Making Monster Girls 3: For Science! Read online

  “Made to look that way,” I nodded. “We took her corpse back to the constables’ dormitory, hung her up by the beam, stole all of the evidence against us, and then left right as the Duchess appeared with two other constables.”

  “We made it look like she was a harlot,” Daisy informed. “We wrote letters and scattered them around her room.”

  “But why?” the gorgeous blonde asked. “Why would you kill her? What did Delphine, Milton, and Ortensia do to you?”

  “They were threats to us,” I stated. “Delphine wouldn’t stop until I was her consort, Milton suspected us already, and Ortensia… she found out that I’d killed Delphine. There was a single shoe print found at the crime scene, it didn’t match Delphine’s or Milton’s, but it did match mine. I came inches from death when I was suspected of Delphine’s death in the beginning, and then Ortensia, already suspicious of me, showed up with actual, concrete proof that I’d committed the murder.”

  “You did all of this to save your family?” Josephine probed. “To protect them?”

  “We did it to protect you, too, Ms. Josephine,” Valerie whispered. “Ortensia was going after you, too.”

  “What do you mean?” the heiress asked. “How was she suspicious of me?”

  “When we arrived at the constables’ dormitory,” I explained. “We found a map on Ortensia’s wall with a picture of you connected to Ms. Browning and me. I believe that the Chief Constable suspected that you were a harlot, and she planned to out you to the Duchess and the entire city.”

  “W-What?” Josephine stuttered. “You… I… what?”

  “We protected our family,” Rian uttered. “But we also protected you too. You may not be a part of our unit, but we see you as an ally, a friend, even a sister. We couldn’t let anyone see what Ortensia had on you. We had to keep you safe.”

  “You protected me, too?” the blonde panted. “Why? I’ve done nothing to deserve something like that… Even if you consider me family, anyone I know would’ve turned me in at the moment they found out my secret.”

  “We don’t do that. We’re not like the aristocrats in this city,” I assured her. “We would never do that. As we said, you’re our ally, and we protected you because we care about you.”

  “I could’ve turned my back on you,” Josephine admitted. “You could’ve done something that displeased me, and then I could’ve gone to the Duchess and told her everything.”

  “But you didn’t,” I uttered. “We discussed this before in your tent back at the mining site. You believe in the same things we do… and you didn’t turn us in.”

  “How do you know that I wouldn’t do it now?” the blonde asked. “How do you know that I won’t take all of the information that you’ve just told me and immediately go to the Duchess?”

  “We don’t know that,” I stated. “But we trust you. You’re a good person, Josephine, you’re the kindest aristocrat that we’ve ever met. You’ve treated Daisy and me with mutual respect as if all three of us were equals.”

  “Lots of aristocrats do that,” the heiress shook her head. “A lot of the aristocrats treat men as if they were equals.”

  “That’s a lie, and you know it,” I chuckled. “You are the only one who has ever given me an ounce of respect.”

  “I don’t treat you ‘as if’ you were my equal,” Josephine lowered her voice. “You are my equal in many ways. In some, I think you’ve surpassed many of the other aristocrats and me. You’re intelligent, brilliant, even. I don’t know any other women that are half as smart as you are.”

  “So…” Valerie forced out. “Do you accept us? For who we are?”

  “And what we’ve done?” Daisy added.

  Josephine’s hands trembled in her lap, and she fell eerily silent. I knew it was a lot of information to take in, but not only that, all of it seemed so unbelievable. If I were in Josephine’s situation, I wouldn’t be sure if I believed any of it at all. Monster-women? A plot against the Queen, and Edony as the head of it all? I figured that Josephine must have lived a pretty ordinary life before all of this but could she accept all of us for who we were?

  “I do,” the blonde aristocrat raised her head, took a shaky breath, aimed her orange cat-like eyes forward, and spoke again. “But I assume if I said I didn’t, I’d be going into the machine like all of the others did, too. Am I shocked to find out you’re the one who killed Milton, Delphine, and Ortensia? Yes, but they were three horrible people that deserved to be punished for the way they lived their lives. Delphine killed and injured hundreds of her consorts. Many of the women of Edenhart didn’t want to talk about it. They liked to brush it under the rug, but no one knows the exact number of consorts that Delphine murdered. Every week, one of them disappeared, and a new one would take his place. No one questioned it, and even if they did, I doubt they would’ve done something about it. In Edenhart, men are disposable. Born to be used and then thrown away, but it’s not just Edenhart, it’s the whole world that views men that way. Even the black market trading of men, they treat them more like cattle or livestock than human beings…”

  “Have you worked intimately with the black market?” I asked. “I’ve only heard of it a few times. Both times it was mentioned by Edony and Delphine.”

  “Yes,” Josephine chuckled. “But it’s not what you think. I’ve never bought or sold men for those purposes. I buy men from the black market, and then give them jobs in my mines. I treat them with respect, give them homes, full bellies, and paychecks much larger than any other worker or consort would ever receive. They do honest work for me, and I repay them fairly. The black market is… a horrible place to say the least, but I purchase these men, and at first, they’re terrified of me. They have no idea who I am or what I’m going to do to them. I take them back to my manor, I clean them up, give them a full meal, a warm bed for the night, and the next morning, I explain to them the next steps. I’ve been doing this for a very long time, a lot of the other aristocrats look down at me for it, but it’s what my mother taught me, and I will continue to do her life’s work until it’s time for me to pass it on to my own child.”

  “Wait…” I breathed. “Your mother did this, too?”

  “Oh, yes,” Josephine smiled. “She was… I wasn’t sure if I should bring it up, but my mother was the founder of a small, secret group of women called HU, Harlots United. I was taught since birth that despite what society thinks, everyone is equal. Man or woman, all creatures are on a level field. Of course, she taught me never to tell anyone, but she’d often take me along on her ‘missions’ which are the very same as the ones I do today. She would purchase men from the black market or abusive mistresses, and give them homes and jobs under our protection. I continued it because I believe in everything my mother taught me, and when she fell sick, I shouldered the weight of maintaining the HU.”

  “You’re a saint,” Valerie whispered. “You don’t understand how kind that is of you.”

  “I didn’t see Delphine’s ‘playroom,’ but she spoke of it while I was there,” I explained. “But I did see her bed, and the sheets. Everything in there was streaked with dried blood. I don’t want to imagine what horrors those men saw.”

  “I’ve said it before, and I’m sure you heard it,” the heiress explained. “I don’t like to speak ill of the dead, but I am glad that Delphine Vallantine is dead. Many of the other aristocrats are, too, but they are mainly for petty, greedy reasons. I know what she did to her consorts. She often would parade them out in front of us at parties, and whip them for fun. It was disgusting, and it horrifies me to know that most of those men lost their lives to her grotesque appetites.”

  “I want to hear more about this HU,” I urged. “Are there more members?”

  “Yes,” the blonde aristocrat laughed. “More than there have ever been, but they’re spread far and wide. You said that you wrote out letters to make it look like Ortensia was a brute sympathizer? That was a brilliant idea because the HU actually only uses letters to communicate. Mos
t of the women I know in the organization, I’ve never met them face to face. They’re all strangers to me except for their names.”

  “Is it easy to become one of the HU?” Valerie asked.

  “No, it’s very hard,” the heiress explained. “You go through rigorous interrogations, trials, and even then, we never know when you could betray us. That’s why we never meet face to face and a lot of the time, use fake names. A few have tried to break through our ranks, and bring the whole operation to the surface, but we’re too crafty for that. The constables were on our tail for a long time, but they’ve never managed to catch us.”

  I glanced over at Daisy, the brunette’s golden eyes met mine, and her expression seemed to soften. The bear-girl breathed a sigh, leaned forward, and addressed Josephine directly. Valerie turned, grinned up at me, wriggled in her seat, and clapped her palms together excitedly. Rian held her slick, black tail between her hands, tweaked the pointed tip, but kept her orange eyes glued on the aristocrat’s face.

  “So, you trust us?” the stunning brunette asked. “You won’t tell anyone?”

  “I can only assume,” Josephine started. “If I couldn’t or didn’t, I would meet the same fate as the unnamed female prisoner, Delphine, and Ortensia. I’m right, aren’t I? You’d ambush me, hit me over the head, or at least incapacitate me so that I couldn’t fight back, and then drag me into one of the compartments of your machine. I probably wouldn’t remember anything about my past, would I?”

  “Only bits and pieces,” I told her. “All of my women remember their pasts, but in different ways. A lot of their memories come from the beasts, but some of them are from the aristocrats.”

  “I don’t like remembering my past,” Daisy growled.

  “I can understand that,” the blonde heiress soothed. “Delphine was a terrible human being. She did awful things to a lot of people, and she deserved to die.”

  “Ortensia wasn’t as bad,” Rian commented. “But her memories bother me, too.”

  “I don’t remember much about my past life,” Valerie shrugged. “But the parts that I can recall were miserable. I was a harlot, and people knew, so they ostracized me, and then… the Duchess found me and threw me into an insane asylum.”

  “That’s happened to a few of our members,” Josephine whimpered. “We don’t know for sure, but they fell off the face of the earth, and none of us can get into contact with them. We can’t go check on them. We only have the names they’ve used, and we can only assume that they’ve been found out and thrown into mental institutions.”

  Silence fell over us, and Josephine retreated into herself, stared down at the coffee table that separated us from her, and breathed a heavy sigh. The blonde’s orange eyes examined the grain of the table for a long moment, her fingers knit in her lap, and she finally raised her gaze to mine. I wanted to ask her what she was thinking, but I knew it wasn’t my place, if she wanted to tell us, she would, and we would just have to wait until she did. All three of my monster-women turned in their seats, tilted their heads at the blonde aristocrat, but none of them probed for any answers. Josephine’s eyes left mine, her brows furrowed, her hands tightened on each other so hard that the knuckles turned white, and finally, she lowered her head.

  “You’re not going to tell the Duchess about us, are you?” Valerie squeaked. “We don’t want to hurt you, Josephine… We even decided on it before you got here. We planned on lying to you about us until Charles decided it was the right time, but I guess… now is better than later.”

  “No,” the heiress whispered. “I won’t tell the Duchess or anyone else. Thank you for taking my feelings into consideration, and I’m glad that you didn’t lie to me. I would always prefer it if you would be honest with me.”

  “We never meant to hurt you,” I uttered. “And I hope this doesn’t change your opinion about us.”

  “I want to ask you something, Valerie, Rian, and Daisy,” the aristocrat muttered.

  “Of course,” the bear-girl replied.

  “What is it?” the red-skinned imp-woman asked.

  “Sure,” the feline-woman giggled. “Ask us anything!”

  “Are you happy?” Josephine murmured. “Or are you at least happier than you were before?”

  The gorgeous heiress lifted her head, looked at each of my women, and then held her gaze steadily on Daisy as if the bear-girl was the sole speaker for all three.

  “I’ve told Charles this before,” the brunette grumbled. “But I don’t like to remember the Delphine parts of my life. Her actions were abhorrent, disgusting, and horrifying to recall, but yes, I am happier than she ever was. Delphine was filled with a burning rage that never went out. It continued to consume her even to the day that she died. Charles gave her… no, gave me a new life. I don’t consider Delphine part of me, but the things I remember of her life were miserable. Charles gave me something that Delphine never got to experience in her lifetime, and that is love. She’d never known what it was like to be loved, not by her mother, her family, or a man, and I think that’s what makes the difference.”

  “I have to agree with Daisy,” Rian uttered. “Ortensia, like Delphine, had a hate inside of her that never went away. I think it was the lack of understanding, comfort, and love of another person. Charles’ manor is filled with all of those things. He has never made us feel bad about ourselves; in fact, Charles builds us up every single day. There have been times when one of us speaks badly about ourselves, and Charles stops those thoughts in their tracks. He believes that each of us is worthy of being loved, even though we were born from a machine.”

  “Charles is such an amazing man,” Valerie purred. “My past life was horrible, well, my cat one wasn’t so bad because I slept in a lot of sunbeams and chased a lot of mice, but the memories I have from the female patient… people would spit on her out in public, throw rotten fruit at her out of open windows, a lot of the time, aristocrats would outright attack her in the streets. That was before Edony found her and threw her away into an asylum. I don’t remember a lot from that time, but I know it was horrible, loud, and scary. It’s so nice being here with Charles. He takes such good care of us, he treats each of us like queens, and all we did was come out of a machine for him! That’s why I constantly ask for new sisters because I want other women to experience what it’s like to be loved so much by a man.”

  “Charles is a good man,” Josephine chuckled. “I had already known that from our few encounters. I respect him and the work he does very much. I’m glad to know that all of you see me as an ally, I think of you as the very same, but…”

  “What is it?” I asked.

  I felt the sweat bead on my forehead, my heart hammered in my chest, and my palms immediately went clammy. If she couldn’t accept us, we had only one option left. Josephine knew it, and the rest of us did, too. If Josephine turned her back on us, we’d have no other choice than to end her life and turn her into a monster-girl.

  The blonde aristocrat took a deep breath, closed her eyes for half a second, leveled her cat-like eyes at me, thought for a moment, and then parted her lips to speak.

  “But I only have one request, Charles,” Josephine whispered. “I beg you… Please, turn me into a monster-girl, too.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Shocked silence filled the room.

  Josephine lifted her chin, stared defiantly up at me, let go of her hands, held them out at her sides, and then opened her palms to us as a sign of no ill intent. I had no idea why the blonde heiress would want such a thing, my women may have loved their lives, but their human existences before were miserable, and that’s why they clung to me so fiercely.

  “Josephine,” I began. “Why would you ask for such a thing?”

  “It’s hard to explain, Charles,” the aristocrat whispered. “Is it selfish of me to say my life is horrible? Probably, you’re a man, and your treatment is so much worse than mine, but I’m surrounded by other women all day, every day, and all of them believe things that I don’t. I h
ear them talk about how they treat their workers, servants, and consorts, and I wish for nothing more than to run away… I’d like to disappear from this life entirely. Yes, I have my work with HU, but that’s something so small, it barely makes a difference.”

  “That’s not true,” Daisy urged. “When we visited your mines, there were hundreds of men there. Knowing the information that we do now, you saved all of those men from horrible deaths at the hands of other aristocrats… That’s no small feat, Josephine. You snatched these lives up from the black market without any of the other women knowing. You gave them homes, food, and work. You saved them, and they love you for it. We saw it while we were there.”

  “Maybe it’s because I’m so used to it, I don’t see it,” the heiress shrugged. “My life seems so meaningless, so insignificant. I beg of you, please, turn me into a beautiful monster-girl, too. That’s all I want. I’m sure this isn’t what you expected when I showed up at your doorstep, but speaking to you and your women… finding out everything you’ve been through… well, it makes me want to be a part of it even more. The life that all of you share, I want it, too. I want to be a sister and an integral part of your family unit. Please…”

  “I don’t want to sound… hateful,” Daisy started. “But you’re an aristocrat, Josephine. A wealthy, notable aristocrat, and you have everything you could ever want at your fingertips. Once you’re transformed into a monster-girl, you lose all of that. Look at me, part of me came from Delphine Vallantine, yes, I inherited some of her mannerisms and speech patterns, but her manor? It sits empty at the south edge of town, no one lives there now, and unless another aristocrat purchases it, it will crumble into ruins. I have no right to that home or the riches that she earned during her lifetime. If you become one of us, you lose absolutely everything, not only the physical objects, but your memories will be erased, not all of them, yes, but most of them. When you emerged from the machine, I doubt you’d remember me, Valerie, Rian, and Charles. None of us remember those things. Delphine and Ortensia had the most interaction with Charles in our past lives, but we don’t remember him.”