IN THE LAND OF GODS AND MONSTERS
PART II
Carmen Jenner
Table of Contents
Title Page
In the Land of Gods and Monsters, Part II (Gods & Monsters, #2)
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
PET’S STORY CONTINUES ...
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
AUTHOR LINKS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
In the Land of Gods and Monsters
Part II
Copyright © 2018 Carmen Jenner
Published by Carmen Jenner
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This is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
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In the Land of Gods and Monsters:
© Carmen Jenner February 18th,2019
[email protected]
Editing: Lauren Clarke Editing
www.laurenclarkeediting.com
Cover Design: © Be Designs
www.be-designs.com.au
Photo Credit: © Sara Eirew
www.saraeirew.com
CHAPTER ONE
Pet
I stare at the ceiling, waiting. For what, I’m not entirely sure. Death, maybe? Morphine? The cops to leave me alone and stop asking questions? My Sir? The thought causes a lump to form in my throat, and salt water stings my eyes.
Ares isn’t coming for me. He set me free; he opened the door and ordered me to run. Like an idiot, I listened. I have no idea where he is or how to find him. Neither do the police.
“And you don’t remember anything else about the men who kept you?” Agent Stahl crosses his ankle over his knee, as if asking the same question again and again will suddenly jog my memory. He’s an asshole. But as he’s the FBI agent leading the charge in my human trafficking case, it appears I’m stuck with him.
Traffic.
As if that adequately covers the breaking and sale of another human being.
I’m so tired of these questions, Agent Stahl’s dubious expressions, and this hospital room. The truth is, I remember everything about the man who held me, but he gave me an order to remain silent, and though he’s not here to exact punishment, I will obey my Sir.
“No.” I tug at a loose thread on the blanket. It feels strange to be covered after being stripped of my pride and my inhibitions for so long. My clothing itches. I wish I could rip it off; maybe then Stahl would quit badgering me.
Officer Maximus Torres leans against the wall, his large body straining against the dark blue uniform. He’s a straight shooter with a handsome face, close-cropped black hair, brown skin, and the kind of bright baby blues a girl could really fall for—if that girl weren’t hung up on a devil with dark eyes and an even darker soul.
Maximus has barely left my side since he rescued me two days ago in Times Square. There’s a team of police officers stationed at my door. They take regular breaks, and they switch shifts every eight hours, but Torres is always right here. Unfortunately, so is Agent Stahl.
“Is it really necessary to keep asking the same thing over and over?”
“I’m sure I don’t have to tell you how important even the smallest detail is when it comes to catching criminals, Officer Torres.” Stahl straightens in his seat.
“Of course. She’s just ...” He pushes away from the wall and folds his arms across his chest as he moves closer. “She’s worn out.”
Stahl’s brow furrows. “Weren’t you supposed to be done with your shift already?”
“I finished a half hour ago. Right when you should have been done with this line of questioning.”
“I’ll be done when I have enough answers to find the men who did this.”
“I don’t have any answers,” I snap. Both men turn and look at me. I guess I deserve that, since the only words that have come from my mouth since I gave my statement are “no” and “I don’t remember.” “I can’t help you. I don’t—”
“Remember, right.” Stahl shakes his head and stands, grabbing his briefcase. He shuffles his files into it and heads to the door. “My card is on the dresser, Miss Flynn. If you remember anything at all, you call me. Even the smallest of details can help find these men who did this to you. You do want that, don’t you?”
“Jesus.” Torres stands by the window, looking out on the street, but the tension in his strong neck and shoulders betrays his annoyance to Stahl’s question.
The FBI agent shoots him a pointed look that’s lost to the back of Torres’ head, and reaches for the handle. “Just call me if you remember anything at all, Miss Flynn.”
I glare as he leaves the room. In my periphery, Maximus turns around. “What an asshole. Am I right?”
“You’re not wrong.”
His brows shoot skyward, likely surprised I’ve said anything at all. I smile, but it’s void of any real feeling. Empty. Just like me.
“Listen, I’m here if you ever want to talk.” One corner of his mouth tips up in a lopsided smile. “Or complain about pushy FBI agents.”
“I don’t. Want to talk, I mean.”
He frowns and then quickly schools his features. “Yeah, of course.”
“I wouldn’t mind getting out of this hospital bed, though.”
“Well, I hear the docs might clear you soon.” His heavy Brooklyn accent fills the room, and for a beat I wonder what it would be like in the bedroom, thick with lust and bossing me around. Then I remember my Sir ordering me to leave him, and all thoughts of Maximus naked and commanding me vanish. “Your father’s already employed an impressive security detail.”
“I don’t know him.”
Max takes several long strides across the room. He stops at a safe distance, I assume for my benefit, and faced with the sheer size of him, I can’t help but wonder what that huge body would feel like as it pinned me on this hospital bed.
�
��I know all this must be terrifying for you but I gotta say, I think you’re incredibly brave.”
I smile coyly. “The big, bad New Yorker cop thinks I’m brave?”
“Yes, ma’am. I really do.” He sits in the chair Stahl occupied only moments ago, but Maximus dwarfs it completely.
“I don’t know anyone but him,” I whisper. “Everyone tells me Doctor Flynn is my father, but I see no familial resemblance. I have a dead mother, a father I don’t remember, and a fiancé I’ve never met.”
“You know me.”
I smile. “I know you’re here more than you should be. I know you must be single, because no girlfriend or wife in their right mind would allow their man to spend as much time here as you do.”
“I’m married to the job, and right now, the job is helping keep you safe, and to put assholes like the one who did this to you away.”
“What if I liked the things he did to me?” I raise my head and meet his horrified gaze. And there it is—the surprise, the furrowed brow, the disbelieving expression that says there’s something wrong with me. Well, you don’t need to tell me that, Officer Torres. I already know. I’ve been a bad girl.
Tears pool in my eyes, and he clears his throat and leans forward, placing his large hand over mine. The contact feels so strange, alien, but it’s nice too. With the exception of the nurses and doctors, no one has touched me since Maximus found me in the middle of Times Square and ushered me into his police vehicle. I stare at his hand on mine.
“Sorry.” He retracts his hand, but I grab it and interlock my fingers with his.
“I-I liked the things he did to me.”
“There’s a word for that, Camille. It’s called—”
“Stockholm syndrome, right? I know that’s what everyone is thinking, that my head is all fucked up, and maybe it is, but not about this.” Tears spill over my lashes and run in fat, lazy droplets where they fall off my chin, dampening my pajamas.
I loved him, and he let me go.
“Hey, it’s okay to be confused. It’s okay to feel as if your whole world has been turned upside down—that happens more often than you might think. We’re gonna find him, Camille. We’re gonna find him and put him away for a very long time.”
I withdraw my hand from his and cover my face as my tears fall. They don’t stop. They never fucking stop. Ares let me go, and he’s out there, probably training another slave, making them fall in love with all the things he does to them, making them fall in love with him.
He let me go.
And I hate him for it.
CHAPTER TWO
Pet
I stare at the house. Its huge white columns tower above us, and I feel small and dirty beside them. A street rat in a palace. They say I grew up here, but I don’t remember it. I don’t remember the man standing next to me who’s supposed to be my father. Nor do I know the uniformed maid, or the hired goons spit-shined and polished in expensive suits, and I definitely don’t know the man waiting at the top of the stairs with a huge bouquet in his hands.
Parker. According to Doctor Flynn, I was ready to spend the rest of my life with him, but I don’t feel anything when I stare at his perfectly put together ensemble, or his light sandy blond hair, or the bright blue eyes filled with so much . . . hope?
I sigh.
My father turns to look at me. “He’s had it hard, you know?”
He’s had it hard? Why? Because his girlfriend was kidnapped, abused, and turned into a sex slave, and his perfect life is now tarred by association? “How terrible for him.”
“He was very worried about you, Camille.”
That’s not my name! I shout it over and over in my head, but no one hears. They couldn’t possibly understand why I hate being called that.
My father grabs my elbow, and I jerk away.
“Don’t touch me.”
“You’re making a scene.” He warns. I glance around at the gathered staff, at my fiancé. All of them are strangers to me. Making a scene? I can give him a scene.
“I’m not staying here.”
“Of course you are.”
“I don’t know you.” I turn and glance at my father. “I don’t know any of you.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. This is your childhood home.”
“A childhood I don’t remember!” I turn and stalk back to the car, but my father’s security steps in my way. “Move.”
“I can’t do that, miss.”
I reel around and glare at the man I’m meant to trust because people told me our blood is the same. I’m just supposed to go with him? To stay here with these people I don’t know? I think I prefer the sterility of the hospital room. At least there, I had Maximus.
Doctor Flynn’s expression is cold, his eyes narrowed into icy blue slits, and his features are filled with distaste.
“You can’t keep me prisoner here.”
“Actually, he can,” Parker says, stepping closer. “You’re not of sound mind, Camille. The doctors released you into your father’s care only because they believed you would heal better at home, in a familiar environment.”
Parker hands the flowers to the maid. Wild red curls spring free from her bun. She has a kind face, full of empathy and pity, and she wrings her hands around the stems. Parker takes my arm.
No! He’s not my Sir. I hate him.
“Don’t touch me. Don’t you dare fucking touch me! I don’t know you! You do not get to touch me. I belong to him!”
Silence falls over the gathered strangers. Parker and my father exchange alarmed glances, and I shrink into myself, crouching on the ground. I can’t breathe. I can’t do this without him. He let me go. He set me free, and he signed my death certificate all with the same selfless gesture.
Ares left me.
Strong arms band around my waist, and I screech. I kick and flail as the bodyguard lifts me over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry and surges up the steps and through the front door. I beat my fists on my captor’s back, wriggle, and attempt to knee him in the stomach as he carries me up another flight of stairs. He walks into a room at the end of the hall and tosses me on the bed. I spit at him, and he points a thick, stubby finger in my face. “Stay.”
The security guard stalks away and slams the door. A key turns in the lock, and then the sound of his footsteps retreating sends my pulse skyrocketing. He locked me in. No. No!
I sprint across the room, frantically yanking on the doorknob. I pound my fists on the door. He let me go. Ares let me go, and here I am, imprisoned in another cell. This one is far worse than the cage he put me in, because he’s not here. He let me go, and I’m no freer than I was in that room.
***
The light outside my window gives way to dusk, the key is turned in the lock. The security guard is back. His huge presence fills the doorway, then he enters the room. He’s not alone though. Following him in is the woman with the wild red curls. She carries a tray of food covered by a silver dish. Behind her is Parker. He slips into my bedroom like a snake into a henhouse.
“Get out!” I scream.
“Sit down,” the security guard says.
“Fuck you!”
“Camille, please.” Parker steeples his hands. He speaks and looks just like my father. “Please just listen.”
“He can’t keep me here.”
“This is the safest place for you right now.”
“Bullshit! I don’t know you! I don’t know any of you!”
“I know this is difficult, and I wish I could be here to help you remember, but with work the way it is, well . . .” He trails off and takes my hand. Instinctively, I pull away. Parker’s eyes fill with unshed tears, but I don’t feel one iota of compassion or love for this man. “When you’re better, you can come back to the apartment with me.”
I frown. “We have an apartment?”
“Well, technically your father has an apartment in downtown Manhattan. It’s right near the academy.”
“The academy,” I repeat, rolling the wor
d around my tongue.
“Where you dance.” His brows crinkle. “You really don’t remember anything, do you?”
Would I be here if I did?
“I want to see it. The place I used to dance.”
The place he took me.
“Soon. For now, your father doesn’t want you to be overwhelmed, so we need you to stay here. No one is at the apartment all day until late. I can’t look after you there.”
“I don’t need looking after.”
“Camille, please. Just stay here for a few weeks. You have the staff to tend to your every need, and when you begin to remember things and start to heal, then you can come home, maybe get back to work.”
Work. Dancing. Ballet. I don’t remember anything about that life.
This room is covered in black-and-white portraits of me dancing. There’s a plush ballet pink duvet cover and a mountain of cushions with quirky puns like “Life without ballet would be pointeless” embroidered on them. Leotards and tutus hang in the closet, and there are more pointe shoes and trophies than I think is healthy for one individual to own.
I don’t know this world. I don’t know the girl in those pictures. I know this version of me—Pet, whose only job was to make her master happy. And I haven’t done that. I escaped, and he sent me away. I failed, and he’s probably already found another slave who will give him her heart and soul. A pet who does as she’s told and pleases her master. Not one who runs from him.
I sit down heavily in the plush velveteen seat. The woman with flames for hair curtsies in front of me. “Miss Camille, I’m Brigid. I know you don’t remember me, but I raised you from a wee lass, and I’m here to help with whatever you need.” Brigid speaks with a lilting twang. She’s Irish, maybe. Or Scottish perhaps. It would certainly explain the red hair and pale skin.
I stare at the woman. I see pity in her eyes, condemnation—it’s the same look everyone has bestowed upon me since I was found. Victim. I’m not a victim. I’m a slave who is lost. A sub who can’t find her master, alone and adrift in a sea of pretenders, of people who tell me they care, they’re here for me, but I don’t know them. I don’t want them. I want him. Only him.
“Right, then. I made your favorite chicken broth. I know you’re not supposed to eat carbs, but I figured you deserved a little treat, so I picked the smallest dinner roll from the bunch.”
In the Land of Gods and Monsters, Part Two (Gods & Monsters Book 2) Page 1