Phantom

by Klarissa King

  Prince Poison

  Book 3 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

  Gods and Monsters

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  GLOSSARY

  Malis—A malevolent God.

  Beniyn—A benevolent God.

  Aniel—A hand-crafted ‘offspring’ of one God.

  Avksy—An abomination.

  Vilas—A mortal

  Balneum—Brothel and gambling den.

  Chevki—A cheap alcoholic spirit

  Scocie—Land of the Gods.

  Capital—Scocie’s City

  Zwayk—A Farther Isle

  Commos—Isles of the Common Vilas.

  SUMMARY

  Valissa’s death toll is on the rise.

  One—before she was stolen away to the cruel Prince Poison. Seven—under the Prince’s malicious watch.

  The worst part? Valissa just doesn’t care anymore, not about the lives of those she doesn’t know when her own life is falling apart all around her.

  Ava’s not speaking to her. Jasper pushes her in training to the point of exhaustion. And though Valissa does everything he wants, the Prince grows distant.

  Valissa finds the closest thing to a friend in the mysteriously dark stranger who haunts her in the stardust palace. Damianos; a God or aniel she most definitely knows better than to trust.

  In the Land of Gods, is it really ‘better the devil you know’? And what about when the devil you don’t know is just so damn intoxicating?

  What’s worse than being the prisoner of a God?

  Abandoning all hopes of freedom.

  CONTENT WARNINGS

  Gods and Monsters is a 6-book series, with each book ranging from 20k to 50k words.

  The series itself is inspired by a range of gods from various ancient cultures.

  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.

  phantom

  †

  GODS AND MONSTERS

  BOOK 3

  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

  After I called for help and the guards came storming into my room, one of them had rushed off to find Prince Poison. No doubt to tell him all about the black smoke they had seen.

  It didn’t take long for Prince Poison to charge into my bedchamber.

  As soon as the Prince marched through those creamy doors, every muscle in my body clung to my bones too tightly and a shudder seized my spine.

  When his molten white eyes landed on me, I was perched on the windowsill, fingers cutting into the firm wood.

  I barely had a moment to come up with a lie strong enough to avoid his wrath. When I thought about just telling him about Damianos (minus the kiss, of course), I remembered the problem with my blood.

  The Prince might drink it to see the truth.

  I needed a lie. One that would save me from his wrath and his interest in my blood memories. But there wasn’t much time to think one up.

  By the doors, the two guards tucked in on themselves, as if unable to pry away the fear clinging to them the way anxieties latched onto me.

  Prince Poison killed the last guards who let something happen to me.

  I wondered if the aniel guards were in the same danger.

  The Prince rounded on me, moon eyes simmering to white flames of fury. “What happened, Valissa?”

  He already knew the answer to that. I could see it in his clenched fists, creaking against the leather of his gloves, and the stony set of his beautiful face. He wanted to hear my side.

  I slid off the windowsill and dipped into an awkward, tense bow.

  “I don’t really know.” My voice was small. “I was asleep. I must have left the window open,” I told him, keeping my gaze downcast. “A breeze woke me up.”

  “What did you see?” I could hear the icy sneer in his voice alone. “Another nothing?”

  The last time I’d told him I saw nothing, his trust in me thinned into something deadly.

  I’d expected him to kill me that day.

  Maybe my luck was running out.

  “No, not nothing.” I brought my eyes up to his. “Crows.”

  His eyebrow arched. Surprise shuttered his face.

  “Crows,” he echoed icily.

  I explained, “They came in through the window with the breeze. When I woke up, there were loads of them swarming around the room. But—”

  I trailed off and turned my face away. A nervous lick of the lips topped off my pretence. I had to be as convincing as possible, otherwise he would drink my blood and see my lies.

  “Valissa.”

  He lured in my gaze with the softness of his tone. But he couldn’t fool me with a glimpse into his rare gentleness. This God was just like the rest of the Milas. Cruel and cunning, never to be trusted.

  Still, he tried to catch my trust like a fish on a hook.

  His face softened into something so beautiful that my stomach flipped, and he brushed his gloved-fingertips along my jaw.

  “Tell me,” he whispered, his peppermint breath tainted by the earlier serving of my blood he’d indulged in.

  “There was smoke,” I said. It wasn’t a complete lie. “Black, thick smoke. Like a cloud. It … It seemed to come with the crows and …”

  I sighed and forced myself to look up at him.

  His gentle mask was too convincing, but I saw beyond it to the poison he truly was.

  “It’s silly.” Shame clutched to my tone. “I guess I was just spooked after—” what you made me do “—everything that happened tonight. I saw the smoke and it gave me a scare.”

  I finished with a lame shrug and flushed cheeks.

  The sudden heat burning my face was sincere. The Prince’s studious gaze felt more piercing than ever, and I feared he could see right through me to my mind, where the truth screamed at him from a tangle of lies.

  Shadows darkened his eyes into murky quartz rocks and, after a long silent moment, he dropped his touch from my cheek.

 
; I let out a breath.

  “Sorry,” I muttered. “I wasted your time over nothing.”

  “You did not waste my time,” he said. “Guards are posted at your door for your safety. You did the right thing in calling for them.”

  Lips pinched, I nodded and threw a quick glance to the guards. Still by the door, they seemed to have relaxed some. Their shoulders weren’t as stiff anymore and they finally scraped together enough courage to look our way.

  “Felicks.” The Prince summoned over the fair-haired guard, the same who’d stayed with me in the room while I tried to drum up a lie.

  “Have the windows secured from the inside,” the Prince commanded. With a lingering look at me, he added, “Can’t have any more crows breaking in.”

  My smile was weak.

  Felicks bowed deeply, so deeply that I knew he belonged to the Prince, and wasn’t borrowed from another God.

  I watched as the sandy-haired aniel marched out of the room, then turned my attention back to the Prince.

  Silently, he studied me.

  My heart bolted to my stomach. Panic fluttered through my veins and I feared, just for a moment, that he’d figured out my deceit. But beneath the icy chill of panic, anger simmered, hot and red.

  I was never one to abide by anyone else’s rules.

  Not only that, the Prince’s double-standards were showing and they prickled my violent impulses. In my clenching hands, the urge to strike the Prince was all too tempting.

  Smack the hypocrisy out of him.

  It wasn’t Monster nudging me in a definitely deadly direction. ‘Monster’ didn’t exist anymore. Prince Poison, in all his horror, was actually right in what he’d said the night before.

  ‘You are not two souls divided, Valissa. You are one.’

  Still, none of that changed the way he looked at me, every sweep of his piercing gaze scraping down my soul. On the heat of my flesh, I could feel his search for lies.

  I’m not the only liar here.

  Those words tickled my tongue. I swallowed them back with a bitter taste in my mouth.

  This God lied to me about my attacker. He lied to my face and assured me I was safe. But my attacker was still out there, lurking in the corridors of the stardust palace, and the wrong vilas was sentenced to death for it.

  The Prince knew that Roxhana was innocent, but ordered her execution anyway. If he was going to lie to me, then why should I be the one to tell the truth?

  Not to mention, the distrust in his shadowy eyes spiked my own suspicions. The guards had been too startled by the black smoke in my room, and the Prince had been too quick to come to me. It was as clear to me as a midday sky in the Sun Season—

  The Prince knows Damianos.

  Or at least he knew about him, his smoke, his crows. And whatever knowledge he kept locked behind his lips, he kept secret.

  Finally, the Prince appeared satisfied and pulled his gaze away from his too-intense study of me.

  Turning his gaze to my crumpled sheets, he said, “Your lessons are expected to continue as normal.”

  I was forced to bite back a scoff.

  After the night I’d had, the last thing I expected was any kindness from the Prince. So I wasn’t surprised that just hours after he’d forced his poison into me, pushed me to kill a vilas, then ‘crows’ broke into my room, he still demanded my training go on.

  “Got it,” I muttered and lowered my gaze.

  The Prince wrenched a breath from me as he turned and left without so much as a backwards glance my way.

  As soon as he was through the doors, and took his icy aura with him, I let out a strangled sound. Tension unwound from my body like a sailor’s rope unfurling.

  I was left with one aniel guard, whose stare was fixed on the unlit hearth. With a huff, I climbed back into the sheets and buried my face in the feathery pillows.

  I didn’t expect sleep to come easily after the night I’d had, and when Felicks came back into the room, leading a team of vilas carrying metal poles and nails, not even the pillows smooshed against my ears could muffle the racket.

  Eventually, I gave up on rest and ordered maids to come light the fire and feed me an early breakfast of white plums and black apples on these flat things called panned cakes.

  By the time the windows were fully barred, my large porcelain washtub was steaming up warm breezes, and I got to enjoy brief moments of solitude. Nalla, the maid, didn’t count. She was like a shadow to me now. Even with her washing my hair and scrubbing my nails, I felt entirely alone.

  Guess that was a normal feeling to have in the palace. It was becoming an everyday thing.

  I missed Ava.

  Word wouldn’t reach her about what had happened to me. Not for a while, if at all. If I wanted to talk to her, I would have to hunt her down. Problem was, that was what I’d been doing for days now and she still hid from me.

  After my lesson that day, I would just have to make sure she had nowhere to hide.

  We had a lot to talk about.

  2

  Jasper was as quiet as the portraits that lesson.

  Maybe it was the sudden turn my training took, but he didn’t seem all that comfortable with the vilas slave at my side. Often, Jasper would pinch his lips together and shoot a glance between me and the vilas that the Prince sent us.

  “Focus.” The sharp edge to my tone sliced Jasper out of his thoughts. I gave a feral smile. “Don’t want me telling the Prince that you’re getting distracted, do you?”

  Oh, how I loved to be the one with the power. Even if it was an illusion. It didn’t matter, Jasper was out of the loop, and I was in.

  My grin turned just that bit more feral at the thought.

  Jasper sucked his teeth, his wood brown eyes burning at me from beneath his lashes. His nostrils flared as he drew in a long, deep breath.

  Every crumb of confidence within me gathered in my tone; “Ready?”

  Jasper challenged my stare with a cold one of his own for a beat. The moment shattered when the vilas shifted at my side, uncomfortable, and held out his hand for me.

  I shot him a side-glare.

  I wondered if he’d heard what I did to one of his brothers; the lesser worshipper committed to a life of servitude beneath all other ranks. The worshipper I killed with my bare hands and my desperate will to survive.

  No guilt or remorse budded within me, but I knew I should have felt something. Anything. The barest sliver of pity, at least. And yet, I was too busy being thrilled at my flourish of power over Jasper to feel much else.

  I took the vilas’ hand. His skin was dewy and hot against mine.

  “Flute,” I said with a flick of my other hand. “I’ll start with that.”

  Jasper lifted the golden flute from the table, his eyes like charred wood, and dropped it onto my palm.

  I clasped my hand around it, and the honey sensation was instant against my skin, diluted by an undercurrent of salt.

  I smirked, proud of my own progress, and shut my eyes.

  Here, in the Palace of the Gods, I supposed I could be myself without much shame. Not like on Zwayk, where I had to pretend to be like everyone else.

  It wasn’t until now that I realised how exhausting it’d been: Someone died? Fake sorrow, force tears. Someone’s angry? Don’t tear out their throats. A child falls down the rocky path? Don’t laugh, help them.

  Now, I could let that constant grip on pretence flutter away from me, and admit that I didn’t care about the worshipper I killed, or the one I was about to flood with whatever power was pulsing in the golden flute.

  Smirk still stuck to my lips, I used my inner reach to fish out the bitter honey from the flute. Having a handle on my curse didn’t stop the honey-essence from fighting me the whole way through my body, but my grip on it was strong, unyielding, and I felt pulses of pure power move through me.

  Thick, honey essence slapped into the hand of the anxious and stiff vilas at my side. The flute’s power didn’t feel all that terrible, ot
her than the sharp granules of saltiness that tainted it. So I didn’t expect much to happen once it all piled into the shivering vilas.

  Oops.

  I was wrong.

  Horror struck my face and I was frozen.

  Jasper had wits enough to duck under the table just as it happened. I wasn’t so lucky.

  The slave exploded.

  At least I shut my mouth before the bloody mass charged at me. I was covered. Head to toe, drenched in blood.

  Slowly, I reached for my freshly washed hair and picked out a piece of a weird spongey pink blob from one of my braids. I made a face and dropped it to the pool of blood at my feet.

  “Was that meant to happen?” I asked, and flicked my hands to rinse off as much blood and goo as I could.

  Jasper reappeared on the other side of the table, untouched by the mess that I swam in. “When it comes to Prince Poison, rest assured everything went as he planned.”

  Blood was smeared over my murderous-looking face as I cut a glare over at the Prince’s portrait. That blasted painting smirked cruelly, his quartz eyes glittering at me.

  Jasper wore a similar smirk, but as an aniel, he just couldn’t resist letting his glee take hold unlike a composed, calculative God. His smirk swept up into a wide grin that glittered brighter than the portrait’s moon-eyes.

  “Oh, did you think you were promoted, little avsky?” His laugh jutted fury through my veins. “Another tip about the Prince is to never believe you are more to him than what you are.”

  I wiped blood off my face with even bloodier hands. I just made more of a mess, really.

  “Did you know?” I gestured to the massacre around me and narrowed my eyes on him. “You were pretty quick to duck under the table.”

  “No.” Jasper picked up the now-crimson flute gingerly and placed it beside the rest of the artefacts. “Though I can’t say I’m not pleased.”

  Defeat slumped me. “So what’s the point?” I challenged. “Kill more and more worshippers for what? Fun?”