by Kate Sander
And finally my sister and father. My family always supports me and truly allows me to dream big.
About the Author
Kate Sander is a Primary Care Paramedic and lives in her hometown of Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, Canada. A massive Saskatchewan Roughriders fan, she prides herself on being a geek and loving football. She lives with her husband Aaron, their six-year old Labradoodle named Sammi and three-year old Goldendoodle named Pippin. Coffee is the elixir of life, and she could eat pizza and tacos for every meal of every day. If you want to talk books, movies, beer or anything and everything geeky, email Kate at [email protected].
Check out www.zoyabooks.com for all your Zoya Chronicles updates and merchandise needs.
Keep Reading
Keep reading for a sneak peek of Devour: Book Three of the Zoya Chronicles.
DEVOUR: BOOK THREE OF THE ZOYA CHRONICLES
Prologue
Kelly was strapped to a chair, sobbing silently as she watched her long brown hair fall to the ground around her.
Five days ago she'd been in Toronto, trying to survive, living for her next fix. She'd thought the guy was a regular john until he smuggled her on a plane and took her here. Now this woman was shaving her head. She'd been through hell before but this degradation and humiliation shook her to her core. The rest of her body had track marks and was ugly, but her beautiful brown hair was kept shiny and clean. Her mother used to brush her hair and sing her songs when she was little. Hadn't it been enough that they'd kidnapped her and made her go through withdrawals?
They were taking her soul.
Tears fell, making her shirt wet. She sniffled, but remained silent. The man in charge of this compound, Dr. Freudman, was watching with a predatory look. She knew that look. It was popular among the johns back in Toronto. Unlike the johns, this guy wanted something that wasn't sex, and that terrified Kelly more than anything.
There was another woman being held captive in the room. She was crying as well in sobbing, heaving gasps. She'd come with The Bitch when they dragged Kelly from her cell. Bright red hair, a thin muscular build, and cultivated makeup contrasted with her pale face and eyes red and swollen from crying. There was a burly security guard holding her arm so tightly behind her back that Kelly figured it was breaking. Kelly had thought that she was on her side, but then Dr. Freudman had said she'd been working with him. He called her Dr. Penner.
Kelly didn’t care if they broke her arm. This Dr. Penner had been working with the guys who had taken her off the streets. She deserved everything she got.
The buzz of the razor stopped and Kelly hung her head in shame.
She'd loved her hair.
Kelly felt The Bitch attach stickers to her head, slowly, methodically.
"What's the dosage?" Dr. Freudman asked The Bitch.
Kelly's skin went cold. She'd just gotten clean, now they were going to give her something else? She thought she'd been taken into slavery, but they were using her as a guinea pig. In all her fifteen years, she'd never ventured out of heroin. There were other harder drugs, and Kelly made sure to avoid them. Now they wanted to experiment on her.
The Bitch was talking with Dr. Freudman as Dr. Penner cried and fought. All that Kelly could pay attention to was her hair. Her beautiful hair stared at her from the ground, mocking her ugliness. Defeated, she let her body relax.
Maybe this drug would kill her so she didn't have to deal with this life, this world, anymore.
Maybe she'd see her mom again.
"Proceed," Dr. Freudman said. The Bitch nodded. She strode towards Kelly, grabbed her chin so hard it hurt. Crying, shaking, but refusing to fight, Kelly opened her mouth and let The Bitch shove in pills. Kelly swallowed.
"No!" Dr. Penner yelled.
The last thing Kelly heard was the pop of Dr. Penner's shoulder as she struggled against her captors.
Kelly hoped the doctor got free and found a way to kill them.
But one thing was for sure, this hellhole of a life wasn't her problem anymore.
Her body relaxed. She felt her cheeks flush and brow start sweating. She was glad there was no pain. Her body convulsed. Horrible memories flooded before her, making her heart race with fear.
The first time she'd shot up heroin.
Her pimp slapping her around when she didn't make quota.
Johns gyrating on top of her as she looked past them, trying to shut her mind down.
Her heart was going to explode with fear. The convulsions stopped and she wished for the blessed freedom of death.
The most terrifying moment of her life flashed before her eyes. Her mother, dead, in the corner of the small apartment they lived in, needle sticking out of her arm. She'd loved her mother's long brown hair, they used to braid it together. By the end, the meth had caused it to fall out.
She tried to call for her. Everything went black.
The first sense that came to her was fear in her heart.
She sat upright with a start, breathing hard, looking around, terrified. She was in the middle of a field. Soft grass surrounded her naked body, gentle wind blew her brown hair away from her face. Sun shone brightly, hurting her eyes. Blinking, trying to get her bearings, she gradually slowed her heart and shielded her face from the sky.
She tried to remember how she'd come to this peaceful place. There was nothing, just darkness in her mind before this point.
"You need to stay calm," a gentle voice said softly from behind her.
Jumping to her feet, she turned quickly.
A woman, tall and blonde, was standing in front of her. Dressed in a sheer silver gown, she looked like a queen.
Holding her hands open in front of her she said, "I need you to stay calm, take deep breaths."
Kelly nodded. The woman's gentle and calm voice commanded her to listen. It comforted her to her core.
"Somewhere new to you, a place you've never been."
The girl's eyes narrowed, clearly distrusting the cryptic answer. The beautiful woman smiled, "My name is Malin. Come with me. I will make you more powerful than you could possibly imagine."
The girl liked the sound of that. The woman held out her hand warmly.
"We are the Ampulex. We are family. You can call me mother."
The last statement did it for the girl. She didn't know why, but she craved the love and affection of a family, especially a mother. She nodded and went towards Malin, towards her new mother.
Towards power.
Towards home.
1
Senka
Senka was in prison... again.
"Why am I always in fucking prison?" she asked her cellmate. "I really don't do anything to deserve this. It's like bullshit is attracted to me."
Her cellmate was silent.
"You're right, this isn't prison. It's a cage. Valid distinction."
The cage rattled as it hit a bump. Her cellmate’s already hanging jaw broke free and fell to the ground in a swarm of flies. Senka withdrew her feet in disgust as the flies swarmed back to the dead man's face, now with a gaping hole. The black pulsed and moved, blurring the corpse's pale features and making the dead man seem creepily alive.
"Hey!" she yelled at one of the guards flanking the cage. "The least you could do is take this dead guy out of here!"
A sword clanged against the metal followed by a slew of angry words she didn't understand. The gist, however, was loud and clear. Rolling her eyes, she settled back into her spot. Scratching her wrists against the bindings, she frowned when the sweat dripped into her eyes. The jungle was humid and she absolutely, and whole-heartedly, detested the heat. Canada didn't get weather like this. The bars behind her head clanged as she rested her head against them and closed her eyes, trying to breathe through the heat.
She'd gotten herself into one hell of a predicament this time. She'd barely been back in The Other Place a month, hadn't even figured out which continent she was in yet, when BOOM, captured by cannibals. Now she was in a cage being pulled throu
gh a jungle by a donkey with a guy long dead as her only company.
Well maybe not her only company.
Opening her eyes, she focused and checked the auras around her. Her Zoya powers certainly came in handy sometimes. The auras of the seven guards of her cage came into focus. There were two men directly beside the cage, the other five hidden in the trees. That wasn't what she was looking for. She looked deeper into the jungle then smiled. A purple aura projected from the trees, slowly stalking the cage. It was an exact copy of her own. She'd only ever seen this once before, with her old dog Leo. Now, another copy. She was beginning to think it had something to do with being a Zoya.
Senka smiled to herself. Kai was here. She felt his energy, his power. He wanted to attack, to kill, but he wouldn't until she gave him permission.
These new powers were pretty handy.
Kai could easily exterminate the seven guards. But then she'd still be in the cage and tied to the bars. They'd have to wait. Kai wouldn't attack until she gave the signal.
Settling back against the bars, she hummed a tune to herself. A guard smacked the cage with his spear and bared his filed teeth. Smiling back at him, she spat in his face.
He yelled and thrust his spear through the bars. Moving her head at the last minute to the side, he missed his target. The momentum pulled his body forward to the bars. Senka turned and bit down on his ear. The iron taste of blood filled her mouth, hot and thick. The guard screamed and wrenched his head away, leaving his ear in her mouth. Senka smiled and spat the flabby piece of skin back at his feet. He whimpered and skittered away. The remaining guards screamed at her and started to attack.
Senka didn't think a lot of things through.
She felt Kai ripple with energy, ready to pounce.
"Stop!" a man yelled from the path ahead of them. Emerging from around a corner was an elder, dressed in an elaborate headdress, body painted with red and gold paint.
He spoke to the guards in a flurry of animated and aggressive words. Senka wasn't really paying attention, there was skin stuck between her teeth that required a tremendous amount of focus to remove without the use of her hands. Poking and prodding with her tongue, the skin remained firmly stuck.
The elder obviously got his point across because the cage started moving again and Senka and her dead companion were pulled around a curve in the path. A pyramid emerged from the jungle. It was huge, at least the size of Mayan temples in her own world, made of gray rocks, with symbols carved into the side. The donkey stopped at the entrance, a gaping black hole.
Senka didn't like the look of this.
The elder commanded something and the guards swung the gate open. One held his sword to her throat while another unlocked her hands.
"Move," he said in heavily accented English. "I dare you. Zoya or not, you will not get around my sword fast enough. I will kill you with pleasure."
It took a lot of thought. Picking her teeth and finally getting that stupid piece of ear dislodged. The guards stared at her nervously. Coming to a decision, Senka didn't move. The guard beckoned to her and allowed her out of the cage. Another roughly shoved her against the outside and bound her hands in front of her.
She heard Kai's low growl and held up one finger. He retreated to the jungle. Now was not the time, not yet.
There was something she needed.
Something they stole from her.
The ring with the red ruby that Jules had meant to give to her, all those years ago, so far away from here. Jules, her first love, died saving her on the battlefield. She remembered his face as he dove off his horse, taking a knife to the chest, trying desperately to save her.
These assholes had stolen it from her. Since they had, her memories had started to dwindle. The memories of the first time she was in this world had all but disappeared, other than the memory of Jules. The memories of her home world were fading as well.
"Cars, trucks, pavement," she muttered to herself as they marched her through the entrance, picturing each object as she said it. She didn't want to forget anything and was desperately trying to keep her memories. To keep her personality. To keep the dead alive.
"Toilets, sinks, ovens, dogs..." the memories blasted through her chest. Her dog, her loyal Leo, dying for her. She almost wanted to forget holding his head in her lap as he took his last breath, but she couldn't. She wouldn't. But for some reason, ever since they took her ring, the memory was fading.
"Carter," she muttered, trying to picture her old partner. Funny, she didn't realize that she loved him until she'd crossed over again. "Tomo..." anger flashed and her breathing quickened. She had followed Tomo over here, to The Other Place. Tomo, the dumbass, had developed pills to send people over here for the Ampulex. Senka wasn't really sure what the Ampulex was, she just knew it was an organization that was running between the worlds. She had expected to see Tomo when she woke up but she hadn't. There was more at work here than she knew.
The ignorance made her angry. That was better, she needed to be angry.
They marched her through the damp cavern lit by torchlight. Water dripped from the ceiling, mould and dank assaulted her nose. A different smell started mixing in with the mould.
She'd smelled it before when she'd woken in the jungle.
The smell of death and decay mixed with fur and blood.
An animal den. And she knew the animal.
They marched her into a cavernous room lined with torches. It was so big that it took up the entire pyramid, with the ceiling arched so high the walls merely faded to black. In the corner there was a massive pile of bones and skulls.
The elder walked in front of her. Senka felt the guards' fear around her. Her eyes flashed as the elder held up her ring.
"Awake, our guardian!" the elder yelled.
Senka had faced death twice and more assholes than she could count. Not a lot scared her.
The giant pile of bones quivered and shook. Shakily her guards backed away, but the elder held his ground.
A roar sounded from the pile and a massive monster rose, shaking off the bones. They clattered on the ground as the animal stretched to its full height. It was fifteen feet tall, looked like an elk that was standing on its back hooves. Its antlers were sharpened to a deadly point, with an extended jaw full of sharp teeth. Muscled, grotesquely long, front limbs ended in sharp claws.
Claws that Senka knew were poisonous. She'd fought a smaller version of this animal when she’d woken up six weeks ago in the jungle and she'd barely gotten out alive.
She cracked her neck to the side and rolled her shoulders.
The animal roared and the guards scattered for the door, leaving her alone with her arms bound in front of her. The elder tossed her ring at the monster. It caught it in its large maw and swallowed.
"Really?" She said as the elder retreated to the door with the guards. "That seemed unnecessary."
The monster squared its shoulders, muscled front paws scraping at the ground.
"The least you can do is take the cuffs off!" she yelled at the elder.
"Azreal needs to feed," he called back. "And Zoya make the best meals."
The monster charged. Senka readied herself. Her back twinged where the claws of the last monster had cut her, leaving an infected mess that had only just healed.
Azreal closed the distance in three giant leaps. Senka dove at the last moment, rising gracefully as the monster barrelled so close to her she could feel its surprisingly soft fur on her arm.
"Enough of this," she muttered to herself, still struggling with the restraints on her wrists. "KAI!" she yelled as she dove backwards to the pile of bones. At least her hands were in front of her.
The large male panther, a beautiful mix of black and spotted fur, jumped out of the dark hall. The screams of the guards reached her ears as the monster charged. This time Senka mistimed the dive and the monster rammed her in the chest. She went flying backwards into the pile of bones. The disgusting scent of death and rot overwhelmed her as she sunk
into the pile. Struggling to breathe, she writhed under the pile of bones as it slowly engulfed her. Senka wasn't one to panic, but she felt the fear overtake her and her pulse spike. Being crushed by a pile of stinking cadavers and broken bones was not the way she wanted to die. The more she struggled, the deeper she sank. Her heart raced, she could hear her pulse pounding in her ears. The weight of the bones pressed on her chest. Her eyes blurred, the edges of her vision faded.
Crushed to death. Not a way she thought she’d ever go out.
Black overtook her vision. A loud screech reached her through the mass of bones and lack of oxygen. The monster, Azreal, exploded through the bone pile. Senka was launched against the wall. The impact was a relief as she was tossed like a rag doll and went crashing back to the floor. It took her a second to catch her breath and come to her senses. The unearthly shriek continued.
Kai was on the back of Azreal, claws in his shoulder, jaws clenched around the massive animal’s neck. Azreal was screaming a terrible sound, clawing at Kai and trying to throw him.
Senka winced when she saw Azreal's poisonous claws rake against Kai's shoulder in a spurt of blood. "Kai, let go!" she yelled. Kai obeyed and Senka was already running full tilt at them. She jumped higher than she'd ever jumped before, her inhuman speed helping. The monster clawed through the air at her but missed, distracted by its blood flowing out of its neck. Senka landed on its shoulder. Her hands were still bound in front of her. Using it as an advantage, she swung her arms over a horn and pulled down. The monster lost its balance and teetered to its side. The horn pierced her bindings and broke them.
Hands free, Senka dove away from the monster as it crashed to the ground. She turned swiftly and grabbed its jaw. Using her new found incredible strength, she ripped off the bottom jaw in a spurt of blood.
