It didn’t take Annie long to realize she wanted another kid.

She never would have considered herself fit for motherhood, and to a monsterborn at that—her first child, with her own summon, had come about specifically because she had thought that summons and humans were incompatible without the use of certain herbs, spells, and potions. But the little-known truth was a bit more complicated.

Summon monster cum ‘stained’ their partners, gradually transforming them reproductively until they became ideal mates for them. When Lustre, her summon, had bred her over and over, he hadn’t just been sharing in mutual pleasure with her—he’d also been covertly modifying his summoner into an ideal receptacle for his seed.

And eventually, it had taken.

The ensuing pregnancy had been both unanticipated and initially alarming—but Annie had gradually come to enjoy it, to relish in the feeling of plumping out with new life even as stretch marks and queasy mornings started to plague her. Before long, she was the proud mother of Steph—a pugnacious, rambunctious monsterborn whose human upper body took after his mother and whose lower one took after his father.

Steph was four, now; leaving toddlerhood, playfully destructive in the way that only kids of his age could be. Annie and Lustre were still bonded, and still joined each other’s company, but she’d found a new paramour now: Silv Larussa.

Silv was a tall, pale man with a small dusting of chili-pepper hair. He specialized in helping new summoners; while the bond between summoner and summon beast could be close once established, the initial process could get… messy. Annie had three large scars on her stomach from Lustre’s initial calling, and her case wasn’t even abnormal.

Now, Silv was standing at her side, both of them watching Steph’s rascally playfulness. “He’s cute,” Silv noted, a small puff of steam hissing from beneath his teeth. Unlike Annie, who spent most of her time as herself, most of Silv’s days were spent merged with his summon, Maelstrom. Merged, a summoner took on aspects of their beast, becoming hardier, stronger, and more dangerous, all while keeping their intellect and original self intact. Maelstrom’s crocodilian features asserted themselves in parts of Silv’s anatomy—a smattering of onyx-black scales on his shoulders, knees, and hips, a similarly-colored thick trunk of a tail, and massive, crimson-scaled hands tipped with cruel-looking claws.

It made Steph feel less self-conscious, seeing his adopted father with ‘monstrous’ traits like his most of the time. Steph had taken Silv’s last name as his own and was part of the family, but in the end…

“I still want another one,” Annie said with a sigh. “That’s both of ours.” Silv didn’t say anything, but she could feel him side-eying her. They hadn’t had a child yet, and it wasn’t for a lack of trying.

Because there was another catch to being tainted by a monsterborn; as you became more suited for bearing monster children, you became less suited for breeding human ones.