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I signed a 14-page contract without reading the fine print. I should have read the fine print. The listing promised great pay for "working with exotic creatures." What it didn't say was that I wasn't hired to care for the monsters behind those seven doors I was hired to breed with one. On day four they strapped me to a table and the man who hired me pressed a needle to my stomach. "You agreed to all of it when you signed," he smiled. "And I need your womb." They've spent years collecting from every species in this building, preparing for the one part they couldn't manufacture. Me. Every girl before me died, broke, or vanished. The only one trying to keep me alive is the very monster I'm meant to survive. ——————————————————— Chapter 1 — Crystal's POV Position: [not specified]. Location: Saint-Barthélemy, on-site housing provided. Compensation: €4,500/month. Start date: immediate. Requirements: female, single, good health, experience with caregiving preferred. Good fertility. Nature of work: daily care and interaction with exotic creatures. Interested applicants reply to this address only. I'd found it buried in a local forum between an ad for a retired fisherman's boat and someone selling homemade coconut oil, and I'd screenshot it before it could disappear, the way things on that forum tended to do. I read it for the fourth time, and it didn't get any less suspicious. The waiting room was trying hard to impress. White leather chairs, a marble coffee table, and a massive aerial photograph of Saint-Barthélemy's coastline. I crossed and uncrossed my legs. Checked my phone, read the listing again. "Weird listing, right?" The woman two chairs over was watching me. Mid-thirties, tanned, the kind of sun-bleached hair that came from actually living near the ocean She nodded at my phone. "No company name, no job title. Just 'exotic creatures' and a salary that's too good to be real." "We might be considered crazy for coming here." "Honey, half the island applied. That money?" She whistled low. "I've got two kids and an ex who thinks child support is optional. I'd scrub dragon cages for that number." I almost laughed. But before I could open my mouth, the door at the end of the room opened, and a voice cut through. "Crystal Le Grand?" I put my phone away so fast I nearly dropped it. The woman who stepped through was the kind of beautiful that made you immediately aware of every flaw on your own face. Her badge was saying ‘Anaïs’. Tall, dark hair pulled into something effortlessly perfect, sharp cheekbones. She looked like she belonged on the cover of Vogue. "That's me." I stood and extended my hand. "Nice to meet you. I love your shoes, are those…" "Follow me, please." Anaïs turned on those shoes I wasn't allowed to compliment and walked back through the door. I followed, hand still half-raised, smile dying on my face. She was the assistant to the facility's owner, and she had the interpersonal warmth of a tax audit. She led me to a small office, gestured to a chair, and opened a folder without looking at me once. "I see here you were previously married. Is that correct?" "Correct." I smiled tightly. ‘Best’ decision I never made. I was twenty-one and stupid and in love, and he had a smile that made me forget nobody had ever taken care of me without a price tag. "And your current relationship status?" "And your current relationship status?" "Single. Very, very single. The marriage was annulled, so technically I was never even married. Fun little legal detail." My now ex-husband vanished and left a stack of credit card statements with my name on them. Debts I didn't know existed, signatures I stupidly signed without looking. Now I understood why he'd been in such a rush to walk me down the aisle. Not in the name of love, but because he couldn’t wait to max out credit cards in his wife's name. Anaïs wrote something without looking up. The pen moved in short, precise strokes. Her nails were clean and unpolished, trimmed to exactly the same length. "Your credit history shows some irregularities. Can you explain?" "Student loans. You know how it is." I laughed. Anaïs didn't. Everything about this woman was controlled — posture, breathing, the way she held her face like a mask. Student loans my ass. I've got about four weeks of savings, a mountain of debt, and a disabled brother whose care I help pay for. "Menstrual cycle. Regular or irregular?" I blinked. "Regular, but that's kind of a…" "Clothing size?" "Eight. Sometimes ten if it's European sizing, which, honestly, always feels like a personal attack." "Professional experience?" "Nursing. Two years at Hôpital de Bruyn before I took a break." Before my fiancé convinced me to quit. "I'll take care of us, baby. You deserve better than nightshifts and bedpans." Turns out what he meant was he'd strip away every safety net I had, then vanish. "Do you have family or close contacts on the island? Anyone you speak with regularly?" "My mother, on the mainland. She takes care of my brother Lionel — he's disabled. I call her every few days, send money when I can. Here on the island? No one." Anaïs's pen stopped moving. She looked at me and something shifted across her features. Quick, controlled, barely there. Surprise and something sharper underneath it, almost like satisfaction. Then it vanished, and she was writing again. "Do you have family or close contacts on the island? Anyone you speak with regularly?" "My mother, on the mainland. She takes care of my brother Lionel. I call her every few days, send money when I can. Here on the island? No. Caleb was my whole social life, which, again, is a red flag. I'm seeing all the red flags now." Anaïs closed the folder, excused herself, and returned two minutes later with him. Albert Bernard, the owner of this company, walked into the room. Tall, obscenely handsome, the kind of man whose jaw looked sculpted rather than grown. He shook my hand with both of his and smiled like we were already old friends. "Crystal! Anaïs tells me you're perfect." "She… Really? She didn't seem…" "Wonderful! Tell me about your sex life." I choked on nothing. "My what?" "Your sex life. Active, dormant, somewhere in between?" He leaned back in his chair, completely at ease. "I ask because I want you to be comfortable. Some of the work here is intimate in nature: not sexual, but physical, close-contact, and I need to know your boundaries won't make you a liability." I opened my mouth. Nothing came out. Albert tilted his head like a man watching a fish try to climb a tree. "I'll go first, since you look like you might swallow your own tongue. I'm bisexual, and the last person I was with told me I had the emotional availability of a desk lamp. Your turn." Surprisingly, It worked. Something about his absurd candor cracked the seal. I was still stiff when I found myself talking: "Dormant. Dead, actually. My ex killed any interest I had in men, and honestly, at this point the only physical contact I want is the kind where nobody asks how I'm feeling afterward." Albert listened with his chin on his fist and nodded like everything I said was fascinating. The contract was three pages. I should have read every word. I read the salary line, the housing clause, and the duration — twelve months, renewable — and I signed. Albert clapped his hands together. "Anaïs, transport! We leave now." “H-Hold on, what?” “Why wait? You’re gonna have so much fun there!” Anaïs stood, and as she passed Albert's chair, his hand swung out and slapped her across the ass — casual, proprietary, the sound sharp in the small room. She didn't flinch, didn't react at all. Just kept walking. I stared. My mouth opened, closed. Two attractive adults, I told myself. Clearly a thing between them. Who am I to judge? God knows I wouldn't mind someone who looked like either of them doing that to me. I tried to forget the look on the other candidates' faces when Albert enthusiastically told them to leave because the position was closed. Outside, a black SUV waited with the engine running. Anaïs took the wheel without a word; Albert held the rear door open for me with a little bow that was either gentlemanly or mocking, hard to tell with him. I climbed in, and the leather seats were cool against my thighs. Nobody spoke. Anaïs drove like she'd made this trip a hundred times, eyes fixed ahead, and Albert scrolled through his phone beside me. The drive took us to the island's far eastern edge, where the roads narrowed to dirt and the vegetation thickened until the ocean disappeared behind a wall of green. The facility sat at the end of a gravel path — low concrete, no signage, built like something designed not to be found. Inside, the air was cooler and carried a strange undercurrent, something organic and faintly mineral, like wet stone in a cave. Albert walked ahead, hands clasped behind his back like a tour guide. "Your schedule will be straightforward — feeding rounds three times a day, health checks once in the morning, and the rest of the time is yours to spend with the residents. Think of it as..." I was trying to listen, I really was, but then we passed a corridor junction and I saw the monitor. A security screen mounted high on the wall, showing a dark chamber in grainy night vision. Something massive was moving inside: too many limbs, too fluid, and a thick muscular appendage uncurling against the reinforced glass, ridged suckers pressing flat against the surface. My vision tilted. The corridor stretched and compressed, fluorescent lights bleeding into long white smears. My knees folded, and the last thing I registered before the dark swallowed everything was the cold of the concrete floor against my cheek. ——————————————————— What did she really sign? Read Monstrously Yours Now!