The Raider

The heavy footfalls of the men in front of him kicked up reddish dust into his eyes. Emil waited for a moment on the rocky ascent to let the pair make some ground. Unlike himself, they weren't dressed for climbing hillsides, let alone visiting the ancient temples of the long-gone Acesh civilization. Ultimately, this meant Emil was better suited than the rest for escaping if anything went south. Chestplates tended to slow a treasure hunter down.

"How's Pipp doing?" asked the larger one, pausing and dislodging a pebble from the steep hill. Emil to ducked to avoid it as the rock tumbled precipitously toward the mesa's base. He believed this one was named Feargus. The man was a brute. As someone who'd delved into burial places for a living, Emil was well acquainted with people like him, although this one fancied himself a sort of knight.

Emil glanced back at the straggler of the group, Pipp, puffing several meters behind him. "He's managing," the tomb raider replied. "The boy's not built for this sort of climb."

He sympathized with the frail fellow: Pipp was dressed as a scholar of Aceshi magic. Emil could read a sufficient amount of the dead language to decipher warnings on tomb walls, but that took years of practice and plenty of near-death experiences. For a kid of Pipp's age to be able to read and cast their words of power would necessitate years of sitting inside and pouring through manuscripts. It didn't lead to a life of regular cardiovascular activities.

"I would never have imagined this hill used to be a stairway," proclaimed their fourth member, Dammion. He was the leader of the other two. Yet another comely noble son from the north, displaced by inter-kingdom politics and performing the fabled Pilgrimage of the Thirteen Temples. His type showed up in the city every few years with courage to toss around and a profound lack of street sense. History showed whoever completed the Pilgrimage was granted strength from the gods to reclaim their birthright. Emil didn't think anyone had been persistent (or shrewd) enough to complete the journey in a very, very long time, though.

"Go on ahead and I'll help him," replied Emil. "We're almost at the temple gate." He stared out at the view their height afforded them. They were close to the top of the steplands, named for the way the red-brown mesas formed steps leading higher and higher into the sky, 'to the gods', it was claimed. Emil preferred the valleys nearby to civilization, but all the barrows and tombs close to the city were picked thoroughly dry. He jumped at the opportunity to act as both a local guide and a potential profiteer, if the place they were going to remained successfully untouched after all these years.

The two men upfront hurried ahead, and Emil waited until Pipp crawled up alongside him. "Try to follow my route and you'll have an easier time," he advised. The rest of the trip skyward was slow going, but the air was fresher now with their other allies far enough in front. Pipp graciously accepted Emil's hand as they reached the lip of the mesa and rested momentarily in front of the gates to the old temple.

The boy sat at the mesa's edge and wiped the sweat from his pale forehead. It was difficult not to treat someone like Pipp as a younger brother. In truth, Emil had no idea how old the guy was, but he was certainly the size of some of the kids which cut purses in the marketplaces. He sat next to him, shielding his eyes from the glare.

Unlike the scholar, Emil was sun-baked, but without any shade the heat affected him just as acutely. In the brushland far at the base of the steps, water flowed under the shade of date palms and impalas lounged at the river's edge. Shrubbery painted the soil with a green-yellow stubble. It looked much more preferable than up here. They'd spent the past month traveling through it, following the directions of village elders and half-remembered rumors.

"Shall we catch up to them?" the boy asked, forcing himself to his feet. Emil joined him and walked past the sandstone gates of the temple's walled courtyard.

He tried to remember anything his mentor told him about temples in this part of the country. "Who is this place dedicated to?" Emil wondered. Pipp lit up at the question.

"Innanasha!" he piped up from behind his curly red mop of hair. "The ancient Aceshi goddess of beasts, fertility and thresholds. One of the Aceshi Thirteen, of which the prophecy explains--"

"I know, Pipp. You told me about the prophecy on the way here. Dammion is questing to liberate his father's lands."

The young scholar nodded. At the opposite end of the empty courtyard, the temple face was carved into the next step of the great mesa, popping out of the same material as the rock around it. Holes were carved out of the cliff side as windows to allow light into the holy place. Flanked by a pair of pillars which were once fluted but were now worn flat, the portico yawned unwelcoming.

Feargus and Dammion were nowhere to be seen. "It looks like your friends were so excited, they didn't even wait for you," Emil noted, amused. He only hoped the areas of the temple that were readily accessible to the public weren't warded with any untriggered boobytraps.

Pipp ran on ahead into the darkness of the temple entrance. Emil stretched his legs in the courtyard, wondering to himself. "Innanasha… Innanasha… did old Ioseph ever mention her?" Emil's mentor could be equal parts lucid and scatter-brained when he'd tutored him. The man saved him from a life on the streets purely because Emil was the right size to squeeze into the tunnels in the Tomb of the Lost Family, which had been recently uncovered at the time. Whatever concrete lessons Emil learned were due to his own initiative and a fair amount of intuition.

Regardless of whether he could recall anything Ioseph said, Emil didn't like the idea of a goddess of beasts. He hated animals-- dogs especially-- and he was thankful to be free of them when he traveled out to the valleys surrounding the capital for his jobs. Most wild animals were smart enough to leave him alone, but when it came to urban living… well, city strays could be especially nasty. The rats were okay, he supposed.

He stopped at a square basin carved out of the rock in front of the temple. Inside, clear water ran from a pair of holes, coming in one side and out of the other. Emil cupped a hand and scooped up the cool, shimmering liquid, sipping it. On a hot day like this, it was so refreshing it tasted sweet. He recalled snippets of a tomb mural he'd passed by many years ago. It showed priestesses washing their hands and feet, "to show they were not simple beasts", the accompanying logograms claimed.

Well, he wasn't a beast either. He poured some more water from the basin on his hands and took his sandals off to wash his dusty feet. The red dust caked underneath his fingernails dissolved in the cool liquid. His feet dried just as quickly in the heat of the sun and he hurried on into the darkness underneath the sandstone threshold, after the rest of the men.

There was a short entry tunnel into the temple proper. Emil stopped to read some Aceshi logographs chiseled into the wall. Beams of light cut across the messages diagonally thanks to the morning sun. The difference in intensity between the sunlight and the darkness of the temple was so harsh he could only make out half of the words. None of the paint which would have covered the surface a thousand years ago survived.

"...a transformation will occur…" he spoke out loud, his fingers running along each of the logograms. He finished the line and moved onto the one below, reading the second half of a statement much larger than he could see. "...entering the domain of the goddess…"

Emil scoffed at the last sentence. Every tomb he'd ever plundered said something about entering the domain of the dead near their entrance, yet he'd never encountered any resistance from the corpses while he was slipping rings off their fingers or prying death masks from their skulls. He skipped the rest of the warning and pressed on into the darkness.

A singular box of light shone from the ceiling onto a pedestal in the center of the room. Glittering at its center was a golden staff, a filigreed mirror on its end. Emil approached the threshold of the antechamber carefully, testing each tile he tread on before shifting his weight to his heel.

"Emil!" Pipp burst from his right. Emil jerked toward the hallway by instinct, a hand dropping to his knife.

"You frightened me," complained the treasure hunter. "Don't do sudden movements inside a tomb, my friend."

"Sorry," Pipp apologized sincerely. "But look at this antechamber! It's got an entire story written along its walls." The scholar seemed giddy, bouncing around like a little girl.

Emil examined the closest murals, supported by copious logographs documenting what they meant. It started with the same scene he recalled from before, with priestesses washing their limbs. Then the priestesses got on their hands and knees and prayed to their goddess. Then… good gods, what was the next picture conveying?

A blinding glare flashed over his vision and his attention shifted to Pipp, near the center of the room. Any way the light hit the staff, it found an angle to shoot right into your eyes.

"Pipp…"

The boy advanced upon the pedestal with the inset staff protruding from it.

"What an amazing artifact," the boy gushed. He was so excited his voice went up an octave. "This could be the Staff of El-Sisi!"

"Pipp!" Emil's voice cracked rather embarrassingly, but he'd gotten the boy's attention.

"What, Emil?"

"Where are the others?" And why did his voice sound higher than normal?

The scholar tripped on a broken step and fell into the staff. Chaotic arcs of rainbow light flashed across the room from the artifact, searing their retinas. Both men staggered and covered their faces.

The chamber rumbled.

His eyes widening, Pipp squealed. "Watch out!"

The floor tiles were collapsing around Emil. Accustomed to sudden traps, the tomb raider leaped and hopped like a macaque towards the scholar, but each tile he touched seemed to be crashing downward even as he landed on it. He made one last spring at the center of the antechamber-- one he should have made easily-- but it felt as though his chest was weighed down by the slightest extra pound, adequate for him to fall short. The man slammed against the side of the pedestal and his fingers slipped. He tumbled for several seconds until his head met stone.

The world went black.

When Emil awoke it was in total darkness. The back of his skull throbbed and his brain was foggy despite the lack of vision. He checked his limbs for any injuries, but it felt as though he'd gotten away without any broken bones. It was odd that his muscles felt softer than usual; likely, they were tenderized from the fall.

Something brushed his foot. His immediate instinct was to kick out, and in response a pained whine echoed in the blackness.

A Dog?

The treasure hunter swallowed the panic he felt and jumped up with his arms out in front of him in a defensive posture. His knife was nowhere on his body, lost during the fall. After a minute of steadying his breathing, whatever he'd kicked didn't reappear. In the utter darkness of wherever-he-was, the tomb raider inched carefully until he touched a wall with his left hand.

This wasn't so bad. He'd experienced something similar a few years ago in the Sepulcher of the Serpent God. Raising his hopes up, but not softening his caution, the man took each step slowly. Without sight, time lost its meaning. The rough-cut sandstone wore on his fingertips and the stuffy air smelt like a mixture of tomb dust and another scent he couldn't put his finger on-- like what your damp hair smelled of after a sudden rain caught you in the street.

He didn't know if he'd been eking ahead for several minutes or an hour, but eventually, a sliver of light peeked out at him. Smiling and redoubling his effort, Emil ran face-first into the solid rock door to another room. He pushed, almost in vain, against the stone portal. His grunts sounded almost womanly in his ringing ears. Finally, the massive slab budged and the raider slipped past it into the next chamber. A semi-circle of sunlight dazzled his vision, and he tripped and fell onto the floor. Thankful to at least be somewhere new, Emil scrambled to his feet, examining this new location.

Windows cut into the rock wall to the left and skylights carved into the vaulted ceiling cast rectangular and cylindrical tunnels of light across the gigantic chamber. Some of them fell as great beams of white on the wide stone pillars supporting the roof, others illuminated the grimy red-brown sandstone floor, its tiles covered by the detritus of hundreds of years. It felt to Emil as though the entire inside of the mesa had been hollowed out for the goddess's domain, although most of it remained in shadow to him. He was somewhere on the side of the chamber, if the wall with the windows was in the direction of the entrance he and Pipp had come in from.

At its center, a tall statue of a pregnant woman with a dog's head watched over the rest of the room. Her arms were wide open in welcome. This wasn't a statue he'd ever seen inside the tombs he'd raided. Emil's eyes hadn't adjusted to the dim light and he couldn't spot any of the other men. All over him, he felt a chill building on his skin.

It was dead silent save for the patter of disturbed pebbles. He called out to the others.

"Dammion!" His voice was high pitched, undoubtedly feminine. "Pipp? Hello?!"

There was something very wrong in this temple. He needed to find the exit and flee, cut his losses and return for the others when he could analyze the situation. As he rushed past a bronze reflecting disk, a twinkle caught his eye and he peered into the mirror-shined surface.

What he saw was a woman's body. His-- no, her-- nipples stiffened in the cold air. She was stark naked.

Emil cried out. Forgotten sorcery froze her limbs and she twisted ineffectually in its grip. Goosebumps rose over her slender body, widened eyes framed by long lashes. Never one for piety but seeing the futility of her situation, she pleaded with whatever spirits still dwelt in this holy place.

"Let us go!" Her reflection wobbled in the polished disk like a mirage. "We meant no disrespect by entering!" The tone she took on was firm, but a slight waver belied her panic. Where were the others? Were they taken hold of by this same magic? By the gods, what spirits possessed such power to transform a man without him even noticing?

A growl answered from out of the corner of her vision. Emilia recognized the musky, nasty scent of unwashed mutt she despised from her time as an urchin in the city. Her eyes began to adjust to the gloom and she could make out the figures lined up together in the center of the temple, out of the wide but delineated beams of sun.

Her allies were on their elbows and knees on the temple floor. They too suffered the same transformation as her own. Feargus, or Fergie, was as thick-muscled as ever, even as a woman. Her biceps tensed as a wolf took her from behind. A second beast stood with its jaw wrapped around her neck, a warning against any further resistance. Pipp, now Pippa the scholar, struggled to lift herself off the floor. The wolf taking her slim, pale rear was forcing her downward, and the girl's mouth was filled with the cock of another member of the pack. It was fucking her face so quickly Emilia could hear her companion sputter as she tried to draw frantic breaths.

The tomb raider gasped and held her chest. What in the Five-Hundred and Thirty-Seven Nights was happening here? What the fuck was going to happen to her?

Inside the darkness of the chamber's recesses, white pinpricks lit up in pairs like tiny reflecting disks, staring at her. Emilia's legs buckled. Visions of her most horrible night as an urchin flashed through her eyes, bouncing off the twin mirrors trained at her from the ink-like dark.

The city's strays were starving that night. Weak and starving herself, the pack tried to make a meal of her in the gutter of a main street as the city's citizens walked by. Her screams were ignored until, by happenstance, a treasure hunter was passing by who needed someone small enough and brave enough to crawl face-first into darkness. Emilia's limbs still itched from the way the mutt's teeth tore at her skin. It was the event which made her indebted to old Ioseph, what turned her from an orphan without a purpose and into a useful tool.

Canine eyes hovered forward, their hungry maws emerging from the black and closing in around the group.

"No, please…" she stammered, "not again!"

They were going to finish the job. They were going to have their fun and then feast on her.

The malign force compelled her shaking legs to walk to her spot in front of the illuminated statue, in line between Pippa and Dammion, or Dammina. A wolf finished inside the noble's mouth and pulled out, which gave her leave to cough out the runny semen and talk to Emilia as the packmember mounting the maiden dug his claws into her thighs. She seemed surprisingly composed, holding herself up as high as she could on her hands and twisting to the right to speak to her companion.

"Emil, you're alive!" A mixture of pain and wonder glistened in her eyes. She grunted as her mate picked up its pace, drool dripping from its mouth onto her blonde locks. "This must be a test to prove we're worthy of the goddess's blessing!" The inflection in the noblewoman's voice betrayed her own concern.

Witchcraft pushed on Emilia and forced her to her hands and knees. From afar, they looked like a row of priestesses praying at an altar. She cringed and breathed heavily as some of the wolfpack approached and sniffed her. Emilia wanted to retch from the feeling of their mangy coats brushing along her thighs and side. She needed to do something, anything, to get herself out of this situation, but she was equally paralyzed by shock. On her left, Dammina placed a hand on Emilia's own. She could see the unbridled terror in her friend's eyes.

"Don't be afraid, Emil. They"--she gasped, her eyes narrowing as the wolf on top of her appeared to finish--"aren't too big." Her pained smile was an attempt to be reassuring. The lady's partner skipped one leg over her rump and sat ass-to-ass with Dammina, knot tied. "It's not too bad," she continued. Her unblemished white skin was covered in the fine grit which coated the sandstone tiles of the floor, sticking to her sweat.

Just then, one of the shaggy mongrels behind Emilia lapped at her labia and reality snapped to the forefront. She yelped and instinctively raised her hips away from the beast's muzzle, but the action served to excite it further. Her canine rapist climbed on top and positioned its slimy red rod against her entrance.

She screamed as fear began to win over all other thoughts. "No! I beg you, don't!"

Suddenly, a pair of white eyes flashed out from a hole in the base of the goddess' statue, snarling so loud the rest of the pack fell into silence. Emerging from its den, the largest of the pack strode confidently toward Emilia while its subordinate on top of her scurried off. An erection was beginning to poke its way out of the monster wolf's hairy sheathe.

"Oh, gods above," Emilia exclaimed, shivering and dropping her head. There wasn't a doubt in her mind: this was the alpha.

Dammina cried, "Please, take me instead! Spare my companion, she's…"

Her steady voice quieted as the wolf drew closer. "...scared."

The alpha paused between her and Emilia, its musky cock's crude circumference growing evident as it engorged next to the two women's faces. Emilia watched as her companion's eyes widened gradually in proportion to the beast's pole.

Its scent was so heavy it replaced the oxygen in the air. Emilia gasped for breath. As the alpha sniffed at both the women's asses, its sack the size of two apples throbbed. Making its decision, it moved past the two girls and positioned itself behind the tomb raider, driving her onto her elbows with a weighty paw on her shoulder.

"No, no! I'm sorry!" she shrieked, distressed. "I swear I'll never-- never again--"

Pressing on her chestnut labia with his pre-erection, Emilia was so freaked out any semblance of cohesive words no longer left her lips. Dammina gripped the girl's left hand tightly, and Emilia's right swung out to grab at the canine's thick right wrist.

It pierced her-- or more accurately, it parted her. The alpha's massive bulge spread her untested walls apart, fighting against a hole clenching in terror yet lubricated by the ancient magics of the temple and the pheromones of its superior intruder.

She was afraid of the creatures surrounding her, afraid of the pain, confused and choking on stuffy musk. Tears streamed from the corners of her eyes and cleared channels through the red-brown dirt sticking to her cheeks.

"Get it off, get it off!"

"It's okay!" Dammina responded as much for her own sanity as for her companion. "You can take it! You're strong!"

Blood filled the wolf's shaft, expanding it further inside the woman's tunnel, forcing her to conform to its shape. Her belly bulged slightly.

"It's splitting her in two!" Fergie yelled. She tried in vain to shake off the mutt knotted inside her, but it forced the muscled woman's face into the dirty chamber's floor. Being dominated by a beast she would have tossed off with a hand if she were not weakened by the temple's magic, her face took on a bright red blush.

The alpha started to pump. Emilia choked up weak grunts as its veiny member slipped squelching in and out of her. Every time she tried to open her eyes, the tears poured out, clouding them. It felt impossibly hot where its pelt rubbed her ass.

Whether it was the pain or arousal, a sheen of sweat formed on her and ran in rivulets over her dusty belly. Tears mingled with the equally salty fluid on her face and dripped from her chin at the end of each powerful thrust. Her panicked squeezing made her maidenhood grip the length of the shaft, carrying her rear up slightly as the wolf withdrew, gravity sliding her onto her scraped knees alongside a drenched sqrch.

At first she tried to bite her lip to bear the feelings, but the muggy scent of canine suffocated her and she needed to breathe through her mouth, releasing guttural huffs drawn out from her mate's deep pounding. The alpha's cock was searching for some hidden mechanism inside her, tapping down on her pressure plates to feel out where her defenses were. Emilia wanted to fight it, but she could barely suck in air for her burning lungs.

The end had to be soon, right? This stupid mutt's cock couldn't possibly get any larger inside her, pressing as it was on every square inch of her surface area, exploring every nook and cranny for her treasure. Its penis pierced her life force and withdrew it along with her juices. All her limbs ached and shook precariously from the battering ram smacks of its knot against her undefended clit.

Emilia panted in the damp air, garbled groans scratching out of her throat each time the beast sloppily re-entered her in opposition to her resistant folds. The corners of her vision were seeing stars, more white pinpricks to join the reflectant eyes of the wolfpack watching bewitched.

Suddenly, it was like the wolf's girth snapped a tripwire, sprung a trap. All Emilia's muscles tensed up and she held her mouth open, dumbfounded that her lungs seemed to stop working. She shut her eyes tight, legs curled upwards at the knees, toes scrunched together, hands squeezing desperately on whatever they gripped.

The alpha tilted its head down and slid its disgusting, slobbery tongue into her open mouth, right as the final piece of the puzzle introduced itself. His knot forced its way past her lower lips and into her pussy proper, stretching her past her limit, releasing the spring tension which had been built up.

Emilia came, squealing. Her folds clenched tightly around the invader's meat, locking the knot in and signaling her mate to release its impressive load inside her. All her muscles felt weak as the liquid flowed in like a hose.

She quivered, defeated, the heat of her orgasm spreading across her limbs, choking on the alpha's tongue and her own tears as she tried to breathe again, squeezing spasmodically over the crushing pressure reshaping her inside-out.

"See? You're still alive," Dammina comforted her, "just relax now."

Her belly bulged lightly with the alpha's voluminous, unnaturally viscous semen. The male withdrew its tongue from her mouth and let her collapse to the floor, heaving for breaths, strained muscles twitching. Dragging Emilia's ass tied with it, the beast flipped around and laid on its side. She cried out as her skin scraped on the rough floor.

"If you just relax, it's not so-- OH!" Dammina yipped as her own mate's knot popped out of her, making her laugh nervously. She was trying her best to comfort her companion, but the situation wasn't pleasant for her either. Its cum trickled on the inside of her thighs, runny. As if on cue, Fergie gritted her teeth and grunted as her mate plopped out, a river of nut splashing out. The warrior's battered cunt dilated, its strong muscles trying their best to close shut again.

"--it's not so bad… even Pipp can do it. Right Pipp?"

The spitroasted scholar's face was beet red. Having finished impregnating her mouth, the mutt in front withdrew first. Pippa immediately expelled the contents of its thin but generous load onto the tile in front of her. The wolf in the back was next, popping its knot out of the frail girl with such painful disregard, Pippa's muscles locked and she passed out silently. Her eyes rolled back as a pressurized waterfall of spunk blasted out of her tiny hole and onto the floor behind her.

Dammina hastily revised. "Actually, don't look at Pipp."

The damage was done. Emilia's heart sped.

The alpha showed no signs of letting up its deposit. Its hair, matted with her juices, itched and agitated her. She wanted nothing more than to be free of this place, this horror, right this instant. Emilia pushed on the haunch of the massive wolf with a hand, wiggling her backside around, but the knot wouldn't budge. Her mate didn't seem to notice.

"It's not coming out!" sobbed Emilia. At this rate it would never come out, and she'd pop like a balloon!

"Take a deep breath," Dammina guided. "He needs to get soft first. And you're still gripping him tightly."

She responded, voice cracking. "I'm not!"

"You are, if the way you're still holding my hand is any indication."

Tears welled in Emilia's eyes. It was as if fear and hormones reverted the hardened man into a child. "You don't understand. It hurts!" She turned and smacked her fist against the alpha's rump. "You stupid, smelly, disgusting--"

"You're acting like a girl," Fergie interjected in her husky voice. Emilia's fist came down to punctuate each insult she flung.

"--mangy, worthless MUTT!"

A voice boomed from behind the statue.

"How dare you speak to your superior like that?"

The wolfpack receded to the shadows of the chamber. Emilia's mate perked its ears towards the statue and rose as a mysterious woman rounded its left side, Emilia's ass raising with it.

The mature lady had the sharp, chiseled features of an old Aceshi statue, with curly black hair which fell in waves over her shoulders, stopping at her knees. There was a wildness to her. The glint in her eyes hinted at a madness behind them and she wore a ragged beaded robe over her pregnant form. It was so threadbare the group could make out the impressive pubic bush she possessed through the sheer cloth and beads.

The alpha wolf approached her with its head low and ears flattened. Emilia screamed as she lost her grip on Dammina's hand and was tugged along for the ride, half crawling, half dragged backwards.

Dammina called out to her ally. "Emilia!"

The strange woman strode in front of the statue, petting the monster.

"Good boy," she smiled.

The alpha crawled into its spot in the statue's base, turning around and trapping Emilia inside, her ass-side out. It was a tight fit in there with the wolf sharing the space.

"Release our friend this instant, priestess!" growled Fergie, oblivious.

"Shut up!" Dammina snapped, then softened. "I don't think this is the temple's caretaker, Feargus."

"I will do no such thing," the tall woman declared, stepping in front of the three bruised and messy girls. "Not so long as you owe me a debt for defiling this temple."

"How so, oh great one?" Dammina asked pointedly but without a hint of sarcasm.

"This one"--she pointed to Pippa, who was in the muscle spasm throes of regaining consciousness--"destroyed my temple's antechamber with her overly curious tendencies." The words curious tendencies came out like a hiss.

Scratched, bleeding and smarting, Dammina still exercised her noble upbringing, if not to claw back some semblance of dignity in front of the imposing woman. "Please, forgive her fertile inquisitiveness."

"And this one…" the regal lady continued, pointing to Emilia. The alpha yanked forward at the command, its knot slipping out of her seized-up pussy. Emilia wasn't relaxed yet, and she let out a shriek of unimaginable distress, her legs quaking as a dam-burst of semen which made Pippa's look like a trickle rushed out of her gaping slit.

"...Kicked one of my wolves."

Dammina winced, staring at the floor. Nevermind the fact the first two men to enter were choking on doggy dong shortly before either of these two transgressions ever happened… the woman wanted what she wanted.

"Enlightened one," the noble girl pleaded, wolf drool dripping off her silky hair, "I have come for your blessing. If there is anything we can do to make things right…"

"It is already in progress," replied the dark haired woman. "I am willing to believe you three held good intentions in coming here, unlike your fourth member." She glanced at the alcove at the base of the statue. The alpha was cleaning its hefty package while Emilia sobbed lightly.

"And luckily for you, this same member of your team has already started along the path of becoming a priestess."

A grin crept across her rouged lips.

"She washed her hands, feet and mouth with the lustral water before entering the goddess's domain. She bowed in front of the altar. She took for her husband a beast as opposed to a man. She's capable of following orders, unlike you simple beasts. Truly, most men are dumber than animals..."

The wolf's cock twitched and it stood up, sniffing at its victim's backside yet again. Emilia protested, dropping her rear to the floor. Her 'husband' didn't relent.

The girl's voice was hoarse. "No! Not again! Let me rest!"

She tried pushing away, kicking out, covering her modesty. Trapped inside the hole, she only delayed the inevitable. When its rod found purchase and pried her apart once more, Emilia grabbed at the entrance of the alcove with her fingers and screamed for her friends. Five thrusts in, she lost her purchase and was forced into the darkness, gibbering over the noisy sounds of her glazed tunnel getting hollowed out.

"Three months," commanded the woman. "Give me use of this friend of yours for three months, and you can leave with a blessing. There is much she can do in that time."

Dammina's stomach dropped. To make a decision in her favor would be damning to her companion. But she needed the blessing of all thirteen Aceshi gods if she ever wanted to set foot in her ancestral home again; if she ever wanted to liberate her father's land. She felt sweaty and hot, hearing the noises coming from the statue's base… but, she had to be a noble!

"Please, instead, take m--"

"No."

She swallowed a lump down her throat. The choice would be so unchivalrous… but, what options did she have against a goddess? If she said no, would her answer even be listened to?

"Okay. You can have her."

Fergie breathed a sigh of relief. They would have to make it up to Emil in some way... Dammina would have to spend the next three months finding the means to repay him for such a deep, grueling sacrifice. She looked up at the pregnant woman in front of her. With her arms folded, the lady tapped a finger on an elbow.

The violence in the alcove reached a crescendo. The alpha had already eased her open before, and the knot slid in more quickly this time around. Emilia screeched as her ass was lifted up, legs shaking and extending rearward. The contents of her bladder squirted out onto the floor while her fingernails dug into the sides of her mate. Dammina blushed, ashamed, wondering if this was a reaction from pleasure and not abject terror.

"Then what are you waiting for?" asked the puissant woman. "Get up and leave out the way you came. I will release your friend after three months, on my word, and you will have your blessing."

Fergie and Dammina wobbled up on unsteady legs, helping a confused and disoriented Pippa hobble between them. All three led a dripping trail out of the gloom-filled chamber, attended by a pack of frustratingly friendly wolves. As they crossed a block of light flooding in from the ceiling, Dammina glanced at the statue's base. The glare from a bronze reflector glittered across her vision, and for a brief second it looked as though the woman's head was that of a wolf's.

When they crossed the threshold from the darkness of the temple and into the courtyard, the harshness of the midday sun blinded them momentarily. After blinking away the sunspots, they found they were in their clothes and old bodies again. The wolfpack hadn't followed them outside.

"Wh-what happened?" Pipp stammered.

"You missed talking to a goddess," teased Feargus.

Dammion shook his head, sobered by his decision. "This isn't time for jokes. We have plans we need to make." His body ached in places that couldn't have existed.

"Talked to an Aceshi g-goddess?" Pipp replied to Feargus. "And I was passed out for all of it?"

"Given the circumstances, I don't blame you," consoled Feargus. He turned to Dammion and put a hand on his leader's shoulder. "You made the right choice. How else would we get your father's land back? I mean, how can I be a knight without a lord? Besides, she won't ask him to get too much done in three months. You saw the state of the place."

Pipp nodded in agreement, face pallid. "Touch up some murals. Sweep the dirt off the tiles." He paused and tottered away momentarily, heaving out the rest of the wolf's sperm from his stomach.

"Clean up some messes," he finished. "Emil is a good person. I'm sure he'll understand your reasoning when we return."

They passed through the arched gate of the courtyard and picked their way down the mesa's rocky trail. Dammion couldn't help wondering if this experience would cure Emil of his cynophobia or exacerbate it, when all was said and done.

***

"We've been staking this place out for two days, Ghutu. Don't you think it's safe by now?"

Wadafi wiped the sweat off his brow with a rag and slumped against the sandstone wall. Ghutu peered around the corner once more, a spyglass pressed to his good eye.

"She's sweeping the courtyard again," Ghutu grunted. "She did it yesterday too."

"And she'll be doing it again tomorrow," interrupted Jidara, scratching at his bare chest through his leather vest and peering down the mesa's rocky cliffside at the valley below. "Boss, if we don't move now, who knows when the next gang will sniff this place out?"

"I know," grumbled Ghutu. He wrapped the small spyglass in cloth and tucked it in the belt which wrapped around his impressive girth. "It's strange. She's gotta have someone bringing her supplies out here. Otherwise, how could she survive so far from the villages?"

Kaafeeh stood up from his shade behind a boulder; the sun baked directly onto the men on this side of the temple's wall.

"If there's someone else, we'll handle him," he said. The curved knives fastened across his body were dulled with oil. Kaafeeh moved to join the men by the wall, gliding slowly like a ball python into position next to Ghutu. "And if it's just the girl? Even better."

Ghutu placed a thick hand on Kaafeeh's arm as he reached for one of his blades to play with. "Don't be so hasty, my friend. Remember the first rule of tomb raiding."

"Always cover your escape route?" asked Jidara. The burly man glared down at him, silencing the group.

"No. Don't leave a scrap." He grinned, gold tooth sparkling in the midday light.

Wadafi peeked around the corner and jolted. "Quiet! She's coming this way."

The four raiders waited patiently as the priestess swept dirt from the courtyard's stone path. She'd almost made it to the gateway arch when Ghutu emerged from behind the wall and approached confidently. Her golden eyes widened and she stayed rooted in place.

"Easy there, girl. What's your name?" The three other men came out from behind the sandstone bricks to flank. Kaafeeh slid out last, eyeing the facade of the temple carved into the mesa's wall for any movement. A pair of carrion birds took off from the roof.

The priestess was a beastkin, a canid-human hybrid of some kind. Her pointed, muddy-gray ears which replaced a human's tilted back like a frightened dog's and she held the broom close to her chest.

"Leave this place! You're in danger!"

Ghutu reached the priestess and took hold of her broom. It was little more than a stick with dried shrub branches woven together on the end. "Let's be cordial," he warned. "We aren't here to hurt you."

Jidara and Wadafi stepped behind her, each grabbing an arm. The bushy tail poking from the base of her spine tucked between her legs, visible through the white robe she wore. Her clothing was so worn in places the material was sheer; it stuck transparent to her cinnamon skin in the heat.

Wadafi whistled. "You think Momma Fadiwan would take her? She's got some beast girls in her kennel."

"You remind me of a friend of ours," taunted Ghutu. "He trapped me in a Third Kingdom treasure chamber once… Not that I haven't made any trouble for him on a job either." The brawny man licked his lips and reached out with his free hand, groping her left breast through her robe. Her hands shook on the broom, and she looked away. "You could be his sister if you weren't an animal. Maybe I could take you home and share a few stories about him with you?"

The two men holding her arms forced them off her broom. She cringed as Wadafi rubbed her palm over the growing bulge in his loose cotton pants.

"Now, are you going to play nice with us?" Ghutu continued. "First, take us to where you keep the offerings to your goddess. The expensive ones."

The beastkin priestess whimpered. "No…"

"You wanna repeat that?" He leaned in, covering the girl's body in the shadow of his broad muscle. Her gray eyebrows furrowed and she met his gaze.

"I said, NO! Leave, for your own sake!"

Ghutu tossed the broom to the side and smacked the uncooperative priestess' face with an open hand. The satisfying crack of palm on defiant cheek echoed off the temple's rocky face and the beastkin yipped, struggling against the men holding her. Taking a curved blade from his chest, Kaafeeh hooked it into the collar of the girl's robe and tugged down slowly. The fabric gave easily, tearing with a satisfying rip all the way to her belly. What remained of her robe drooped off her shoulders and bunched around her captor's hands while they held her wrists.

It was Jidara's turn to comment now. "Boss, she's pregnant!" By the scrawny man's estimates, knowledge from his time as a back alley medicine peddler, the belly showed about four or five months.

"I want you to be honest with us, lass." Ghutu grabbed her chin and tilted it to look him in the face. His slap was hot on her right cheek. "Are there any other men here?"

The priestess paused, avoiding eye contact and clenching her jaw.

"...No," she finally responded.

"Any beastmen?" Ghutu asked. She'd be just the kind of lady to omit such a fact.

"No."

Kaafeeh leaned over to Ghutu's ear. "I didn't see movement in any of the windows. I think she's alone out here."

The boss nodded and turned to the half-naked priestess. "Okay, girl, this is how it will work: you're going to lead us to your temple's central chamber, and from there, you'll let us know if there's any other traps we should know about. 'Cause, if any one of us so much as stubs a toe in there…"

Tears started to glisten the corners of her eyes. The look of defiance shifted to pleading. "Please leave, I'm begging you. You don't want to go in there. They'll be back soon!"

"Now you're saying that to scare us," Wadafi chuckled.

What pleading, sorry eyes. Ghutu was overwhelmed with the desire to glaze her pretty little lips with his nut; to take her home to their hideout and get her on her knees in front of him, spit polishing his fat scepter…

Jidara's nasally voice distracted him. "Boss, are you really starting this early?!"

Ghutu stared at his crotch. He was slapping his cock on the beastkin's bare belly, her mouth agape in surprise and revulsion. She'd recoiled into Wadafi, only to encounter resistance from his solid member rubbing up between her cheeks. Ghutu slipped his serpent into his pants… He usually put work first before play. He didn't know what possessed him a moment ago.

"Right. Good call Jidara. Come on, let's get in there and check it out-- our priestess first. And don't you dare try to make a break for it."

Wadafi and Jidara let her robe drop to the floor, and the naked girl walked cautiously towards the entrance to her temple, Kaafeeh holding her wrists behind her and prodding her spine with his knife. Jidara found it intriguing: her hands and feet were clean, but the rest of her body was caked in dirt, like she'd been sleeping in a hole in the ground. They passed by a basin of crystal clear water and he stopped to fill up his goatskin.

"Hurry it up, Jidara."

Wadafi knocked the slim man's shoulder with a hand, causing him to spill the top of the waterskin all over his sandals. Annoyed, Jidara took a sip and corked it. The water tasted as divine as it looked.

"Yeah, yeah, you'll be glad I stopped to do this on the way back to camp if your wineskin runs out."

"I know, I know," teased Wadafi, "you're always taking such good care of us, mom."

Jidara ignored the insult. Yeah, he liked to come prepared to jobs, but this was only so he could be the first schmuck out of there when things started to go south. If they thought for a second Jidara cared for anyone other than himself… he laughed, washing his hands off in the basin.

-----

Emilia shivered from the cold as she led the bandits into the main chamber. Despite the wide, rectangular rays of light shining through the windows and holes in the ceiling, the stone chamber had trouble retaining heat. It got frigid at night, and the wolf-girl didn't want to think about what she'd been doing to stay warm.

She kept glancing backwards at the men while the great Goddess statue watched over them. The antechamber Pipp and herself passed through on their way in a month or two ago had been mysteriously intact when she went to sweep it on the morning after her involuntary incarceration. The feminizing staff at its center had been conspicuously missing, however. What did Pipp call the artifact again?

Regardless, it couldn't have been the source of her power, if it ever possessed power at all… So why hadn't she turned these men into women yet? Another sideways leer caught the ire of bald Ghutu.

"What're you looking for, priestess? Expecting something?" He strode up and grabbed Emilia's arm. "You got something you want to share?"

He reeked. Maybe it was the new 'gifts' the goddess bestowed on her, but he stunk overwhelmingly of male scent and sweat and chew-leaf. Of all the people to show up at this temple, why did it have to be Ghutu and his gang? Emilia had dealt with him previously during tomb raids. He was a brute and an opportunist. There'd been equally as many times where she'd worked alongside him on a guild job as there were times where they'd screwed each other over. When he'd invited her to come back with him and hear stories about Emil's exploits, she was certain he wasn't going to tell them over a cup of tereré.

She didn't like him or his goons, but she didn't hate them enough to wish for whatever the goddess might have in store for them. Why couldn't they just listen to her? They'd have paid heed if she was a man right now.

"Silent treatment, huh?" His free hand rubbed against her pregnant belly. "You better be careful with how you treat us, bitch-girl. It's not only you you've got to worry about."

Emilia's throat tightened and her ears shot from flattened into tilted forward. His threat set her blood boiling. What self-respecting man would bring them into this?

"You wouldn't dare!" she snarled, grabbing his forearm and sinking her claws into it. Ghutu smiled, his golden tooth catching reflected light from one of the polished bronze disks Emilia had dusted. Scratch her previous thoughts about not hating him.

"I won't, if you follow our commands like a good doggy."

The wolf-girl tried to steady her breathing, fangs catching on her lips as she unbarred them. It embarrassed Emilia how raw she felt. Emotions swung in her mind depending on the whims of her hormones and, presumably, with tampering from the ever-missing Goddess. She was never in control of herself.

Wadafi placed his hand on the hilt of his scimitar. "Damn, boss, she's feral."

"No," Ghutu chastised, peeling her sharp nails off his forearm. "She just hasn't received a visitor in a while, but I'm sure she'll remember what's courteous very quickly."

Emilia turned to proceed, but she couldn't take her eyes off of Ghutu. Her whole body was shaking with fury.

"Keep going," the raider urged, slapping her rump underhanded. She yelped, tail tweaking upwards, and hurried toward the giant sandstone statue in the center of the room. Ghutu chuckled as her fingers dug into the palms of her hands. Women could be so cute when they were angry.

Near the entrance to the grand chamber, Jidara wandered around the room's exterior, stepping over shattered masonry and circumnavigating piles of sand whirled in by siroccos and collected together by the priestess's incessant sweeping. He avoided stepping in any of the beams of harsh light; it was better to keep your eyes attuned to the gloom than to constantly need to readjust them. It smelled of dry earth with the slightest bit of damp spices thrown in.

A rainbow glimmer flashed at him from a pile of detritus and the small man squatted to get a better look. Near the front of the junk heap was a beaten bronze plaque, shallow Aceshi logograms stamped with a chisel onto the thin sheet of metal. He ran a finger over them to get an idea of its message.

"My friend… I loved you… I will miss you dearly… A love confession?"

Jidara glanced up from the plaque and glimpsed a shape resembling a shallow chest. He crawled over and peered inside. The desiccated remains of a dog stared hollow-eyed back at him.

"Oh," he sighed. "Oh…" In hindsight, it was silly to think the inscription was for a chest of jewelry or gemstones. A lump caught in his throat. He didn't know why it made him so emotional.

Something wet bumped on his hand and Jidara startled, falling to the side. A large, thick-haired dog watched him.

"H-hello there," Jidara whispered, voice cracking as he held his hands out in front of himself defensively. The beast licked them, causing him to laugh nervously. "That tickles!"

He started to scratch the animal's neck. It leaned into his fingers and drew closer, licking his face and forcing him against the dusty junk.

"Hehe! Stop it! Hahaha!"

The baleful glow of the Staff of El-Sisi, discarded in the pile of rubble, worked its magic.

At the altar to Innanasha, no one heard Jidara as her voice turned gentler. Emilia stood in front of the statue and stared up at its canine head, begging her to make this end one way or another. Was this a test from the goddess to ensure her loyalty? Would she be punished later by her master for capitulation in the face of their violence? She sank to her knees where Dammion's party was taken by the pack two fortnights ago.

She was fed up with it all.

"Why not them?! What am I supposed to do?"

Ghutu stomped over to her and yanked her head back by her hair, which was turning gray-brown at the roots as her new beastkin hair replaced the old human follicles.

"What the fuck are you doing?" he snapped, raising a fist. Emilia closed her eyes and covered her belly with her arms, bracing for the strike. Now she'd done it-- injured herself and the souls inside her. She didn't know if she was more frustrated with herself or the goddess.

The fist didn't come. Ghutu let go of her hair and she curled over, protecting her stomach, groveling miserably on the floor.

"I'm not seeing anything in here so far, boss," Wadafi said, returning from behind the statue after a cursory scouting of the chamber. "Maybe this goddess's temple is as worthless as she is."

Kaafeeh ran his sandal over the large sandstone tile he stood on. There wasn't a speck of dust. "Worthless, maybe, but she'd make a great maid."

The three men leered at the priestess. For city-parched tomb raiders weeks into a job, her slim ass resembled a peach dropped on the oasis floor, only lightly bruised. The best part of any job was returning to the city with loot and living as kings for a week or two… it wouldn't hurt to start the celebration early, especially if they were going to bring her home anyway.

"Come 'ere, bitch," Ghutu growled as he took Emilia's hair up in a fist. She grabbed at his arms and struggled. The boss worked the waist of his pants with a thumb until his girthy crook slid out and slapped across Emilia's face, expanding. Coming in from the stifling sun and into the chill of the dark, his cock steamed in the air.

Emilia caught a whiff of the man-scent and retched from his stuffy spice clogging her throat. Both her arms put out a weak protest against the men's thighs as Wadafi approached, tapping her mouth with his crown and peeling the foreskin back in front of her nose. The wolf-girl's eyes watered and she opened her mouth to breathe.

She felt so stupid and powerless. She couldn't stop the wolves a month ago from ravaging her allies. She couldn't stop the alpha from claiming ownership over her every day since then. That's what made her so angry: the beast assumed her automatic submission. And every time it approached she did submit, cravenly, frightened of its wrath. These men were no different... but this time Emilia would fight back. She wouldn't be a dust-rag for animals or for men.

Ghutu smacked his hefty pole on her, precum smearing on her forehead. "It's looking like you're a stray, you scrawny little pup. Why don't we take you home and house-train you?"

He shoved her nose into his hairy sack. Emilia gasped haltingly out of her mouth as the concentrated pheromones triggered her beastform's natural responses. Her belly felt tingly, limbs floaty. Kaafeeh took her hand pushing on Wadafi's leg and wrapped her fingers around his rigid, crescent weapon, pumping them over his length. She wanted to grip harder and crush him between her nails, but something held her back.

"You'll be our domesticated doggy bitch," the gang boss said.

Innanasha was bewitching her. Blood pumping through her skull muffled all other sounds. Her ears tilted down and her tongue slipped out to taste his big, sweaty sack. It was salty and disgusting and she wanted to gag. Instead, her lips sucked while her tongue massaged the underside, feeling for the dense seed inside, coaxing it out.

…no… no! NO! Stop this goddess! She wasn't a bitch she wasn't a bitch she wasn't--

"Oogh," Ghutu grunted, lifting his weighty erection off her face and working the crown as it got even harder. "You want my treat, girl? Keep working for it."

Something oily ran over her fingers and another hand tugged her by the ear, off Ghutu's throbbing nuts. Emilia sputtered for fresh air. A pair of fingers caught her tongue as quickshot Kaafeeh groaned, shooting ropes of pearly spunk all over her face and mouth. How nasty! She waited for him to let go so she could spit the slimy liquid out.

"Swallow," he huffed between breaths. "Good girls follow commands."

A synapse snapped inside Emilia's brain and she gulped down the juice on her tongue like it was milk, sucking on his thumb. The bitter fluid flowed into her stomach, churning it. She opened her empty mouth to show she'd drank it all. Damn this divine curse… damn this goddess. She didn't want to do this!

"...And good girls get treats," Wadafi butted in, smearing his cockhead over her lips. "Suck, girl."

Emilia shut her eyes. Tears welled in their corners as her body took over. Her lips wrapped around the broad tip and slid further, over the ridge, gliding back and forth on the downward-curving shaft. Her tongue nudged out and lubricated its underside as she went. It tasted like copper and pickling brine.

She wanted to scream. Her muscles tensed, controlled by some other force, refusing to grant her command over her own body. In the silence of the vast chamber, her tiny grunts and chuffs as she breathed through her nose reverberated off the pillars. Emilia sweat from the shame, skin flushing hot.

"Hooh, she's workin' for it!" Wadafi exclaimed, grabbing her ears and pushing her deeper. "She's sucking harder than one of Momma's girls!"

He was entering her throat. She squealed as he face fucked her, finishing up by grinding her nose into his curly pubes. When he finally unsheathed himself, lines of spit and semen dangled between her mouth and his member. Ghutu jerked his rod as she coughed.

"You haven't forgotten about me, have you?" he asked, girth bobbing in front of her like a dog bone. "You didn't finish cleaning my sack." He introduced his massive balls to her nose, and Emilia thought she might faint. Her vision went dim and her lungs burned. She breathed in hard, but it only made it worse.

"Lick."

The wolf-girl's tongue was no match for his weight with how weak it was. Emilia began prodding around his sack, slapping her wet muscle against the skin and savoring his scent. His rod bucked on the side of her face as she buried her nose in his groin, sucking as hard as she could at his scrotum. The organ was so large it wouldn't fit in her mouth.

This was it… a few more whiffs of his suffocating smell and she was sure she'd pass out.

"Mmh, give the shaft some love too."

The hypnotizing force tilted her face to the side and smooshed her nose and mouth on his veiny, tan length, drool dripping from her tongue like a dumb beast. One hand fought, pushing on his thigh, but she couldn't break through whatever was ambulating her body into these sexual acts. Her other hand lifted up and grabbed the end of the package. She felt small, knowing her digits couldn't wrap around all the way to touch her thumb.

Ghutu's own sausage-sized fingers gripped the top of her head and pushed her along the side of his weapon like he was honing it with a whetstone. Emilia's tail twitched up and she let slip a confused moan when she reached the end, lips caught on his ridge, skin sweltering.

"Do you like the taste? You'll get it as much as you want back in the city. Now lap up my pre so you'll grow big and strong."

Her nostrils stung from his smell, oily precum sticking to her tongue as it flit over his head. There was not a chance her mouth could fit around his wide scepter, so she licked and sucked on his tip as a band of scarlet broke through over her nose. Both her hands came up to pump the swollen column. What was different about this dick? Why did she feel this way? Her pussy itched and she knew. His girth was approaching the alpha's. Tears rolled down her face as she realized her body had been rewired to react to her mate so thoroughly.

Ghutu let out a guttural growl. "Want it that badly? Here comes your treat!"

Emilia braced herself for the load. Milliliters of precum coated her tongue slick before the ropes of hot, stinking seed flooded from his cock. His mass bounced in her hands with each squeeze of the muscle, the ridge which ran along the bottom tightening against her thumbs as the pressure forced the next shot of spunk into her mouth. Emilia tried swallowing until she ran out of air, releasing the engorged end from her lips and panting raggedly, coughing when the sticky substance caught on the sides of her esophagus. He painted her face with the rest of his gift, and Emilia sat patiently with her eyes closed and her hands in her lap, trying to steady her breathing.

Trying to regain control of her self.

She thought she was close to doing so when the scent of blood hit her nostrils and a deep snarl quieted the chamber. Her body heated up once more.

***

The dog was so friendly, he couldn't sneak a gasp in between fits of laughter. Jidara tried pushing it off for a reprieve, but his limbs were surprisingly weak. There was slobber all over his nose and cheeks; he didn't want to open his mouth, afraid the thing would start drooling in there too. Mercifully, the large dog pulled back and panted, puffs of dog breath obscuring his vision. He felt a breeze on his legs and checked to see if the stray ripped his pants.

He was no longer a he. Jidara's sudden lack of clothes helped her verify that.

The woman let out a shocked cry and the dog slipped its tongue into her mouth, overpowering her own smaller muscle. What was going on?! She tried to twist away and escape, but her head was forced against the rubble and the dog's limbs kept her penned in. Jidara pushed on its huge, furry chest, but it didn't budge an inch. It withdrew from her mouth when it was satisfied.

She wheezed and tried to call for help, but the sound caught in her throat and her face burned with equal parts shame and fear. If the other guys found her like this, would they treat her the same way they were treating the priestess? It was scary to consider. Surely, they wouldn't do such a thing to a friend?

Something slimy rubbed over her lower entrance and her hips jumped away from it. Looking between her legs, the dog (was she sure this was a dog?) was poking its red lance at her. The fresh girl covered her crotch with a hand.

"No! Bad, bad doggy!" she hissed, afraid of attracting attention. "I'm not your bitch!"

The mutt rubbed its cock on her fingers, lubricating them. Maybe if she could calm it down enough, it might leave her alone? She took its piece up in her free hand. The beast rubbed its base along her guarding fingers as it fucked her other hand's palm, panting. Its meat steamed in her grip and her own body heated up as she tried to contain its lust.

"Just finish, please…" she hushed. She felt sluggish from the damp breaths. Jidara began to run her hand up and down its length in tune with its shallow thrusts. "That's it, that's it."

The creature-- A wolf? It couldn't be a wolf. Gods, what if it was a wolf?!-- shifted to long thrusts, dipping and fucking the knuckles of her protective fingers. She tried to get a better angle for it to hump, but her controlling hand slipped. Its cock jabbed straight forward, between her fingers and into her slit, piercing her maidenhood. Jidara swallowed a pained whimper as the wolf ran itself to the base inside her, knot pressing up on her, giant bronze warning bells chiming her brain. The digits which previously served as a shield now spread her labia apart for him. She wanted to fight it, but the whole freakish situation made her feel faint. She was fucking a wolf... Gods help her, there was a wild animal inside her!

Jidara took her first weak breaths as a woman as the beast ravaged her without concern, panting and drooling onto her face. There was nothing she could do. She took both arms and gripped at its sides, trying to hold in her increasingly feminine grunts as the monster's knot smacked into her clit, its fuzzy balls rubbing on her asshole. Fuck… she felt so impotent, incapable of running away from a single horny animal.

The wolf's tongue forced its way back into her mouth and sweat dripped off her waist. There were too many sensations at once. Choking on the slobber, pussy getting pounded quickly and bestially. She needed it to stop, she needed a second to cope and figure out how to escape. It stopped licking her mouth and drew closer, hairy belly brushing on her smooth, soft stomach.

"What are you--"

The knot slid in. Jidara bit the creature's shoulder to stop herself from shrieking. Her muscles spasmed over the bulbous invader and tears streamed over her cheeks as it unleashed its thin torrent of seed deep in her treasure chamber. She felt so scared and weak and in need of comfort. In response, it licked the salty tears off her. She was its bitch.

When the mutt was done with her, it started to rise, lifting her hips up with it.

She sobbed. "Wait, no!"

Jidara tried to reach for the knot to hold it in, but it popped out. She bit her lips shut as her ass fell back onto the rubble and her quim smarted, convulsing from the sharp pang. A stream trickled onto the ground in front of her as she lost control of her bladder. Watching it tinkle in the air, she started to rationalize what she'd experienced. This body couldn't be hers. This couldn't have just happened. The woman closed her eyes and shivered in the chill air, adrenaline thumping her heart out of her chest. Her mate lowered its muzzle and lapped at its seed as it spilled out of her. If she was really Jidara, she'd be running away like she always did. But her limbs dangled limply next to her, like a nightmare.

-----

The alpha had returned with tonight's meal. This was what she wanted to avoid. This was what she warned the idiots about. The bloody tang of the impala corpse at its feet supplanted the taste of man on Emilia's tongue.

"A wolf," Ghutu spat, drawing his cudgel from his belt. The three men turned to face it with their weapons drawn, hunching over. "Is this what you were hiding from us, priestess?"

"I told you, you were in danger!" she stammered.

Kaafeeh yanked her to her feet and twisted an arm behind her. His knife hovered near her throat.

"Call it off, priestess," the bandit demanded. "You obviously control it."

Her mate growled, loud enough to shake her bones. What if it blamed her for this? It might hurt her. The wolf-girl's breaths quickened.

"Do it, girl!" His knife urged closer to her neck and bestial panic set in. She couldn't die. She needed to protect herself… she needed to protect her unborn litter. Emilia went feral, throwing herself against him while snapping at his hand with her fangs. They pierced skin and Kaafeeh yowled, kicking her away.

She fell forward and caught herself on outstretched limbs, sparing her belly. The alpha took a few threatening steps forward, and Wadafi rushed towards her to try his hand at holding the hostage.

A woman's voice thundered throughout the chamber.

"Cease this at once."

Everyone, including the wolf, paused and turned to the statue of the goddess. The woman who trapped Emilia here and set about her malign transformation emerged from behind the sandstone structure. Not much about her differed in the month since her absence. She looked just as pregnant. Just as mad. Just as powerful.

Ghutu shared a glance with Kaafeeh. They were wrong about who was in charge here.

"The girl doesn't control the alpha," she explained. "She bows to it." Her mature voice cut through the gloom clearly, like a knife. Emilia smoldered wordlessly on her knees, staring her down. A month of festering resentment was allowed to grow in her heart, untapped until this moment.

"So, you're the one in charge here?" Ghutu probed.

"You could say that." She smiled to herself and the three men started to advance towards her.

Emilia screamed. "Lower your weapons! You don't want to--"

Kaafeeh flicked a throwing knife backhanded towards the commanding lady. She swatted it out of the air like it was a swamp fly.

"What a fool," she commented, sour. The woman pointed her finger at Kaafeeh and incited an Aceshi word of power. It was like the growl of a predator scratching its fur on the soul of all who heard. He doubled over, groaning as his muscles bulged in undulations underneath his skin and thick, gray hair erupted from out of his clothes, tearing them from within.

"Can no man follow simple orders?" she wondered. Ghutu and Wadafi watched their friend's transformation, transfixed. "Can no man read the warnings? You are no better than beasts. In fact, you are worse than them, since beasts will listen when commanded."

Kaafeeh's body grew. His limbs stretched, bones cracking and elongating sickeningly. The screams of agony droned on into a howl as his muzzle swelled into a wolf's and fangs exploded from his maw.

"You will listen to me now," the woman scolded. Kaafeeh's breaths were an unnatural mixture of ragged human wheezes and canine pants. "Leave. Leave, and bear this curse, human. May you come to thank me for my benevolence."

The werewolf Kaafeeh scrambled up off the floor, claws clacking on the sandstone. He howled, loping off wildly on all fours to the temple's exit. Emilia held herself and dry heaved as he raced past her. To a human, his transformation was disgusting. To a wolf-girl, it was enough to drive her crazy with how terrifying it was clashing against the raw arousal that brushed across her body from his musk. He'd already left, but his scent clung to her skin and made it crawl. The alpha merely growled at him as he fled.

Wadafi and Ghutu dropped their weapons and backed away.

"Did you think she found you irresistible?" The mysterious lady asked, pointing at Emilia. "I compelled her to lap at your groins, like a dog to almond paste."

She was humiliated. The witch confirmed what the wolf-girl thought, but it didn't make her any less pathetic.

"I will permit you to remain a moment longer, however. I want you to see what a real male does to a beast-girl. I want you to watch her go willingly to her mate, no compulsion necessary."

Her face burned and the girl rose off her bruised knees. "I'm tired of this game of yours! Not once did I agree to do any of this. I want to go home. I want to go back to the way I was!"

The woman seemed amused by her rebellion. "Then walk out the entrance. I won't stop you, bitch."

The last word sounded more like burgeoning admiration than an insult. Emilia hugged her arms and shivered in the chill as she began towards the threshold at the end of the chamber. Today, she would end it all. Her body ached all over and her empty stomach gurgled at the smell of fresh impala meat steaming on the temple floor like an offering. The alpha watched her patiently on its haunches. She looked away and tried not to breathe as she passed it.

She could do it. She was so close to being free of this place. Free of the fear, free from the mangy wolves and the weird feelings and the… the things growing in her womb.

The alpha plodded next to her, rubbing its fur across her waist and belly, grooming her with its tongue. She cringed away, her tail dipping between her legs.

"No…" Her thighs quivered. She couldn't find the strength to walk anymore, so she fell to her knees, crawling forward as the wolf continued to make quiet whining noises in her ears. She knew those weren't 'things' in her womb, they were her children. But she wasn't a beast. She wasn't a wolf-girl. She wasn't even a woman! The male nuzzled her neck, its tail smacking lightly on her ass.

"Leave me… alone." She choked out the words, tears dropping from her eyes onto the sandstone. She was abandoning her mate. Abandoning her adopted pack. She'd never had a pack before, in the city. She didn't need one now.

The massive alpha stepped in the way of her exit and stood there, red package starting to poke out of its sheathe. Emilia sucked in air shallowly through her mouth. This wasn't her. This wasn't what she wanted to be. She crawled a few steps further, underneath her mate. He leaned over and sniffed her rear.

Emilia groaned bitchly. It was so warm down here. Her mate's penis distended with blood as he sampled her genital's scent.

She pressed her nose hard against his furry, full ballsack and huffed. His rod twitched on top of her head. The musky smell traveled straight to her brain, pacifying her.

Lick. Suck. Swallow.

The wolf-girl rose to her knees and wrapped both pairs of fingers around a nut, massaging her alpha's swollen orbs of authority.

Lick.

Her tongue flit out and groomed his hairy sack. She could feel the little pups swimming inside. It was his own throbbing which raised the organ; her tongue couldn't possibly lift the weight all on its own. Her face was starting to get damp with spit.

Suck.

She centered herself underneath his hefty girth and kissed, rubbing her lips haphazardly along his veiny column, sucking and letting go at points to make it bounce in the air and slap back onto her. Eventually, the beastkin made it to his tip. She twirled her tongue around the outside and took frequent breaks to suck and slurp, coating the end in sloppy slobber.

Swallow.

Her mate whined. She could smell how badly he wanted to knot her, but he was too big for her with his children taking up so much space on her slight frame. Her mouth stretched over the end of his fat canine cock and she sucked, whimpering, begging for her alpha's nut down her throat so she could feed her children extra protein. The bitch's breaths puffed in clouds out her nostrils as she went, chuffs and moans filling her down-turned ears. Give it to her, daddy! The pups needed it.

She wrapped one set of fingers around the base of his knot and squeezed, the other hand gliding up and down his spire. His knotting response triggered and the spigot sprung, unleashing pulses of thick, nutritious sperm into her mouth. The beast-girl chugged it, swallowing noisily. She couldn't spill a drop.

The alpha's girl pulled her lips free and panted, licking the hole for any remaining dribbles. Emilia had long since receded to the corners of her mind as the hormones took over. She acted by emotion and instinct now. Receding from her tongue, her mate sprayed a jet of urine onto her face, washing off the human sperm and marking her as his own. Her amygdala suppressed the words fighting to break free from a locked up chamber of her brain.

I am not a bitch I am not his bitch I am not… his… b i t c h . . .

He shot another spray and the words washed off onto the floor.

-----

She chose the impala's liver, scarfing it down greedily, devouring it as blood trickled from her claws down her arms. The rest of the pack whined as they waited their turn. A new bitch showed up that night, scratched-up and submissive and leaking. She smelled familiar, but the alpha female made sure she knew her place. At night, they slept cuddled together in the alcove underneath the statue, huddling against the alpha male's soft fur. Impala and goat pelts cushioned the hard stone floor.

The new girl was a subordinate breeder. Her mate was friendly, strong and filled with youthful lust. When he took his bitch as he pleased, the alpha female watched jealously, grooming her own mate and nuzzling on him. By the time her water broke and the pups began to birth, the newer wolf-girl was beginning to bulge at the stomach herself.

Like every day for the past month, the world was a blur of feelings and feral thoughts. They were coming. Her children were coming. She was frightened and jubilant and exhausted from their kicking. She laid next to her alpha and pushed, the newer girl playing midwife. When the first of her litter emerged, her mate licked it clean. The mysterious woman showed up to watch. She exuded an aura of awe invisible to humans, but clear to the strong senses of an animal.

The subordinate bitch handed her pup to the woman-- the goddess. No! Don't offer her child to her! What if she sacrificed it?! What if she consumed it for strength? The alpha female cried out and tried to lift herself off the floor of the alcove, but she couldn't muster the energy. Innanasha held the pup up to her face and kissed it, whispering spells and inundating it with ancient words before returning it. By the time the last of her litter of three was blessed, the new mother shivered lightly with exhaustion. Three healthy pups fed on the first, thickest milk from her breasts and pride overflowed from her soul. For the first time in her life, she'd created something.

They were so cute. They were hers. Another half a month flashed by like nothing. Her body was sore from the nips they'd leave on her as they played with their mother. The two bigger ones suckled on her teats. She forced one off, so the runt could drink its share of her milk. She wouldn't let any of them die. When she woke up every morning curled around them, her heart squeezed and she filled with love's warmth. Her milk wasn't enough to sustain their thirst. The other breeding bitch was producing her own now, and she alloparented for them when the alpha female was busy with other duties in the temple.

-----

One day, the bitch walked out of the temple threshold for her morning sweep, and she emerged Emilia. It was as if she was pulled from a hot tar pit and onto the scorching sand. Reason burned in her mind and events from the lost months rent her psyche. The wolf girl stumbled, gasping. She fell through a sunbeam shining out of the clouds, and she was Emil again.

He lifted himself onto his legs, quaking. Was this it? He was free? A headache thumped out of his skull, close to bursting. He truly was himself again. His clothing had returned like nothing happened... Yet, the old emotions were still there, hiding inside of him, his other body curled up in a ball at his core. He heard voices up ahead, near the brown-red temple gate. It felt wrong when his ears didn't tilt forward to pick them up.

"Emil!" Pipp yelled, waving. Limping towards him, Emil felt a flash of relief when the rest of the group crested the ridge. His pack. He immediately felt silly for imagining such a thing. These were the bastards which sold him out. He was supposed to guide them to this temple, not sacrifice his life for the good of Dammion and his futile pilgrimage.

Never one for understanding social norms, Pipp hugged him. "Are you okay? You look worn out!"

Emil tried to croak out a greeting, but words came sluggishly to his tongue. Dammion walked up and took Emil's hand, pulling him in for a manly embrace.

"I'm so sorry, Emil. I tried to take your place, but…"

If he'd truly meant it, he could have found a way to save him.

Dammion smiled. "We've been saving up for a gift. We plan to pay you for your services, plus three month's wages… no, double it all!"

It was a lot of money, Emil would admit. He was already ripping them off with what he charged them for acting as a local guide. He could live comfortably in the city for quite a while… but… it was too hasty to get excited over ducats. Money couldn't sweep under the rug all the indignities he suffered.

"H-how did you raise such funds?"

"We haven't got it all yet, but we've been busy," replied Feargus, contenting himself with the memories that comment elicited.

"We chased off a werewolf terrorizing villages," a scratchy girl's voice poked out from behind Feargus, listing their achievements. The voice floated behind the men in stereo, trying to find a way around the wall of muscles and testosterone. "Laid to rest a mummy who'd risen from an undiscovered Aceshi tomb to subjugate the living. Rooted out a cult of the Serpent God."

A slender, young beast-kin scooted around Dammion and into Emil's view. The sandy ears of a lioness rose out of her messy blonde locks. A myrtle bow was looped around her right shoulder and her tail curled around it with a mind of its own, black tuft twitching on its end.

"Nalah," she exclaimed, holding a hand out for him to shake. "I was on a hunt when your party and I shared a midnight run-in with a family of holy crocodiles. They hired me as a local guide afterwards."

"Let's lay out our return home after we descend to the valley," Dammion interrupted, leering at the temple face carved into the wall of the mesa. "I don't want to stay here any longer than is needed."

The group turned to leave through the gate. At the threshold, Emil gazed back into the darkness of the entrance, his chest tightening. His children were inside there.

By the gods, he had children. Could he abandon them so easily? Leave them orphans, like he was? For heavens' sakes, they were only wolves… beasts… they could fend for themselves! They still had their father and a surrogate mother who doted on them, just like she-- just like he did. He was always the kind of guy to cut his losses and get out of a bad situation when he still had the chance.

So why did his heart hurt so much?

Nalah's nose scrunched and she sniffed the air, peering dubiously at him. Did Emil look like that when he was a wolf-girl? She was so expressive.

"What's the matter?" Dammion asked. The cat-girl ceased her scenting and scratched at an ear.

"It's nothing. For a moment, I thought Emil smelled like… well, nevermind."

Emil knew. He could smell it as well.

He smelled like bitch.

-----

The pups were in his dreams, crying for him. He knew he shouldn't approach, but they were so fragile and lonely. Emil moved forward to comfort them. Every step he felt smaller, weaker, less in control. None of the steps brought him any closer. But he needed to keep going! He needed to hold them and hug them and groom them and…

"Emil!" the girl hissed quietly. Nalah shook him as he tossed fitfully underneath the thin sheets of his bed. Wind stirred the light curtain covering the shared inn room's window, and the clotted-blood red of the full moon glowed on the floor boards. She was trying to quiet him so he didn't wake the others. It sounded as though he was having a nightmare.

The linen was damp from feverish sweat. Nalah peeled the sheets to the foot of the bed. He was no longer human. Emil… he, no, she was beastkin, like herself. It explained the smell at the temple a week ago… The wolf-girl opened her unfocused eyes, groaning. Sweat broke out in large beads on her forehead and she panted in the night air. Her naked body was burning up, despite the mild temperature.

"Oh!… oh… oh no." Nalah recognized that reaction. There wasn't much which could fix it, save for… well, taking care of the root cause. The lioness gulped and considered her options. It would totally ruin the group's dynamic if they saw their friend in this state, so she needed to find a way to solve this covertly.

Emil breathed weakly and stared past her, pupils wide. Her fingers laid over Nalah's hand, grabbing them for support.

"You're in heat," she whispered to her freshly feminized friend. "But… I can fix it if you come with me. I know a couple of non-breeding males: yasiyo."

Nalah helped the feverish girl out of the bed, wrapping her in Emil's cloak. She didn't seem in any state to agree, but she hoped it meant the wolf-girl wouldn't disagree with her help, either. This was for her sake.

"The boys will take good care of you," she hushed in her ear, leaning on Emil as she urged her out the door and into the dark hallway. "They helped me out with my own urges, once. Don't you worry, yasiyo can't get girls pregnant anyway. Only tsavo with their own Harem-- I mean, Pride-- can."

They exited out the front door and into the city's oil-lit streets.