​When Jalisa wakes up in Castle Heavenstead, she is already dead. And although she is surrounded by peaceful fellow zombies hollowgris who chose this life, she can’t shake the feeling that something is ​wrong​. Why can’t she remember being one of them? Why is her body like this? And why is Father Omari, the necromancer priest who resurrected them all, so damn attractive?

Click here for content warnings.

Erotic genital reconstruction surgery, genital swapping between a transgender woman and a transgender man, trans man top, trans woman bottom, bottom dysphoria of a trans woman, light sight-based ableism, light dubious consent, emotional manipulation, kidnapping, monster fucking, human-undead sex

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He was a priest in all except prestige and a professor in all except accreditation. When people referred to him, they used his Father title, but not without sneering. Father Omari did not have a designated church to service, more of a freelancer, but rumors claimed he had a cult called the Omarians who promised to serve him in the afterlife.

Had a cult.

Their forty-six bodies were found hugging each other on the floor like a colony of drowned bees. Ingested poison, assumed from the unexplained ooze in their blood. A suicide-pact, and a very successful one. All their wills had been airtight in legality over a year prior, every bit of coin and possession to be sent to Father Omari. Their families were furious. They burned Father Omari’s house down with him inside of it, but he’d escaped with his life and burns on his arms that would stay on him forever.

Rumor has it a prestigious doctormage had approached him, but he left the scars there on purpose. A strange decision for such a handsome, otherwise unmarked man. Father Omari attended every funeral, which people found distasteful and suspicious. It had little to do with the burns he’d readily displayed.

After all, Father Omari was a necromancer.

***

“Julian, are the gods a joke to you?” a voice chuckled. “Do you not know left from right?”

Those were the first words Jalisa heard when she woke. They were perhaps the first words she’d ever heard, by the way they nipped at her ear but couldn’t quite (worm) inside her head. The words felt distant and garbled, but so did her (brain) and her legs and her face and her hands. Jalisa was more of a (puppet) than a person, and it took considerable effort to remember the difference. It took additional effort to remember she had (eyes), and those eyes could be opened, and when they were opened, it meant she would see.

“Claire. Yes. Thank you. Julian, go help tend the weeds or… anything else. No, I’m not angry. Yes. Yes, I’m sure. Let’s speak of it later.”

Her eyelids blinked, but no sight came forth. What did it mean to be (not-able-to-see)? There was a term for it.

“Perfect, Claire. Right there. We can do the eclipse painting next.”

Her jaw unhinged, and something fell out. Her (tongue)?

“Ong…”

Was that her voice? It sounded (not-alive). It sounded bestial. It sounded wrong. What did it mean to be (not-able-to-speak)? There was a term for that, too.

But what she did know was the term for this feeling—panic. She couldn’t control her body, couldn’t think. She didn’t know where she was, or who she was, or why she was.

“Did you hear something?”

“Aa…”

“By the gods,” came the voice, closer now, hot breath (air-touching-lightly) her lips, “Jalisa?”

She couldn’t say yes, couldn’t say no. Jalisa nodded her head instead.

It snapped off.

She screamed, expecting (intolerable-amounts-of) pain and imminent death, but all she felt was a cool and dusty floor on her cheeks. Her puppet body attempted to reach for her head, a strange but not awful feeling of split thoughts and split control. An arm fell off in the attempt, clattering and wet.

“Jalisa, calm down,” the voice cooed. “It’s okay. If you can hear me, please be still.”

She did—her head, her body, her tongue, her arm.

“Good, good.”

She felt it then: warmth. Two (palms) gently lifted her head and she felt it getting closer to her body, like a rope connected each piece of (not-human-not-inhuman). What is she?

“You have to move carefully for now, Jalisa. Understand? Move a finger if you understand.”

Her arm, on the floor, spasmed in response.

“Claire. A hand? I think she’s blinded right now.”

(Not-able-to-see). (Blind).

Like two broken pipes welded together, her head reattached to her neck, and it felt like her throat was whole again. Another hand, cooler, picked up her arm. She felt a kinship with it, as if it were her own limb. Claire.

Claire reattached the arm to her shoulder, and it made its home there. But Jalisa feared to move it again. She feared moving anything. (Monster)?

“Concentrate on my voice.”

So she did.

“Focus, yes. My name is Father Omari. I’m a priest of the eastern Netherwilds.”

(Father Omari). (Priest). (Netherwilds).

Father Omari’s voice was (pleasant-to-hear) and confident. Soothing. A man’s voice, if she were to guess by the title and the deep (sultry) undertones. She wanted to trust this priest. She wanted help from this priest.

“Your name is Jalisa. Do you remember that name?”

“Ee…”

“Hm. Move your arm for yes, stillness for no.”

Her thumb moved.

“Very good. I think you’ll be able to speak soon, you just need—”

“Father.”

“What?”

Jalisa flinched. The priest did not raise his voice, but a bitterness slipped into his tone. Annoyance.

“Her tongue, Father,” the dry, feminine voice explained. Claire.

“Ah, thank you, Claire. Can you open your mouth, Jalisa? I’d like to give you your tongue back. Just go slow.”

(Nervous). But she obeyed, mouth creaking when it opened. Warm fingers slipped something cool inside, and it snapped precisely in place. Father Omari’s fingers retreated, and she shut her mouth, felt around. Whole.

“Alright. Let’s try again. My name is Father Omari. Your name is Jalisa. You are a beautiful young lady whose past interests have involved gardening and competitive board games. You have been reborn in Castle Heavenstead and are an honored guest of mine.”

It was in this moment she realized she wasn’t breathing—so there was no hitch, no gasp, no cry of dismay or rage. There was no quick-beating or aching heart, if there was a heart at all in her chest. She was not reborn. She was (not-human-not-inhuman) (not-alive) (undead). Jalisa knew the other words, too:

(Monster).

(Cursed).

(Zombie).

(Hollowgris).

***

Jalisa learned many things in her first two weeks with Father Omari, although she remembered little. The Omarians fed her three liquid meals a day that she couldn’t taste, but Claire promised she eventually would. Castle Heavenstead had forty-eight people living in it—Father Omari and the other forty-seven zombies, including her. Everyone had chosen this “life,” all resurrected by Father with their previous life’s possessions in their own room. Everyone came back a little different, as was expected. It’s not easy to die, even if one wants it.

On average, it took three weeks for a body to return to full strength and stop falling apart. Apparently, Jalisa was an outlier in all aspects. Her memories of being an Omarian were nonexistent; she did not send her possessions to the castle, and her body never stopped breaking.

Jalisa did not tell them she was the one breaking it.

She lay in her bed and willed tears to come to her eyes. They did not, would not. What oozed in her veins was something else undefined. A knock at the door. Jalisa curled tighter into a ball.

Another knock.

This time, the door opened. She knew it was Father Omari—no one else dared to enter someone’s room without their permission, and no one else had the steady clack-clack of his slight-heeled boots.

“Jalisa, are you awake?” he asked, gentle and low.

But he caressed the question against her ear. Anyone would wake up if they weren’t already.

“I do not wish to go to service, Father.”

He chuckled, and she could feel every huff. Citrus tickled her senses. Father Omari did not care for personal space.

“You were never religious,” he agreed, amusement in his tone. It was difficult to stay angry at him when he was like this—playful and casual in a way he was not like at service. He acted more like a friend than a priest. Father Omari had a confessional available in the castle church, but it went unused when one could talk to him about anything over midnight snacks.

“If I was never religious, why did I choose this?”

He didn’t answer at first. Father Omari’s hand brushed her cheek and pulled back a strand of curly hair to tuck behind her ear.

“You are not the only one,” he hummed. “I’m afraid I do not know precisely. The Omarians were an autonomous entity; I had nothing to do with you all. I merely fulfilled your wishes as I felt obligated.”

“Merely” was an understatement. It took considerable effort to resurrect one person, let alone over forty. But no one else questioned him, and so she kept her thoughts quiet.

“Jalisa.”

She shivered. He said her name with such reverence. It was uncomfortable.

“Yes?”

“Have you remembered anything today?”

This again. Jalisa told herself not to feel guilt over always giving him the same answer when he sounded so hopeful.

“No, Father.”

His hand brushed her cheek a second time, but this time there was no strand. He lingered.

“Nothing?” he urged.

“Why would I want to?” She squeezed her eyes shut at the sound of her voice going gravely and almost as low as Father Omari’s. “I apologize. I did not mean to raise my voice at you.”

He sighed, and she felt a shaved head against her forearm. “I’m sorry, Jalisa. I should stop asking. But you’ll—you’ll tell me if you do, won’t you?”

“I promise.”

“Thank you. Stay in your room as long as you wish and let me know if there is anything we can do for you. We are family.”

Family.

She wondered why the thought made her ache. But she nodded and listened for Father Omari’s footsteps and the door to close. Jalisa peeled back the covers and sat up, fingers clenched in the cool ‌sheets. Shameful. She hated this part of being in his proximity and what it did to her. Jalisa’s hands went underneath her nightgown, grabbed the stiff cock between her legs, and pulled. She didn’t feel pain, but she felt the usual stretch, like peeling off a loose fingernail. She huffed but did not cry because she could not cry as she removed the offending appendage from her.

This time she did not throw it, but she did squeeze and squeeze and squeeze in hopes it would burst. It did not. Her body rejected it. The cock rejected it. Why? Why was it here? No matter where she hid it, she always felt it. Tethered. Father Omari had done something wrong to her, had ruined her. And no matter how many times she told him to get rid of it, to feed it to the dogs, he refused and oh so politely ordered Yule and Claire to reattach it.

“You’re perfect as you are,” he had whispered in her ear.

And how it stiffened to his words, just as it stiffened today. She hated it. Hated him. But if Jalisa could not get rid of it, she’d at least use it. She leaned back in the bed and spread her legs. Jalisa imagined the gaping hole between her legs was a pussy, and the air brushing through her was wetness. She rubbed the cock and imagined Father Omari straddling her, pushing his hardened cock against her lips with a smile on his face. Jalisa didn’t know what he looked like, but she imagined kind brown eyes and dimples, and full lips.

She presented her mouth to him, let him groan and throw his shaven head back as he slid over her tongue. Jalisa pretended her mouth was wet and pleasant and warm for him, that Father Omari felt bliss from her body. She sucked at the tip and imagined Father gripping into her afro with both hands, gasping as he rocked into her.

“You’re perfect,” he moaned. “By the gods, by the gods, you feel perfect. O’ God of Mercy and O’ God of Lust, bless this woman, bless this body, bless this soul.”

And he’d rock and rock until his grip got harder, until his hips went faster, until he’d moan her name over and over in the same breath as he thanked the gods for the opportunity.

“Jalisa. Please,” he’d beg. “Please, may I? Is it forbidden? Tell me. I am a weak man, Jalisa.”

And she’d look up at him, eyes shining and wet, drool down her chin, and smile and nod as the priest would push himself as far as he could down her throat. His moans would shake the walls as he came, and then he would kiss her breathless, and then he’d slide between her legs and—

The door knocked. No! The knocked door. No. Jalisa couldn’t think and couldn’t speak. The wood creaked, and she hurried to stuff the cock under her pillow.

“Jalisa,” Father Omari’s voice said, soft but strained. “I forgot to tell you.”

“Y-yes?”

“I have a theory about your vision. I would like to test it tonight, just the two of us.”

“…Yes, that’s fine.”

“Great. Good. I will—I will see you tonight.”

He did not wait for an answer. The door slammed shut.

***

“Is it… pretty?”

Jalisa felt awkward asking the subjective question. Claire shuffled around her, holding up dresses to her chest as she hm’d and hah’d.

“They’re all very pretty. Your skin is healing back to its proper dark so what looks best isn’t the same.”

Jalisa smiled to herself. Claire was so meticulous about the strangest things. Supposedly, Claire been a humble Omarian aide in her previous life, but in this one she practically ran Castle Heavenstead.

“It’s not like I can see it,” Jalisa encouraged, attempting to be helpful. “How about something that feels nice? I’m getting some feeling back?”

“That will help narrow it down. Do you wish to feel like a belle or a princess?”

Jalisa wanted to feel sexy. “A belle.”

“Let’s go with these two options. Feel them?”

Claire put a dress against Jalisa’s right hand, and another to her left. She felt down them both one at a time and decided on the shorter one with thinner straps. Nothing scandalous, but close.

“The right one.”

“Good. I’ll look forward to seeing you wear it from now on.”

“Oh, Claire. I couldn’t possibly—”

“Keep it. We’re family. I think it will look much better on you than it ever did me.”

That word again. Family. Jalisa couldn’t reconcile the pit and the warmth that both radiated from her stomach whenever she heard it.

“Besides,” Claire continued, “we have all the time in the world to make more. Soon enough your wardrobe will be full of things you adore instead of gifts.”

Jalisa wished she could cry. Wished she could show the emotion she felt from such tender words. As if gifts weren’t already amazing things she adored, she choked out, “Thank you.”

Claire left her with a parting kiss on her cheek, and Jalisa slipped on her newest clothing. When the chill of damp air tickled her scalp and the toads began their chorus, she grabbed her cane to sneak into the night. She quietly shuffled herself down the hall, to the left, and down the long set of stairs to the basement where Father Omari waited.

***

“You look especially gorgeous today, Jalisa,” Father Omari gasped.

Her embarrassment was secondary to desire. She tried to project confidence with a pointed chin toward his voice.

“Do I?” she asked, as nonchalant as she could muster. “Could you describe me?”

Clack-clack.

The aroma of fresh-peeled oranges wafted over her as Father Omari’s fingers entangled with hers. He brought her hand to his warm lips and kissed the back of it. Father Omari waited, as if pondering, before speaking to her in a cadence as calm as the wooden stirring of hot tea.

“Your skin is the color of pecans toasted by a baker’s oven. Your hair is a halo of night sky, glistening with the stars of candlelight. You are tall and slender, with curves on your hips and waist and—more—revealed by the tightness of a dress the color of roses. You have two black sun-kisses at the corner of your lips, which are plump, and your nose broad.”

“Stop!”

Her voice squeaked with embarrassment, but Father Omari laughed onto the back of her hand and gave it a light squeeze. “Even your voice is crisping wood in a brick fireplace. Your eyes are dark, but they too glitter with specks of firelight.”

“Father, please.”

He gently tugged her forward, then turned her. His warm hands left her cold ones to brace her hips and Jalisa’s breath caught in her throat.

“You are beautiful, Jalisa. Please, won’t you see what I do?”

She blinked and there it was—color. Burning yellows and oranges, painful things, but things she remembered. And there were blacks and grays and browns and whites, smudges of ink that smeared with every blink until they became shapes. She looked at a wall of brown-red brick, laid rather haphazardly once upon a time. And in the center was a mirror. Even a small one for a noble lady’s purse was an expensive thing, but this? This mirror was as tall as two men, wider than four.

It reflected her, and to her surprise, exactly as Father Omari had described.

Goodness, she was beautiful. Jalisa held her cane tight in a fist and discovered the odd shape up top was a carved woman of the sea. She was painted in swirls of black and blue, while the rest of it was a gorgeous light brown wood the likes of which she’d never seen. What an elegant, beloved gift. And she hadn’t a clue.

“I told you,” Omari murmured behind her.

He took a step to stand by her side, and Jalisa could not help but stare. Father Omari was better than she’d imagined. A head shorter than her, emphasized by his lack of hair. He wore black-and-violet priests’ robes, unusual; the sleeves rolled up to reveal large biceps on his otherwise unassuming figure. Even the burns there looked more like witch’s runes, with flames spiraling to nestle around and hug where his veins might be. 

Omari was only a shade lighter than her with large ears and stretched lobes, and a ring pierced and hanging between his nostrils. Heavens, he certainly did not look like a priest she’d ever seen. But heavens, he was handsome—more than most she’d ever seen, priest or not.

And he knew it, by the way his sharp oak-brown eyes looked at her. Father Omari drew her in, a growing fox-smile on his lips as they stared at each other in the mirror. “I take it your sight has returned.”

“I… yes.”

“And I take it you are pleased by what you see?”

There it was. A tease in his voice. Jalisa did not know to which person he was referring.

“D-did I always look like this?” she pondered aloud.

“You have.”

A lie, perhaps, but a welcome one.

“Thank you, Father Omari.”

He moved to stand in front of her, biceps flexing without effort, and it took willpower not to fall to her knees before him. “I ask this only because it is Oath. Is there anything else you’d like to modify, fledgling hollowgris?”

She swallowed and looked toward the mirror again. Jalisa was beauty and perfection. And yet, she knew of the curse. Surely he did as well. He was the one who dug her up and stitched her and breathed eternal life into her cavities.

“Father,” she said with projected sternness. “I would like to be a full woman.”

He cocked his head to the side. As if confused! “Are you not?”

“You know very well what I am referring to.”

“I do. And I can fulfill your wish.”

“Thank you.”

“But am I not a full man?”

She blinked at him. His tone was serious, eyes focused, lips flat. He opened his mouth, perhaps to repeat the question, and she hurried:

“Of course you are, Father. I would never say otherwise.”

He smiled lightly, but there was still something she couldn’t grasp in the sadness at his lips’ corners. Father Omari offered his arm, and Jalisa happily took it. He led her to the basement room’s center—a necromancer’s quarters dressed as a living room. 

A wooden box tub of pure, glowing green magic sat as the spotlight of the floor. In its depths were floating flowers that opened up and then closed again as if breathing. Two tables with leather straps for body parts accompanied it, but an excited child’s hand painted all over the wood. The cold stone floor housed several pelts—exotic ones of stripes and dots and impossible swirls. 

A fireplace nestled in the corner with vents that went up to the higher floor. Lanterns dotted the walls alongside paintings of noblemen and noblewomen of no relation. And finally—a small couch and a giant bookcase near the fire.

Expense. Expense everywhere. Jalisa knew she lived in a castle; she did not know she was a royal.

“Goodness.”

“Beautiful, isn’t it? Decorated by Yule. They have quite an eye for it. If you would lie down?”

She stood over one of the tables and scrunched her nose. “Are you going to strap me in?”

“Of course not, my dear. Unless,” he questioned with piercing eye contact, “you’d prefer?”

Her body truly was adjusting. Jalisa swore she felt her cheeks go a tad hotter.

She did not answer and laid down. Father Omari went to the couch and returned with a pillow, putting it beneath her head. When he leaned over her, Jalisa inhaled citrus.

“Go ahead and relax for me, will you? Tell me all about what you’ll do now that your vision has returned.”

She ignored the ting of metal as Father Omari prepared and moved about, electing to stare at the ceiling.

“I’d like to meet everyone again, especially Claire. I have guesses as to everyone’s appearance, but I’m so curious to see what else I’ve gotten correct.”

“Else?”

“Oh… Yes, I wondered what you looked like, Father. You’re quite close.”

“Close to your imaginings?” he mused, chuckling.

Hot again, her fists balled in and out.

“Nothing untoward.”

“Lord Lustonen would be disappointed.”

“You work with even the God of Lust, Father?”

He stood above her again, a smirk making his delicate features look more rugged.

“I am just a man,” Father Omari explained. His hands gripped the edges of the table, caging her beneath him and giving her a sinful view of the bare skin beneath his robe’s neckline. “There is no god more important than another for me. Why? Are you interested after all in working with the gods?”

“I am not.”

“So you say.”

A comment like that would normally upset her, but Father Omari had a way of keeping his tone lighthearted and not judgmental.

The view helped.

“You shouldn’t feel pain, Jalisa, but let me know if you do.”

“Okay.”

And so he began. Father Omari moved to her feet on the other end of the table. His warm and soft hands slid up both legs as she shivered. He gripped both ends of her red dress and pulled up, up, up—

“Wait!”

He did. Embarrassment flooded her. The appendage was filling up from even this minor touch, and yet what she wanted was to cry once again.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” she begged.

“Jalisa, my dear. There is nothing to be ashamed of.”

“Of course there is!” she snapped, winced.

Father Omari leaned his head down and kissed her bare leg. She watched in open mouth shock as he pressed a second to the other leg. The cock twitched in eager response, and yet Father Omari did not admonish her or look in disgust. He kissed up her legs as he pushed the dress up further and further until he was kissing the thing through the dress, now plump and stiff and desperate to stab its way out of the fabric.

“Father,” she moaned, in want and horror.

“How beautiful you are,” he murmured into her leg. “It took quite some time to convince you to see yourself. Hollowgris are peculiar things where the effects of the mind are more pronounced.”

She could not focus on his words. Father Omari looked her in the eyes when he slipped his hand under the dress and grabbed the base of the cock. Jalisa gasped at the touch. It wasn’t horrible, like when she’d touched it, but firm and reverent. Whatever he was trying to tell her did not reach her ears. All she could hear was her own breath, unnecessary but automatic, as it hitched and sighed from his touches. His hand was searing hot now as it coaxed her into an arched back, and she was close, so close—

Until Father Omari stopped and tore. She groaned in dismay as he tugged and tugged, and the familiar pull gave way. He tore the cock from her and she didn’t dare look as he slid away from under her dress.

“As much as I enjoy the sounds you make in Lustonen’s name,” he said, voice strained and not at all priestly, “I have a promise to fulfill to you.”

“More. Please, Father.”

She heard the gentle clack of his boots; she felt the cool of his shadow, and she smelt his citrus over her. He angled close, as if to kiss her, but whispered as if molten sugar were on his tongue.

“Jalisa,” he began, and she keened, “if you are patient, I will give you everything and anything you desire. But you must be patient.”

Even separated, she felt the cock jump. The God of Greed was surely to blame for how much she wanted to push the priest.

“And if I am impatient, Father?”

She emphasized his title, a testing taunt.

His short huff of breathless laughter would’ve killed her if she weren’t already dead. “Then that makes two of us.”

He continued working as she shut her eyes. Father Omari’s metal tools tugged and pulled around her, and slowly, something would push inside the gaping hole left where the appendage had been. Jalisa would feel stitching, would listen to chanted spells that filled the room with a soft glow of green magic, and would listen to him take short breaks to chug from his canteen.

Periodically, a hand would squeeze the severed appendage from base-to-tip and she would arch and moan and promptly be hushed. She was unraveling in ways both literal and figurative, and every part of her throbbed and trembled in its torture.

“Let us check and make adjustments.”

“You’re finished?” She asked, raspy.

Father Omari bent over, unscrewing something beneath the table, before it suddenly wobbled. The table slid on its wheels as he brought her to the large mirror and then helped her sit up. Father Omari leered as he slowly lifted both her knees with sturdy hands that made her thoughts wander.

Her chest heaved as she stared back and watched him lift the dress next, past the knees and fully exposing her. Father Omari leaned in, and she closed her eyes, lips beginning to pucker, before his hand tilted her to face the mirror instead of him. He chuckled as she opened her eyes and frowned, embarrassed. But she saw a dark quiet from his gaze reflected in the mirror—a lust that didn’t feel terrible to be targeted by. Father Omari spread her legs wider and let her see his work.

A cunt instead of a cock. It was hairless, unnaturally so, but with thin dark flaps that perfectly matched the darker parts of her armpits. It was beautiful.

“How did you do this?” she awed.

“It is better not to ask such questions of a necromancer,” he smiled. “Now… to check and make adjustments.”

He released her chin and instead bent down at the front of the table, face-level with her new pussy. She ached. Gods, she ached. But she focused on her reflection as Father Omari’s fingers slid over the twin lips. She gasped and opened her legs wider to him. The fingers felt up to—oh, goodness, a clitoris—and then down to the canal. One slowly scissored its way inside, and even the fingertip was too much. Too sensitive.

“Tight?” he asked, fluttering breaths of amusement that pressed into her.

“Yes, ah, tight.”

“And for what reason would it need to be looser, Jalisa?”

He pressed deeper, and it felt like her eyes re-grew. Vision blurred, then returned sharper. Heat spread like slow, roiling fire up through shivering, cold limbs. Father Omari made her human enough to die for a brief moment.

“O’God of Lust,” he groaned, the sound even more reverent and worshiping than her illicit imaginings. Father Omari curled a second finger into her new body, and Jalisa finally—finally cried. She hurried to touch the corners of her eyes and felt the wetness. A giddiness spread through her and then was quickly replaced by electric sparks as Father Omari pumped into her.

“Open your legs, girl.”

The growled demand sent pure lightning up her spine, more staggering than the sparks. Her legs were squeezing against the ‌arm with the hand inside her, and Father Omari gripped the meat of her left thigh before forcing it away. Jalisa fell back on her arms as his fingers fucked her, unencumbered by her twitching legs and body. And he was fucking her. His fingers were filling up her tight pussy and demanding her moans, but as he pumped, so did it seem to loosen. A squelching sound was filling the air along with her rapid breaths, and Jalisa smelled something she never had before—a scent like salted honey, the perfume of the harlot houses.

“Don’t cover your mouth,” Father Omari insisted, even and cool, “I cannot give a thorough examination if you hide.”

Jalisa was biting her hand. She moved it away, but it all seemed too loud. Would others hear them? Hear her? Would they see how she fell apart for the priest and her maker, and how wet her brand new pussy got under his attentions? Would they know how badly she craved it?

A tongue licked up her bellybutton, and her own fell out in an open-mouthed scream. Her body convulsed and her toes curled. Her vision blurred and her pussy clenched. Every part of her filled with un-life, filled with pleasure until her very veins seemed to shake. Father Omari slowly pumped her through her first orgasm, kissing and licking the same spot on her bellybutton until her back was once again flat on the table.

“There you are,” he encouraged with painful tenderness. “You’re alright. Nice and easy, fledgling.”

His fingers slowly retreated out, and he walked over to her chest with such smug satisfaction that Jalisa figured she ought to feel insulted. Father Omari picked up her tongue from her breast with sticky fingers and turned it over, inspecting.

“Seems like you’ll need harder stitching for this piece. A strong muscle like this shouldn’t fall out so easily.”

“Ah-onm…?”

She opened her mouth for him to put it back, but Father Omari placed it inside his own. Jalisa shot up in alarm, but then she felt it—a tongue sliding over and against hers. Father Omari played with it in his mouth as she groaned. Tease.

He chuckled and finally took it back out, saliva dripping down his chin. He opened her mouth with his thumb, fingers brushing over her lips before they dragged over her teeth and pressed into the roof of her mouth. Jalisa drooled as he inspected her, touched her, teased her, before finally slipping the tongue back in. It snapped into place, and she gasped.

“Still too tight, Jalisa?” he asked, almost innocently.

“Maybe not…”

He smiled. “And what about the shape?”

Father Omari stepped closer, peering into her eyes as his hand rubbed across her aching pussy’s lips. Gentle. Gentle. She felt every soft touch and desperately ached for more, even through the soreness.

“The… shape?”

“Perhaps you want the canal longer or shorter,” he mused, the very tip of a finger teasing at the entrance. “Perhaps the lips you want thinner, or puffier.” The finger pinched ‌her lips and made her jolt. “Perhaps the clitoris is too sensitive, or not sensitive enough.” The finger flicked it, and she moaned. “Perhaps you’d like it bigger, protruding, easier to suck on.”

Jalisa gasped. She didn’t know what she wanted. All she needed was him.

“I want you to…”

“Yes?”

“I want it exactly as you’d like, Father.”

He retreated from her with a clicking tongue. “Jalisa. What am I to do with you?”

Fuck her? He could always just fuck her again.

“You could continue?”

He barked a laugh and then sighed. His back was to her, but Jalisa could see the serious expression on his face in the mirror. Father Omari pondered.

“You are already perfect to me, Jalisa. I cannot in good conscience make bodily adjustments you do not wish for. In another two months’ time, those changes would become rather permanent fixtures. Not impossible to change, but time-consuming and far more painful.”

“So what now?”

“Now, you will retreat to your room and think about what you’d like.”

A pit dropped its heavy weight into her very soul. “Did I do something wrong, Father? I thought we were… I thought we were having fun.”

“We were. We are,” he corrected. Father Omari turned back to her, gaze soft on her as if he hadn’t just made her come on his fingers. “And we will have more fun very soon. As soon as you adjust and are comfortable with yourself.”

Comfortable.

“…Father, I have remembered something.”

His eyebrows raised. He waited.

“I remember the fire. I watched the smoke in the sky when they tried to kill you.”

Father Omari’s next words were overly smooth. “Is that all?”

She licked ‌her lips before speaking. A nervous habit her father tried to—

“Yes,” Jalisa lied, “that is all.”

***

She ran away.

Not permanently, of course. She liked ‘living’ at Castle Heavenstead; she liked her friends, her family, and Father Omari. But Jalisa had to know. She had to see it for herself. Father Omari, if her suspicions were correct, would not tell her the truth.

She left all her belongings and a note:

Going out for some affairs. Will be careful. Be back in three days’ time.

—Jalisa

It was dark and the insects were loud when she left. Jalisa was bundled in her thickest furs and boots because ever since the night with Father Omari, she’d felt more than she had since her resurrection. It was colder than she liked; there was even heavy frost in the brush, but Jalisa couldn’t die. She could only be uncomfortable.

She had a vague idea of where she was, based on her conversations with the other hollowgris. Castle Heavenstead was in the southern Netherwilds on the border of Poppishire, where the fae lived. As long as she avoided following any strange laughter and plants arranged in circles, she would be safe to go north. Jalisa brought a traveler’s bag because it would seem suspicious if she did not. Based on what she remembered of her previous life, she absolutely should not reveal her undead status. Hopefully, no one missed her or recognized her.

“A coin for your troubles?”

Jalisa halted at the sound of an older woman’s voice. She turned to her right, but she saw nothing. She swallowed and walked faster.

“A coin for your troubles, miss?” a man’s voice tried, somewhere to her left, deep in the trees.

Jalisa broke into a run.

Voices overlapped now, chanting the same thing in different variations:

“A coin for your troubles? A coin for your troubles?” 

The faeries didn’t hope to get her attention; they hoped to ridicule her. Jalisa tripped over a root and cursed. Her leg! She scrambled around to see it stuck in roots, severed from the knee down. She rushed to grab it, but it slipped away and floated upwards.

“Give it back!” she yelled.

Faerie voices giggled in response. She couldn’t see them, but the limb swayed back and forth. It was probably too heavy for them to get too far.

“A c-coin for your troubles?” she tried.

The giggles turned to ahhhs.

Tiny wings appeared before her, glittering like a firefly, and then she saw a spindly thing with long black hair twirl in front of her. More and more faeries cast off their illusions, all their bodies in an array of colors with big, buggy eyes until there were at least forty twinkling beings. They wore no clothes as per fae custom, but many took to decorating themselves with hats and elaborate, tall hairstyles.

They flew around her, surrounding her, dancing and chittering and speaking in their own tongue in between laughter. Jalisa tried not to make it obvious how much she wanted her leg back as she hopped onto the other.

“Coin!” one of the faeries who held her leg demanded.

“For our troubles!” another hollered.

Jalisa bit her lip. It was probably a wasted coin, but she would let them have their fun. Maybe they’d get bored with her. She dug into her pocket, trying not to jingle too many and let them know she had plenty, before producing a single silver.

Many faeries yelled in delight at seeing it, and one of them braved flying closer. The green faerie slapped the coin with its feelers and then, when Jalisa did not react, perched on top of it.

“I’m older than you,” this one claimed, its mantis features staring at her face.

“I’m in my thirties,” Jalisa said, arching an eyebrow.

“Nuh uh!” it shouted, scandalized. “You’re only a month old. I’m three months.”

“Basic math, stupid human!” another jeered nearby.

They all laughed at her, and some counted as if to prove they could. Although she only heard up to nine before they mumbled.

“My apologies,” she said, forcing a smile. “You are my senior.”

It grinned, delighted, and jumped up on the coin. “That’s right! You are my junior! You should call me, um, Senior Master Elder!”

She bit back a sigh.

“Senior Master Elder. To what do I owe the pleasure of you and your cohorts?”

“You came from the castle.”

“I did.”

Another faerie, purple with caterpillar wrinkles, flew towards her and sat on the hand holding up the coin. “We want to know what you do there.”

“And what do I get in exchange?”

The faeries whispered, but many of them yelled in their language, clearly arguing with a sound like discordant harps. Jalisa wasn’t sure where to look. 

All their feelers suddenly pointed up and their speech went silent. One large faerie hovered in front of Jalisa with crossed arms, orange skin glistening with iridescence and a furry moth face.

Not High Fae, but still a royal among peasants.

“In exchange, you get the leg.”

Jalisa feigned nonchalance. “Hm. I suppose.”

“Why is the castle back?” the leader faerie demanded.

“It now houses my family. It was an heirloom to one of the residents.”

“And what do you do there?”

“We spend our days cleaning and fixing it and keeping ourselves entertained.”

The faerie’s feelers wobbled and its moth-like face seemed to shimmer red. “Are you all reborn?”

“All but one.”

“Who?”

“Fa—a priest.”

No names. No promises. Not to fae, not when she didn’t understand their games.

“BORING.” Their voices shouted in unison, startling her. The faerie on the coin, the other on her hand, and the leader faerie flew away and then twinkled out of existence. The dozens of little lights snuffed out and plunged Jalisa back into night’s embrace.

Her leg fell to the ground, tossed like garbage, and Jalisa rushed to pick it up then reattach it. It snapped into her knee, and she tried to temper her anger. How dare they treat her body—her perfect, perfect, gifted body!—like this?

She let out a frustrated exhale and began her walk anew, more careful of the roots, when she heard a distant voice—but one she recognized.

“…sa.”

Jalisa slowed her steps and strained to hear.

“Jalisa!” the voice called.

Father Omari. He’d already gotten wind of her trek and somehow caught up to her?

She was being monitored. Jalisa forced herself to run again, but lights sprang to life around her, dozens of faeries like warning flares to alert everything of her presence.

“Jalisaaaaa,” the faeries cooed.

Shit. They knew her name. They all knew her name now!

They giggled and chanted her name as she ran, following her, whispering in a language only fae could understand. It sounded like chime bells now, beating in her chest and making it heavier and heavier.

“Stop…” she groaned. Her voice was not her own. She was speaking… fae?

“Tell us the priest’s name, and we shall free you,” a sweet voice echoed. It was also in fae, and so she knew the truth—they were in her head. Whatever she was running from had already happened.

The forest trees cleared and the tangled roots became flat leaves, rotting from autumn. There was nowhere to hide now, and her body wouldn’t turn back. Puppetry possessed Jalisa all over again as she hobbled to the center of the clearing and stood still as if frozen.

The howl of a wolf made her shiver. No, no! What easy prey she made. She hadn’t survived for even an hour.

Survived. No. She would survive, even if it tore out her entrails and her eyes! Even if it ate her unbeating heart and her limbs piece-by-screaming-piece! She was undead. She was a hollowgris.

The realization that death would not spare her from pain made her stomach churn. Cracking branches turned fear into panic.

Jalisa stared ahead, wide-eyed, as a black-furred beast crawled out of the forest depths. It was night itself, so unnaturally dark that it dimmed any faerie light around it and hurt her eyes to even gaze upon it. 

Several pairs of mismatched antlers grew and tangled on its head like fish-netted trophies. Bear-sized with a long muzzle, it had no eyes she could see, but it saw her all the same. Clawed paws dug into the earth and made no sound as it made its way towards her. A fox-shaped tail, large as her entire body, swished behind it as it sniffed the air.

“What is that?” her tiny voice asked the sky, in hopes the faeries would answer.

Their lights snuffed out in response.

The faeries were silent. Invisible. Waiting—just like she was, but for their own cruel entertainment.

It then stood up like a man and sauntered towards her, assured. On its hind legs it was even more intimidating, even taller, and Jalisa could see its fanged teeth clearly now as it grinned.

It growled something at her but Jalisa forgot words. Even if the faeries had already released her, she did not remember how to run.

The beast kept coming closer and closer until it was directly in front of her, towering, so tall that she could only see fur in front of her. She would need to tilt her head up to see the rest of the beast, but she could not. It raised a claw, and she flinched. But it did not strike her. One nail caressed her cheek, like a lover, and Jalisa felt tears in her eyes. What a blessing and a curse to be able to cry again.

It sniffed her for a moment, and then its claw lowered from her cheeks to grip her hips. She arched back and revulsion shot through her. Not at the beast—at herself, at how she was thinking of how much better it’d be for a beast to take her rather than eat her. How if she just imagined it was Father Omari, that she could get through this, that she could even enjoy it. Her father was right. She was disgusting, disgusting, ugly—

The beast licked her next. A giant tongue lolled out of its mouth and covered her entire face, warm and soaking wet. Jalisa coughed in surprise, and the beast determined to lick her again and again, tasting her.

“Please,” she begged it. “Please don’t eat me…”

It stopped licking her for only a moment, leaving a sticky trail on her face, before starting up again. The claw released her, and it slashed down. Jalisa screamed, but then felt no pain. She looked down to see her clothes ripped, past her coat and past her bra and shirt and pants. Winter’s breath fogged over her exposed skin, but the claw returned to warm her, spinning her around and bending her over. She turned her neck to see a single sharp nail reach down, down, down, until she was squeaking from its touch over her exposed pussy.

She feared it cutting into her, ruining the custom pussy Father Omari had crafted, hers, but it was soft against her skin. It barely touched her folds, playing with them. The delicate touch made her eyes flutter closed. Perhaps the beast wouldn’t hurt her, perhaps if she played nice and gave in that it would appreciate her. It wanted her, didn’t it? She swallowed and placed her palms on her ass cheeks, earning a low growl of warning from the beast, but she shakily opened herself wide. She gifted herself to the beast, and the beast growled again, squeezing her tighter before the nail plunged in.

Jalisa gasped but found there was no pain. How was it doing this? If she concentrated, she could feel that the length of the nail was equivalent to a human’s, and the sharpness was impossibly dulled like one as well. 

It gave her pause to the whole affair.

And then it felt good, then better, then better than good and closer to how it was with Father Omari. The nail curled in her and her toes curled in turn as she moaned out and wetness dribbled out of her and onto her cold thighs. A nail from the other hand suddenly plunged into her mouth, and then she knew for sure—

This was an illusion. From a stranger? From the fae?

What she tasted wasn’t animal musk but a human hand. A human, or even an elf, someone with strong, world-weary hands, was plunging itself into her. Violating, and yet—

Jalisa arched her back and let her moans fall out untethered. Oh, to be desired, to be needed so badly that they’d lay with a suspicious woman in the woods. The beast-man’s breaths came out hot and heavy still, surely an imagination from the illusion, but her cunt squeezed in response. She threw herself back on the finger, begging for more, and the beast-man groaned in appreciation.

“More. More, please,” she begged.

The fingers left her mouth and her pussy, and she whined. The beast-man turned her around and brought its snout close. But it didn’t kiss her; it breathed her in; it contemplated what to do with her. And then she saw it emerge.

It was pink and bulging, materializing from the fur between its legs more-so than growing. It was stiff and ready, and Jalisa’s knees went weak. The beast-man gently laid her down in the clearing, huffing as it rubbed the human-sized thing against her clit. She gasped at the rubbing sensation, spreading her legs wider, and the beast-man… laughed? Small puffs escaped its open muzzle as it grinded and grinded and she got wetter and wetter.

“Please,” she said again, hoping she looked enticing as she batted her eyelashes.

The beast-man’s claws gripped both her hands, holding them tenderly as it firmly pushed them down. And then the cock slipped down to her entrance, teasing, not quite pushing yet even when Jalisa tried to edge it in. The beast-man wouldn’t let her. She peered into its black maw and the many antlers on its head, wondering what the person beneath the illusion looked like, and which version she’d rather see.

Her first time with a stranger. Her first time with a beast. Her first time in the open, with an audience of fae watching and judging and seeing her pathetic neediness for such a monster.

It pushed in, and Jalisa cried out. She’d been distracted, but the pain only lasted a moment. What a perfect size, what a perfect cock, the way it curved and knew her needs. And the way it felt! The connection Jalisa felt with it, as if it knew everything about her, was overwhelming. Tears spilled from her eyes in embarrassment, and her orgasm crashed over her. She felt her pussy squeeze, but the cock was thick and stretching. Her body pulled it in more, further in than she even knew her pussy could go, and suddenly Jalisa understood why Helena Bravesmith, outcast from her village for harlotry, wasn’t willing to give up cock.

The beast-man kept its pace steady, being careful to keep her pinned to the floor, and licked at her tears.

“Good. So good,” she groaned.

If only that first night of her new pussy had Father Omari just given in to lust and—

The beast-man disappeared.

Father Omari was above her, wearing his thickest furs. His nose ring swayed as he thrust into her. Her eyes widened in horror, her cunt clenched, her mouth drooped. He grunted with each fuck of his hips and his hands entwined with hers as they pushed upon the leaves and grass.

“Father?” she gasped.

He leaned in close, close enough to kiss, and gulped down air.

“Yes, my dawn?”

Oh, her unbeating heart.

“I…”

I was under a fae illusion she wanted to tell him. But then what might he think? What might he ask? Jalisa could not possibly tell him. To do so was to admit she presented the pussy he had lovingly given her to a hulking beast like a sullied cow.

“Jalisa?” he pressed.

And he waited, deep inside her, every part of them connected.

“Did you kill me, Father Omari?”

Father Omari did not look surprised by the question. His full lips pressed together, and he spoke slowly, brown gaze focused on her.

“Yes.”

A tear escaped her. She stared back and gripped his fingers tighter between hers.

“Why?”

“I want you to be happy, Jalisa.”

“Why did you kill me, Father?”

“Are you happy?”

She took a steadying breath. “I am.”

He smiled at that. And then—

Father Omari kissed her. A kiss she didn’t expect—warm and loving, nothing like what she remembered or had imagination for. Father Omari’s lips were as full as her own, and he licked into her forever-dead mouth, and across her forever-dead tongue. He tasted her spit and her need, like both would sustain him in equal measure.

“Father. Father, please, I need—”

“Sssh,” he murmured. “I know what you need. I know. Keep saying my name, my title, and I will give it to you.”

Jalisa’s cheeks were hot. “I… F-father?”

“That’s right,” he groaned, rolling his hips. “Again.”

“Father. Father Omari. Your cock—”

“Yes,” he laughed. “My cock, my cock is what’s fucking you. Are you satisfied?”

“Yes, Father!”

“It’s perfect for you, isn’t it? The perfect length and girth for you, hm?”

She moaned against his lips as she came again. Jalisa felt dizzy, couldn’t focus, but Father Omari didn’t stop.

“Come now, Jalisa.” He said her name like one of his gods, and Jalisa hoped they would not strike him for the audacity. “I need feedback. Tell me how well my gift is serving you. Are you full enough? How does it feel?”

“Perfect—perfect—perfect! Father, I love it, I love it!”

Her head lolled back in ecstasy.

And then it snapped off.

Jalisa scrambled to grab and stop it from rolling away as her eyes spun to see sky and brush and sky again. She angled to snap it back on, but Father Omari gently took it from her. Jalisa watched as he held the heavy thing up to his face with a fierce grin.

He nibbled her bottom lip before turning her around to look down upon her whole body. Father Omari moved slowly now, letting her take in the sight of her heaving, yet modest breasts. She could see how the cock entered her all the way to his stomach, and how gushing her pussy was upon it, greedier than any story of harlotry she’d ever read or heard. 

But what got her attention were the straps around Father Omari’s thighs and how they held his cock, which was also a ‌shade darker than the rest of his body. A familiar shade.

“Father…?” she tried to ask, unsure how. “Where did you acquire your cock?”

And he merely laughed again before picking up his pace. Jalisa watched her body arch and grasp for something to hold on to, but there was only dirt that fell through her fingers. But even when her body slid from his thrusts, Father Omari followed. There was no escape and only pleasure.

And she liked that. She liked that Father Omari didn’t dare waste a moment apart from her. She liked seeing her headless body used like this, like a doll meant for his or a beast’s needs, in the way a fertile cow’s only purpose in her village was to be fucked.

She gasped and watched exactly the moment she came, the way she went rigid and arched off the ground and the way Father Omari never stopped thrusting. Everything burned and squeezed and felt good. It felt like pixie dust had flooded her, had made her stupid and pliant with the way her thoughts ceased.

Jalisa didn’t realize Father Omari had replaced her head onto her neck until she was looking up at him once more. He stroked himself as he looked down upon her, perhaps not feeling a thing, but he looked so lustful that she was no longer sure.

With an awkward turn, she repositioned herself on her knees before him, and Father Omari continued to stroke himself before her lips. She smelled herself on his cock, dripping with an inhumanly sweet slick, and watched as he slowly stood up. They locked gazes and she couldn’t stop the feeling of sinking under his sharp brown eyes that seemed to see through her. Jalisa felt pried open, like her heart was exposed rather than her chest. She opened her mouth to him, some part of her desperate for every hole of her to be used as a woman.

Her hands reached up to his thighs and Father Omari let her, pushed his cock against the sides of her lips and above and below. He let her ache for it, let her prostrate herself like the men who took nights with Helena Bravesmith claimed she did. The tip of the cock flicked against her waiting tongue. When she attempted to close her mouth, Father Omari retreated. She whined for it, and he only smiled.

“Keep that pretty mouth of yours open, Jalisa.”

“Yesh,” she slurred, feeling drool pool.

“What a woman you are,” he moaned, awed. “What a sight you are.”

And her legs clenched together. The jolt his soft praise sent through her made her want to lie back again.

This time when he thrust, Father Omari dragged the cock back and forth across her tongue. Cold-on-cold, Jalisa moaned aloud in hopes he’d fuck her throat the way he’d just fucked her cunt.

“Eager girl,” he said, clicking his tongue. “You don’t worship the gods but you worship cock, don’t you?”

“Fadda,” she attempted, mouth open, begging.

“Yes. Father Omari is here. And I am not finished with you.”

***

She went home willingly, dressed in some of Father Omari’s furs after his dagger had torn hers open. He did not answer all her questions, but she found she no longer cared about the answers.

Father Omari had killed her. He had made her a hollowgris. And although he said nothing of the sort, Jalisa was certain that he loved her.

They came upon Castle Heavenstead once more, and she stopped to gaze upon its tall gray walls. They no longer seemed imposing but protective. The long vines that remained looked more like natural art pieces than signs of decay. Inside, she had dozens of family members who would rush to her and be worried about her sudden disappearance.

She could be with them forever, if other priests were not called to try and cleanse them, whether by tools of the gods or tools of man.

But Father Omari would grow old here while she did not. She looked over to him and the self-assured way he gazed upon the castle, as if he was also taking in its grandeur and meaning. Forty-seven resurrections and a fire for this.

She was not in love with Father Omari—not yet, anyway. But she could see a world where she did, and she was already teetering on the edge of that world as it was. And if she loved him as he did her, then yes:

She would kill him, too.