Empusa's Hunger: A Reverse Harem Romance (Monsters and Gargoyles Book 8)
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Empusa’s Hunger
Monsters and Gargoyles: Book 8
Lacey Carter Andersen
Contents
Dedication
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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
Also By Lacey Carter Andersen
About the Author
Copyright 2021
Published by Lacey Carter Andersen
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This work of fiction is intended for mature audiences only. All characters are over the age of eighteen. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either a product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material or artwork herein is prohibited without the express written permission of the author.
Dedication
To my husband and children-
you make every day of my life better.
Thank you so much for all your love and support.
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Chapter 1
Empusa
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It’s strange to know I’m going to kill a man tonight. Strange, because it’s a Wednesday. I usually like to save my killings for the weekend, but this mother fucker has it coming. He’s easily forty, but with the kind of smile that says he doesn’t think age matters… at least when he’s hitting on the twenty-something-year-olds. In fact, the way he keeps touching them, when they’re obviously uncomfortable, tells me he thinks he’s entitled to touch them.
And no one is entitled to touch anyone.
He looks at them like prey too stupid to realize he’s a predator. His smile reaches his eyes, but it’s an arrogant smile. And even though his hair is done just right, and his clothes reek of money, I can see through all of that to the monster inside.
I take another sip of scotch and pretend not to watch him under my eyelashes. Some people would say it’s ironic, a monster who hunts monsters. But they don’t understand, I might do some bad things, but I have rules. Rules like not taking advantage of innocents.
The blonde he was touching, the one who kept shifting further away from him, casting the asshole nervous looks, finally springs away from him when he grabs her ass. The whole group of drunk girls is suddenly rushing for the bathroom, and I swear to God the pervert is going to follow them inside, until he freezes at the door. He looks uncertain for a painfully long moment before he turns around.
And spots me.
His predatory gaze stops dead, and then I see his eyes roam over me. The lucky thing about me is that I’m able to conceal what I am, at least a little bit. My hair is still an unusual blend of black, red, orange, and yellow strands. It’s naturally this way, and it gives the impression of fire when I move it. But in this day and age, women have fun with their hair, so no one has commented on the strangeness of it.
Technically, beneath my skin, there is a golden glow like lava or gold itself, but I can hide that beneath my pale human skin without much of a thought. At least until I use my powers.
My eyes are also golden, but I’ve mostly learned how to control them so they don’t glow. I think most humans think they’re a different color until they get close enough to me, and then I think they brush the unusual shade off as colored contacts. So as his gaze moves over me, he might see a woman who veers from tradition, but he doesn’t see the darkness inside my soul or realize that all of this uniqueness is natural.
Inhuman.
Which is good. It’s harder to lure a spider into your trap when they know they’re facing a bigger, stronger predator.
He struts over to me like the cock of the henhouse. But I’m prepared for whatever he might throw at me. Since my time escaping the Underworld, I’ve seen more dark souls than I have seen light. I don’t even know what I’d do if I came across a man who wasn’t thirsting to hurt me.
But given my luck, I’ll never need to figure it out.
He leans into my space, so close that I want to tear his eyes out, “A beer and another of whatever she’s having,” he tells the bartender, then flashes me the same cocky smile he’d given the other ladies.
I’m not very good at pretending to be human. After spending most of my life in a dark cell with my mother, Hecate, and then being caught in a curse, to forever haunt crossroads, it’d only been the last few months that I’ve actually been able to interact with people. And yet, it isn’t very hard to pass as human, since few people care enough to look below the mask I so carefully wear.
“Thank you,” I say, but don’t like the dark quality of my words. I always try to sound young and innocent, but I’m a terrible actress.
The bartender drops off the drinks, and I finish my scotch and reach for the new one.
“So, what’s a pretty thing like you doing here?” he asks, still crowding my space as he sits on the barstool next to me.
“Hunting,” I tell him, smiling over the edge of my drink as I take another sip.
“Hunting?” he lifts a brow with a smirk. “For what?”
“Men,” I tell him honestly.
I’m truly not a good liar, but I’ve found that rarely hurts my game. No one takes a “tiny” female very seriously here or notices the threat weaved through everything I say. Humans are far too good at taking everything at face value, while strangely enough missing the obvious.
A tiny human female equals no threat to most people. A tiny human female with poorly concealed threats though? She’s cute. For reasons I don’t understand.
Dumb asses.
“Well, look no further,” he says, placing a hand on my knee.
Hmmm… usually I kill quickly, but I think this man could stand to lose his hand first.
The thought makes me smile. “Do you want to get out of here?”
“To have some fun?” he asks, anticipation in his voice.
I nod. “Well, it’ll be fun for me.”
He laughs and slams his beer, then stands, offering me his arm.
I don’t take his offer. Instead, I slowly finish my drink while he starts to look nervous, then slide out of my chair, my boots hitting the floor. He drops his arm, and we walk out together. But the instant the door closes, I have to right myself. Sometimes I forget how much the loud music of the bars, the different scents, and the various humans overwhelm my senses. It feels like a clean slate when I step into the night.
He starts to lead me to his car.
“Wait,” I say.
He looks back, with a frown.
“Let’s just go somewhere quiet.”
His expression is confused.
I lift a hand toward the woods behind the bar, and his eyes suddenly light up
. Yeah, that’s right, big fella, you don’t even have to take me home. You don’t even have to come up with an excuse to get rid of me when you’re finished.
He starts walking in the direction I pointed and a strange chill rolls down my spine. I slow in my movements, frowning as I stare into the night. Something is wrong. Something has triggered my instincts to start screaming, but I have no idea what can be the culprit.
I’ve sensed this before.
Something supernatural is here.
Chapter 2
Empusa
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We go into the woods slowly. Each step I take, I stretch my instincts out. I feel strange, and it takes me a moment to recognize that it's because my heart is beating so fast. In the Underworld, my mother never seemed to be afraid. Whatever dark creatures Hades sent to torture us, she handled them.
I never told her, but I was always afraid.
Most kids grow up hearing stories about the big bad monsters under their beds. I grew up watching beasts beat the shit out of my mother, while she did her best to protect me. Sometimes a blow would hit me. Sometimes I’d be thrown back. But the pain was nothing in comparison to watching my mother hurt. Watching her spit blood onto the floor of our cell.
Afterward, she’d tell me she was fine. But I’d tear my clothes and bind her wounds the best I could. When she fell asleep, I’d wish my powers included the ability to heal her, but I pretended they did. I’d stroke her hair and hum softly to tune out the sounds of other prisoners screaming. It felt like the most I could do, and yet, it wasn’t enough.
Since coming to the surface, I’ve never been the prey. I forgot what it was like to feel my heart racing. Until now.
Except, I’m not prey. Not to anyone. If someone thinks otherwise, I’ll prove to them why I’m worse than any nightmare they’ve ever had.
“What’s your name?” the human male purrs, drawing my attention to him. He’s already got a thumb in the belt of his pants and a tiny, poorly hidden erection.
Poor tiny-dicked human.
“People call me Em,” I say.
“And what’s M short for?” he asks, even though his eyes say he doesn’t care.
“Nothing. Just Em.”
We make it to the shadowy woods behind the bar. There’s just enough light between the streetlamp at the back of the bar, and the moon and the stars, to make out the human’s face. But it’s not his face that interests me as I reach out and touch him, it’s that where my fingers land, I can look beneath his surface. A toxic, black color rises like smoke out of his skin. Only I can see the smoke when I do this, but it’s my way of seeing how dark of a soul my target has.
This guy is worse than I ever imagined. He doesn’t just harass women at bars. He’s hurt them.
And now, he’s going to hurt.
I use my other hand to push him back against a tree. His cocky smile falls away, and there’s something dangerous in his eyes that surprises me. Doesn’t this man just want to take advantage of a woman? If he’s getting that, what reason would he have to be angry?
Some unexpected part of me says to walk away. That something about tonight, this place, or this man is wrong. But I think of him bothering the women inside, and about his toxic soul, and know that I can’t just leave him here. Then, in some strange way, every evil thing he does from this point forward will be on my shoulders.
At least that’s how it feels.
So, I release a slow breath and try to ignore the evil in his eyes, but the look continues to darken.
“You ready?” I ask, but my voice comes out harsh.
His mouth twists and his eyes flash with rage. “Yes.”
Suddenly, his hand closes around my throat and my air is cut off. There’s a few seconds of panic before I remember that if this man thought he was going to murder some poor girl in the woods, he had no idea what he was about to face.
I feel my claws starting to grow, and I know my skin is heating up and my eyes are starting to glow. But he doesn’t react. Instead, his hand continues to tighten around my throat, and I decide just to cut the damned thing off.
Suddenly, bright electricity crackles over his skin and down his arm. It hits me with all the force of a truck, and I go flying back, striking the trunk of a tree with such force that I know I had to have broken a bone. My entire body aches, and I finally manage to suck in a deep, panicked breath.
I hear him moving toward me and scramble to my feet.
“You’re not human!” I gasp out at him.
“No, I’m not,” he says, his voice low and husky as if watching my pain turns him on. ‘I am Almops, little human. My father was the great Posideon. And since escaping the Underworld, I’ve continued my mission of enjoying the pleasures that pain can bring. Tonight, it’s your turn to fill my desire with the screams of your pain.”
A monster escaped from the Underworld? That rings a bell. But this creature and I aren’t the same. And I’m going to be the one to enjoy his screams of pain.
I open my hands, slowly letting my claws continue to grow.
He doesn’t seem to notice. Instead, he laughs, opening his hands as lightning crackles all around us. I can sense the power from the electricity. I can sense how badly this man wants to watch me burn from the inside out.
Maybe he’ll be successful. But Zeus knows that he won’t escape this fight unscathed.
Suddenly, it feels like the trees are alive. Or at least the shadows seem to be. A man with grey wings comes jumping out of a tree, falling between me and my opponent.
Almops’s eyes widen, and then he directs his electricity at the new man. I see it crackle over the winged man’s skin, lightning him up in the strangest way I’ve ever seen. But it’s like the electricity can’t touch him. It crackles over the huge man, flowing over his skin like he’s a god himself. And yet, there’s no obvious reason to explain why the monster’s powers don’t seem to be working on him.
Because I know gods, and this man isn’t one.
Instead of the man reacting in pain, the hulking man starts toward the bastard.
My heart races even faster, and I feel cold fear roll down my skin. This man, whatever he is, should be running away right about now, not toward danger.
That’s what idiots like me are for.
“Don’t!” I shout. “He’ll hurt you!”
The strange man freezes, then slowly turns to look back at me.
A gasp escapes my lips. He’s… I don’t know. Made of stone. Stone. Stone… like a gargoyle. But he isn’t like the gargoyle who often guarded my mother and me. That gargoyle made me nervous. This one, I don’t know how to feel about.
He looks like a fucking god carved out of stone. With a face too beautiful to explain. I don’t know what color his eyes and hair are. But I know his jaw is cut perfectly, and his body is built like a titan.
I also remember what my mom told me. Most gargoyles hunt monsters like me and kill them.
Is he here as my friend or foe? The truth is, I have no idea. And that’s harder to deal with than Almops. Almops I want to kill. He deserves to die. I don’t know the same about this gargoyle, which means I can’t hurt him until I know.
The gargoyle looks back at Almops and heads toward him.
“Gargoyle,” Almops hisses. “If you think you’re going to hurt me, you have no idea what I’m capable of…” Suddenly, the color of the lightning turns red, and I hear the gargoyle scream.
I don’t think, I just act. I launch toward Almops, sprinting around the gargoyle, and slam Almops to the ground. It feels like knocking over a brick wall, and my back screams in protest, but I don’t let myself pause for even a second. I roll off of him, knowing that knocking this man down isn’t enough.
Almops turns that red lightning onto me, but I spring away from him, avoiding it just barely. He keeps trying to hit me, but I keep moving, zigzagging as I try to circle him without getting killed. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I know that his powers might be enough to end my miserable life
, and I’m not going out that easily.
Not today, asshole.
Another dark shape drops from the sky. Another fucking gargoyle. An equally huge creature that dives at Almops, but the red lightning hits him, and he’s screaming too, collapsing to his knees as birds lift off from the trees around us.
And then, I’m there. I slice off one of Almops’ hands with my claws in one quick movement.
The lightning stops. Darkness suddenly surrounds us, and then he begins to shriek.
“My hand! You cut off my fucking hand!”
“And that’s just the beginning,” I growl, getting ready to strike again.
He lifts his other hand toward me. I see the spark of red just seconds before someone knocks me onto the ground. I almost attack on instinct, and then I’m being lifted off the ground and into the air.
I raise my clawed hand, feeling the blood running down it, and my gaze connects with the man who’s holding me. He’s definitely not a gargoyle. Behind him, are the most delicate-looking wings I’ve ever seen in my life, and they glow like fire.
“A phoenix?”
His gaze jerks down to me, and my breath catches. His eyes are like none I’ve seen before. Maybe some fool would call them hazel, but they were more than hazel. They held gold flecks that danced against the pale blue background. They were breathtaking, and that was just his eyes. The rest of him was even better. His hair was a dirty-blond color that I instantly liked, left a little long on the top, and it looked like he’d styled it. Like some pretty boy in a commercial.