Starting With Contract Pets - Chapter 4 - Queen Of Thorns

France, 1934. The scars of the Great War still shape the military minds of the Third Republic. Trapped in the past, its generals place their faith in fortifications and defensive warfare, while across the Rhine, a new German army rises, faster, deadlier, and ready to crush everything in its path.Into this world awakens Captain Étienne Moreau, a man who should not exist. He remembers another life, one where France falls in 1940, where German tanks storm through the Ardennes, bypassing the Maginot Line. One where his country surrenders in a matter of weeks.But here, now, he has a chance to stop it.As an officer in the 2nd Armored Division, he fights for reforms: pushing for mobile tank warfare, warning of Hitler’s growing ambitions, and challenging the high command’s obsession with World War I tactics. Yet, his ideas are dismissed as radical, madness from a young officer who “thinks he knows war.”Surrounded by political intrigue, military infighting, and rising fascism, Moreau must carefully navigate the system, winning allies among future leaders like Charles de Gaulle, while avoiding suspicion from the French High Command. His knowledge is a double-edged sword, if he is too aggressive, he risks being labeled a traitor. If he does nothing, he will live to see France burn.As war draws closer, Moreau faces a terrifying question: Can history be changed? Or is France doomed to fall, no matter what he does?Time is running out. The Blitzkrieg is coming. And he may be France’s last chance to fight back.

“I only want you, Theia. Always have always will and this shall never change. How could I ever want another when I possess the one I solely exist for?”“Phobos,” I call his name fondly a need to hug him and breathe in his calming scent surfaces.“I do not wish to treat you like you are made of glass because you aren't. Your body was made for me and it can handle everything I choose to give it. And this I will prove it to you.”“When?” I ask breathlessly as he ultimately turns around to meet my curious eyes. Golden rings outline his irises his beast announcing his presence and they stand as one before me. A wicked smile paints his face with a flash of canine displayed to me. A promise he gives that I will be ruthlessly devoured.“When I fuck you senseless.”~~~After years of excruciating loneliness, Phobos approached me. A frightening beast, my soulmate who emerged from within the bounds of a ruthless thundering storm. The male I yearned for. He caught me off guard and I was under the spell he cast through his ocean eyes. A spell I couldn't defeat and that very moment I knew I was in trouble. The second our eyes met I knew he would bring me endless heartache.We were childhood friends, him and I. Phobos the gentle and playful juvenile I grew up with and looked up to as a pup vanished and was replaced by a cold-hearted barbarian, he terrified me as he killed many with a blink of his eyes. No regret, no concern his beast often in control surging forward consuming his senses. They were equals.How can I connect with a beast like him? How could I make him call me his? How can I love my childhood friend who has become a merciless monster?

5 years after the world changed, the final boss appeared.

Even after knowing what came next....I still accepted.A deal with the devil herself.A devil, in the form of a goddess.I accepted a life that I knew wouldn't end well, a life that was worse off than the very curel one I already lived.But I still choose to do it.I chose to become the villain.