s visor, inhaled deeply, and with all her breath the were-coyote woman gave a long, full-throated, victorious howl at the moon.