Redeeming The Hearts Of My Beasts

Ina Richmond opened her eyes to a world of pain. Her lungs felt packed with wet sand, every breath a shallow, burning struggle against a weight that crushed her chest. Her hand shot out instinctively, fingers scrabbling against the grimy sheets for the tactical knife she always kept under her pillow.

She grabbed nothing but air.

Panic, cold and sharp, spiked through her. She tried to roll, to vault off the bed into a defensive crouch, but her body betrayed her. It was heavy. Impossibly heavy. Layers of thick, suffocating fat anchored her to the mattress like slabs of wet concrete. Her heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic, irregular rhythm that echoed in the silent room.

Before she could process the physical failure, a searing agony ripped through her skull. It wasn't a headache. It felt like someone had jammed a live wire directly into her cerebral cortex. Memories—foreign, violent, disgusting—flooded her mind in a chaotic torrent.

She saw herself. Or rather, a woman who looked like her, but whose eyes were dead with cruelty. The woman held a whip studded with rusty barbs. At her feet cowered a boy with golden hair, his back a mess of torn flesh and blood. The sound of the whip cracking filled Ina's head, followed by the boy's muffled sob.

More memories surged in, and with them came a dawning, horrifying clarity.

This world was not the scorched, zombie-infested wasteland she had fought through for a decade. This was a beast-world, primitive yet governed by a single, ironclad law: females were the absolute rulers. In this realm, women were born with a rare spiritual power that could soothe the violent rampages inherent to all beast-men, and because females were outnumbered a hundred to one, they were worshipped, treasured, and granted unquestioned authority.

A single female could—and was expected to—take multiple males as her mates, forming a matriarchal household where her word was law. Males, no matter how powerful their beast forms, lived to serve, protect, and compete for a female's favor. The woman whose memories now infected Ina's mind, a woman who shared her name and face, had twisted this sacred bond into a theater of sadism.

The golden-haired boy was not a servant. He was one of her bound mates, and she had spent years perfecting his torment.

Ina's stomach heaved. A violent, physical revulsion twisted her gut. She gagged, the taste of bile rising in her throat. That wasn't her. She had spent her life in the apocalypse protecting the weak, not torturing them.

"System reboot complete."

The voice was mechanical, devoid of emotion, echoing directly inside her brain. It was a sound she hadn't heard since the bombs fell, a sound that meant survival.

"Arno?" she thought, her mind reeling.

"Affirmative. Military AI Arno online. Synchronization with host Ina Richmond at 12%."

"Status report," she demanded internally, forcing herself to breathe through the nausea.

"Host vital signs critical. Genetic rejection level: Severe. Cardiac output failing. Toxin accumulation lethal. Immediate