Gods: (A Dark God Romance) (Gods and Monsters Book 5) Read online

  Gods

  Book 5 of Gods and Monsters.

  Copyright © 2019 by Klarissa King

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission—this includes scanning and/or unauthorised distribution—except in case of brief quotations used in reviews and/or academic articles, in which case quotations are permitted.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, whether alive or dead, is purely coincidental. Names, characters, incidents, and places are all products of the author’s imagination.

  Imprint: Independently published.

  GLOSSARY

  SUMMARY

  CONTENT WARNINGS

  GODS

  Gods and Monsters

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  GLOSSARY

  Malis—A malevolent God.

  Beniyn—A benevolent God.

  Aniel—A hand-crafted ‘offspring’ of one God.

  Avksy—An abomination.

  Vilas—A mortal

  Balneum—Brothel and gambling den.

  Chevki—A cheap alcoholic spirit

  Scocie—Land of the Gods.

  Capital—Scocie’s City

  Zwayk—A Farther Isle

  Commos—Isles of the Common Vilas.

  SUMMARY

  Stolen away by Phantom, Valissa finds herself tangled in a war older than herself. But with her powers climbing and cruelty rising, she starts to doubt her choice. Phantom offers her greatness but at a price, a price that carves into her a longing for her wretched Prince Poison.

  What can be worse than running from a malicious God?

  Running into the arms of another...

  CONTENT WARNINGS

  Gods and Monsters is a 6-book series, with each book ranging from 20k to 50k words.

  The series itself is inspired by a range of gods from various ancient cultures.

  Prominent themes throughout the series include violence, kidnapping, imprisonment, toxic relationships and abuse. There will be some erotic scenes throughout the series and torture scenes also.

  This is a dark ‘romance’ with all the bells and whistles that come with the genre.

  Please bear these themes and the episodic nature of the series in mind.

  GODS

  †

  GODS AND MONSTERS

  BOOK 5

  Gods and Monsters

  Our creators make no secret of why they created us: For entertainment. Fun.

  What fun is to them, torture is to us. But we worship them, because the alternative is far worse. They are our Gods, our monsters, our masters. We will never be equals in their cold, distant hearts.

  All we can do with our pitiful lives is to choose a God to worship from afar, and pray we never meet our makers, for there is no worse fate than to catch the eye of a God.

  It’s never a story with a happy ending. So in this world, we hide from the ones we worship. Because our worship is fear.

  In the world of Gods and Monsters, we are mortals just trying to survive.

  1

  The sickly-sweet smell of hot caramels snaked all around me. It was in the summer shawls of the night-women on the side of the road, on the tongues of drunken men licking tobacco papers under gas lamps, and in the air sneaking up my nostrils.

  I loved it here.

  I loved that every building wore a face of faded, chipped paint, each a different colour to the last. I loved that the night-women called out to both Adrik and me as we climbed up the hilly street, stepping over cracked cobblestones.

  Adrik called this the ‘forgotten district’ of the Capital, but it was really called the Lost Square.

  It might have been forgotten or lost, pushed into the dark where debauchery blossomed, but to me, it was a place I could have made my home. Maybe I was a dark flower who needed depravity to blossom.

  Ava would like it here.

  I smacked the thought out of mind.

  We left the horses back at the cusp of the woods, and walked the rest of the way on foot. Every few steps, I looked back at the bone-white hill where the stardust palace glimmered from its peak.

  Barbed around my brain were thoughts of Ava and the Prince. I couldn’t let the chevki-flavoured atmosphere of the Lost Square enchant me completely, not with early ghosts haunting me.

  I wanted so badly to run back for Ava and tear her out of the Prince’s deadly grasp. But I hardened myself with reminders of what she’d done. Betrayed me.

  I had to make peace with my decision to leave her behind.

  Part of me wished the ride from the springs took longer than two hours. That way, I might have had more time to savour the excitement crackling all around me.

  It wasn’t yet dawn when Adrik led me down a narrow lane between shops, and we stumbled upon a horde of children playing with sticks that shot out sparks. They chased each other in circles.

  The hissing sound lured me in, a snake to a snake charmer, and I itched to hit the children with the sticks.

  I shuddered back that side of myself and drew my sheer hood so far over my head that the hem shielded my eyes. Adrik was covered up too, his fur coat matched with my sheer cloak making for the worst shadows in the Forgotten Square.

  Adrik had said to that, “There’s a reason for the titles. Here, no one sees anything.”

  More like says anything. I realised that when we stopped at a wooden door barely clinging on to its hinges, and Adrik knocked three times with too-long pauses between them.

  An old toothless man cracked open the door just enough for my starved stomach to catch a whiff of meat cooking. Smelled like a stew.

  Adrik slipped the old man a sheet of paper. “We’re lost.”

  I narrowed my eyes on the paper and, with a lump in my throat, recognised the Prince’s face sketched onto it. A note. Money. Good money too.

  I’d never once seen a paper-note before then, but I’d heard plenty of stories about them circulating Scocie.

  Just my luck it had to have the Prince’s face on it.

  Fat, grubby fingers slid the note out of Adrik’s loose grip.

  I watched that simple exchange with too much interest.

  The old man made Adrik look refined and gentlemanly with too subtle movements. Just as I thought that, he hacked a horrid cough at our boots, then kicked back the door. It creaked in protest and slammed back against the wall.

  “Get on in then.” His voice was rougher than stones. “Lettin’ all the heat out, you two.”

  Adrik slipped into the hidden home first.

  I stuck close to his heels, a small smile on my lips. Never thought I’d be stepping on Adrik’s heels to feel a bit safer.

  Inside, it was musty. I caught spice in the air, thickened with unwashed blankets and never-dusted floors.

  I sidestepped a suspicious dark brown stain on the faded runner rug. It ran all the way up a set of narrow stairs whose barrier looked about ready to fall.

  My heart sank to my bum.

  The old man gestured to the stairs. “Room three.”

  Adrik swept past him in a blur of rich brown fur, too regal for a rundown place like this. It wasn’t a brothel, but I would have felt cleaner sleeping in one of the balneum beds back on Zwayk than sitting in a chair in this dump.

  I rushed after Adrik, like a traveller chasing a compass. As I passed, the man’s leer at my sheer cloak did
n’t go unnoticed.

  I hugged the gauzy fabric closer to my body and crept up the stairs. Every step groaned louder than the last until we reached the landing.

  It was darker up here than outside in the shadows of the night. I fought the urge to cling to the back of Adrik’s coat as he led the way down the narrow passage to the last door on the right. A metal 3 hung upside down, its edges rusty and eroded.

  My face pinched at the smears of black on the door handle. Maybe my time at the palace had spoiled me, but with every passing second in this place, I longed for Nalla and my washtub more and more.

  With his gloved hand, taken from his pre-packed satchel on the horse he rode on, Adrik rapped his knuckles on the door.

  One.

  Stop.

  One, two, three.

  Stop.

  One, two.

  Silence greeted us.

  Apparently that was a good sign. After a few heavy moments loomed over us, Adrik opened the door.

  I made a face as he touched the handle.

  Adrik pushed open the door.

  2

  A lit lantern was the first thing I saw in the drab room.

  Surprisingly, it was a gas lantern, not a candle. It cast an orange glow over the torn-up carpet, deepening the oaky hues of the virgin wood exposed. Two armchairs hugged an unlit hearth dusted with soot.

  I shadowed Adrik inside.

  My shoulders tightened as he shut the door behind us quietly.

  The room was ... cosy. That was the nicest way to put it. Cosy. Not crammed by the three pieces of furniture (armchairs and a narrow bed that definitely had bugs!).

  Adrik made to walk past me, but I shouldered to the front.

  My face hardened as I took in the empty room around us. “Where the fuck is he?”

  Adrik snorted behind me. “He’ll come.”

  I rounded on him. Pride soured up inside of me like icicles as I caught a flicker of fear pass over his face.

  Good thing he saw what I did to Felicks, and that was without my power. He was right to be afraid. They all should be.

  “He should be here,” I grit out. “After everything it took to get here, he’s got the nerve to keep us waiting?”

  Adrik glanced at the old clock on the mantle. I traced his gaze. It was the exact same mantle clock as the one in the bedchamber. Or what used to be my bedchamber. It was probably burnt to crumbs by now.

  I marched over to the fireplace and shoved the clock back. It screeched, dragging over the wood.

  Tucked underneath it was a black ribbon.

  “Just what I need,” I muttered and yanked out the ribbon. A flash of white cut through the air and struck my chest. A folded note.

  I frowned down at the toes of my boots where the parchment landed.

  Spinning the ribbon around my fingers, I snatched up the note and flicked it open. Behind me, Adrik threw off his fur coat and let it flap down to the back of the armchair. He came up to my side and read the words on the note—words I couldn’t read.

  Aniel language, maybe.

  My shoulders deflated. The note wasn’t for me.

  “Be ready at dawn,” Adrik said and drew away from me. He peeled off his shirt. “You may have first wash.”

  With a sigh, I snatched the pillowcase-sack from the doorway where Adrik had dumped it, and made for the tub in the corner. Its water was tepid. We were later than the old man expected. Still, I was quick to strip down to my undergarments, not caring that Adrik could see me, and sank into the water.

  The water was warmer than the room, and yet my skin prickled the moment I was submerged up to my collarbone. It felt like bathing in sea water in the Frost Season.

  I peeled a fresh cloth from the edge of the bath and gave it a good sniff. Despite my suspicions, it smelled clean.

  As I lathered up the cloth with a bar of almond soap, I turned my narrowed gaze on Adrik. He was undressed down to his undertrousers and crouched by the hearth. I thanked him silently for starting a fire in this frost pit.

  As I watched him hit the flint, I ran the cloth over the dried blood on my neck. “Why you?” I asked after a while.

  He paused his work, letting a small flame die. Then he cursed under his breath and attacked the flint again.

  I pressed, “Jasper is his aniel. You—you said you belong to no one.” My probing worked.

  As he fed a small flame some dried leaves that burned too quickly, he said, “My maker died.”

  I went rigid in the tub. “How?”

  He threw a scathing look over his shoulder. “Some would ask why.”

  “Not everyone wants to know how to kill a god, but I think it’s handy knowledge,” I countered. “But fine. Why did he die?”

  “She,” he corrected, “was killed for reasons I’m in no position to tell you.”

  Phantom’s rules of secrecy.

  I rolled my eyes and splashed back in the tub. Water soaked my undergarments. I was glad I’d packed the bag halfway with fresh ones.

  “But you worked for the Prince. Why?”

  “I was inherited.” He spat the last word and, a split-second layer, the fire crackled to life. His power aggravated the flames until a roaring fire was consuming a log in the hearth.

  “The Prince killed my God, and he took me as a prize.”

  I stared at his back. He stayed by the fireplace, watching the flames burn. I could feel the crackles of his anger from across the room.

  “He’s big on prizes,” I eventually said, and sat up to reach the cloth down to my feet. “That’s what I’ve heard anyway.”

  I toasted chunks of bread stabbed onto the tip of the fire poker.

  Adrik was a loud bather, I learned. He cleaned himself raw. I could hear the violent splashes of water with every scrub.

  “Want one?” I called over my shoulder at him, then gingerly pulled the hot bread off the poker.

  “Two, if you’ve got it.”

  I stabbed the poker through two lumps of bread, pretending they were Jasper’s eyes. As I started toasting them on the blazing fire, I stared out the wedge of window between heavy, moth-eaten curtains. A glimpse of outside. Dawn was nearing us. Pinks and blood-red swirls of light glinted off the dusty window.

  “He’s late.” I stabbed at the flames moodily. “It’s sunrise.”

  The heaviest splash of water yet came from behind me.

  He was climbing out of the tub. “He’ll be here. We should be ready.”

  I kept my gaze on the ordinary flames. No blue hues in sight.

  As I drew back the poker and slid the two lumps of bread onto a napkin from my sack, I wondered if the Prince knew I was gone yet. Did flames rage blue all around him as he burnt the truth out of Ava?

  My heart tugged at the thought.

  So weak.

  I had to be strong. I had to remind myself of her betrayal. She wasn’t my friend anymore. Hadn’t been for a long time. My grief was just coming a little too late.

  Adrik came to my side, dressed in fresh trousers and a pale pink shirt. At my arched eyebrow, he snatched up his bread and shot me a sour look. “It’s strategic,” he said. “Not supposed to look like ourselves.”

  I snorted before I tore off a hunk of my bread with my teeth. Through a mouthful, I argued, “Not supposed to stand out either.”

  And he did. He stood out like a giant hairy pink thumb on a hand of slender fingers. Mind, I thought of him more as a fat toe than a thumb.

  “So was it all an act?” I asked curiously, picking at my bread. “The cruelty ... hitting Ava. You were just keeping your cover with the Prince?”

  Adrik dropped onto the armchair and hunched over. The bread looked tiny in his meaty hands.

  “No,” he said, his quizzical face hard like stone. I fleetingly thought of the gargoyle statues at the palace.

  My face pinched. “You’re just an evil bastard by nature?”

  “Guess so.” He shrugged. “Don’t like vilas much. Your friend shouldn’t get involved with our b
usiness.”

  My lashes lowered on him, my expression charged with disdain. “You knocked me clean out on the shore, and you would have known I’m no vilas. Seems to me you like to hit women, vilas or not.”

  His face twisted into something bitter. “I didn’t strike you. I tackled you, and you hit your head on a rock. That was an accident.”

  My smile was false. “A happy one, I bet.”

  The shimmers of anger in his eyes didn’t go unnoticed. “I won’t get another chance to push you around,” he said. “So I’ll be sure to treasure the memory.”

  In answer, I looked to the flames and ignored him entirely. But that didn’t mean I would forget. I made a mental note to kill him when I got the chance.

  He might have gotten me out of the palace but not an inch of me believed he did it for my own good. He had his own ends to meet, and I was a bridge there.

  The pink and reds were vanishing soon after I finished my bread.

  With a sigh, I pushed up from the scruffy carpet and dug through my bag. It was an act. Hands buried in the pillowcase, I shut my eyes and drew out some of the poison from my bracelet. My body shuddered with relief. The poison slapped back to where it belonged. Tucked away, there for me to taste whenever the cravings struck me.

  It was when I tied the sack closed that a knock hit the door.

  One.

  Stop.

  One, two, three.

  Stop.

  One, two.

  Finally.

  I shouldered past Adrik before he could rise up from the chair, and slammed into the door. I fumbled with the handle, breath trapped in my frenzied heart.

  Hot stew air hit me as I wrenched the door open.

  Damianos stood in the doorway, a small smirk playing on his pink lips. The smirk was smacked off his face the second I slapped him.

  “That’s for not telling me it was Adrik,” I seethed. “And for being late.”

  3

  Anger flickered in ocean-blue eyes like the Prince’s flames, licking along a log. A pink handprint was blossoming on his sun-kissed cheek. Fury battled with relief as he lowered his lashes on me, hooking me in.