Jordan stood and watched with empty eyes as it happened, sinking deeper into the red with every dying member of the Order. She knew nothing but opaque joy. All of the Mother’s servants were here now, at the source, and their burning rage and lust were blinding beacons in her mind, almost too bright to bear. The fog between her and the world tasted of sex and desire, and it tinged her viscous thoughts with blind purpose. She was utterly lost, and knew only that everything was happening as it should.

The battle had been violent and quick and had almost ended in utter failure, but the Mother’s plan had paid off: A mind-controlled Leah had done their bidding without question, and kept the Constellation alive. Jordan was aware of those facts in the loosest possible way; the notion was less than a quivering breath in a hurricane, and quickly lost itself in the undeniable correctness of everything. There was only purpose and lust. Only the Mother. Only the thought of offering herself to Her. Being open. Being ready. Being willing. So willing. Yes. It was time.

They all went inside to end the lives of those that were no longer needed, and Jordan watched happily as the Mother's flesh-servants rejoiced in the dark pleasure of their victory. The soulless women moaned, and laughed, and kissed, and their fingers wandered between their legs in celebration – but they did not join in communion. First, they would claim Jordan.

They descended into the first sanctum and wiped away the filthy and pathetic scribbles of the aztec ritual that had dared to save Jordan’s soul. Using Ana’s blood and Leah’s remaining healing power, they restored the sanctum in the Mother’s name, and Jordan knew only that it was good. They disrobed, and witnessed each other’s willing flesh, and tasted the overwhelming resonance in the air, so close to the Source. They had come bearing Gifts: Between their shoulder blades, black claws anchored deep in their flesh, hung the wonderful chitinous creatures they had birthed. A jolt of red purpose pulsated through Jordan's subjugated mind, and with no more hesitation she stepped into the center of the sanctum, laid down, and presented her naked flesh like she was supposed to. The throbbing need in her mind was all there was. She thought nothing else. Her flesh must serve. Her flesh must serve. Her flesh must serve.

The first Herald Mina Park took a step forward and moaned softly as the gift detached itself from her flesh and crawled down her body, circling around Jordan like a shark around its prey.

Purpose hummed inside Jordan's mind and she opened her legs wider. The moment had come, and she knew that she needed to be claimed. Her soul had to die now.

The Mother’s Gift stopped between her legs, its head twitching, assessing her flesh.

Jordan knew that she wanted it.

Then it pounced, and entered her, and sealed her fate.

"NOOOOOOOOO!!!"

The blinding agony was enough to pierce through the all-enveloping curtain of toxic lust and purpose that had been suffocating her. The spell was broken. She was herself again.

Jordan shrieked and cried as her freed mind immediately became incoherent with pain and fear. No! No! No!!! The world was spinning, and everything was pain, and through the all-consuming agony, broken thoughts careened through her in jagged fragments. God, please!—this isn’t real—they’re all dead—no—why?—please! Please! PLEASE!!!

She tried to fight it—tried to reach between her legs and pull it out, but even now her mind vibrated with the terrible sickening heat of the Mother’s resonance, and every movement was a futile, overwhelming struggle. Her limbs were convulsing with pain, and her screams threatened to rip her throat apart. Oh God why doesn’t it feel good?!, she thought desperately, shamefully. It’s supposed to feel good! Its claws were inside her, perverse and disgusting, and she felt it burrow and rip through her flesh, and every movement was a new explosion of suffering. It had forced itself all the way inside her now—and her lower body bucked and twisted, and she screamed and screamed and cried and cried until—

—a shallow wave of pleasure rippled over her—and it dulled the pain, smoothing it with disgusting, liquid heat. Ohhhhh God, she thought weakly as the sudden relief made her gasp and shiver. Another soft wave of arousal followed immediately after, and her pussy throbbed with unwanted, irresistible pleasure. Oh God, it is happening, she realized desperately. Her mind was still racing, but now that her pain had numbed her thoughts had some semblance of coherence again—and her chest constricted with ice-cold fear as she glimpsed the inevitable consequence of what was happening to her: I’m going to die. This is the last moment of my life. They won.

She groaned in a feverish surge of pain and pleasure until an even worse and infinitely more morbid thought snapped into focus in her reeling mind.

No. I won’t die, she knew. I’ll still be there. But I’ll be—

Her mind seemed to shut down for a moment, her brain unwilling to acknowledge the conclusion. She moaned with fear and pleasure and pain as a new shudder of arousal went through her.

I’ll be like them. I'll be evil. The thought was impossible. There shouldn’t be such a thing—absolute, irredeemable, self-aware evil. It didn’t feel true. It couldn’t be true! It couldn't—

She groaned as the toxic lust between her legs spiked again, harder, deeper, stronger. Oh God, this can't be happening! But it was. Her thoughts were tumbling end over end. God was real. Magic was real. The soul was real. And her own soul was about to be ripped out of her. Everything that made her good was about to destroyed. Oh God. How was it going to feel when her soul died? What would it feel to become a monster? To have no soul, no goodness, no humanity? Only cruelty and hate? She felt like she was trying to anticipate the sensation of hitting the ground as she fell, and it made her sick.

No. This couldn't be how it ended! She tried to get up, tried to fight, tried to do anything at all—but her cramping, shivering body was beyond her control. She was trapped. Poisoned. Crying. Dying.

And it wasn't even feeling bad anymore. Again, a surge of sharp pleasure lashed through her—and it was all smearing together. There was no pain left. It was like getting fucked hard. Too hard. It was carving away at her soul, and it felt like furious, desperate sex. Oh God, no! Please no! Please! I don’t want to become like that, she thought desperately, but she hardly remembered why. Forgotten tears still clung to her eyes as she looked up and saw the beautiful lust-crazed faces around her, corrupted and soulless, fucking themselves, getting off from this. She saw Mina Park, her eyes burning with pitiless joy and sharp teeth showing in her wicked smile. She saw sister Ana, fondling her breasts. She saw Sam, shamelessly reveling in the sight of Jordan’s suffering.

Sam.

Jordan looked at her and saw those dead uncaring eyes looking down at her, and the last bit of clarity in her mind suddenly tinged red. Memories surged to the surface of her mind in a tide of irresistible sexual heat: That brief moment of love and tenderness she had felt last night. Sam and Her! Connected! Together! United! Oh, yes! she thought, and she suddenly knew she was sliding back into the thick red mist of the Mother's control. She tried to hold onto the clarity she’d felt through the pain and the fear, but it was already slipping through her fingers. It felt so good. Exciting. Exhilarating!

Wait. Why had she ever tried to stop this? The red-hot memory of desire and sex and lust was suddenly all she could think about, and it was so incredibly beautiful. Yes! She remembered Sam, naked in her dorm room bed late at night, her eyes glassy and empty as she masturbated; the moment when the resonance had taken hold of both of them for the first time:

"I have given my body. I have given my flesh. My flesh is willing. My flesh is open. I am ready to be taken."

Jordan moaned uncontrollably, and her pussy flared with overwhelming arousal. I have given my body, she remembered, and her thoughts were red and dense and it felt so irresistibly familiar and easy and good. I have given my flesh, she remembered, and had to moan again as she did. Yes. It felt so right. So good. She had to give in... she had to...

She had to...

had to...

"Yesss!" She moaned and bucked as the wonderful red joy between her legs flared again. Yes. Of course! How could she have forgotten? This is what it felt like! Yes! She remembered. My flesh is willing! My flesh is open! Her body was burning with that beautiful heat again, and it felt so good. She remembered! She remembered! Yes!

Except...

A tiny shiver cut through the red and she suddenly remembered something else: Cold night air, and glimmering stars above; Sam, standing on the sidewalk outside the bar, looking at her with wide green eyes full of fear and innocence and love. A beautiful young soul too good to be true, too wonderful to believe, too precious for anyone to deserve.

It was all gone now. Sam's soul was dead. They had lost. This was the end.

Sam! I’m so sorr—

She never finished the thought. A moan of pleasure escaped her as her quivering pussy roared with heat, and she remembered sex and lust and flesh and sweat and purpose, and she knew that she had to let her sacred blood take control. Yes! She saw it now! She had to give in. She had to! This was what she was meant for! Yes! Yes! Yes!!! Red-hot joy filled her world and drowned out all irrelevant noise and fear, and she let herself forget everything else, and in the boiling sea of exhilarating excitement only one wonderful thought remained:

I am ready to be taken.

Ana’s body was incandescent with lust as she watched Jordan succumb. Her mind spun with the wonderful reality of what was happening: She had betrayed them all! She had killed them! The Mother's designs had become reality through Ana's blood-stained hands! She had become the most terrible, depraved version of herself that she could have ever imagined, and it made her want to plunge her fingers deeper into her aching snatch.

She only looked away to catch a glimpse of her masters, Samantha Collins and Mina Park, proud to see their dead eyes burning with lust and purpose as they, too, bathed in the sadistic joy of Jordan's violent defeat.

I have served you! I am your willing flesh, she thought, and squeezed her tits harder as she turned her attention back to the squirming bitch who was soon about to become the Mother's eager servant. The third Herald was incoherently moaning with lust now, sweat beading on her skin as her mind drowned in the Mother’s pleasure, dark, tainted blood dripping from the desecrated gash between her legs. She was mindlessly mumbling to herself as she writhed with pleasure, eyes staring at nothing with no more fucking resistance left. Her mind was gone, and her soul was soon to follow.

Ana moaned with pitiless delight. Fuck yes! All of this had started with Ana trying to protect her instead of killing her. And now here they were, in the Sanctum of the Mother, and the exact thing she had tried to prevent was happening! She had betrayed them all! Fuck yes!

You will serve, Ana thought as she looked at the young woman she had betrayed, furiously fingering her wet, throbbing snatch. You will serve!!!

It took fourteen minutes.

They all watched it happen, fucking themselves with remorseless lust as Jordan mumbled half-spoken words of servitude and purpose and descended further and further into the resonance that had taken over her mind.

It was when that Resonance suddenly shifted that Ana knew that the end was near. The dark-skinned girl’s eager groans and whimpers had grown louder and faster, and were now building to a terrible climax. Ana felt Jordan’s enthralled mind burn with the fire of the Mother’s Resonance, and the girl on the floor mewled like an animal in heat. Her nipples had turned almost pitch black. Ana could tell that this was the moment. It would happen, now.

And it did.

“I have given my body!” Jordan suddenly cried, and her incoherent slurs of mindless affirmation became clear, bellowing screams. “My flesh must serve!” Her eyes were burning with mad, reckless, thoughtless desire. “I have given my flesh!” Jordan moaned, even louder this time. “My flesh is willing! My flesh is open! I am ready to be taken.” Yes!!! She was theirs! None of her resistance had mattered! None of her will! None of her struggle!

“My flesh must—AAAAAAH!!!” Jordan screamed, and her body convulsed as her final words turned into an ear-shattering roar of pain that was nothing but pleasure—and it was not just her body that was trembling: The Resonance bucked and the room shook as candles flickered all around them, and her roaring voice and the rumbling of the earth were as one.

And then, at the apex of the Resonance, the earthquake ceased — and Jordan's voice caught. Her scream turned into a choking gurgle, and her trembling body seemed to hang there, frozen in place, back arched, muscles tight, as her wide-open eyes stared at nothing and a final tear rolled down her cheek and evaporated.

The moment seemed to last an eternity.

And then Jordan Wright's soul died, and her body collapsed into a misshapen heap on the bloodstained floor, bent limbs sprawled out like a broken doll, lying utterly still and lifeless as the dim candlelight flickered across her dark, glistening skin in complete silence.

She lay dead for only a heartbeat.

When she returned, her goodness and humanity remained as dead as her soul. It was done. It had happened. The naked body on the ground twitched, and drew in a deep, rasping gasp, and the final Herald of the Mother opened her hateful, soulless eyes.

Yes, she thought. Finally!

Dark red excitement roiled in her chest as she realized what she had just become – and nothing could have ever prepared her for how fucking good it was. But of course. Of course, this was what it felt like!

Fuck, yes! She could taste it. The delicious void in her heart where her filthy soul had been – the empty black chasm where everything ‘good’ and ‘pure’ in her had once lived—the part of her that had screamed and begged and cried and fought.

The part of her that had finally fucking died!

Yes! It was dead! It was dead! Her soul was dead! It had actually happened!!!

I am Yours, Mother! Anything to  serve! The thought made her body shiver with sadistic satisfaction, and there was no more doubt, no more fear, no more shame and goodness left in her as she bathed in the glorious certainty that she had become a perfect soulless monster. She felt only hatred and lust. That filthy spark of humanity inside of her had finally been snuffed out forever!

Fuck yes! She had been so afraid of how this would feel—to be raped into service by the Mother’s Gifts—to die, and lose her soul. And now it had actually happened, and it was so fucking good. She had become exactly like she'd feared!

She looked up and drank in the heartless gazes of her naked sisters—and she smiled with cruel delight, because she knew that her own eyes must look just as fucking dead and empty as theirs. She was one of them now! Soulless! Corrupted! Subjugated! Willing! Yesss!!!

“I am willing flesh," she hissed eagerly, letting the perfect words lick her aching cunt like hot wet tongues. "I am Hers."

Her hand pushed between her legs as she spoke, and her ruined pussy quivered with need. She was so fucking wet, and she could tell that all of the others had been waiting for this, edging themselves until the moment she professed her subjugation – and now she had. Set off by her words, a chorus of orgasmic moans erupted around her as all other flesh-servants came at once, and she slowly worked her bloodstained fingers across her own raw and abused hole for all of them to see. There was no more pain – because of course pain was pleasure when you served the Mother of lust! She pushed deep into herself, twisting her hips, frayed flesh scream with blazing joy, and as she forced her fingers deep into her ruined, desecrated pussy, she felt it: The hard shell of the Mother’s Gift against her fingertips: cold chitin and razor-sharp claws, burrowed deep inside of her body!

Yesss! The demon that had raped her and claimed her and killed that piece-of-shit soul of hers—it was right there, forever inside of her, part of her! She was Hers now! Willing flesh! Her demonic servant! Her property! Her Herald!!!

Yes!!! I will serve!!! I will serve!!! I will serve!!! I will serve!!! Fuck, yes! Everything she had ever been and done had just become so fucking worthless, and she was going undo everything last fucking bit of it! Yes! Yes! She would betray everything she had ever wanted! Yes, she thought, and pushed even harder into her gushing slit as she pitilessly remembered all the fear and the terror she had felt and all the desperate things she had done to fight her destiny.

Fuck you, Jordan!, she thought, and her flesh shivered with spiteful pride to be exactly as fucking evil and cruel as she had feared, pitiless, inhuman and just so fucking eager and ready to kill and rape — just like they had raped her! Yes!!!

Fuck you, Jordan!, she thought as she remembered the final moments of her pathetic old self. The horror, the pain, the despair. She remembered looking down between her legs with absolute terror and seeing the Mother’s Gift claw its way into her unclaimed pussy.

Fuck you, Jordan!, she thought, and pushed hard into the tainted cunt of the woman that had fought so hard to stop all of this, knowing that she had lost. Nothing of that bitch remained. Her mind was a pitiless, hateful place, and she fucking loved it. This is what you deserved, you fucking whore! Your flesh serves! You’re Hers! You're dead! You're fucking dead!!!

She looked over to the two mind-controlled women that she'd betrayed with her lies: Leah and Jeanne, the last remnants of the Order—and the shameless desire to see their naked bodies raped and claimed was like another slick finger in her wet pussy. Yesss, she thought, You lost! You should have killed me when you had the chance, you pathetic pieces of shit! Fuck yes! That ancient Order was fucking dead! Yes! They had failed—and now they were going to kill their souls and make them serve!

"YESSS!!!"

Jordan bucked and screamed with shameless lust and she came harder and better than she'd ever done in her worthless old life. Her corrupted body screamed with violent joy, and her thoughts scattered into greedy, animalistic heat. It was her first orgasm as the Mother's whore, and for an eternity of wondrously cruel and selfish ecstasy, her willing flesh boiled with shameless fantasies of rape and violence, and she was drowning in Her sacred blood, cumming, screaming, moaning, whimpering, trembling, sighing, shivering, panting, and finally — finally, coming down.

When the throbbing, sizzling pleasure between her legs finally faded and her cruel, pitiless thoughts returned to her, there was one thing she knew above all else:

I am Hers. I’m finally Hers!

She was so fucking ready to serve.

Leah knew that she should be calm. She knew that she should be watching Jordan’s rebirth as a soulless demon with the same dispassionate detachment with which she’d watched the slaughter of her brothers.

She had to obey. She had to be calm.

But she wasn’t. She was... afraid—because... something was off. But she couldn’t tell what. This all felt somehow wrong... like she should be doing something. Stop it from happening, even if she had to obey Ana. Even if she should be calm. It was... so hard to grasp. She kept watching what was happening in front of her as her mind tried and failed to hold onto the idea. She kept watching as the demonic flesh-servants fucked themselves. She kept watching as Jordan's hands pushed into the dark red gash between her legs and made herself get off to what had happened to her.

Eventually, it was done.

Jordan got to her feet—and she had the proud poise and effortless confidence of a Queen visiting her subjects as she walked towards Leah and Jeanne. Her smile was cruel and hungry, and her eyes were pitiless. Evil.

Something about that seemed so utterly wrong and tragic.

The dark-skinned girl turned to Ana, whom Leah had to obey. Jordan smiled at her. “You said I can thank you when this is over,” she said, gazing into Ana’s eyes—and Ana licked her lips. Then, Jordan stepped forward and kissed her deeply, dark lips pressing against Ana’s as her hands cupped the scholar’s ass and pulled her in. Ana moaned loudly, and it made Leah wince inwardly. It felt wrong. This wasn’t Ana. This wasn’t her.

Their kiss broke — but they stayed close, their eyes locked.

“Thank you,” Jordan said as she slid her hand between Ana’s legs. “Flesh-servant.”

Jordan's eyes were utterly sadistic and cruel. They shouldn't be. She had fought so hard. She had been so strong. So good.

Leah shivered. This was wrong. She shouldn’t be part of this. She shouldn’t be calm like this. She shouldn’t just watch this happen. She shouldn’t—

—Jordan and Ana turned around to face her, and her train of thought derailed as she met Ana’s gaze. I have to obey her, something inside her insisted, and it was so hard to think anything else as Jordan and Ana and the others approached her.

Jordan stopped two steps away from her, and her pitiless eyes wandered down Leah’s exposed body, lingering between her legs before her gaze turned to something next to Leah, and Leah suddenly remembered that sister Jeanne was with her. Jeanne was naked, too. She wasn’t doing anything about what was happening either. That wasn't like her at all. She was… mind-controlled.

Wait.

Did that mean that…?

“That whore can serve after the Constellation is over,” Jordan said, regarding Jeanne like livestock. “Bind her will in the meantime. But that pretty little Healer... I mean... we've got one more Gift. Let’s use it.”

Some part of Leah screamed—but it was so small and so far away in the back of her mind that she could hardly hear it. Still, she felt tiny waves of fear ripple through her. She noticed that her heart was beating quickly now as Ana stepped closer and told Leah to lay down and spread her legs. She had to obey Ana, so she did—but she was afraid. Very afraid.

The cold floor under her back was hard and uncomfortable. She knew it shouldn’t have bothered her—it was so much less important than obeying Ana. But it did. It was painful, and cold, and she was afraid, and she knew that she didn’t want this. They were going to hurt her. She didn’t want them to hurt her. Suddenly she didn’t feel calm anymore, and just as suddenly she realized that she shouldn’t feel calm. She should stop this, shouldn't she? She should really break out of this. Leah watched the centipede demon climb down Samantha Collins’s body, and her skin crawled. She gasped with fear, and a sudden flash of clarity sparked through her. No! She really didn’t want this! Ana was doing this to her! Ana was hurting her!

...but she had to obey Ana, didn’t she?

Didn’t she?!

The terrible demon-spawn took its place between her legs, head raised in the air, skittering, glistening, disgusting, dangerous, unwelcome, wrong. Wrong! Everything was wrong. Something told her to be calm but everything was wrong. She shouldn't be calm. She shouldn't obey. She shouldn't do any of this! She wasn't herself! She was being controlled!

No!

I won't let you!

I won't obey!!!

Something inside of her snapped, and all the leaden calmness in her mind evaporated at once. She broke free of the spell, and she suddenly felt all of the fear and all of the terror return that the layers of control had drowned out. Her mind reeled with whiplash and horror. Oh God, no! What have I done?! What do I do now? What—

It all crashed into her at once, and she was filled with sheer, helpless panic, and the world seemed to slow to a crawl as adrenaline flooded her thoughts. She looked around herself—and she saw the Aztec ceremonial knife on the floor next to her.

All her thoughts immediately focussed to a point. Everything around her seemed to quiet down and recede. It was just a couple of feet away! A divine knife!

Her muscles tensed and she twisted herself around and to her feet and—

Blisteringly hot hands grabbed her by the ankles, and she stumbled and fell. She stretched out her arm and reached for the blade, but it was still out of reach.

“No!” she screamed, and kicked and twisted against her captor, trying to break free.

“NO!!!”

With inhuman strength, someone forced her legs apart, and she couldn’t see who it was or what else was happening behind her, but she knew that they wanted to invade her and rape her and end her—and she knew she couldn’t stop it.

But she could still do this one thing.

Her thoughts darkened into utter despair when she realized that she was about to die. But at least she wouldn’t die in vain.

There was one more thing she could do, even if it would tear her body apart and obliterate everything around her—all the Order’s artifacts—all of the knowledge and tools and weapons that they had brought along. It would all be lost—but at least the Mother would be stopped.

Her voice darkened and deepened as she cast the powerful incantation—an incantation she should not know how to perform. An incantation that she had learned from a forbidden book that Josiah had locked away. An incantation that—

The demon drove itself into her shame, and the world exploded into pain. Her spell dissipated into nothing as her adrenaline-fueled focus derailed into incoherent chaos. She screamed as it tore her open, and the universe spun and tumbled and frayed as the excruciating pain buried everything except for one desperate, panicked, helpless thought:

Please, God! Make it stop! Make it stop!!!

But the pain didn't stop. Not for a long time.

Leah’s screams were ear-shattering. The round-faced Order girl contorted as the gift raped her—and the sight of it gave Jordan nothing but hot, sadistic pleasure. She recognized Leah’s pain as the same pain that Ana had felt when the Gift had burrowed into her flesh: she was immune to the Gift’s venom, and she would be in agony all the way until she finally gave in and volunteered her soul to be destroyed. Seeing her suffer was so fucking hot, and Jordan drank it in with cruel joy. Fuck, yes! No orgasm for you until you cream for the Mother, you little slut.

It was so fucking good to be like this.

Ana had let go of Leah’s legs when her screams had devolved into little more than incoherent moans. It had become clear that the young Healer was beyond any resistance, and she was simply lying there now, legs spread, blood slowly seeping from her invaded cunt as she twitched and whimpered, paralyzed by pain and utterly defeated. It was only a matter of time before she would be their willing whore.

It was so fucking hot. For a short while, Jordan simply enjoyed the sight of the woman’s corruption, simmering in the wonderful excitement of how utterly depraved and pitiless she had become. She couldn't wait to see those round innocent eyes as dead and cold as her own. She remembered Leah embracing her when they had first met, granting her magical warmth and comfort without judging her or even knowing her, and she felt nothing but satisfaction to know that all that fucking warmth and goodness was going to be raped out of her. Fuck yes.

But the longer Jordan watched, the more something else screamed at the dark core of her breathtaking new existence—the irresistible need to be with them.

She turned away from Leah, and left her to her screams of agony. Whatever. She suddenly knew that this new urge was far more important.

She looked at her fellow Heralds, and saw their wicked smiles. The sight of them made her so fucking horny. They had watched Leah’s defeat along with Jordan, feeling the same pitiless joy. Mina Park and Sam Collins. Flesh-servants. Soulless Heralds of the Mother. It was the second-best thought in the universe. Jordan looked at their corrupted bodies and she wanted to taste them, feel them, have them, fuck them. Mina was so fucking hot—tall and lean with a fierce but pretty face, and eyes devoid of any compassion or love. Officer of the law. Rapist and killer of her own wife. Mother of the Gift that had claimed Jordan's flesh! She was glorious.

But Sam... Sam was perfect. Desire and corruption made flesh. When Jordan looked at Mina she saw willing flesh and glorious purpose—but when she looked at Sam, she saw the perfect grave of her own love, of her own goodness. She felt fucking nothing for her anymore. It was amazing. Gazing into Sam’s burning eyes, she tasted only the sadistic joy of discarding her soul and letting it die. The sight of Sam’s slim, corrupted body made her celebrate all the things that Sam had ceased to be, and her pussy throbbed with the knowledge that there was no more goodness or humanity left in her. Yesss. The bubbly and excitable girl that Jordan had fallen in love with was gone. Forever.

“I've been looking for you all day, you know?” Jordan said with a crooked smile, and the Mother’s young whore looked at her with her round, green eyes. They were a bottomless abyss, and Jordan could taste the malignant darkness at Sam’s core as she stared into the hateful void where a soul had once been.

“Trying to save me,” Sam answered with her own cruel smile, letting Jordan see the sharp points of her canines glint in the candlelight. Jordan's pussy throbbed with need.

“Yup,” Jordan admitted, putting every last bit of her disdain and mockery into it. "But then you killed me."

Sam laughed, and for a moment it sounded just as bright and careless and light-hearted as the laughter she remembered from that one night of innocent love and connection. But it was a lie. Everything Sam had ever been had died along with her soul, and her laughter faded as her face hardened into callous delight and her cold, dead eyes met Jordan's gaze. “It was so fucking good to see you die,” the flesh-servant said, and traced her fingers seductively along the enormous scar that ran from her belly up her chest. Jordan’s eyes followed them hungrily, creeping up and down the flesh-servant’s naked body before lingering on the dark, pierced nipples that marked her as the Mother’s willing flesh.

Jordan took a step towards her. “She wanted you to know that she's sorry,” she said with a mocking smirk. “It was the last thing she thought before she died.”

Sam was close enough to smell now—close enough for Jordan to feel the radiating heat of her corrupted body.

“Pathetic,” Sam said. “I’m so fucking glad she’s dead.”

Jordan’s pussy squirmed again. Sam's presence was maddening. There was just a hand’s breadth of space between their corrupted bodies. It was like standing on the surface of a dark red sun, and it took all her will and strength not to fall and sink into the all-consuming incandescence. She wanted her. She wanted her so bad. It was so fucking hot to see her like this, and to hear her curse and hiss and mock everything they had been to prove just how fucking dead all of the goodness in them was. Yes! They were nothing but servants now! Nothing but willing flesh, soulless and corrupted and beautiful! Heralds of the Mother! Blood as paint and flesh as canvas!

“My flesh is ready,” Jordan suddenly heard herself say. It came as a suprise. She hadn't meant to say it. But an overwhelming need had taken hold of her, and she suddenly knew that those were the correct words. It was what she needed to say. It was Glorious Purpose and it tasted of sex and blood and reckless desire and it was everything she had ever wanted.

Sam’s eyes widened and lit up with the Mother’s fire. “My flesh is open,” she said in reply—and immediately, Mina's voice joined in, completing the perfect notion: “My flesh is willing.”

Yes!!! Jordan looked at them both: The mother of her death and the death of her love! Her mind was thick with cruel, sadistic satisfaction. Yesss! Their worthless souls were gone. They were Heralds! They were Hers! They were willing flesh! They would finally, finally fulfill their purpose! They were so close! They were meant to be! The all-consuming presence of her sister Heralds drowned Jordan in an utter sense of joy and lust and purpose and the need to be with them was suddenly overwhelming. She had to touch them, to hold them, to join with them! Her mind was nothing but irresistible compulsion, and she violently crashed into Sam and Mina’s hungry embrace, and their willing flesh touched, and the world exploded into dark pleasure. The resonance itself seemed to sing and scream in ecstasy and devastating waves of red-hot lust vibrated through her and it was relief and joy and purpose and ecstasy all at once and she felt their hot skin against her own, felt their blood boiling in their veins, felt it boil in her own. They filled her mind, and her blood roiled, and she was moving without knowing where and how and her mind spiralled with the dark purpose and red glow of her Mother’s resonance and everything was consumed by that one desire, that one all-consuming need, that one fundamental constant of her existence, and her thoughts dissolved into thin red mist as she touched and kissed and knelt and held hands with her sisters, and became part of the Constellation.

And just like that, it was over.

Leah opened her soulless eyes to a better world—a world in which she was going to hunt and kill and taste the flesh and dying souls of the Mother’s prey instead of caring for the weak and pathetic. Her empty heart throbbed with joyful revelation as and her soaking wet cunt seeped and quivered in the afterglow of her first filthy orgasm. It had happened to her! It had actually happened to her!!! Fuck, yes!!! Part of her still couldn't believe that it was true — but it was! She had given in. She had discarded her pathetic soul and her worthless humanity and become Her servant! Her tool! Her subjugated, willing flesh!    

I am Hers, she thought, and her tainted flesh boiled with selfish joy. All pain had twisted itself into seething pleasure, and she looked down at herself to take in the throbbing gash between her legs where the Mother’s Gift had forever raped away her cursed celibacy. Yes! Her pussy! Her fucking womanhood! She could feel it, hot and wet and eager, squirming inside her defiled womb, in the heart of the forbidden desire that she had wanted to give in to all her life! She was willing flesh! She was Hers! Oh God, yes!

No, she realized — and a cruel, satisfied smile spread across her lips.

No more God.

No more soul.

Only me!

Fuck, yes! She finally recognized the true nature of herself: Lust and hatred and the need for pleasure and purpose—that was who she really was, and always had been. Her soul had been nothing but a tumor—a festering growth, poisoning her with filthy lies of morality and malignant delusions of compassion and love, suffocating, starving, blindly denying what had always existed at the core of her being: a caged animal that only wanted to fight and feed and fuck—that wanted to take it all for herself, to not have to give a shit about anyone else.

But not any more. That fucking lie of compassion had finally been ripped out of her. She was that animal now, and she was free. Free from conscience and empathy and mercy and shame. Free from weakness. Free from God. She was a depraved little whore, and it felt fucking amazing to finally admit how much she wanted to fuck and kill and rape. It made her so fucking hot. She served only one Mistress now — and she couldn't wait to betray everything she had ever been and give in to every last selfish and violent urge she had ever suppressed! Fuck, yes!

She looked up, still utterly overwhelmed by the incredible beauty of her unleashed perversion—and took a sharp breath when she immediately spotted yet another thing to betray. Her cunt throbbed with utter delight. Above her stood the motionless form of ‘Sister’ Jeanne—still naked and entranced by mind magic and utterly pacified and pathetic. Fuck, yes! Jeanne had been her superior and mentor for almost as long as she could remember and now she had been turned into nothing more than a naked whore waiting to be claimed. An enemy of the Mother. Mindless. Powerless. Defeated. Seeing her like this made Leah want to stick her finger up her helpless pussy just because she could. Just to humiliate her even further. Just to exert dominance. Jeanne was theirs. Jeanne was Hers!

Yesss! You’re gonna be next, Jeanne! Leah thought, her pussy tightening with hungering fantasies of violence and domination and sex. She licked her lips, hungry to follow her new nature and see all flesh turned as willing as her own. Your soul belongs to Her, you fucking Order whore! she thought, reveling in all of the sadistic cruelty and hatred that now lived in her heart. This was so much better. She wanted to see it. Do it. Rape her. Kill her. Hurt her. Take her grace. Make her scream. Make her cum. Make her serve!

No. Not yet. Serve! Obey! Witness!!!

She took a sharp breath as her mind turned red hot with the Mother's Resonance. She had forgotten it in all of her excitement  — but now she felt the Mother's will roar in her tainted blood, and remembered that there were far more important matters at hand. Their purpose was calling! Of course! The Constellation!

So instead of further occupying herself with the worthless bitch that was soon going to become a hot, soulless little whore just like herself, Leah sat up to finally see her Heralds ascend. Yes! She was so incredibly wet and ready to witness what she had died trying to prevent.

Ana was the first of the serving flesh to notice that Leah had become one of them. The young Scholar turned around and smiled at her, blood-stained and naked, and her expression was self-satisfied and cruel and so fucking hot. She was looking at Leah as if she was nothing but a particularly tasty meal and in that moment Leah realized with a surge of arousal that Ana no longer cared about her; their decade-old friendship had died along with their souls. It had burned up and turned into nothing, like the useless and pathetic thing that it was. Leah had become nothing more than one more hot, willing servant of the Mother—one that Ana had helped create—and Leah’s whole existence was something that Ana could get off to.

Leah loved that so fucking much. She felt the same way about Ana now. Ana — timid, awkward, bright and loyal Ana — had been raped and claimed, and now she was nothing but a flesh-servant, and Leah wished only that she could have been there and seen the light in Ana's eyes go out. She took in her sister's claimed and defiled body, eyes wandering down across her tits and between her legs, where the Mother's Gift had ripped its way into her and turned her mind and body into filthy corrupted instruments of the magnificent evil they were both part of now. Leah wanted to fuck her hard. Possibly on top of Brother Josiah’s corpse. Fucking her was going to be one more wonderfully fucked-up way to kill the memory of everything they’d been.

As Leah rose to her feet, she picked up the Aztec dagger that still lay next to her and idly turned it in her hands like a fidget toy. She could feel its divinity rear its head as her freshly tainted flesh touched it, and the desire to destroy it rose in her throat like an acidic aftertaste. It reminded her hotly of who she belonged to now, and of all the pathetic goodness she had been freed from.

She gently drew the blade across the tip of her index finger. A drop of blood ran from it—and evaporated against her burning skin. A few moments later the small cut in her demonic flesh had already sealed itself. She smiled, dropped the dagger, and joined her Sisters.

To her surprise, she found that only the three of them were standing—and finally noticed what had been hidden from her view by Ana’s and Ellie’s naked bodies. A strange mix of pleasant surprise and disappointment went through her. She didn't know how she could have missed it: The Heralds were already on their knees—their eyes empty and unseeing as the resonance held their minds. Leah’s new masters were positioned in a narrow triangle, facing outwards. Their backs and heads were resting against each other and their arms were at their sides, each of them holding the other’s hands.

The Constellation. It is already happening! Leah’s pussy flared with sudden arousal and excitement—but also faint disappointment. Somehow she had expected more pomp and circumstance. This was the moment that would seal the fate of the entire world. It shouldn’t just... happen while she was away.

But that was what had happened. It had already started. Leah could feel it simmering in her groin, tickling her pleasantly, growing, spreading. She noticed that the air around her had begun to resonate in a subtly different way. The Herald’s eyes were open, and Leah could see the Mother’s fire behind them. Their skin was flushed, and their bodies burned so hot that steam was rising off of them. Leah felt their heat burn against her like harsh sunlight, and she saw their veins, dark red beneath their skin, pulsating with the sacred blood of their Mistress.

They didn’t move. They didn’t speak. The Mother had taken hold of them.

Yesss! The enormity of what she was witnessing finally crystallized in her mind, and her whole body shivered with arousal and awe. This was the end of the world, and she was on the winning side of it! Yesss! The Mother shall rise through willing flesh! She whimpered as her thoughts were swept up in the dark knowledge and instinct that churned between her legs, and every word in her mind was hot lips against her cunt. All shall serve her! The world will kneel! She could feel her hand slowly creep down her body, resonance throbbing in her mind as she shoved her fingers deep into the bloody gash between her legs, violently digging into her own raw flesh and feeling only ecstasy as Her corruption turned all pain into pure animalistic pleasure. She screamed and contorted and convulsed, and came for the Mother — but she did not stop. And neither did the others. They all fucked themselves, hard, again and again for what felt like hours as they watched the motionless Heralds, their hands deep between their folds as the resonance built and brightened—until finally Leah was certain that the moment of the Mother’s birth was close at hand. She could feel it in her throbbing cunt—feel it in the crescendoing resonance—see it in the now visibly corrupted bodies of the Heralds. Yesss! Dark veins snaked beneath the Heralds’ reddened skin like spiderwebs now. Their eyes had turned solid black. It was happening! Soon!

Leah’s body was slick with sweat. Her hair had matted against her skull and her breathing was fast and shallow. The air was screaming and throbbing with Mother’s resonance, threatening to set the room on fire, threatening to burst in a violent explosion that consumed everything. Like a tea kettle, whining louder and louder and louder until—

It happened.

Suddenly, the resonance imploded like a star turning into a black hole, and for a moment there was only silence.

Then two of the Heralds collapsed, their eyes truly dead.

One didn’t.

Mina was lost in the endless darkness. The world was less than a pinprick at the far end of her perception. There was only the resonance. There was only her rushing blood, and the will of her Mother. She felt Her now, close enough to touch. She smelled Her sex. She tasted Her lips. She felt the Mother’s teeth and offered her throat.

Sam’s mind lay bare, stretched out into an endless spiral that arced through infinity. The incandescent power of her Mistress combed through her like the reckless arms of a passionate lover, and she felt herself stripped and ripped apart, and consumed. There was only pleasure and joy.

Jordan spun through the evil blackness that owned her being. The Mother’s resonance was all there was now. There was nothing else. Every thought was saturated with it. Every word and every emotion and concept bore her mark, was entirely Hers. She felt Her presence. Felt Her inside her. Felt Her around her. Swallowing her, entering her, permeating her, all at once.

Mina had lost all concept of time. There was only Her. The Mother was all there was. She was nothing. She was hers.

Sam glimpsed something. Something wonderful. Something sacred. Everything about her seemed to be dissolved and gone. She didn’t even know how there was anything left of her to witness it. But she did, and it was beautiful.

The universe around Jordan was blinding ecstasy. She had been lost, and scattered, and everything had been dark. But now there were so many lights.

Mina’s mind was blinded, and she was consumed by pleasure. She felt herself rip apart, and it was perfect.

Sam’s being screamed with utter joy as the light crashed into her, and she felt herself shatter into pieces, and—

Jordan moaned as the light enveloped her and filled her, and for a moment, the radiating intensity threatened to rip her apart at the seams. But the pain was pleasure, and the pleasure grew and grew and grew and—

Jordan came. Sam came. Mina came. There was only one mouth that screamed in ecstasy.

Then, there was silence.