Callie awoke from her violent dream inside a cage similar to the one she’d occupied at the veterinary hospital, the only difference being that this kennel was secured in a darkened room, the concrete walls and half-finished ceiling suggesting some kind of basement; someone had laid several large bedsheets over the top and three sides of the metal bars, lending it a vibe of a purposeful structure rather than an inhumane holding pen. She was still rather warm despite the late Fall chill, having been wrapped-up in several layers of familiar blankets; blood smeared her arms, chest, and mouth from the night before, but her normal clothes had reappeared with the end of her transformation.
Jersey’s, however, had not.
The little cow snuggled-up close against her chest, secure in her girlfriend’s embrace. Completely naked save for the cocoon of fabric the two shared, the bimbo seemed unbothered by all that had transpired after the wolf lost conscious control. Burdened by a growing mass of guilt, the taller girl checked her for injuries, gingerly drawing away the curtain of blonde silk from her smooth skin; inspecting the bits of her girlfriend with her fingers that she couldn’t see from her present angle, her touch jostled the sleeping beauty awake.
Yawning herself out of her own dream, Jersey offered a sleepy, satisfied smile to her lover. “Welcome back,” she murmured, nuzzling in even closer. “I half expected you to still be fluffy-moded.”
“All vanilla, I’m afraid,” the wolfgirl grinned back, covering her concern with conspiratorial humour. “I must’ve changed back this morning … ⸻ it is morning, right?”
“Who knows?” the little cow replied easily, fixing the other girl with a mischievous smirk. “It could be afternoon already, I suppose. You did an excellent job of tiring us both out last night.”
A slight blush creeping across her features, the amazon refused to let herself be distracted by the more prurient aspects of the previous evening. Though she’d lacked intentional control, she could recall clearly the sensation and emotions from her bestial dream; Bishop’s curse had meant to turn her monstrous form into a destructive creature while leaving Callie aware of whatever violence her altered form might commit, torturing her with regret and wretched understanding. Thankfully Genie and her mate had been there to stop her, but the fear that she might've done some irreparable harm gnawed at her insides.
“Did I hurt you?” she asked hesitantly, her tenor suffused with nervous contrition.
“Only in the sense that I won’t be walking right for a few days,” the other girl replied playfully.
Callie knew the ordeal had to have been far more terrifying than her girlfriend let on. “C’mon, sweetheart,” the amazon chided, desiring a brutal honesty and not a sugar-coated half-truth. “Be serious.”
“I’d rather be Jersey,” the bimbo returned drily. “I’ve been enjoying myself very well so far, and I hope to continue on as her indefinitely.”
“Alright, sure,” the wolfgirl grumbled, then wiggled an arm out of the mass of blankets so that she could wave towards the thick steel bars all around them. “I’d love to believe that you’ve been having nothing but good times, but I think it’s a little telling that we’re sleeping in a fucking cage in the basement.”
“It was my idea,” the little cow explained, running a small hand down her broad back as she petted her wolf reassuringly. “Genie and the girls from the vet had to set it up, but she and I agreed that a little kennel training was probably warranted.”
Callie couldn’t argue the point, but it nevertheless reinforced her own. “If I’m dangerous enough to need containment,” the amazon reasoned as she wiped at her mouth with her exposed sleeve, the dried blood caking her face and neck only further evidence of her fears, “then I have to believe you’re underselling what happened last night.”
“I’ll admit to that,” Jersey sighed disappointedly, “but it really wasn’t all that bad. Genie and I rehearsed the plan through the panel mesh in the van ⸻ once you settled down and stopped rocking the auto, I mean ⸻ and it wasn’t at all difficult to coax you into the house and down the stairs.”
The satiation of her wolfed-out appetite had grossly contributed to her docility, Callie supposed, so the story the minicow was feeding her was at least somewhat believable. While her sexual desire was nothing new after having spent the last several months in a teenage body, it was her craving for ‘the hunt’ that had surprised the amazon, her assumed predation becoming far too close to a literal need for her comfort. She would’ve liked to believe in the romance that she could recognise her mate at any distance and thus ensure that she wouldn’t ever be a threat to Jersey, but the flashes of violence she’d experienced before being afflicted by Genie’s soporific enchantment instead made her abundance of caution feel quite warranted.
“What about Xena?” Callie demanded, deciding to rip off all the bandages that she could, no matter how painful it might prove to be. “Or Melia and Mes?”
Jersey shrugged. “Xena’s quite used to your fluffy mode by now, so it wasn’t an issue.” Brow furrowing slightly, the little cow hesitated before continuing. “You were … a bit snappy towards Genie, but after we got you out of the auto you were much friendlier to Kelly, and dare I say quite affectionate with Candi.”
Callie couldn’t help but imagine what that experience had to have been like for the younger of the Andersen sisters. Left alone with the snow dog to watch the twins, it must have been quite the sight to see a gore-covered werewolf enter the house and loom over her with her enormous bulk, only to then be greeted with a snuffling snoot and licks of familiarity.
“So I was alright with the pups?” she tried again, apprehension building in her chest.
“More or less,” the other girl allowed, “or you didn’t try to harm them, at any rate. You’re not exactly capable of restraint when you’re like that, and part of me did worry that you might accidentally hurt them by sheer coincidence of your size.”
“That doesn’t make me feel great,” the wolfgirl sighed, letting a breath hiss between her teeth in self-chastising melancholy. “I don’t like the idea of being a danger to my family.”
“Nor do I,” Jersey admitted regretfully, “but there’s little we can do about it short of tiring you out during full moons.”
“Hence the kennel,” Callie agreed, annoyed that being treated like a dog was actually preferable in that instance.
As much as she wanted to believe that her victory over the cult had been total, the wolfgirl begrudgingly accepted that Bishop had achieved his aim with his dying curse. Now forced to abandon her reason on a monthly cycle, the werewolf was left in an unenviable position of having to corral her instincts second-hand; given her ability to tear through steel mesh like paper, Callie knew that the kennel was more of a suggestion than an absolute barrier, and something would have to be done to ensure that she didn’t simply escape it to go cause trouble somewhere else. The problem, of course, was that very few people were capable of calming the wolf’s bestial furore; aside from her mate, Kelly was somewhat ‘safe’ only because she was pregnant with Callie’s litter, and Candi’s scent together with her pups likely caused her to conflate the slightly-bigger dairy cow with her own minicow.
Taking a step back to examine the issue further, she realised that it was far more grim than she first expected. On both a rational and emotional level, Callie was quite fond of Genie, her feelings for the capable djinn straying dangerously close to romantic intention; if even that wasn’t enough to keep the wolf from snapping at her during the full moon, then the burden of subduing her baser impulses fell squarely onto Jersey’s shoulders.
Like it or not, her mate would be forced to spend slightly over a dozen nights each year placating the beast’s appetites.
“I don’t mind,” the little cow assured her, squeezing her wolf affectionately. “I expect we’ll need to find a house big enough to raise all the pups, but there’s worse fates than playing ‘milkbone’ once a month.” Read this novel at novelping dot com for the best experience.
Callie wanted to argue, but the other girl’s choice of words caused her to raise an eyebrow. “‘All’ the pups?” she questioned, an unfamiliar emotion stirring in her breast. “Surely you mean just the twins, plus the third from the night of the gala.”
“There’s at least one more than that,” Jersey corrected with a bashful grin.
“Already?” she squeaked in disbelief, voice cracking under the emotion of the sudden revelation.
“Blame your ‘enthusiasm’,” her girlfriend giggled, “or your half of the wishes, if you’d prefer. I don’t think cows are supposed to be obligate ovulators, but maybe minicows are the exception.”
Burning red all the way to the tips of her ears, the amazon struggled to suppress the exuberant joy exploding in her chest. Paradoxically, the severity of the situation only heightened her feelings of affection for her girlfriend, filling her with a queer sense of pride in her choice of mate. Still, a third litter running alongside the second was cause for a measured amount of worry.
“Isn’t it dangerous to have another so soon?” the wolf wondered anxiously, scared of what the answer might be.
“For most other girls,” Jersey acknowledged, though her smile hadn’t faded. “I expect little cows like me are ‘built different,’ to borrow one of your charming phrases, and our pups are too.”
Between the wishes and the vulgar enchantment left on the minicow from her time in the cult’s programme, her fitness as a baby-printer far surpassed that of other women. Magically protected from even the most-severe complications, the pups benefitted from the same fortifying sorcery as their mother; while the knowledge that Jersey would likely always be capable of having healthy litters was certainly a weight off their minds, the promise of a regular (and somewhat unpredictable) frequency to those pregnancies was somewhat humbling.
Either way, it was hard to be upset at the idea of sharing a large family with the mother of her pups. The matter of the curse was a problem that would need solving ⸻ and soon ⸻ but having the course of her life run parallel to Jersey’s had been one of the wolf’s most-secret wishes, and having it granted in such spectacular fashion satisfied that persistent ache in her heart, the emptiness that should’ve been filled with familial love.
Once again, Jersey had provided her with something she’d lacked for decades. Unable to properly communicate her gratitude in words, the wolf settled for physical affection instead; squeezing her lover in a tight hug, she let the sentiment pass between them, unspoken and yet still understood.
“Well,” the amazon rejoined after several moments had passed, “I suppose we can’t spend the whole day in bed, and I desperately need a shower.”
“I’ll get the hose,” her girlfriend giggled mischievously, delighting in her lover’s grimacing response. “What? That’s how you wash a dog, innit?”
Promising herself that she’d properly ‘punish’ the other girl later, Callie suffered her teasing with admirable grace.
Now that the mother of her pups was freed from the threat of sorcerous attack, the focus of the little family shifted away from its immediate defense and instead towards the direction of its future. Candi returned home to England to care for her own sizable brood, while Genie and Kelly settled into an advisory role to the mated pair. Given the considerable number of pups they’d have to look after, it seemed as though Jersey’s fate to be a stay-at-home mother was inevitable; Callie could help manage the workload for the last few months of highschool, of course, but eventually one or both of them would need to consider the harsh reality of trying to support a growing number of mouths to feed inside the hostile economic systems of the United States.
Jersey suggested using the last of the wish magic to give them a financial leg up, but Callie was stubbornly resistant to the idea. While the djinn’s abilities were very powerful, the Veil demanded that any extant riches stand up to the rigours of mundane inspection and so the wolfgirl believed that they’d be throwing the little cow’s last wish away on something fundamentally akin to nepotism, which she felt was a ridiculous idea when regular nepotism would work just as well. Naturally the two teens were absent any extended family and Kelly’s status as their legal guardian only extended so far into a country where she was a temporary resident, but the work the wolfgirl and her mate had put into the cotillion hadn’t been for nothing.
After Bishop’s death the cult folded in on itself as everyone attempted to point the finger at someone else, cutting ties with anything that might connect them to the ‘Megachurch Massacre’ (as the news media had been calling it). Suddenly needing to stock their options with new blood to help sneak out from under the threat of scandal, dozens of well-connected matrons had begun to call on Callie in their recruitment efforts, offering to trade high-society employment for the sake ‘conscientious handling’ of the ready-made blackmail the amazon had kept in her pocket. Jersey’s experiences in the megachurch-assisted programme and her night spent as a high-class escort had all been dutifully recorded by the couple, including the photographic evidence of Pastor Gary’s assault. Promising the wolfgirl that they’d boost her career in exchange for total silence, the wealthy elite of the city only contributed to their own undoing.
Elsa’s mother was more than willing to act on Callie’s carefully-collated blackmail, the Assistant District Attorney easily obtaining court orders that shut down the cult’s programme and indicted several of its larger contributors. While the criminal proceedings didn’t feature any sort of reward and the wolfgirl had to turn over the hush-money she and Jersey had been offered as evidence, the ADA was appropriately grateful to add such high-profile cases to her record and weed out systemic abuse in the process, and so she found Callie a job digitising documents at a municipal office.
The pay would’ve been decent as a full-time job, but for a highschooler it was far beyond what she could’ve expected to pick up elsewhere as an ‘unskilled labourer,’ though it still fell short of being able to fund the little family on its own. It made an excellent stepping-stone, however, and Callie used her first paycheck to incorporate an LLC; hiring Jersey and herself as its only employees, she was able to advertise her girlfriend’s technical skills as the company’s ‘product,’ allowing the minicow to plunk away at her laptop for a few hours a day as she steadily built a proof-of-concept version of her collaborative project with Candi. In a welcome bit of serendipity, they were able to sell the concept model to one of Candi’s former employers, an eccentric-but-likeable woman by the name of Honey Melons. Honey was an overseas film producer and owned and operated a respectable media corporation, including a number of adult entertainment websites and the like, and she happily seized on the potential of whatever it was the little cows had been working on together.
Insisting that the licensing fee was only fair for what the ‘product’ promised to provide, Honey’s subscription to Little Cow Studio’s technical services secured a solid financial foundation for the girls and their pups. Callie would still need to work her way through university, but she’d be able to do so knowing that her mate and their children would be comfortable-enough at home ⸻ at least, as long as they didn’t get crazy with their spending. Sticking to store-brand groceries and essentials wasn’t the glamourous lifestyle that wish magic might’ve allowed, but it would keep the couple floating just above the poverty line, and Little Cow had the potential to expand into something much more than it was.
Despite having secured a promise for the future, the demands of the present still weighed heavily on everyone. As more time passed since Jersey’s first wish, the Veil had become increasingly insistent that djinn’s time with the couple had reached its end. Extending their visitation for as long as they possibly could, it was clear that the beautiful dream of their time with Genie was approaching a rude awakening.
The first sign of the Veil’s influence wasn’t at-all subtle, and the fact that it didn’t strike the wolf directly was perhaps the cruelest part of its unthinking machinations.
Assistant Chief Baxter had escaped the cult’s implosion unscathed, burying his involvement by participating in the arrest of his former colleagues. Possessed of a self-aggrandising fervour, the hateful man’s memory for slights and insults was painfully long. Unable to attack Callie herself, he settled for torturing her second-hand, inflicting innumerable punishments on his ‘corrupted’ daughter. Drawing on the same playbook that the amazon’s own father had favoured, he subjected Megan to excessive surveillance, punishing her severely for anything he deemed to be even a single step out of line. Already consumed as she was by the trauma of her kidnapping and the violence at the megachurch, she folded under her father’s persistent abuse ⸻ but no matter how much she policed herself in an attempt to appease his lingering anger, he was committed to inflicting as much suffering as possible.
The message was clear as day to Callie; Megan’s ordeal was an implied threat aimed at the wolfgirl, an implicit acknowledgement of reciprocal violence if she ever attempted to implicate Baxter in any of the cult’s numerous crimes. The Veil itself supported the wretched man’s abhorrent behaviour, leaning on Megan’s ‘discipline’ as a stick to convince the djinn that it was time to move on from the young couple. Confronted by the designs of both the mundane and the magical, the mythical beast had no intention of giving in to such coercion.
“I’ll fucking gut him,” she growled to Genie one evening, the two women following after Xena as the snowdog meandered around the park, a familiar excursion that the three had shared half a hundred times together. “I’ll rip him in half with my claws, the same as I did Bishop.”
“That’s one way of handling it,” the djinn agreed, hands stuffed into the pockets of her jacket to hide them from the winter chill. “And as soon as Assistant Chief Baxter drew his last breath the state would find pretext for seizing Megan as its ward, or the basement freezer would short and set the house on fire, or a runaway auto would put itself through our front window.” This story is hosted at NovelPing.
Indulging in morbid musings as an object lesson, Genie was less-focused on the conversation and more on the wagging tail of the energetic Husky. Already well-aware that she was in the last days of the mistress-djinn relationship, she wanted to spend as much time with Xena as she was able; having grown far too attached to the canine, it was obvious to everyone that she would miss her dearly once her relationship with the couple had concluded.
“I can’t just do nothing,” the wolf sulked, chafing at the other woman's chastisement.
Frustrated with her inability to solve any of her pressing problems, Callie couldn’t help but fixate on them anyway; Megan’s situation was one, of course, but so was Genie’s impending dismissal. Perhaps the djinn’s departure ultimately wasn’t as severe an issue, yet it weighed on the taller girl’s heart; her fondness for Genie had steadily deepened during their time together, and she hated the idea that their relationship would end before it ever had a chance to begin.
Still obsessed with that one stolen kiss, the desire it implied lingered on her lips; she longed to return it in truth.
“You should be more worried about yourself,” the djinn remarked, easily intuiting the other girl’s internal monologue even without the aid of mind-reading. “The threat to Jersey and those around her will only worsen as we refuse to part. External forces aren’t the only method for the Veil to enforce its restrictions, either; it can just as easily exploit Bishop’s curse and maneuver you into doing something you will surely regret.”
“That’s why I need you here with us,” Callie insisted, her gaze fixed on Xena lest they meet her companion’s eyeline and so allow the djinn to discover the true motivation behind the wolf’s defiance. “No human is strong enough to take me, not when I’m wolfed-out.”
“Jersey manages it quite well, I should think,” Genie hummed, teasing the wolfgirl while simultaneously reminding her of her responsibility to her mate.
“You know what I mean,” she grumbled, a pink colouration creeping onto her cheeks from something other than the slight chill.
“I do, yes,” the djinn allowed, glancing at the other girl out of the corner of her eye, aware of the effect she was having on her companion. “I can’t say I’m thrilled about the possibility of an unleashed werewolf rampaging around the county, but that’s precisely why I believe you should be focusing on closing out Jersey’s wishes rather than attempt to drag this on any longer.”
Callie slowed to a stop, irritation warring with apprehension, the conflict visible in her slight grimace. Clenching her hands into fists, she struggled to accept the reality of the situation; Genie was right of course, the djinn’s two-thousand years of collected wisdom giving her a clear-eyed view of the long game, but Callie hated spending the last of Jersey’s incomparable gift on mitigating the wolf’s failure. If she had been just a little more clever or acted a little sooner, perhaps Bishop wouldn’t have been able to get his hooks into her.
The truth was that the wolfgirl had suffered because she had hesitated to embrace her violent nature. After Jersey’s soothing voice had begun to inhabit her internal monologue, she’d allowed herself a fatal mistake, believing that she could become something other than the monster that she knew herself to be. Her predatory form was a reflection of her truest self, after all, and its singular savage purpose was to rend and tear with claws and teeth. She was less a person and more an instrument of cruelty; Bishop had recognised that, the curse drawing out her bestial appetite, transforming the wolf into a version of herself that was just as authentic as the caring sire that she longed to become.
Instead of being the little family’s protector, she was now its burden ⸻ and the only woman who could correct that flaw would be forced to leave soon afterward. The finality of that parting frustrated her just as much as her own selfish desires, the taller girl grasping at something that she wasn’t supposed to possess.
“Still, though.” An understanding half-smile on her lips, the djinn kindly refrained from acknowledging the other girl’s avarice. “All things considered, this has been quite the entertaining distraction, and I'm a bit sad that it has to come to an end.”
Callie let out a bitter sigh, some piece of her hissing between her teeth alongside it. A ‘distraction,’ she says, the wolf thought, pointlessly raking herself over the coals she’d lit with her own reckless actions. Perhaps, as she should've suspected, that kiss had meant more to her than it had to the djinn.
“So, what,” she huffed, “I’m supposed to accept being Jersey’s problem and just give up on everything else?”
“Of course not,” Genie replied patiently, her consideration sounding slightly patronising to the wolf’s indignant ears, her tone warped by the other girl’s self-criticism. “I’m merely suggesting that you structure your battles rather than race headlong into one pyrrhic victory after another. Once you’ve resolved the matter of the curse, you’ll be in an excellent position to rescue Megan and then concern yourself with protecting your pups ⸻ but none of that can happen unless you first let me go. I’ve held the Veil at bay for vastly longer than is usually possible, but my techniques are nearing their limit.”
Out of all the rejections Callie had ever received it was perhaps the kindest yet, the dark-haired woman letting the wolf down gently. It was the only logical conclusion, of course, the necessity of the djinn’s parting painfully obvious, but the acknowledgement of that inevitability didn’t make her feel any better. Despite her best effort to hold everything in, the wolfgirl’s emotions still bled out onto her face in miserable honesty.
“I’m sorry, sweet,” Genie murmured as she held the taller girl’s gaze, a regretful cast to her conciliatory alto. “I promise that this is for the best. I’ve seen first-hand the sorts of tragedy the Veil can engineer and I’d hate to watch you or Jersey suffer in the same way.”
“But what about Kelly’s litter?” Callie tried, the desperate edge to her timbre painfully obvious. “What about Mes and Melia ⸻ I thought you said they were both of ours.”
A hurt look in her eyes, the djinn was gracious enough to overlook the hostility of Callie’s accusation, the wolfgirl’s remorse manifesting as misplaced anger.
“My personal feelings aside,” Genie replied in a strained voice, “I trust that they’ll be safe with the two of you.” Despite her firm tone, she still endeavoured to provide the taller girl with a measure of hope, perhaps as an apology for her Veil-mandated dismissal. “Besides, Kelly isn’t bound to the same strict rules that I am. I expect her interference will have to be somewhat limited, but the occasional visit with her and your pup isn’t entirely out of the question, and I’ll content myself with her report.”
A bitter consolation, it did little to soothe the wolf’s fallen mood. Callie knew she was being ridiculously stubborn, but she struggled to abandon her petulant refusal of the obvious ⸻ and it was pointless anyway, wasn’t it? To the djinn it might’ve been a pleasant-enough affair, but she’d never given an explicit acknowledgement of her intentions toward Callie. Perhaps the wolfgirl was merely catching hints of what she wanted to find in Genie’s heart, reading far too much into the moments they'd shared.
“... Kelly, huh?” Callie sighed despondently, an ache spreading through her chest. “But not you.”
“Not me.” Genie fixed her with a reassuring smile, but it was clear that her heart wasn’t in it. “It’s simply the way of things.”
The wolfgirl wanted to argue further, but Xena had at that moment decided that she’d greeted everyone there was to meet at the park and that it was time to return home. Forcing the issue would’ve upset either the snowdog or Genie, and Callie relented out of a desire not to offend either girl.
Letting herself be led along by her canine companion, the wolfgirl bit down on her feelings, smothering them under her tongue.