Making Monster Girls 3: For Science! Page 19

  “By science…” I grunted. “How could you allow her to do such a thing? You let her put that… that thing on you?”

  “It’s part of my contract,” the scientist moaned. “I didn’t read it all the way through. It was in the damn paperwork, and I didn’t see it until after she strapped me in! She also put a clause in there that under no circumstances was I allowed to escape her ‘patronage’ by signing a consort contract with another woman.”

  “Well, at least you learned from that one,” I chuckled. “Lucien, I may not like you, but I am very sorry you’re going through this. I may try to figure out a way to get you out of it, but… from the last time I spoke to you, you didn’t seem to mind being in the Duchess’ company.”

  Edony didn’t seem to realize that the truth serum didn’t affect her abilities at all, and if she really wanted to, she could attack me at this very moment. I kept on my best behavior and didn’t taunt her too much. All of us knew it was illegal for her to kill another woman’s consort, but not only that, we were at a party filled with other nobles. If something were to happen to me, they’d find us and then grab her away to the nearest jail. When I glanced over at her, the Duchess’ eyes slashed into me, and it was clear she understood what was going on but wouldn’t act on it.

  Another confirmation that she had feelings for me.

  “I’ve admired the Duchess for a very long time,” the scientist admitted. “And I would like it very much if she accepted me as her soul mate. I am sure if I were her consort, she would bear a beautiful, charming, and intelligent daughter that would bring forward many advances in the scientific community.”

  Edony’s violet eyes swiveled to the scientist, her mouth dropped open, and the Duchess immediately took a swift step away from him. I already knew that with a dose of this size, they wouldn’t remember any of this by morning, hell, maybe even an hour after it wore off, but all of this information was so shocking, I didn’t know how to take it all in, let alone process it.

  I wanted to laugh. I wanted so badly to think every word that had just spilled out of their mouths was a joke, but I couldn’t, not when the truth serum was in full effect.

  “What in the world would make you say something like that?” Edony gasped. “What a horrible notion. To even think that I would entertain accepting you into my breeding program… asinine, how you have the gall to bring it up in front of me… Do you know where the men who come from my breeding program come from? All the way from the east across the ocean in Galazia. Not only that, Lucien, I never use the same brute twice or a brute that I am acquainted with. You are absolutely out of the question.”

  “But you’re in love with Charles?” the scientist squealed. “You want his seed in your womb? How can you say such a thing like that and then reject me? I know he’s handsomer and more talented than I am, but come on!”

  “You just stated very compelling reasons, you fool,” Edony groaned as she rolled her eyes. “But yet, I want Charles for who he is inside. I didn’t fall in love with him because he’s so dashing and handsome… I fell in love with him by accident.”

  It was time to go, Edony was able to speak more freely, so that meant that her dose of truth serum was starting to wear off. Within a few minutes of it leaving her system, the Duchess would get very tired to the point of exhaustion and probably pass out. I had to get her and Lucien out of this room, down the hall, and back to the ballroom before they started swaying on their feet like a pair of drunkards.

  “I think it’s time that we leave,” I uttered. “I’ve gotten all of the information that I needed from the two of you. I don’t know about you, Lucien, but Edony’s dose is starting to wear off. I have… about three or four minutes before the aftereffects kick in. Let’s get you out of this room. Wouldn’t want Josephine or one of her servants to find your unconscious bodies in the morning.”

  “U-Unconscious?” Lucien gasped. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “Ah, don’t worry about it,” I tittered. “I’m sure that you’ll be fine. It won’t kill you… or at least, I don’t think it will.”

  “W-What?” the scientist shouted.

  “Charles?” Edony whispered. “About what I said… it’s the truth, even now, as I look at you, I feel those things all over again. Even if my stomach is roiling in disgust, I can’t deny them anymore. Please, will you come back to me? Can I buy your contract back from—”

  “Edony...” I stated, came around both of them, placed my hands on their shoulders, and steered them toward the door. “I don’t know how to answer that. How do you expect me to react? I’ve spent the last year being terrified of you, and then you drop a surprise on me like this? I don’t know what to say or think… I can barely look at you without feeling that same old terrified reaction I did before, and now you throw all of these things at me? I’m absolutely shocked… I have no other way to put it. All of my life women around me have hated my sex and let me tell you, they never hid it. You never did either, and I saw it on so many occasions that I’ve lost count. Now you want to tell me that you’ve been in love with this entire time? I’m allowed to be a little confused and shocked, don’t you think?”

  “So,” Edony hissed. “You’re rejecting me?”

  “I don’t understand,” I grunted. “You tried to ruin my life, you tried to evict me from my home, not only that but when I found a clause to keep me there, you tried to sell the manor out from underneath me. When you finally didn’t have anything on me, you tried to frame me for a murder… Edony, why would you do all of those things if you loved me? That’s not love. You may not know what it is because you’ve never experienced it, but it’s certainly not love.”

  “If I can’t have you,” Edony snarled. “No one else will, especially not your puny Mistress. I may not be the woman who loves you, but… I will be the woman who kills you.”

  “You’ve tried,” I muttered. “Just give it up, Edony.”

  Edony believed that she would be the one to kill me, but I would never let that happen, I had too much to live for. I may have created my women, built them from absolutely nothing, but they were the ones who unexpectedly came into my life and changed it. When I worked for Edony, I was a coward, hiding in my laboratory, waiting for the Duchess to arrive and squeeze the life out of me, but I was a different man now. I may have been a brute, but I’d managed to give myself some power over the aristocrats, and I wasn’t going to let it go.

  “How can you be so confused about your feelings?” the Duchess growled. “What I said couldn’t have been so sho-s-shoc-shocking… w-what is ha-happening? The r-r-room is g-g-getting all s-s-spinny.”

  “Finally, there it is,” I breathed. “Now to just get you inside the ballroom without anyone noticing.”

  Edony’s pretty lips parted slowly, the left corner of it drooped down, twitched, and then laid slack. I could tell from the look in her eyes she wanted to snap back with a hateful reply, but physically couldn’t. The serum’s aftereffects seemed to be hitting Lucien harder than the Duchess, though, the poor man’s feet dragged against the carpeted running down the hall, drool foamed from his lips, and incoherent words flowed out of his throat. I gripped onto the back of his suit jacket, held him upright, and half-carried him back to the door of the ballroom.

  The Duchess’ head fell, rested against her shoulder, lolled there for a second, rolled back, and then she stared straight into my eyes. I couldn’t tell from her expression what she was thinking, probably not much since the aftereffects were taking over her senses, but I had to wonder, did she feel those things for me? There was no questioning it after she confessed to it under the influence of the truth serum, but it still seemed impossible.

  I shook my head, cleared those thoughts away, pushed forward, grabbed the door handle tightly in my hand, ripped it open, and then shoved the two of them into the ballroom. Edony and Lucien stumbled, but I hastily slammed the door closed while watching through the crack of the swinging door. None of the other aristocrats seemed to notice
the seemingly drunk Duchess and her scientist. I sighed softly, turned, rested my back against the door, and closed my eyes.

  I’d learned so much in the last hour and most of it… no, all of it was utterly appalling. How the Duchess could even think of doing those abominable things to her body was mind-blowing. Yes, I knew that she could do some dastardly things, but to use her own embryos as test subjects for her modified creatures? Not even I, the scientist, doctor, and notorious alchemist could think of doing those things. I dreaded telling my women about it. I knew it would anger them to the point of violence, but there was nothing we could do about it now, or at least, not yet.

  We’d strike back at the Duchess eventually, but none of her actions affected our family directly, or at all. Why should I care if Edony wanted to kill the Queen? I’d heard from others and Rian that the Queen was hundreds of years old, the throne should be passed on to someone else, but maybe someone else other than Edony.

  Though I had to admit that, if the Duchess had developing feelings for me, would that mean that her views on men were changing, too? No, that couldn’t be true. Edony hated men more than any woman I’d ever met. She may have never spoken it aloud, but I’d seen her bring grown men to their knees with the vicious crook of her cane. No other aristocrat had used violence like that on their workers in front of me.

  I pushed off of the door, glanced down each side of the hall, and then trudged down the hall toward the other entrance. It was late, I could tell from the color of the night sky outside of the windows. The party was starting to wind down from the sound of the live orchestra playing, and I wanted nothing more than to go home. No, that was a lie. I wanted my women and to be surrounded by their overflowing, endless love. If I could, I would’ve called out to them from the hall, but the music was too loud, and the voices of the aristocrats would’ve drowned me out.

  I slid open the door, peeked inside to make sure no one was looking, and then slipped inside. Aristocrats crowded around me, but none of them even glanced in my direction, let alone moved out of my way as I slithered through the crowd. As before, I kept my head low but used my eyes to scan the crowd as I made my way back to my women. Deeper into the throng, I spied Josephine, and it looked as if she still hadn’t managed to shake off Kelara.

  The turban-wearing woman threw back her head, cackled annoyingly at the ceiling, grabbed onto the blonde aristocrat’s arm, and cuddled up to Josephine’s side. The heiress grimaced, sighed, but this time, didn’t push Kelara away. I felt sorry that she had thrown this party just because I mentioned it. We hadn’t gotten to talk with her for more than a few moments, but I knew if she allowed me to, I would make it up to her somehow. Maybe I’d invite her to brunch with Daisy and I.

  I sighed under my breath as the three of them came into view, Daisy spoke quietly to another aristocrat I’d seen around the city before but never spoken to, Valerie nodded along with the conversation, and Rian skimmed the crowd with disinterested eyes. Her orange gaze settled on me, and instantly, the corners of her lips upturned into a wide, excited grin.

  I was almost to them when the black-haired beauty nudged Valerie with her elbow, pointed over the feline-woman’s shoulder, and the ash-blonde giggled happily when she saw me. I came to stand at the bear-girl’s shoulder and smiled down at her.

  “I’m very sorry,” the brunette murmured to the heavily powdered aristocrat woman she was talking to. “But I believe it’s time for my cousins and me to return home. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your night.”

  “Thank you so much,” the aristocrat purred. “It was so lovely getting to speak to you for the first time, Ms. Browning, I do hope that we can chat again like this.”

  “Of course,” Daisy bowed her head. “I’ll have to invite you over to the manor for tea sometime. I’ll send over a courier with an invitation.”

  “I hope to get to speak to you too, Charles.” The aristocrat grinned. “I’ve heard great things about you.”

  “I hope so too,” I chuckled. “But as my Mistress said, it’s time for us to retire back to our manor.”

  The older aristocrat nodded her head to us and then shouldered her way savagely out of sight. Once she was gone, the stunning bear-girl sighed out of relief once her golden honey eyes settled on my face, and then all three of them calmly waltzed through the crowd. I wanted to run to them, wrap my arms around them, and pull each of them to my chest, but I knew I couldn’t do that in front of all of the other aristocrats.

  “Let’s go home,” I sighed. “Being around all these aristocrats has drained me.”

  “Drained you?” Valerie joked. “You didn’t have to spend close to an hour listening to their boooooring stories. One woman told us about her brand-new hedges with great detail of their color, leaf texture, and placement in her yard. She talked for close to three hours! I wanted to pull my hair out! …But I didn’t because Daisy spent so much time making my hair look gorgeous.”

  “It wasn’t three hours,” Rian corrected. “She only talked for maybe fifteen minutes.”

  “Well, it felt like three hours!” the feline-woman cried.

  “Thank you for taking my time into consideration,” Daisy chuckled. “I appreciate it. Now, let’s get out of here. I didn’t want to admit it, but yes, talking to aristocrats is quite boring.”

  “Well, it wasn’t all boring,” Rian snickered. “That Kelara woman put on a show.”

  “Oh, good heavens,” the brunette grumbled, threw back her head, and rolled her eyes. “I thought I was going to faint from the shock of it.”

  “What did she try to do?” I asked. “I mean, if it made Daisy react that way, it must’ve been good.”

  “We moved through the crowd to speak to Josephine more,” Valerie bubbled. “And that Kelara woman was boasting that she could wear these… these…”

  “I believe she called them, ‘nipple tassels,’” the imp-woman broke in.

  “The proper word for them, or at least the decent ones,” Daisy sniffed. “Are pasties. Women wear them under dresses when they don’t want to wear a corset. They cover the nipple, so it doesn’t show through the fabric.”

  “But that’s not the kind that Kelara was talking about,” the feline-woman shook her head. “She even described them. They’re red and heart-shaped with these looooong black tassels that hang down.”

  “And why would she mention this at a party?” I grunted. “In front of other aristocrats who she knew wouldn’t approve.”

  “Wait, there’s more,” the ash-blonde gushed. “All of the aristocrats around her reacted in disgust because, as Daisy said, they’re indecent… I’m not sure why, though. They sound kind of sexy, and I want a pair to wear for you, Charles.”

  The image of Valerie lounging against the crumpled surface of our bedsheets, wearing nothing but a pair of red, heart-shaped pasties with tassels flashed into my head, and I couldn’t deny that it aroused me more than I expected.

  “Go on,” I chuckled.

  “She said that she could light them on fire!” the feline-woman shouted and threw her hands up into the air. “Not only that, but she could swing them around like some sort of performance!”

  “Are you serious?” I tittered. “What a strange woman. I can’t believe she said all of this in front of Josephine and the other aristocrats.”

  “That’s not even the best part!” Valerie cried. “Right as everyone was either glaring her down or backing away in disgust, she started unwrapping her… ‘clothing’ to demonstrate! Josephine screamed, rushed over, and grabbed her hands so tightly I thought she was going to rip them off. I’m honestly surprised that Josephine didn’t kick her out then and there.”

  “Like I said,” I sighed. “The aristocrats love a show. They crave the drama and intrigue of a mysterious person such as Kelara.”

  “I hate to admit it,” Rian grinned. “But I kind of wish we could’ve stuck around her for a little longer. She may be obnoxious, gross, and disturbing, but the way she disgusts the other aristocrats
is… quite hilarious to watch. She makes them so very uncomfortable that you would think that she was a brute doing tricks on the ballroom floor.”

  “I feel the same way!” Valerie nodded. “When I look at her, I feel icky inside, but the way the other women here look at her… oh, I love it so much. I love seeing them uncomfortable.”

  “Enough about Kelara,” Daisy sighed. “I know the two of you enjoy her antics, but I know that Charles and I both are quite tired. I’d like to head back to the manor.”

  “Oh, sorry, Daisy,” the ash-blonde murmured. “We knew that you were tired from having to speak to those women all night. We should’ve been more considerate.”

  “No, no,” the brunette assured her. “I knew you were excited to tell Charles about everything that happened, so don’t worry, my dear sister.”

  I smiled down at them, nodded toward the door, turned on my heels, and guided them toward the exit. I hated that I couldn’t be myself around them when we were in places like this, we weren’t equals here, and all of us had to act like it.

  The halls, foyer, and entryway were empty of women, and only the servants attending to the doors remained. They bowed low to us, swept open the doors, and then tightly closed them behind us. Once we were out into the chilly night air, I leaned my head back, sighed up at the stars, straightened, and then grinned down at my women.

  “So?” Valerie urged. “What did you learn?”

  “A lot,” I grunted. “Some of it, I’m not sure you even want to know.”

  “What do you mean, Charles?” Daisy asked, hurried down the front steps, and then waited for us at the bottom. “Did Edony tell you something bad?”

  “All of it was bad,” I muttered. “Every single word of it.”

  “Come on, Charles,” Rian prompted. “You can’t leave us hanging like this. We need to know.”

  I glanced over my shoulder at the doors behind us, came down the stairs, and headed toward our wagon with the rest of my women trailing after me.