Beastess

“Cadet Alexander Carpenter, I can scarcely put into words how positively excited I am for this!” Presbyter Talbot said with a broad grin as the two of them began their descent down the spiraling stairwell. “Young man, you are about to become the first cadet paladin to bear witness to my experiments on a live specimen. Are you as thrilled as I am?”

“I feel honored, Presbyter,” Lexi replied in the most sycophantic tone she could muster.

In truth, Lexi felt disgusted—that “specimen” was her pack-mate.

She didn’t have much of a plan. Sophie said just to establish contact with Mac through mind-speech, update her on everything that’s happened since she last spoke to Sophie, and for Lexi to keep her eyes open for anything in Presbyter Talbot’s clinic that might help with forming an escape plan.

Lexi gulped. Her expertise was in beastesses, not in forming escape plans! She really hoped that Mac would have some ideas.

Since this past weekend, Syd had confided in Alpha Lea about Sophie’s true nature and willingness to help the Pack of Abraxas West. Although skeptical at first, Alpha was willing to give Sophie a chance, especially after hearing how she figured out who the rat was in the Four Packs of Abraxas.

Ripley Belladonna …

Lexi shuddered when she remembered her last interaction with the cheetah beastess.

Bad vibes. Especially that look in her eyes when she had found out Lexi was trans.

But hey, Lexi had changed since then! She’s not the scrawny weakling she was a few weeks ago. She was strong! She wasn’t just some prey anymore … she was a hunter now. Hell, she had changed her last name to drive the point home, hadn’t she? Her name was now—

“Alexander, are my eyes playing tricks on me, or have you gotten taller since last we met?”

“Huh?” Lexi blinked a few times.

“Lost in thought, are you?” the presbyter intoned with a twinkle in his eye. “Reminds me of myself, back in my younger years. I asked if you had gotten taller since last week.”

“Oh! Uh … No, I’ve just started wearing thicker boots, that’s all,” Lexi said. She hunched over slightly, now acutely aware of her own height.

“Ah, I see,” Presbyter Talbot said, and he continued his clockwork-like pace down the stairwell ahead of her. Lexi breathed a quiet sigh of relief.

Goddess above, she must have grown at least two more inches or so over the weekend. Her muscles were pushing the limits of even the largest sizes of standard-issue cadet uniforms, and she couldn’t risk getting custom orders without drawing attention to herself. This “Alex” disguise was becoming harder and harder to maintain as her body was rapidly changing, Lexi thought to herself. She didn’t know if she could keep attending the academy like this without her changes being discovered by someone—well, someone who didn’t know her as well as Sophie did. Time was running out on her ability to be a convincing mole for PAW.

Once they reached the bottom of the stairwell and Presbyter Talbot had unlocked the door by scanning his ID, the security guard at the front desk in the next room—whom Lexi noticed had a name tag that said “Reggie”—nodded at the presbyter and pressed a button on his desk that made a loud buzz, followed by a click. Presbyter Talbot thanked Reggie, opened the door for both him and Lexi to enter the long hallway, and motioned for Lexi to go first.

Lexi walked in—

—And nearly bumped right into Bishop Ironside, who smirked at Lexi.

Nearly forgetting at first, Lexi saluted on the spot and said, “Apologies, Bishop. I didn’t see you there.”

Standing there in his bulky set of polished paladin armor, which matched his polished shaved cranium, Bishop Ironside exuded an aura of absolute authority. But strangely—for him at least—the beefy bishop seemed to be in light spirits today.

“At ease, Cadet,” Bishop Ironside said with a chuckle. “Did Presbyter Talbot not inform you that we would be accompanying you both this evening?” The imposing bishop gestured to himself and the two paladin guards standing behind him.

“… No, he did not, Bishop.”

“Recently,” the presbyter said to Lexi, “I have been asking Saul here for more guards to assist with escorting the subject. My experiments have been making her more … feisty, lately.”

Oh no, Lexi thought. That’s not good. How was PAW supposed to break out Mac with even more guards to contend with each shift?

“I decided I would come along tonight as well,” the bishop said, “for extra protection, since this is the first time a cadet paladin has been down here. Although right now, from the looks of it … Cadet Carpenter seems more than capable of handling any danger.”

Bishop Ironside looked at Lexi up and down. No matter how strong or confident she got, that icky feeling of being leered at never seemed to go away. It just became easier to manage.

“Have you gotten taller, Cadet?” Bishop Ironside asked.

“Well, Bishop,” Lexi said, “funny that you ask me that, because I was just telling Presbyter Talbot here that I’ve started wearing thicker boots.”

The bishop furrowed his brow and shook his head, saying, “I don’t believe that for an instant. You were shorter even just a few weeks ago, when I called you to my office.”

Oh shit.

Shit, shit, SHIT.

Should she run? Come up with an excuse? Fuck! He figured out she’s a—

Bishop Ironside laughed uproariously.

“I didn’t know that you’ve been experimenting with magitech augmentations too!”

… Wait, what?

“P-pardon me, Bishop, sir?”

“Augmentations. C’mon, fess up—is it an implant? Nanobots? Out with it, Cadet!”

Phew. Close call.

“You got me, Bishop,” Lexi said, putting her hands up in surrender. “I’ve been taking strength-enhancing nanobots for months. They, uh, only started kicking in recently. It takes a while for them to show, and one side effect is getting taller.”

“Attaboy!” Bishop Ironside clapped Lexi on the back, hard. Even with all her newfound strength, she nearly toppled over. “Color me surprised! Honestly, I didn’t know you had it in you.”

“Thank you, Bishop,” Lexi replied.

It was incredibly lucky, she thought, that the bishop didn’t know as much about magitech as the presbyter, and that the presbyter didn’t know how short Lexi was when she last saw the bishop.

“Isn’t it fantastic to be enhanced?” the bishop said. “I love the feeling myself, personally.”

“Sir? Are … are you saying you’re …?”

“The word of Father Sun tells us to abstain from debasing our flesh,” Bishop Ironside continued, “but I interpret the scripture more leniently than some of my fellow officers in the Church. I don’t view magitech augmentation as debasement if it enhances one’s ability to serve our Lord. If augmentation is good enough for His Holiness Patriarch Ozias, it’s good enough for me. Here, let me show you.”

Typical. Bishop Ironside always sought any excuse to flex, Lexi thought. Always wanted to show who was in charge.

The bishop took off his chest plate and gauntlets, opened the buttons on his too-tight jacket, and removed it as well. He turned around and took off his undershirt so that Lexi and Presbyter Talbot could get a good look at his incredibly broad back.

Goddess above. He looked more muscle than man. The bishop’s beefy back muscles bulged and shifted with each movement of his body. Down either side of his spine ran two sets of chrome metal magitech plates, narrowing in width towards his lower back. The runic circuitry on the plates glowed green and pulsed every time the bishop flexed.

“Impressive, sir,” Lexi said. Well, that explained why the bishop was so much more buff than everyone else at the academy.

“Impressive, indeed …” Presbyter Talbot adjusted his round glasses, studying the runes carefully. “How have the modifications I added been treating you, Saul?”

“I think your work speaks for itself, John.” Bishop Ironside contracted his upper back muscles and posed like a prize-winning bodybuilder.

“M-modifications?” Lexi asked.

Bishop Ironside looked over his shoulder and grinned.

“They’re experimental.” He nodded at the presbyter. “Tell him, John.”

“Well, some of these modifications are untested,” Presbyter Talbot said, “but yes, I have tinkered with the runic circuitry of Bishop Ironside’s magitech implants—as well as my own.”

Presbyter Talbot rolled up one sleeve of his lab coat to show Lexi his upper arm, embedded in which was a magitech plate implant.

“This plate adds superhuman levels of precision to my motor functions.” He carefully clenched and unclenched his gloved fists after lowering his sleeve. “Working with magitech is delicate work. Errors are unacceptable.”

He really was a clockwork man, Lexi thought. Sort of. At least that explained how he was unusually strong for being so thin.

“Theoretically speaking,” the presbyter continued, “my implants, as well as the bishop’s, are the first magitech items that are capable of using wild magic as a power source. The main problem is that this functionality remains theoretical. I … haven’t yet figured out how to channel or control it. However! Every day I feel as if I am closer and closer to achieving a breakthrough with our subject down here. Magic itself is a fickle force of nature, and wild magic is one of the most powerful and efficient forms of magic we are aware of. If I can figure out how to harness the power of wild magic so crudely wielded by pagan women like my subject … it would revolutionize magitech science as we know it! You could power all of Abraxas with so little of it! Imagine the possibilities for future bionic implants, powered by wild magic! The human body in perfectly efficient synchronicity with perhaps the most organic form of magic of all!”

While Presbyter Talbot had been daydreaming, Bishop Ironside had pulled his undershirt back on and started dressing himself in his paladin armor. “Enough showing off. Lead the way, John.”

With the presbyter in front and the bishop trailing her, along with the two other paladin guards, Lexi could grit her teeth without being noticed as they marched down the hall.

These ignorant fuckers. Wild magic wasn’t just some fuel source—it was profoundly transformative. It fueled the shifting abilities of beastesses, sure, but it was also the source of those shifts. If she concentrated, deep inside of her own body, right now, Lexi could feel the wild magic of the Goddess of the Hunt circulating through her. It was in her blood stream, her nerve endings, her muscle fibers. It was intertwined with the essence of her soul.

Wild magic wasn’t just a resource to be mined for fun and profit.

It was a force of nature.

It was nature itself, as a force.

This was getting dangerous. In trying to find a new fuel source for magitech, Presbyter Talbot was playing with fire, and he had no idea.

Lexi had to get Mac out of there as soon as possible, safely back with her pack and out of the hands of this mad scientist who was recklessly tinkering with things he didn’t understand.

Speaking of Mac, there she was!

As the group walked by the glass wall of Mac’s cell, Lexi craned her neck to get a better look. Mac was laying in her bed, curled up under a blanket that barely covered her massive physique and turned away from the glass. A long rosette-spotted tail poked out from under the blanket and twitched every couple of seconds.

“Wait here,” Bishop Ironside instructed Lexi and Presbyter Talbot, once they were all inside of the clinic at the end of the hall. The bishop idly fingered the curved edge of a remote control hanging off his belt next to his sword, and motioned for the two paladin guards to follow him as he left the room.

The presbyter’s clinic didn’t look like what Lexi was expecting. It was more like a converted dungeon than a hospital room. Rather than austere white, the walls were instead made of bare carved stone, with shelving and countertops pushed up against it.

In the center of the room was a large shiny metal examination table lit up by a standalone overhead lamp attached to a multi-jointed flexible arm. There were four circles etched into the tabletop, their circumferences composed entirely of runes and symbols. At very specific points next to these sigils, if she angled herself just right, Lexi could see jagged claw marks and scrapes in the metal.

The countertops and shelves looked as messy as Presbyter Talbot’s lab above ground, with piles of tools, equipment, and instruments scattered across every surface. In one corner, on a tray labeled “TO REPAIR”, was a pile of broken magitech parts and devices. One of the devices looked like the remote on Bishop Ironside’s hip. All of the items were dusty, as if they hadn’t been touched in weeks.

Bishop Ironside and the two guards came back shortly after they had left, escorting Mac into the room in front of them.

The half-shifted jaguar woman, despite being the one in captivity, still maintained an imposing presence as she entered. Lexi could see how Syd learned to be confident under her guidance. Taller than even the bishop, Mac was clearly used to being treated like a wild beast, Lexi could see—she remained stoic, and made no attempts to pull against the holographic shackles on her wrists and ankles, nor against the muzzle on her semi-feline face. The sleeves of her orange jumpsuit were rolled up to the elbow, showing off her beefed-up rosette-covered furry forearms. She was probably the only one in the room who could take on Bishop Ironside one-on-one in a fight and win, even without shifting into her full beast form. No wonder Presbyter Talbot wanted more security.

After merely hearing about her for all of this time beforehand, there she was in the flesh, standing in front of Lexi for the first time. It felt surreal.

Without needed to be directed, as if she had done this hundreds of times before—which she probably had, Lexi thought—Mac unzipped the front of her orange jumpsuit. Because the chains of her shackles were holographic, they allowed the fabric of her jumpsuit to pass through but kept her wrists and ankles bound to each other to limit movement. Eventually, she was left in nothing but a plain white bra and matching panties.

Damn. She was ripped. She must know a lot about calisthenics after spending a year underground, Lexi thought to herself.

Mac shot a look at Lexi, raising an eyebrow. Lexi looked away and blushed. Stop ogling every buff woman you see, Lexi! Goddess above, give her some modesty!

“He’s just a student I’ve invited,” Presbyter Talbot said to Mac. “Pay no mind to him.”

Mac shrugged and laid herself down face-up in a supine position on the long metal examination table. Bishop Ironside pressed a button on the remote on his hip. The holographic shackles instantly swapped from binding Mac’s wrists and ankles to attaching their glowing translucent chains to each of the four circular sigils on the tabletop. The chains became shorter as their length gradually disappeared into the sigils, dragging Mac’s limbs along with them until all four of them were held in place against the table, spread-eagle.

The sight reminded Lexi about that night at the abandoned train station. She could almost feel the cold steel pressing up against her back.

She shivered.

Noticing Lexi’s shivering, the presbyter placed a hand on her shoulder and said, “I can tell you’re nervous, Alexander. But don’t worry—even if she were to use all of her abilities, I have programmed the magitech in her shackles and muzzle to strengthen their hold in proportionate response to any force she applies to them. You’re perfectly safe.”

“John,” Bishop Ironside said, “may I have a word with you about your … modifications?” He glanced over at Lexi and the two paladin guards. “In private.”

“Of course,” Presbyter Talbot said. “We’ll just go out in the hallway. My apologies, Alexander—we will be right back.”

The two of them stepped out into the hallway and closed the door.

Lexi looked over at the two guards, who were chatting away and only occasionally glancing at Mac and Lexi, before returning her gaze to Mac. The jaguar woman’s eyes met Lexi’s briefly before she resumed looking up at the ceiling.

[Let me guess, kid …] Lexi heard in her mind, the rough voice sounding like wet gravel. [You’re a beastess too?]

[Y-yeah. What gave me away?]

[You thought I looked ripped.] Mac looked over at her again and winked. Lexi had to avert her eyes and pretend to suddenly be very interested in the overhead lamp above the exam table. [You’re just like Sophie. You both broadcast your thoughts so loud that it’s like tuning in to an open radio channel.]

[Don’t wink at me!] Lexi thought insistently. [Those two over by the door might suspect something!] She worked up the courage to look at Mac again, who was looking the other way this time.

[All they’ll think is that you’re nervous around hot chicks. Trust me, kid—this isn’t the first time I’ve had to pretend to do something else while using mind-speech.]

[Listen!] Lexi leaned against a nearby countertop. [I don’t have much time. I’m with the Pack of Abraxas West—]

[Did Alpha Lea do the ritual to you too?]

[… Y-yeah, she did. With Syd’s help.]

[Damn, just like she and I turned Syd. Are you a trans girl, too? Like Syd?]

[Yes, but that’s not important right now—]

[Wow. What a great way to get a mole in the Church to get me outta here. Alpha’s so damn clever.] Mac smirked under the muzzle. [Your male disguise looks pretty good. What’s your name, kid? Your real one. Not whatever the fuck those chuds are calling you.]

[Lexi.]

[What kind of beastess are you, Lexi?]

[Uh … a coyote.]

[Huh. That makes you the second coyote beastess I know.]

[Mac, please!] Lexi pleaded, glancing at the door and back. Fucking hell, she didn’t have time for this chit-chat!

[All right, lay it on me.]

[You’ve met with Sophie before, right? Well, she’s with PAW now. Her and I are both still pretending to be with the Church—her as a templar, me as a cadet. We’re gonna bust you out of here, but we need your help.]

[PAW managed to recruit a cadet AND a templar? Color me impressed.]

[MAC!]

[Right. Hate to burst your bubble, kid, but I thought Sophie was gonna come up with the plan. There’s not much I can do in here.]

[Have you seen anything down here we could use to bust you out? Anything we need to be aware of?]

Mac snuck a glance at the two paladin guards, who were thoroughly absorbed in their conversation about last night’s soccer match.

[There’s two snags we need to figure out,] Mac spoke into Lexi’s mind. [First, the increased security around here lately, and second, the physical things keeping me trapped—in other words, my cell, my shackles, and this fucking muzzle.]

[I’ll talk to Sophie about the first. We’ll figure out how to lure the guards and Presbyter Talbot away one night. Maybe Sophie can take over a guard’s shift on the schedule or something. That way we can disable the cameras and the alarm in the security office.]

[Okay. As for the actual ‘busting me out’ part?]

[I, uh …] Shit. [I don’t actually know. Break open the cell?]

[No can do. The cell walls, even the glass one, are reinforced with magitech. They’re strong enough to withstand the force of ten or twenty beastesses. Trust me, if it were that easy, I would have busted down these walls a long fuckin’ time ago.]

[What if we steal one of those remotes? The thing on Bishop Ironside’s belt controlling your restraints? Would that open your cell too?]

[You would need to scan a guard’s ID on the panel next to the cell to open it, but yes, you would also need a remote too. The cell door won’t open without a remote in close proximity—for the guard’s own safety, they say. I saw a guard try to open the cell once and it didn’t work, because they left their remote in the security office. But even if you DID steal one of their remotes, they’re bio-metrically locked to the user. And if you forced a guard to use theirs, they could brick it on the spot.]

[Fuck!]

Lexi narrowed her eyes in frustration and looked away from Mac and the guards. Goddess above, there’s gotta be something they could do—

[Hold on.]

[What? What is it?]

[Make a distraction. Quick!]

Mac raised an eyebrow, but nodded as subtly as she could. The jaguar woman suddenly thrashed about, foam spraying out of her muzzle as she growled and hissed. She clawed frantically at the table with jerky, spastic movements.

“What the …?” one of the guards said, pulled away from his conversation.

“What’s wrong with her?” the other asked.

“I don’t know! Shit! Mikey, go get the presbyter!”

Mikey ran out of the room while Lexi looked around and rummaged through cupboards, pretending to try to find something to help Mac.

… But what she was really after was the pile of broken magitech in the corner she had spotted earlier.

Just as Bishop Ironside and Presbyter Talbot rushed back into the makeshift clinic and ran over to Mac to see what was wrong with her, Lexi snatched the dusty broken remote from the pile on the “TO REPAIR” tray and slipped it into her inside jacket pocket.

“What the hell is happening, John?” Bishop Ironside demanded as he and the other guards tried to hold her limbs down.

“She’s seizing,” Presbyter Talbot replied, taking Mac’s pulse. “Perhaps some residual side effects from—”

“Get her to stop, for God’s sake!”

[You can stop now, Mac,] Lexi thought.

[What did you do?] Mac slowed down her movements and took deep breaths.

“She seems to be stopping on her own …” Presbyter Talbot said. “I’ll give the subject a couple of minutes and check her vitals before proceeding.”

[I took a broken remote off the counter. I’ll have Meg take a look at it.]

[Goddess above, quick thinking, kid! Yeah, she’ll be able to modify it, no problem. Good job, Lexi.]

[We’re gonna get you out of here. I promised Syd, I promised Alpha, I promised Sophie … and now I promise you.]

[You don’t have to promise me jack shit.] Mac closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them. [You’ve got the best damn pack in the whole fuckin’ world on your side. Don’t worry. You’ve got this, kid. I know you do.]

Mac really was everything Syd had talked about. Ever the mentor, ever the giver, even when she was utterly powerless to do anything else. Lexi couldn’t help but smile. She pulled one hand up in front of her mouth to cover it.

[Thanks, Beta.]

Presbyter Talbot placed a few electrodes on Mac’s body and turned on the machine they were hooked up to, which whirred to life and displayed various numbers and waveforms that Lexi couldn’t interpret.

“The subject is stable,” the presbyter said. He flashed a grin at Lexi. “Let’s get started.”

He wheeled over a cart covered in miscellaneous medical tools and pulled on a pair of big black magitech gloves, which were sitting on the bottom shelf of the cart. He reached for a scalpel that had a handle engraved with a series of runes that glowed cyan blue as soon as they came in contact with the presbyter’s gloves.

Presbyter Talbot inserted the blade into Mac’s upper pec. Lexi winced with empathy as she watched Mac flinch in response. Wine-dark blood seeped from the wound, staining the top strap of her white bra, and the presbyter fetched a tray from the cart to collect the excess blood as it trickled down the jaguar beastess’s side. With some other instruments, he poked, stabbed, and prodded all over Mac’s body in a bizarre bloodletting process that Lexi couldn’t make heads or tails of—all the while looking back and forth between Mac’s body and the numbers on the screen nearby.

Every few cuts, red sparks of light would erupt from the wounds as soon as the magitech scalpel pierced her skin. Lexi recognized that blood red color—it was the color of wild magic. She had seen it in Alpha’s eyes when they first met, and on the glowing symbols drawn onto Syd’s skin for the ritual that had turned her into a beastesses.

Around these sparking wounds in particular, rosette-covered fur would erupt from Mac’s flesh and ripple outwards before disappearing. Presbyter Talbot seemed used to this, as he didn’t react at all when it happened.

His robotic movements looked unnatural as he carved symbols into Mac’s flesh with the precision of a laser cutting machine. Because they were unnatural, Lexi thought to herself. The magitech implants in his body must be kicking in.

Lexi couldn’t help but peer at the haphazard scars covering Mac’s flesh. As quickly as she was healing from some of the presbyter’s cuts, those scars were indicative that he had done far worse things to her before.

[Does he do this every time?] Lexi asked.

[Not always.] Mac gritted her teeth behind the muzzle. [Sometimes it’s just measurements. Sometimes—FUCK me sideways, that hurts!—sometimes it’s electroshock treatment. Sometimes it’s … things you’d be better off not knowing about.]

[Goddess above. I’m so sorry, Mac.]

[Don’t—SHIT!—don’t worry about it, kid. Play along.]

“Most impressive, Presbyter,” Lexi said. “How does this affect the subject’s wild magic?”

Presbyter Talbot talked with Lexi for several minutes about what he was doing, pointing at numbers on the screen and explaining what they meant. Lexi pretended to absorb it all like a diligent pupil, nodding her head occasionally and holding back the urge to slam the presbyter’s face into the monitor of the electrode machine as hard as she could.

“As you can see,” Presbyter Talbot concluded, “mapping out the wild magic of the subject is a delicate process. It is ever-shifting and changing. Opening a channel we can use is much like picking the world’s most difficult lock.”

“If we can crack it open, though,” Bishop Ironside chimed in, “we can do remarkable things. In fact …” He tapped the presbyter on the shoulder, who looked up at the bishop in confusion. “John—we should tell Cadet Carpenter what we were discussing in the hallway.”

“I thought we agreed that was private, Saul.”

“The part about your modifications, sure. But we can talk about the other thing.” Bishop Ironside motioned for the two paladin guards to leave the room. “Stand outside and close the door. We’ll call you both if we need you.” The paladins saluted and followed the bishop’s orders.

Disgruntled, the presbyter finally said, “Well … I suppose.” He turned to Lexi once the door to the clinic was closed and said, “Not a word to anyone about this, understand?”

Lexi nodded. “I promise,” she lied.

“Cadet Carpenter.” Bishop Ironside circled around the examination table to face Lexi, casting a shadow over her.

“Yes, Bishop?”

“When you reported back to my office after your reconnaissance mission, you told me that Sydney Beaumont had disclosed to you that the Four Packs of Abraxas were trying to turn non-beastess women into beastesses.”

“C-correct, sir.”

“Well, I must confess something—I was withholding crucial classified information from you during that meeting, related to what you had mentioned. But since we’re here in this underground clinic—” he gestured around the room, “—to provide you an exclusive education, and since you have demonstrated a remarkable improvement in your competence these past few weeks … I believe you have earned clearance to know what I am about to tell you.”

“Thank you, Bishop.”

“At ease. Call me Saul. We’re all friends here.” The bishop give Lexi a grin. A devilish grin. “Can you keep a secret, Alex?”

The words hit Lexi like a truck.

It wasn’t just that Bishop Ironside had used her deadname as opposed to ‘Cadet’—although that was jarring to hear too—but more so the specific question he had asked.

‘Can you keep a secret, Alex?’

Her mind was brought back to her childhood.

The last time someone had used those very specific words.

… When Rosie had asked her the same exact thing.

Pinching herself through the leg of her pants, Lexi was able to break free from the memory.

“Yes, Bish—I mean, yes, Saul.” Lexi nodded vigorously.

“What I didn’t tell you in that meeting,” Bishop Ironside said, still smiling like a demon, “was that John here is working on the same exact thing.”

“Same exact …” Lexi trailed off, before realizing the implication suddenly. “No!”

“It’s true,” Presbyter Talbot said, nodding. “One of the goals of my experiments on this subject is to discover how wild magic enables beastesses to shift their anatomy … and to perhaps see if it possible to imitate this process in non-beastess subjects as well.”

… Oh no.

Oh sweet fucking Goddess above.

The Supreme Church? With an army of beastesses—beast people, no matter their gender?

Lexi felt the blood drain from her face.

That sounded terrifying.

“T-that sounds amazing,” she said, her voice shaking.

“Doesn’t it?” Bishop Ironside laughed. “Those pagan scum won’t know what hit them, when we can wield the power of wild magic in the name of Father Sun!” He clapped Presbyter Talbot on the back and turned away.

Lexi felt sick to her stomach. She leaned over Mac and stared into her eyes.

[These FUCKERS!]

[Lexi …] Mac said carefully. [Calm. Down.]

She couldn’t help it. She was trembling, burning with rage inside. She gritted her teeth—fanged teeth.

[Beta, I want to fucking KILL them!]

[I know, trust me, but you’re going to blow your cover if you—]

[I don’t care! I’ll hunt them down like the PREY they are!]

… Mac suddenly cried out.

Roaring with pain.

It snapped Lexi out of her anger at once.

The sound of Mac’s roar was ear-splitting as it reverberated off of the carved stone walls of the clinic.

The blood that was seeping out of her wounds coagulated and stopped dribbling downwards. Instead, as if it had a mind of its own, it streamed down and across Mac’s body in a randomized pattern of shifting fractals. The patterns glowed red, pulsing, almost breathing.

Presbyter Talbot immediately backed away, and Lexi did the same. Bishop Ironside, with one hand on his blade, used his other arm to hold back the two paladin guards that had rushed into the room to investigate the noise.

Meanwhile, Mac, already half-shifted, began to transform even further.

The jaguar beastess thrashed about, clawing at the table and yowling in pain as her body approached her full beast form. Her shackles and muzzle auto-magically grew to compensate, but the examination table was reaching the limits of what it could handle as she reached eight feet, nine feet, ten feet tall.

Thinking quickly, Presbyter Talbot reached for a video camera from a nearby countertop and started recording.

Against her rosette-covered tan fur, the bloody pattern on Mac’s body arranged itself into symbols, runes, and sigils. They shuffled and spun across her body, sometimes slowly, sometimes rapidly, disappearing and reappearing periodically.

And then, right when Lexi was certain the table would snap in half under Mac’s weight or the force of her thrashing, the were-jaguar passed out. Her blood stopped moving and dripped down off of her, now regular blood again. Her body shrunk back down and changed again, going past her half-shifted state and straight into her human form.

“Interesting …” Presbyter Talbot muttered to himself as he stopped recording. “Very interesting indeed.”

Lexi couldn’t tell what was going through the presbyter’s head. Even with his explanations, she still didn’t know enough about wild magic or magitech to understand what those runes and symbols meant.

All she knew for certain was that they resembled the ones on Syd’s body from the ritual at the train station.

The ritual that had turned Lexi into a beastess.

Did … did Lexi trigger that? In her anger? In her desire to hunt? After all of the presbyter’s bloodletting, did her wild magic somehow activate Mac’s?

The thought of helping this sick fuck’s so-called “research”, even accidentally …

Her world spun.

She was clammy.

Sweaty.

“Alexander?” Presbyter Talbot asked. “Are you all right?” His words sounded muffled, like Lexi was underwater.

“I’m … I’m …”

Lexi spotted a waste bin, ran to it, grabbed the edges, and vomited.

The next thing Lexi remembered was being hauled to her feet. She was brought out into the hallway by Bishop Ironside, who helped support her weight as together they slowly walked back to the front security office.

“Have trouble with the sight of blood, Cadet Carpenter?” the bishop asked. “I’m surprised you lasted as long as you did.”

“Y-yeah,” Lexi stammered, leaning into the convenient excuse. “I tried to hold it back, but sometimes it hits me out of n-nowhere.”

“Feeling better?”

She took a few deep breaths, stepped to the side as the bishop dropped his arm, and dusted herself off—making sure the remote she had stolen was still in her inside jacket pocket.

“I think so, sir.”

“Good. Let’s call it a night.”

Lexi nodded in agreement.

Goddess above. That was … a lot.

But despite how unsteady she felt on her feet, Lexi felt confident in her heart. She had made some real progress tonight towards breaking Mac out of here soon.

Towards keeping her promise to Syd.

… Lexi thought about the other plan. The plan to figure out where Zoe was, and maybe where Tanya was too. Sophie had said that she was going to track down Ripley and interrogate her. Hopefully she could get some answers. Hopefully she could find out where her little sister was.

Hopefully.

Lexi prayed silently to the Goddess of the Hunt to keep Sophie safe.

She snuck a glance at Bishop Ironside, who was complaining to Reggie about someone in his “flock” of churchgoers at the latest Sunday Mass. Apparently this woman he was complaining about was “some dumb bitch who asked too many questions”.

Lexi managed—but only just so—to keep her anger contained by clenching her fists tightly.

Some “shepherd” the bishop was. He didn’t care about his congregation or the people of Abraxas at all. All he wanted to do was keep his “flock” in line.

Bishop Ironside, Presbyter Talbot, hell, even Archbishop Steele—none of them gave two shits about anyone except themselves and their fuckin’ Church.

Lexi smiled to herself.

Soon.

Unbeknownst to them, lurking in their flock, ready to signal her pack when the moment was right, ready to free the Church’s captives, ready at any moment to hunt these fuckers down as her prey …

… There was a coyote in sheep’s clothing.

And her name was Lexi Hunter.