by Keri Lake
God of Monsters
Keri Lake
GOD OF MONSTERS
Published by KERI LAKE
www.KeriLake.com
Copyright © 2020 Keri Lake
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, events, locations, or any other element is entirely coincidental.
Cover art by Okay Creations
Photographer: Andrei Vishnyakov
Editing: Julie Belfield
Warning: This book contains explicit sexual content, and violent scenes that some readers may find disturbing.
Contents
Dear Reader,
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Other Books By Keri Lake
Playlist
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Epilogue 1
Epilogue 2
Acknowledgments
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About the Author
Dear Reader,
It saddens me that this will be the final book of this series.
Over the last few years, I’ve grown to love these characters so much, and I hate having to leave this world. Dark dystopian romance for adults is a relatively small sub-genre, so Juniper Unraveling was a case of truly writing what I love, in spite of the brutal nature of these stories. I am planning to write more in this genre with new characters and world building, but these books will always hold a special place in my heart. Thanks to your encouragement and love for this series, I’ve had the opportunity to build and expand on a world that was originally planned to be a standalone.
Please be advised this book contains a number of triggers and scenes that may be disturbing for some readers. Proceed with caution, as these scenes are pretty graphic. Non-consensual sex, violence, and loss are a few of the topics you’ll encounter in this book.
With the darkness, comes light, and though the journey in this book may not be an easy one, this is a romance, and as such, you’ll be guided by a sliver of hope, should you decide to keep going.
Thank you for taking a chance on this series and these characters.
I hope you enjoy Titus and Thalia’s story.
Love,
Keri
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Other Books By Keri Lake
VIGILANTES SERIES
RICOCHET
BACKFIRE
INTREPID
BALLISTIC
JUNIPER UNRAVELING SERIES
JUNIPER UNRAVELING
CALICO DESCENDING
KINGS OF CARRION
SONS OF WRATH SERIES
SOUL AVENGED
SOUL RESURRECTED
SOUL ENSLAVED
SOUL REDEEMED
THE FALLEN (A SONS OF WRATH SPINOFF)
THE SANDMAN DUET
NOCTURNES & NIGHTMARES
REQUIEM & REVERIE
STANDALONES
RIPPLE EFFECT
MASTER OF SALT & BONES
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Playlist
Fear Inoculum – TOOL
Moondust – Jaymes Young
Arsonist’s Lullabye – Hozier
Depraved – Mammals
Freak of Nature – Broods & Tove Lo
When The Night Is Over – Lord Huron
Lover, Please Stay – Nothing But Thieves
Purgatory – Digital Daggers
I’ll Be Good – Jaymes Young
By Your Side – Sade
The Fold - Wickerbird
Share Your Love With Me – Aretha Franklin
Wish – Nine Inch Nails
Minor Piano Key – Iron & Wine
How To Disappear Completely - Radiohead
Come Find Me – Emile Haynie, Lykki Li, Romy
Stand By Me – Ben E. King
Nature Boy (Acoustic) – AURORA
Prison Sex – TOOL
Carry Me – Eurielle
Dystopia - Bush
Prologue
Titus
Titus tipped his chin toward the darkening sky and breathed in the thick humidity of an oncoming storm. The winds had begun to shift from the south, portending another long hot summer that’d sweep like a burning wick over the arid desert.
And more storms.
Yanking the canvas taut against the ridgepole, he secured the outer surface of his only shelter from what would likely be a torrential downpour in a few hours, and nabbed the heavy rock from beside him to pound the stake into the earth. For weeks, his makeshift home had offered protection against the frigid winter temps, but had since worn down with abuse. Not that Titus was ever troubled by the weather, anyway. His skin had hardened over the years, become accustomed to whatever brutality nature might throw at him.
Life in the Deadlands could be merciless, at times, but at least he was a free man.
Across the camp, his Alpha brother finished securing the lines of his own tent, before crouching to turn the spit-roasting rabbits over the small campfire.
“You smell that, Brother? That’s the work of a master.” The taunting amusement in Atticus’s voice left Titus shaking his head, as he pounded another stake into the ground. “A far cry from the charred, fire-gutted carcasses you offer up.”
“You’re welcome to starve,” Titus spat, pushing to his feet and catching sight of the golden meat adorned with sprigs of green. “Food doesn’t have to be decorated with flowers where I come from.”
“They’re called herbs. They add flavor. And we come from the same place, last I checked.”
“You must’ve gotten the penthouse. No slop I ever swallowed down in that hellhole was flavored with herbs.”
The food served in Calico could barely pass as edible, but even the heartier meals fed to
the Alphas were hard to swallow.
“If, by penthouse, you mean the inflamed bowels of the infirmary with a gloved hand shoved halfway up my ass, then I guess so.” The indignant sound in his throat died with the lifting of the skewered rabbit, and he examined the damn thing like he might a polished jewel. “Never cared much for that high life. I’d even take your bland cooking over that any day.”
Titus snorted, plopping himself onto the dirt bed near the bonfire, where he rested his elbows onto his knees. “Tell that to the woman you bedded last week.”
Laughter broke through Atticus’s momentary focus, and he shook his head. “A little fisting is good for the soul.”
Down the road from their camp was a hive where the two of them traded on occasion. Fuel and blankets in exchange for rabbit meat and venison, in Titus’s case. Liquor and sex for chopped wood, in the case of Atticus. Three adolescent daughters made up the only females under fifty years old in the hive, and Atticus saw fit to plunder them equally in exchange for his toils. Though, there were a few men able-bodied enough to carry out the wood-chopping themselves, so perhaps the exchange for sex wasn’t so one-sided as Titus thought it to be.
While the daughters had propositioned Titus, as well, his conscience bit too hard to ever risk getting a female pregnant. No ordinary female was equipped to handle impregnation by an Alpha from Calico.
Somehow, Atticus didn’t seem to care about the dangers, in spite of Titus’s chiding.
Still, it made the trips to the hive difficult each time. The petting. The flirtatious smiles of young, fertile women, smelling like flowers and sweetness. It reminded Titus of the last time he’d been with a woman. Two years ago, when he’d been forced to fuck his best friend’s girl, Calithea.
With Valdys trapped inside Calico, the young female had endured painful bouts of estrus, a sort of screwed up mating cycle she suffered every month that could be relieved only by the seed of an Alpha. In spite of the guilt, there was a small part of him that enjoyed the task. Enough years had passed now, that he could admit his appreciation for the sensations he’d felt in the thick of it, ones he’d chosen to ignore at the time, for Cali’s sake. The relief for both of them when it was over. Cold, detached sex, but such was nothing new for Titus. It was all he’d ever known.
Prior to that, he’d been forced to fuck countless females, whose fates, as a prisoner, he’d never become privy to. The doctors used the girls to study Alpha pregnancy, and Titus swore he’d never willfully harm a woman that way again. A woman ill-equipped to handle Alpha impregnation suffered excruciating pain before death. The only known cure to enable survival of the pregnancy lay deep in the tunnels of Calico and Titus wouldn’t be heading back inside the abandoned facility again. Not after having watched his Alpha brother, Cadmus, succumb to the grotesque mutations kept there.
A part of him had died alongside Cadmus that day. Even now, he still hadn’t forgiven himself for letting his Alpha brother singularly hold the gate that ultimately trapped him. Still suffered the nightmares of his final moments, hearing Cadmus in those agonizing seconds before the nightshade kicked in. Titus had damned God and the heavens for such an excruciating demise.
That day would haunt him all the way to his own grave.
Atticus had made for decent company since then, but the world had become bleaker without the brothers he’d known most of his life.
Reaching around the flame, Atticus handed off one of the rabbits with a shit-eating grin. “Tell me that isn’t the most beautiful piece of meat you’ve ever laid eyes on.”
“One I’ll shove up your ass, if you don’t shut up.” With a frown, Titus bit into the rabbit meat. It was so tender and delicious, he had to school his reaction, or the prick would gloat for a week straight. “Not bad.”
“Not bad. That is the best damn meat you’ve ever had in your mouth. Admit it.”
“If you don’t quit with that shit, I’m going cram this skewer down your throat.”
Atticus chuckled around the meat he set to his mouth, before tearing away another bite. “Relax. A little meat gazing never hurt anyone. Almost time for another run to the hive, don’t you think?” Words garbled by a mouthful of food, he pointed his skewer toward Titus. “Complete isolation isn’t good for the mind. Trust me. I know.” Having been trapped in Calico, alongside Valdys, for months, Atticus had told him a number of times how maddening the darkness of that place could be, at times. How he’d once hallucinated Valdys as a mutation and attacked his fellow Alpha. A death wish, perhaps, considering Valdys was one of the most skilled fighters Titus’d ever met.
Titus missed his brother, but if the stories were true about the place to where they’d ventured after Calico, Valdys had found paradise in an east coast community that was said to mirror Szolen, just without all the corruption.
Titus could’ve joined them there, but he preferred the open desert, the freedom of sleeping beneath the stars and hunting. Living in a community like that felt like living a lie.
“I’m not your shackles,” Titus said. “You’re free to go whenever you like.” If it were up to Titus, he would’ve been perfectly fine being on his own, but the bastard insisted on him tagging along every trip to the hive.
“C’mon, Brother. Tell me the sight of those women in their tight shirts, nipples sticking through the cotton just begging to be bitten …” He ground his teeth for emphasis, and curled his hand into a tight fist. “I could have all of them to myself, and it still wouldn’t be enough.”
“And you’ll have doomed every one of them to a painful death.”
Lowering his hand, Atticus stared into the flame, seemingly thoughtful for a moment. “It’s not that I want that for any woman. But are we supposed to remain celibate for the rest of our lives? Fuck the animals we hunt, like filthy marauders?”
Titus couldn’t answer that. The frustration chipped away at him every day, so much that he feared that he might eventually crack. The insatiable appetite of an Alpha could prove dangerous for a female, if he didn’t reign it in. Hardened skin was all that kept the beast inside of him from ripping through and taking what it craved.
“We should go tonight. Before the rain hits. We’ve got plenty of venison to trade.”
“So I stand out in the pouring rain, while you stow away with a woman for an hour.”
“First, it won’t take an hour. Not if I take the redhead tonight. Second, you’re going to partake, my friend. Or, God help me, I will take a knife to your throat myself.”
Titus groaned into another bite of meat, hiding his appreciation for the savory flavor against his tongue.
Licking the grease from his fingers, Atticus tossed the scarce remains of his dinner into the flames and pulled his knees up. “I won’t take no for an answer.”
“Is it an audience you’re looking for? I’m certain the girl’s father would add a nice rush of adrenaline to your fucking.”
“It’s Senna. The feisty one. She made me swear to bring you.”
A shiver wound down Titus’s spine at the thought of the beautiful female. Feisty was right. She had a mouth to match the dangerous curves she flaunted, and Titus had found himself staring a number of times, when he shouldn’t have.
Was a bit of a surprise that she’d gone out of her way to request him, if he was being honest. Titus had never really been much for conversation, and the surly expression, which was as naturally a part of him as the scars all over his body, seemed to do a fine job keeping others at a distance. Which suited Titus just fine. People weren’t his thing. It was Atticus who did much of the talking and negotiating, and Titus who frequently stood off to the side, looking like a rabid wolf in case things turned squirrely.
“She insists on having you.”
“Some women enjoy torment, I guess.”
Touching her would be enough to satisfy the craving inside of him. He wouldn’t have to do anything more, impossible as it might seem to stop himself. It was the feel of soft skin he longed for, the tickle of hair across
his face, the scent of a woman that twisted his stomach.
It’d be nice to fuck something more than the palm of his hand, too.
“I go with you … we leave within the hour. No cuddling, or sweet talking them.”
A grin stretched across Atticus’s face. “Is that what you think I’m doing with the time?” he asked, pushing to his feet. “Hard to talk with my face buried in a wet cunt.”
Brilliant oranges and pinks sketched the sky, where the sun hung on the edge of the horizon. The hive was a good six-mile hike, and the two preferred to travel by night most times. After all, with their numbers slowly on the rise after having suffered a major hit with the collapse of Calico, Legion still patrolled the area.
Their resentment seemed to have grown, as well as their forces. Having lost their beloved Founding Father, the soldiers had taken it upon themselves to hunt down Alphas and mutations roaming about the Deadlands. An initiative, as Titus understood, set in place by the clergymen who had since ran the moderately-sized community like some kind of religious commune. Ruling under the harsh and merciless doctrines of their God, they believed Alphas to be as evil as the Ragers and mutations that decimated the world.