GODS AND MONSTERS
BOOKS 1-3
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BOX SET 1
KLARISSA KING
Prince Poison
Book 1 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.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
GLOSSARY
CONTENT WARNINGS
PRINCE POISON
Gods and Monsters
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
CAPTIVE
Gods and Monsters
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
phantom
Gods and Monsters
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
AUTHOR NOTES
GLOSSARY
Malis—A malevolent God.
Beniyn—A benevolent God.
Aniel—A hand-crafted ‘offspring’ of one God.
Avksy—An abomination.
Vilas—Human
Balneum—Brothel and Gambling Den.
Chevki—Cheap alcohol
Scocie—Land of the Gods.
Capital—Scocie’s City
Zwayk—A Farther Isle
Commos—Isles of the Common Vilas.
CONTENT WARNINGS
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.
PRINCE POISON
†
GODS AND MONSTERS
BOOK 1
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
Few knew my secret and it already carried a death toll:
One.
It might not seem very high but how can a mother’s life be measured?
Sometimes, as I stood on the path to our icy, salt-aired cabin, I looked to the pier and saw it all happen again.
Today was no different.
I watched the creaky pier and relived the worst moment of my life. Mother, being cut down in front of me, like a human shield wielded to protect me; her curse.
As she took her last breath, I became my brother’s burden.
I cut my gaze to the damp, soggy markets in the heart of our isle’s village. My brother, Moritz, was down there, somewhere.
Did he ever look to the docks like I did and remember the cruel wink of the sword as it took our mother’s life? Or had the memory faded into the blurred masses of sea-travellers by now?
Our dock saw many visitors.
Isle Zwayk procured the sharpest swordfish in all the lands. Our mussels were said to be stronger aphrodisiacs than the God, Lover Lust, and our crabs were the butteriest on any shore. But the day my mother died, the docks were swarmed with sailors and pirates, and they took more than seafood.
Twenty years did too much to the sorrow and grief. I should have felt something. I should have still mourned her. Yet, I only knew that I should, and I didn’t.
So I pretended.
I went through life pretending I wasn’t a monster, that my brother wasn’t afraid of me, that I hadn’t let my nephew swim alone in the sea on his third birthday, not caring if I never saw him again. I pretended because I had to. Because I should have cared.
But no matter how hard I fought it, it never quite fit. The darkness inside of me was there to stay, long enough that I named it—
Monster.
Monster looked just like me. She had the same ashen hair and eyes greener and sharper than any broken emerald stone. But Monster was hollow and cruel.
The stronger the boredom, the harder Monster fought to come out and play.
Boredom was a guarantee here.
Living on Isle Zwayk didn’t offer much, other than distance from the Gods. I should have been grateful for that. At least, that was what my mother used to tell me.
There is no greater gift than to live outside of our Gods’ light.
Of the few memories I had of my mother, that was the strongest: the one I replayed in my mind every night I found myself dreaming of bigger things in life than chores and work.
I reminded myself of that as I swept the front path to the creaky cabin that was home to the remains of my family.
My gaze should have been locked onto my work, but I found myself watching the shimmer of the horizon far across the sea.
If one looked hard enough, just moments after dawn, the faint whisper of our neighbouring isle could be seen dancing over the horizon. But it was far past dawn, and all I could see were the wispy pinks and reds of a nearing sunset.
That isle couldn’t have been much different to mine. Still, I wondered sometimes what it would be like there. Closer to the Gods, if only by a little.
Numbly, I turned my gaze down at my hands, wrapped tight around a splintered broomstick.
“The farther away from the Gods, the better,” I told myself.
Maybe one day I might have believed myself, rather than feared—and I did fear myself.
My secret that had to stay hidden.
“Valissa!”
I jolted out of my thoughts.
At the sound of that familiar grating screech, my slender shoulders stiffened and my grip tightened even more. White dots began to blot along my knuckles.
“Valissa!” she called again, so loud that a watchful crow that was perched on
the cabin’s fence suddenly took flight.
I watched it go for a moment, wishing I could fly away with it. To escape many things, but in that moment to escape her—the dreaded sister-in-law.
With a huff, I let the broomstick fall and I shoved through the front door to the chilly cabin. Even with the day’s whisper of warmth still lingering, the cabin would be cold always, and the moisture from the sea would stay trapped inside.
“What?” I snapped, and kicked the door shut behind me.
My vexed glare found Tahmir kneeling by the dwindling pile of firewood.
Straw-like hair was piled messily atop her head, her bun so heavy that it was starting to droop down the side of her squared face. My brother’s wife was no looker, but that wasn’t a problem I had with her. And I had many.
Tahmir looked me up and down with an obvious sneer before she slapped her meaty hand down on the firewood basket. “Didn’t fill it up today?”
I folded my aching arms over my chest. “Clearly not.”
It took all I had to not throw in some unkindly words. But we’d all agreed—me, Tahmir, and my brother, Moritz—that in front of their son, we would bite our tongues.
Last time Tahmir and I went at it, hands were thrown, not just words. If we were all going to live together, we had to find ways to tolerate better.
“Well, I don’t know what your brother will think about that,” she shot back at me.
Petal, my whiny snot-nosed nephew, snored on the lumpy couch by the fireplace. Only because he slept did Tahmir let some disdain slip into her venomous tone.
“He’ll probably wonder why the Gods sent him you.” I shrugged. “Since you’ve done nothing all day, and you’ll do nothing all night.” My arms dropped to my sides and my stare turned withering. “Everyone else on this isle manages to balance work and chores just fine. Why can’t you?”
That was what grated on me most with Tahmir.
She was entitled. There was no reason for it. She wasn’t born into wealth, or destined for great things.
Gods, we lived on the smallest of the Commos Isles. Still, she found a way to hold onto that bizarre fussiness of hers.
“Being a new mother isn’t easy, Valissa.” Tahmir shoved up from the floorboards, her thin, cracked lips twisting into something ugly. “It’s the hardest work there is. I don’t always have time to run the errands, so you will have to.”
Maybe she was right. Petal wasn’t an easy child to care for. But I was no mother or wife, yet I did the work of both and more.
Still, ‘new mother…’
“Petal is three, he’s not a new-born.” At my sides, my hands fisted. “Besides, I already do most of your chores, my own, and I work,” I added. “All you have to do is go to the market and buy some firewood and sustenance. No one’s asking you to cut down a tree, Tahmir.”
“Work!” She cackled a rough sound, like tree bark breaking off in the Frost Season. “A dancer of the night is not a job, Valissa. It’s a filthy hobby. One that will make sure you never marry on this isle.”
Maybe that was why she hated me? Not so much me, but my work.
I had no shame in it.
I danced at the tavern some nights and at the rare midnight party we had on the isle. Now that I watched that sneer on Tahmir’s face turn into something grimmer than I could have imagined, I was sure of it. She loathed me for my work.
I shrugged with as much care as I had for her, which was none.
“Not everyone dreams of marriage,” I said, and turned my back on her.
Just as I made to go through the door, Tahmir muttered a word that froze me on the spot.
“Avsky.”
For a moment, I stood there, staring at the cracks in the door. A lump swelled in my throat. I was choking—on the rage flooding me, the hurt gutting me.
Abomination.
Not a word thrown at someone for their type of work. Not a word heard on Zwayk, or anywhere for that matter.
Tahmir risked my life by speaking that word. She could have exposed my secret. The very secret my mother died to protect.
Tahmir might as well have spit on my mother’s grave.
Slowly, I looked over my shoulder at her and let all my calm rage flood my stony face.
“If you ever say that word again,” I hissed, “I’ll cut your tongue out while you sleep.”
Tahmir’s tanned face suddenly drained of all colour, and I found myself staring a terrified ghost of a woman. Whether or not I would act on my threat didn’t matter—she believed me. That was all that mattered.
Before I could turn back to the door, it burst open and my brother barged in. I jumped back before his bulky shoulder could take me off my feet.
I stumbled against the wall.
Tahmir gasped, the faint touches of her fear lingering on her pasty-looking face.
“Gods, Moritz! What’s the matter with you?” Her strangled voice hitched to shaky anger. “Petal could have been by the door! You could have taken him clean off his feet—”
Mortiz ignored her, and his feverish eyes found me.
I felt my heart sink to my stomach. I knew that look. It could only mean something terrible.
“A ship,” he said through harsh breaths. “Black sails, headed our way.”
I sank against the wall, tension pulling from my body like a ribbon unwinding. Sure enough, as I looked out the dusty window to the docks, I caught a sail-less ship writhing against the horizon.
“Moritz, you near frightened me to death.” I pressed my hand against my beating heart, as if to soothe it. “We should go over the sort of news worthy of barging through the door and almost flooring me.”
Moritz wasn’t to be calmed.
He grabbed my shoulders and shook me. “Black sails, Lissa,” he growled. “Undocumented sailors. There might be aniels on that ship.”
I shrugged him off. “You’re paranoid. As far as we know, plenty of aniels come through the isle—they just don’t make themselves known. And neither do I.”
Tahmir fixed her bulging eyes on me.
I read her too easily.
With Mortiz’s panic at my secret being found out, she was afraid I would tell him what she called me. And then she would be in a wave of trouble.
I almost told him. If only to see her squirm. To soften some of the prickly urges in me, the urges that never went away no matter how much I ignored them.
Monster…
But I didn’t get the chance to tell Moritz, because not a moment later, an excited knock rattled the door.
A knock I knew better than my own hand.
“Ava,” I squealed and rushed around my bulk of a brother.
Moritz made no move to stop me as I swung open the door to a hit of icy air and a beaming round face.
Hair like rusty metal coils curled around the familiar face. Coffee-brown eyes gleamed brighter than fresh pots in the morning.
Ava rushed past me faster than the sea breeze that snuck in with her.
“A ship is docking,” she squealed, hands clapping together in a flurry.
I could almost see the sparks of excitement fizzle around her curvy frame.
“Moritz beat you to it.” I smirked and booted the rickety door shut. “And I have a window.”
Her face shuttered for a moment, then she looked around the bare cabin. Ava finished with a glance out the window where the shadows of the ship drew nearer our isle.
“Moritz?” she turned back to me.
“He says,” I added with a lingering look at my brother’s scowl, “the ship flies no sails.”
For a beat, she just looked at me. I hated it whenever she stared at me like that, as if I was missing part of my head.
The moment shattered as she grinned widely at me; her smile stretched ear to ear. “No sails,” she confirmed.
No sails meant off the books, a mysterious blend of pirates, sailors and privateers. Might have even been illegal whalers boarding our tiny isle, which meant debauchery and coin.
&n
bsp; “Madame Jasmeen changed our schedule,” Ava told me. “We’re working the party tonight.”
Every time ships docked at our isle for the night, we threw a party at midnight. Not because we were gracious hosts here on Zwayk. It was for the business and coins we could drain out of the travellers.
I loved a good party.
Still, my lips flattened into a line. “As dancers or—”
“Entertainers.” Ava flashed me her dimples and a wicked wink.
I lit up like lanterns at night with a grin of my own. No dancing, no real work, no pouring drinks—we were going to be paid to party.
And to think Tahmir judged my work.
The wretched sister-in-law whispered in Mortiz’s ear and tucked Petal behind her legs. He must have woken up sometime during the excitement between Moritz barging in and mine and Ava’s none-too-quiet glee.
Whatever it was that Tahmir was whispering, Moritz took the reins and spoke for her, “If you’re working the party tonight, don’t come home. Stay at Ava’s or the balneum.”
I rolled my eyes and cut him a glare. “Like I’ll be finished before sunrise.”
Even if an aniel was hidden on that ship and somehow discovered what I could do, Petal and his overprotective parents wouldn’t be the ones in danger. The blood that would stain the shore would be mine.
Besides, I couldn’t stand to live on this isolated isle that was one village and one woods, if there wasn’t anything to look forward to.
Ships at the pier were the only thing to get excited about around here.
New and familiar faces would mingle all over the village all night with booze and music and stolen kisses.
Ava snatched my hand, pulling my attention back to her. That grim look was painted back onto her face. “Who are you talking to?”
Her voice was as small and quiet as Petal by the fireplace.
“Moritz,” I said, and gestured lazily over my shoulder.
Ava hesitated, her gaze cutting around the cabin. “Lissa,” she said softly and squeezed my hand. “You’re confused again. Moritz…”
Whatever she was going to tell me, I didn’t find out. She trailed off with a sigh, then forced a bright smile onto her face.
“We’ll get ready at work,” she decided suddenly. “You need a bath.” She paused to sniff me and made a horrid face that snuck a smile over my own lips. “Or three.”
Gods and Monsters, Books 1-3: A Dark Gods Bully Romance (Gods and Monsters Box Set) Page 1