In the Land of Gods and Monsters, Part One Read online

  IN THE LAND OF GODS AND MONSTERS

  PART ONE

  Carmen Jenner

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  In the Land of Gods and Monsters, Part I (Gods & Monsters, #1)

  PROLOGUE

  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

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CONTINUE THE STORY ...

  NEVER MISS A NEW RELEASE!

  MORE BY CARMEN JENNER

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  AUTHOR LINKS

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  In the Land of Gods and Monsters

  Part I

  Copyright © 2018 Carmen Jenner

  Published by Carmen Jenner

  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 articles or reviews.

  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.

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return it to the seller and purchase your own copy.

  Thank you for respecting the author’s work and not pirating this book. Pirates suck!

  In the Land of Gods and Monsters: Carmen Jenner November 10th,2018

  [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

  PROLOGUE

  Fear pierces my gut like a knife. I take a deep breath. It’s as if I’m breathing through lungs full of tar. My joints scream, my ribs beg for mercy with every inhalation, and I can’t get enough air.

  Where am I?

  Wh-who am I?

  I come up on my knees, and glance around. Behind me there’s a steel door. I get to my feet and stagger towards it. There’s no handle so I push on the smooth, cold surface. It doesn’t budge. I race to the glass wall beside it and pound my fists until they sting. It’s not glass at all, but a thick Perspex. A hamster cage.

  I’m naked and bruised, too thin, and I do not know this body. I stand and stare at my reflection, touching my slender fingers to the girl mirrored back. Her eyes are hollow, her skin pale, her breasts and hips too small to be considered womanly, and her long, dark hair falls in greasy strands around her face.

  A man stands behind her, his features distorted by the reflection.

  I scream and spin around, my gaze frantically surveying the stranger. A lazy smile flits across his face as he studies me from beyond the glass. His hair is pitch black, his clothes are too, and a tattoo plays peekaboo with the collar of his motorcycle jacket. Dark eyes bore into mine, unyielding, unrepentant.

  “Please,” I beg, hammering on the wall. “Help me. Please let me go.”

  CHAPTER ONE

  I startle awake to a hot mouth on my pussy and Parker’s head between my thighs. As nice as it is to have his attention focused on me instead of work, I also want to hurt him. This is the only chance I have to sleep in.

  He tugs the sheet from my body and grins up at me.

  “No, no, no. It’s too early.”

  “Too early for this?” He licks my clit—one firm stroke up, and another down. I shiver and buck my hips, despite my earlier protests. His laughter is muffled by his lips kissing my slick, and now far-too-needy flesh. “That’s what I thought.”

  “I’m definitely breaking up with you. I can’t afford this kind of sleep deprivation opening night.”

  “You’ve been saying that for the last three years.” He sinks his teeth into my inner thigh, but not with any real force, and not hard enough to mark. Never that. “I’m a dancer; I don’t have time to date. I have to focus on my career. I’m breaking up with you.”

  “That is a truly horrendous impression of me.” I pout. Parker playfully nips at my pubic mound, and snakes out his tongue, teasing me. “Fine, I’m not breaking up with you. I may murder you, however, if you don’t focus on the task at hand.”

  “Oh, this task?” He circles my entrance with a fingertip and pushes inside. I cry out, caught off guard by the brutality behind his movements. He twists his fingers, hooking them into a come-hither gesture, and I arch my back off the mattress, and run my hands over my breasts, tweaking my nipples. A bolt of pleasure arcs between my breasts and pussy, and I writhe my hips against the sheets as Parker lowers his head and laves at my clit. My entire body quakes with need, my muscles twinge with soreness, and I make a mental note to finish my makeup with plenty of time to warm up slowly before the show tonight. I’ll likely have to stretch after this too.

  I grip Parker’s sleep-mussed blond hair and don’t let go until my orgasm crashes over me. As usual, I’m barely afforded a second before he’s climbing up the space between my legs and thrusting inside me. He isn’t one for a lot of foreplay, or basking. He’s far too busy for that.

  Parker gives a final thrust, and I stare at the ceiling, but my head is already at the auditorium, running through my positions, wondering if Blane will miss his mark again and almost drop me in midair. He better get his head in the game, because I haven’t worked my entire life to play the principal role of the Swan Queen in the New York City Ballet’s Swan Lake, only to have some halfwit destroy my career by dropping me. Dimitri would never drop me, but my best friend isn’t the one playing Prince Siegfried and lifting me at the end of my thirty-two consecutive fouetté turns in Act III. He should be though. He’s clearly the better choice, and far too talented to be dancing the character role of Von Rothbart when I’m stuck struggling with a mediocre prince.

  “Jesus, could you at least pretend to still be in the bed with me?” Parker pants in my ear.

  “I’m sorry, it’s just a really big day, you know?”

  “Well at least she’s experiencing something big today,” a voice deadpans with a thick, gorgeous Russian accent.

  “D!” I shift beneath Parker, grab the pillow and throw it at my best friend, who leans casually against the doorjamb to my bedroom.

  “Jesus fucking Christ.” Parker sets his jaw and closes his eyes.

  “Dimitri, actually, but it’s nice to see you too, sugar daddy.”

  Parker’s face turns puce. He’s only five years o
lder than me, but any mention of him being my sugar daddy and he is not a happy man. Unfortunately for him, Dimitri mentions it. A lot.

  Parker is a handsome, successful, hot-headed, investment banker. He’s patient when it comes to my career. He may question my taste in friends, but he tolerates D for me. D, the ballet, the long hours, the regimented diet, my overbearing father, and most importantly he endures the visits from my strange and perhaps sometimes too familiar best friend with the grace of a seasoned politician.

  Parker pulls out, and I gasp, because even though I didn’t come while he was inside me, I’m still far too sensitive from my earlier orgasm. He rolls off the bed and covers himself protectively with his hands, making his way to the bathroom. “You need to take back his fucking key. It’s not normal, this incestuous friendship you two have.”

  “If I didn’t give him a key, he’d jimmy the locks.”

  “It’s true I would,” D says, lifting his eco-friendly coffee cup as if in a toast. He tilts his head to the side as he watches my fiancé’s ass disappear into the bathroom before Parker slams the door.

  I shake my head and D smiles, leaping onto the bed as he holds his coffee aloft. I barely have time to pull the sheet up and move to avoid being squished. “How are you feeling, zvyozdochka?”

  “Like you just deprived me of another orgasm.” I give his arm a playful slap. “You have to stop coming over unannounced.”

  “Oh please, you were so done.” He hands me the coffee, and I take a huge gulp. It’s not warm enough to scald my tongue, thank god, but it is sweet. Too sweet. It’s a wonder D can dance at all with the rubbish he puts in his body. Sugar, liquor, men who’ve been God knows where doing God knows what ... “I could see it in your eyes, you were bored as hell.”

  “I was not bored; I don’t get bored. I was just—”

  “Baby, you were so bored your children would come out looking like matryoshka. That man is all wood, and not the good kind. Besides, doesn’t hetero sex only last like a minute anyway?” He winks, and I resist the urge to throw his damn coffee cup in his face. “But enough about your shitty sex life with Mr. Moneybags. Are you freaking out yet?”

  “A little.” I pass him the cup and wring my hands together in the sheet. D gives me a look that says he doesn’t buy my nonchalance. I sigh and snuggle into his broad chest. “How many times do you think a human can throw up before they pass out?”

  “You’ve got this, zvyozdochka. You’ve lived your whole life for this role, and you’re going to shine so fucking bright you’ll be a supernova. Now get the hell up; we’ve got class.”

  I give him a nervous smile.

  D’s face twists in revulsion. “No, really. I think I’m on the wet patch.”

  “Eww, D!” I throw Parker’s pillow at him and scramble from the bed before he can retaliate.

  “You made it.” He rolls his eyes. He’s a very pretty Russian. Tall, with the long, lithe muscles of a ballet dancer, green eyes, blond hair, a jaw so chiseled you could carve stone with it, and a face that makes both men and women weak in the knees. If he weren’t so interested in other men’s appendages, Dimitri would be the perfect man for me. I’m already convinced we share twin souls. “Fucking heteros.”

  “Well, if you didn’t barge in here and interrupt my wild sex session with my gorgeous fiancé, you wouldn’t end up hot and bothered by his ass and lying in a wet patch you have no business lying in.” I cross the room, sans sheet, and head for the bathroom door, blowing him a kiss.

  “Oh, zvyozdochka. We seriously need to redefine your definition of wild sex sessions. If both the sheets and your hot, tight little body aren’t covered in cum, you’re doing it wrong.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Dimitri squeezes me as we wave to the audience and take a bow. The curtain closes, and I can’t wipe the smile off my face. Tears spring from my eyes, and I’m swept up in a huge hug, first by Blane and then by D. I almost drop the oversized arrangement in my hands. I’m exhausted, I ache all over, my feet are on fire, and I need a long soak in a tub before crawling into bed, but I did it.

  “You fucking killed it, zvyozdochka.”

  “Look who’s talking,” I pant, holding tightly to him as he spins us around in circles. I’m dizzy and breathless, and as Dimitri turns us in a full revolution, I spot a man in the wings, wearing a tux. He has dark, penetrating eyes and wild, black hair. Tattoos kiss the edges of his collar and his strong, square hands. I roll my gaze up to his. He’s watching us as though we’re acquainted. “D, put me down.”

  My best friend follows my line of sight. “Holy shit, who’s the hottie?”

  “I don’t know,” I whisper, righting my swan crown, and smoothing my hands over my leotard as my feet touch the ground. The heady, cloying scent of the flowers in my hands gives me a headache. I need to eat. I need to steal away to my dressing room, change, decompress, and compose myself before talking to the public. “An investor, maybe?”

  “He can invest in me anytime. It just so happens that I’m in the market for a sugar daddy.”

  “Stop it,” I hiss, straightening my spine. I give the stranger a small smile, but his dark eyes narrow, and without a word, he turns and walks away. “Well that was weird.”

  I glance at D, who merely shrugs and takes my hand. “Come, my queen. As fabulous as you look in a swan tiara, it’s time to put away your crown. Besides, your very own sugar daddy is waiting.”

  “You know he hates it when you call him that.”

  “I know, little star. That’s why I do it.”

  We hurry through corridors bustling with ballerinas. There are pointe shoes, tulle, and half-naked bodies everywhere I turn. I hug several of my friends in the corps and accept their congratulations, and D drops me off at my private dressing room with another tight squeeze and a kiss against my forehead. I’m practically floating as I set the flowers down and sit in front of the mirror, pulling the pins from my hair along with my swan tiara. The makeup comes off next, and my lashes are plucked off one by one and stored in their little pink case until tomorrow. White squares of makeup-removing wipes decorate my table, all covered with foundation, concealer, and black eye makeup. I go through several before I clean my face with micellar water and just sit.

  It’s not unusual for me to sit and stare into space after I dance. As a kid, it made my mother and father anxious. It annoys the hell out of Parker, but I can’t help it. Even D knows I need time to decompress, to allow my pent-up excitement, adrenalin and all of the emotion I feel when I dance to just slowly ebb away. It’s like coming up for air after being submerged for too long. Only this time, when I bring my focus back to center and I see myself in the mirror, there’s a man standing behind me.

  “I know you,” I whisper, as if in a dream.

  His brow furrows as he stares at me, his previously tattooed hands now covered with black leather gloves. I whip around. His hands encircle my throat and squeeze, lifting me inches off my chair. My fingers claw at his, scratching the soft leather, grappling for purchase, for breath as I’m dragged by the throat to the wall. The cinderblock grazes my back. His eyes are cold—as black and emotionless as Von Rothbart’s as he casts his spell over Odette. He slams me against the brick with brutal force, crushing my windpipe. A sharp, piercing pain reverberates through my skull. I attempt to cry out, but his grip is too tight. My lungs constrict, fighting for air, for breath he will not allow me to take.

  “No, you don’t know me.” A half-smile tips up his lips. His teeth are so white, like the swans’ tulle skirts when the lights hit them just right, and just as vertiginous.

  My head spins. So dizzy. Like falling from the heights of the cliff when Odette jumps and ends her life, her curse. Though this time, there’s no soft gym mattress to break my fall. Only darkness, tattoos, the strong peppery scent of an unfamiliar man, and those black, fathomless eyes.

  “Not yet, Pet. But you and I are going to get very well acquainted.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Pet<
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  Fear pierces my gut like a knife. I take a deep breath. It’s as if I’m breathing through lungs full of tar. My joints scream, my ribs beg for mercy with every inhalation, and I can’t get enough air. Around me, there is only darkness.

  Where am I?

  Wh-who am I?

  I keep my breaths shallow in hope I won’t be hit with that blinding pain again, but I don’t know how to make it stop. I gasp and claw at the floor beneath me. My bones ache from my concrete bed. I push up onto forearms that are sore and likely painted with bruises. The lights come on.

  I close my eyes tightly against the intrusion, the throbbing in my skull. When I open them again, I wish I hadn’t. The floor beneath me is wet and grey, tinged with my blood. My arms are thin, too thin. How long have I been here? Purple fingerprints stand out against pale alabaster flesh—flesh that’s opened like ripe fruit. I poke at the gaping, red maw, and hiss in pain. Nausea pangs in my stomach, and hunger too. The cold in my bones runs deep, right to the marrow, but there is fire in my veins, an urgency that can’t be smothered by pain.

  I lift my head and peer through a curtain of dark, limp hair. Clear glass walls box me in on all sides. Beyond them, there are more cells, more beds, but they are all empty. What is this place? Where am I?

  I come up on my knees, and glance around. Behind me there’s a steel door. I get to my feet and stagger towards it. There’s no handle so I push on the smooth, cold surface. It doesn’t budge. I race to the glass wall beside it and pound my fists until they sting. It’s not glass at all, but a thick Perspex. A hamster cage.

  I’m cold, bereft, and terrified. My eyes dart around the room. There is a bed in my cell, but no mattress, no pillow, no blankets. I limp towards it, and grab the leg, pulling with all my might. It’s bolted to the floor. I try anyway. I yank until my arms protest in pain, until the agony in my ribcage is so great, I’m gasping. I slump to the floor, and I kick. The cold metal edge of the bedframe bites into my feet. Feet that are misshapen, and red raw in spots.