Time.
…
Stood.
…
Still.
…
…
…
Lexi didn’t know what to—
P
A
I
N.
BURNING
ITCHING
SEARING
CRUSHING
DROWNING
RIPPING
STABBING
SHOCKING
FLAYING
TEARING ME APART
TEARING ME APART
TEARING ME APART
FIRE FIRE FIRE FIRE FIRE FIRE
FIRE FIRE FIRE FIRE FIRE FIRE
FIRE FIRE FIRE FIRE FIRE FIRE
MAKE IT STOP
INSIDE OUTSIDE
OUTSIDE INSIDE
MAKE IT STOP
EVERYWHERE ALL OVER
EVERYWHERE INSIDE
MAKE IT FUCKING STOP
OH GODDESS ABOVE
HELP ME HELP ME HELP ME HELP—
[LEXI!]
A voice.
Piercing the agony like a sword.
[Lexi! Can you hear me?]
Is … is that …
[Syd?!]
[Yes, it’s me. I’m here, babe.]
[What? Where? HOW?!]
[Shhhh. Listen. Look at me.]
Lexi looked into Syd’s golden eyes. The wolf woman was down on her knees holding her upright, and Lexi realized she must have collapsed to the ground at some point.
[Breathe, pup. I’ll explain, but you have to breathe slowly for me.]
She did as she was told, slowing her rapid panting down as much as she could. The pain was still excruciating, but at least there was something else, someone else, in her immediate attention. The inferno inside her was ablaze, but not all-consuming.
That brief moment of calm helped her collect her thoughts.
And then it hit her all at once.
[You’re not moving your mouth.]
[Yup.]
[And I’m not moving my mouth either.]
[You got it. So how do you think we’re talking right now?]
There was only one answer Lexi could think of.
[With … with our minds?]
Syd nodded, her grin widening.
[Nailed it in one, pup!]
Of course.
Just like when the Goddess spoke to her.
Of course beastesses could communicate without speaking. It must be part of their gift from Mother Moon. It wasn’t acknowledged anywhere in her research, but it made so much sense in hindsight. That would explain how they seemed to always be synchronized in battle, as if just by looking at each other they could strategize—
[FUCKING HELL!]
[Stay with me, sweetheart. I have something that may help.]
Syd gently placed Lexi onto the grass of the soccer pitch to lay on her side and ran over to her duffel bag to retrieve something. Lexi clenched and unclenched her muscles involuntarily. Every movement she did to try to release the pain only seemed to intensify it again moments later.
“Found it!” Syd said aloud. Lexi was surprised she could tell the difference—
FUCK! Goddess above, that fucking pain!
Thinking was hard. Speaking harder still.
Don’t question the mind speech, she told herself. Wild magic. Just roll with it.
Syd crouched down next to Lexi, and before she could react to it, a second much smaller pain joined the cacophony of agony in her body, localized to a pinprick in her thigh.
[These are some of the nanobots we picked up yesterday,] Syd said in Lexi’s mind as she gently stroked her shoulder. [They’ll help keep your anatomy stable and make the pain more manageable. You’re going to be fine, pup. Just breathe through it. I’m here for you.]
Slowly but surely, the flames died down to faint embers—still hot, still burning her, but far easier to deal with, more like a really bad ache all over her body than an all-consuming hellfire.
With her mind able to process her environment again, Lexi realized she was no longer as chilly as she was moments ago. The ground she was laying on felt cool but comforting under her naked body. She rolled slowly onto her hands and knees, wincing, and ran her fingertips through the grass.
She felt … grounded.
It reminded her of her dreams from last night.
The soft green blades glistened in the moonlight as she stared at them, the rustling noise occupying her whole attention now, as she became fascinated by the wet yet fluffy feeling of the grass as it shifted back and forth ever so delicately under her …
Under her …
Paws.
Lexi bolted upright on her knees so she could look at her palms. Their flesh was puffier, darker. Rubbing them together confirmed they were rougher too. As she rubbed them, the ache in her limbs throbbed and intensified through her nerves and turned into a pain even the nanobots couldn’t suppress. It was like a constant electric shock erupting out of the tips of her fingers. She watched, transfixed, as her nails grew—they fucking grew—before her very eyes.
They grew. They darkened into obsidian black.
And they sharpened into full-fledged claws.
Her claws! She had paws and claws!
Lexi tried to laugh in giddy excitement, but immediately stopped and coughed, as her throat felt like she had just guzzled hot oil. Her voice sounded … deeper? Rougher around the edges?
The electric feeling in her … paws … turned into pins and needles that shot up her arms. Each and every tiny stinging spot sprouted thick coarse hair—no, fur—starting from her forearms and eventually covering both limbs. The color of the fur was tawny orange, becoming white-gray around her paws.
“Interesting color …” Syd noted, gently stroking Lexi’s fur and making it stand on end.
The fur had started migrating down her spine, and she could also feel it spreading down her legs, the muscles of which pounded with each heartbeat like she had just run a marathon. With each pulse of her blood vessels and each flex of her joints, it felt like her feet, her legs, and her torso stretched and stretched and stretched, a never-ending motion that simultaneously relaxed the tension and coiled it up again for another go each time. Her anatomy was unfurling itself—like her body was a paper map and she was unfolding it one square at a time, except the unfolding just never fucking stopped, the map exceeding the actual size of the territory inscribed upon it.
Syd slowly traced her fingernails delicately down Lexi’s spine. Trembling and twitching under her touch, Lexi moaned and huffed, a tingling sensation following closely behind the wolf beastess’ touch.
Down and down and down her spine.
Only it didn’t stop. It kept fucking going.
Lexi looked back and saw what looked like a gigantic fuzzy gray-orange caterpillar growing from the base of her spine, with a black furred tip at the end. That tingling feeling extended out of her lower back, above her glutes, out of her tailbone—because it was a tail!
She had a TAIL!
Fresh yet somehow familiar muscles pulled her new furry appendage back and forth. She could wag it too?!
Swish. Swish. Swish.
The sounds coming from it grew louder. She tilted her ears towards her tail to listen better—
Her … pointed ears. Which were now far higher up on her head.
Her head pounded with each heartbeat, the pain returning suddenly. Lexi doubled over in pain and squeezed her eyes shut as she cried out, her voice a guttural moan that turned into a full-throated bark. Was that really her voice?
Ear-splitting cracks and pops reverberated in her skull like gunshots. All of her teeth felt like they were inflamed, infected, jabbing her jawbone and the roof of her mouth. Instinctively, Lexi tongued them, and gasped.
Fangs. Sharp fangs.
A force originating from her sinuses pulled her face forward. Her upper lip split open right down the middle. Lexi brought one paw up to push back on it, to put pressure on the throbbing of her face, and felt it hit the tip of her nose way too early.
[Easy, girl, easy,] Syd cooed, petting the half-formed beastess. [That’s just your muzzle growing in.]
[It hurts, Syd! Goddess above, it fucking HURTS!] Tears streaked the tawny orange fur spreading across Lexi’s shifting face. She let out a high-pitched whine.
[I know it hurts, baby. I’m so sorry. Stay with me, pup. Wanna hear some good news?]
[What?] Lexi sniffled.
[I think I know what kind of animal you are now.]
Lexi felt her ears perk up. She had gotten so caught up in the process of becoming a beastess, of becoming some sort of were-beast, that she had completely forgotten to figure out what kind of creature she even was. There were no mirrors, so Syd was the only one who could see what she was becoming.
[R-really? What am I?]
Syd flashed her fangs and smiled, raising her eyebrows.
[A coyote.]
A … coyote?
Yes. Yes!
That felt … correct, somehow. Like she had always been this animal, deep down.
It felt like coming home after being away for such a long, long time.
The sheer joy of this revelation bubbled inside of Lexi’s belly, overtaking the pain she was feeling and grabbing her attention. She felt butterflies in her stomach that fluttered out into her chest and her limbs, the muscles in them tingling, urging her, demanding her to move.
And so she did.
The coyote beastess took off across the soccer pitch. She scampered around on all fours, stumbling a bit and picking herself up again as she adjusted to her new features. The wind in her fur, the smells of the wet grass through her new snout, the soft glow of the moon scattering across each surface, the feeling of each thud of her paws into the earth—she relished it all like a buffet of sensation. The endorphins surged through her with each pump and thrust of her limbs. It was easier with each passing moment. She could leap farther and farther with each bound, could run faster and faster!
Exhilarated after a few laps around the soccer pitch, Lexi came to a rough halt in front of Syd, who gave a low whistle of approval.
“Get a load of you, gorgeous!” Syd said, grinning ear-to-ear with her hands on her hips and looking up at Lexi’s new form.
Wait, looking up? Why was Syd so far down—
OH.
Goddess above, Lexi was fucking HUGE!
Standing up cautiously on wobbly digitigrade legs, Lexi brought herself up to her full height for the first time. She had to tilt her head back and forth to look at herself—compensating for the muzzle now in the middle of her vision—and what she saw made her gasp and widen her eyes in amazement.
She stood several feet taller than Syd—almost ten feet, judging by how the top of Syd’s head was barely chest height on Lexi now. Speaking of her chest, two mounds of furry flesh now protruded from her pecs, and as she ran her paws over them a sudden wave of pleasure made her eyelids flutter and forced a soft growl out of her muzzle. They were breasts! She had breasts!
In fact, all of Lexi was now absolutely Amazonian. She ran her rough paws down her tawny gray-orange fur—her fur!—to trace each and every curve of her new body, from the wider lats on each side of her torso down her narrow waist and strong core, to her much wider hips, around the back to her round firm ass, and up the length of her fluffy new tail. She flexed one bicep, then the other, and gave a barking laugh of shock at their size.
“Damn! You’re beefy as hell, girl!” Syd said admiringly. She reached up to squeeze Lexi’s muscles, and if her canine face hadn’t been covered in fur, Lexi was sure that Syd would have seen a rosy red blush forming on the coyote beastess’ cheeks.
Was that why she was able to run so fast? Lexi bent her massive legs instinctively at the thought. Her immediate surroundings, the concrete and grassy ruins of the arena, suddenly looked like nothing but a big playground to her. She felt—she knew, deep down, as naturally as she knew how to breathe—that if she wanted, she could break into a sprint, leap across the soccer pitch, bend one of the soccer field’s goalposts like it was a fucking paperclip, and chuck it clear out of the arena!
It was like someone had placed a magitech visor over her eyes that created a virtual reality character for her to pilot, except this body was real—she could feel herself embodied fully in it, inhabiting it.
This were-coyote was her.
A heat swelled in her groin at the thought, which caused her to look down closer at the fluff covering her private parts for the first time. She saw a fuzzy sheath, and protruding from it was … was …
NO.
THAT’S WRONG.
WRONG, WRONG, WRONG.
Emotion overcame her like a thunderstorm out of the blue. All-consuming sadness. All-consuming anger.
She had become a monster. A freak. Just as she had feared.
Her chest felt tight. Her breath quickened. She looked around in a blind panic, not really focusing on anything in particular.
The beast within took control.
Gave her a focus.
The far wall. On the other side of the field. There was an opening. Out to the flatlands.
Out to the darkness. No one would be able to see her in the darkness.
Run.
Run away.
GET OUT OF HERE.
NOW!
Lexi broke into a sprint on all fours. She pumped her paws into the ground as fast as she could.
She could get there easily, it would be so easy, keep going, almost there—
The coyote felt herself tackled to the ground. She thrashed around wildly, barely able to comprehend that it was Syd who had stopped her. This knowledge meant that she held back from biting or scratching Syd, but her fangs were still bared in a curled snarl of fury.
[Let me go! I don’t want you to see me like this! I’m a fucking monster!] Lexi roared into Syd’s mind. Her vocalizations turned to aggressive barks and growls, as Syd shifted bigger and bigger in an attempt to wrangle the rage-blind coyote beastess.
After a tense minute of fighting for control on the dewy grass, the gigantic werewolf woman—now fully shifted just like Lexi, and still bigger than her—finally managed to use her massive lupine body to pin down the were-coyote. Syd’s front paws held down Lexi’s wrists and her hips pinned the smaller beastess’ legs down as she thrashed about, her tail sweeping on the ground beneath her. Lexi foamed at the mouth and growled at Syd. She looked around the wolf frantically, trying to find an escape route, where she could run away and not be perceived, not be seen for how ugly she really was—
[Look at me, pup!]
Lexi obeyed.
She stopped moving at once and gazed into Syd’s golden eyes, tilting her head instinctively. The crescent moon dog tag on Syd’s spiked collar—which had grown to fit her larger neck, somehow—caught her ear with its gentle yet distinctive jingling.
There was something about Syd’s voice in her head, the terse and commanding tone she took with her, that almost instantly calmed the raging storm of emotion inside of Lexi, like a spell had been shattered with the right magic words.
Syd nuzzled the fur of Lexi’s neck with her cold nose.
[Attagirl,] Syd said.[Listen to your beta.Who’s my good pup?]
Lexi’s ears perked up.
[I … I am?] Lexi stammered in her mind.
[You mean, ‘I am, BETA,’] the wolf sternly corrected, tightening her grip on Lexi’s wrists and pressing her hips down. [Remember who you are talking to right now. Respect your superior. Try it again.]
With a yip and a whimper, the coyote girl said, [I am, Beta!]
[That’s right!] Syd replied, the warmth in her mental voice carrying through.[You’re my good puppy … yes you are …]
Lexi felt her tail wag against her will underneath her. It came as naturally to her as blushing.
She could have melted into the ground right there.
But instead, in her excitement and overwhelming sense of gratitude, Lexi leaned off the ground ever so slightly and licked the tip of Syd’s nose.
Syd gasped. She took her paws off of Lexi’s wrists in surprise.
[Oh no, Beta!] Lexi said, her paws covering her snout. Her ears flattened against her skull. [I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to—]
Her thoughts were cut off by Syd licking her nose back, grinning toothily down at her.
Syd gave her even more gentle licks with her broad flat tongue, all over each side of Lexi’s muzzle. It was the closest thing they could do to kissing, given their present forms, but the affection and approval that Lexi felt from Syd’s touch felt amazing.
And the wolf’s scent! Scents, plural!
They were positively intoxicating!
It was like her senses had previously only limited her to black-and-white ways of experiencing the world, and now she could somehow smell in the equivalent of a full color spectrum.
Lexi could pick out the smells as distinctly as the colors of a painting—the wolf’s hot breath tinged with her previous meal, the dank musk of her fur, the damp earthy dew clinging to her, even the saltiness of the sweat glands in her paw pads.
She could appreciate Syd in all of her glory now, with all of her senses—especially sound and smell—cranked up far beyond what she could have ever imagined before.
The coyote’s paws wrapped around the broad furry torso of her mate, of her beta, as her claws scraped down her back.
[EASY, pup, that stings!] Syd said, wincing.
Pulling her claws back slightly and easing her touch, Lexi gave an apologetic whimper.
With a rough-sounding chuckle, the werewolf on top of her swung one leg over Lexi’s, so that Syd was straddling Lexi’s thigh and grinding her own thigh into Lexi’s member.
No, wait!
This is WRONG, remember?
That … thing between her legs shouldn’t be there! It’ll ruin everything!
Got to get away, get away, run away, run, RUN AWAY—
[Shhhh,] Syd whispered in her mind, quieting those racing thoughts. [Listen to Beta, my sweet puppy. Don’t think about what’s there. No one is judging you. There’s no expectations here. It’s just you and me. You and Beta.]
Syd grinded her hips into Lexi’s thigh. The lips of her vulva felt slick and wet against Lexi’s fur. From her own groin, which she couldn’t see (and probably all for the best she couldn’t), Lexi could feel the massive quadriceps of the wolf woman’s leg flexing and pulsing against her with every thrust.
[Just focus on the feeling. Doesn’t that feel good, my pup?]
Lexi nodded obediently. She didn’t want to disappoint her beta, after all.
And … and Syd was right. Beta was right.
It felt so fucking good.
Lexi held onto her beta’s back so she could thrust in return as they established a rhythm together.
They grinded against each other under the moonlight back and forth. The beastesses were two hulking muscular bodies, two furry feminine figures, two massive wild monsters, united as one in their passionate energy, lost in the throes of their primal mating instincts.
Syd’s grunting and huffing quickened, and she pressed her nose into Lexi’s scruff. On pure instinct, Lexi tilted her muzzle off to one side, exposing her neck in an act of submission to her beta. With a grateful growl and a wolfish grin, Syd chomped into Lexi’s flesh. The coyote girl barked and whined in agony and bliss, as her beta established dominance over her—putting her in her place, letting her know that Beta was in control here, that Beta was in charge, that Beta would take care of her, that it was Beta who was guiding her on this amazing journey of exploring her new beast-like form.
A pressure built within Lexi. Deep in her belly, and pulsing through her whole body. It was a rising tide, a wave growing ever larger as it approached the shoreline.
Lexi was a mindless animal, humping and grinding away at the most beautiful creature she had ever beheld. She couldn’t possibly think of anything else at the moment—only gratitude.
Gratitude to the Goddess of the Hunt for bestowing Lexi with her divine gift.
Gratitude to her pack-mates for their support and kindness.
But most of all, gratitude to Syd.
Gratitude to Beta.
Lexi was her pup. Syd was her beta.
And that was perfect.
The claws of her hind paws dug deep into the wet earth for traction, and her forepaws dug equally hard into the wide gray-furred back of her mate. Every muscle in Lexi’s body clenched against her will. She felt like a coiled spring. Like she could move mountains if she flexed hard enough. If it weren’t for Syd’s own formidable strength, she could have thrown the wolf off of her, easily.
Lexi felt powerful … primal … unleashed …
… And for the first time in her life, she felt so … fucking … STRONG!
[Beta … I’m … I’m so close!]
[Yes, YES, my beautiful pup …]
Both beastesses howled at the top of their lungs as they climaxed, bathed in pale moonlight on that abandoned soccer pitch, writhing and yowling in pure ecstasy.
Wave after wave of rolling orgasms shuddered through Lexi’s massive form. Noises escaped her throat at every register—whimpers, moans, growls, whines, snarls, yips, and howls. She clung to Beta, clung for dear life, as unbelievable pleasure racked the coyote beastess over and over again in spasm after spasm.
It was magical.
No fucking thoughts. No fucking overthinking. No fucking anxiety. No fucking fear. No fucking envy. And especially no fucking shame.
Just …
… Fucking.
The waves crashed.
The pleasure dulled.
Lexi panted heavily, her tongue rolling out of her muzzle, as she laid there absolutely spent.
Exhausted, even.
So tired.
So very, very tired.
[Beta …]
Recovering from her own post-orgasm high, Syd tilted her head and looked down at Lexi with sudden concern, shaking the were-coyote’s shoulders with both paws.
[Hey, stay with me pup. Lexi, stay with me! Lexi!]
But Beta was so hard to hear.
The wolf seemed so distant.
And the sky looked so full of stars.
And the full moon had never before looked so beautiful.