Worship me, p.1
Worship Me, page 1
Worship Me
BABE 2023 EDITION
IMMORTAL VICES AND VIRTUES
AURELIA JANE
KEL CARPENTER
Worship Me
Kel Carpenter and Aurelia Jane
Published by Raging Hippo LLC
Copyright © 2022, Raging Hippo LLC
Cover Art by Amanda Pillar
All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental. Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal and subject to penalties and fines.
Contents
About the Authors
1. Pan
2. Adora
3. Pan
4. Adora
5. Pan
6. Adora
7. Pan
8. Adora
9. Pan
10. Adora
11. Pan
12. Adora
13. Pan
About the Authors
Kel Carpenter and Aurelia Jane are the hilarious team behind the international bestselling series, A Demon’s Guide to the Afterlife.
They pride themselves in being absolute weirdos, spending hours on the phone coming up with detailed worlds, and laughing about crazy ideas for torturing characters. While they believe they each have the personality of a rabid badger, people still seem to like them okay.
They share a love of coffee, travel, and tacos, and they’ve made some adorable tiny people with their equally weird husbands. Best friends and work wives, Kel has the audacity to live in Maryland while Aurelia lives in Texas, but they try to see each other as much as possible.
For all the misunderstood badass women out there that just want a good fuck and blissful quiet. We see you.
Chapter 1
Pan
Nightmares plagued me. Awake or asleep, it didn’t matter.
Her ghost lingered. Phantom touches caressed my skin. Peals of her laughter echoed, and whispers of shattered promises replayed in my mind. The scent of her arousal and the memory of her heat against my body toyed with my sanity.
Gods, I missed her, or at least that version of her.
“Fuck,” I growled, running my hands through my hair. It felt like an eternity since I’d heard my own voice, and even then, it was only to scream. Sitting up from my bed, I shook off the madness as it tried to sink its claws into me.
She wasn’t here. No one was.
My steps were silent as I crossed the room. The eerie glow of candlelight flickered, casting a shadow dance on the walls of my underground tomb. I stopped at her altar. An altar made not for what she was to our realm, but for what she had once been to me. All that remained was a single black feather. An iridescent shade of dark blue shimmered when brought near the light.
I smashed my fist into the marble dais.
I would not mourn for what could have been. I knew what that led to. Pain. Death. Destruction. It was all her doing, and there was nothing I could do to stop it . . . nothing except what I was doing now.
“Your Majesty?” A voice broke through my thoughts, and I turned to see a young shifter standing at the bottom of the stone steps that led to my quarters. His lower half resembled a goat, and his upper remained human-like. A faun? In Arcadia?
“What’s happened to you, child?” I asked him, my voice scratchy from years of disuse in my solitude.
The boy dipped his head, casting his eyes down. “One day I tried to shift when I was playing with my sister, and I’ve been this way since,” he said quietly. “Our power . . . it’s like we’re broken.”
“What do you mean by that?” The child was stuck mid-shift, and my brows furrowed as concern lanced through me. “You said ‘our’ . . .”
Refusing to meet my gaze, the boy continued. “It’s what’s happened to us all.”
My heart sank.
Had this truly happened to all of Arcadia? I’d tried to protect my people. Instead, I’d damned them.
“The guardians sent you for me, haven’t they?” I glanced at the parcel he held in his hands.
He nodded. “I come with a message from the Temple of the Gods,” he said softly. I approached him, taking the parchment and unrolling it. Tufts of wolf fur had been placed inside, one brown and one gray—and now they were speckled white.
The demand was simple.
It is time.
My hands shook with fury, and I crumpled the paper as I headed to meet them. I ascended the stairs that led from my tomb to the world above.
Arcadia.
My home.
How long had it been since I’d breathed fresh air? Smelled the night irises? Run through the forests?
Too long.
I climbed and climbed.
When the first light of day reached me, my steps quickened. It was only when I saw a figure standing in front of the entrance that I slowed to a stop. A tall, slender woman in blue robes regarded me with cold eyes.
“Go back to your temple, priestess. You’re not welcome here.” My voice came out thick. Dark.
She raised a single brow. “Have you decided to end your self-imposed exile, my king?” At that moment, she glanced behind me. I turned to see the faun-like boy as he approached from his climb up the stairs. The sadness in his expression tore at me. “You see what you’ve done to your people? They looked to you, and you abandoned them. You are no god.” She curled her lip in disgust.
I ground my teeth together, canines lengthening.
My love for my people was unending. Arcadia had once been a paradise with thriving cities and happy shifters. That had changed over time as one catastrophe after another ravaged our world. I didn’t want them to suffer any more than they already had, and even in my attempt to protect everyone, I’d continued to harm them.
“And you are no guardian, priestess.”
Her eyes narrowed. “This is your fault, Pan. You have failed to uphold your duty, and Arcadia suffers the consequences of your actions. You have done this to your people. You have turned them into perverted versions of themselves. Not us.”
My gut twisted. “Give me Flora and Fauna. They’re a part of my soul. You trapped them, and I want them back.” And they were aging. Their fur . . . the flecks of white. If they died, I would dive straight into madness. A part of me knew I was already headed there.
The corner of the woman’s lips twitched. “The terms are the same as they’ve always been, since the very first day you walked yourself to this tomb. You’re welcome to retrieve them anytime you like. . .” She let it trail away, the meaning flashing in the dark depths of her eyes.
“So long as I bring you Kali,” I finished.
She nodded.
My hands clenched and unclenched.
I knew the bargain, but for the first time in my incredibly long existence, I’d chosen to go against it. My soul had paid the price, and I could live with that. But the faun boy . . . my people? Arcadia had fallen. To see what would become of them . . . that I couldn’t bear.
“Bring her back to us, Pan. We’re her guardians, and she belongs here.”
“Guardians?” I scoffed, seething at the notion this woman was maternal in any way. “You’re fanatics. Nothing more.”
“You have no say in her destiny, god of shifters,” she countered with equal derision, the pitch of her voice rising with each word. “Get back in your place, and do what is expected of you,” she looked at the faun boy and pointed, “or your people will descend into madness with you.”
I hated it.
Hated the priestesses.
Hated the choices I was given.
Pressing my lips together, I dipped my chin once.
The priestess smirked. “The sand falls in the hourglass, my king.”
I watched her walk away, wanting nothing more than to stab my dagger into her spine. But it would do no good.
The young child stayed by my side, looking up at me.
I dropped to one knee, meeting him at eye level. “Say nothing of this, do you understand?” I said quietly, and he nodded. “Good. Go home to your family.” I ruffled his hair and sent him on his way.
I was three steps away from leaving my tomb. A prison of my own making. If I left, there would be no going back. All of Arcadia would know I had returned. And all of Arcadia would assume why.
The priestesses' words echoed in my mind.
It is time.
I felt a change in the forest the moment I stepped over the threshold. My people. A current sizzled in the air, the powers of all shifters connecting and reuniting with their god. They felt me, just as I felt them.
I could hear their laughter. Their prayers. Their hope.
I felt their love, their desire, and their thirst . . . just as I could feel their bitterness, their sorrow, and their rage.
Animals shrieked in the distance. A wild call to our inner beasts. Their king had emerged.
It was time.
Chapter 2
Adora
Why is it that all really good dreams always end before you get to the best part?
Usually my dreams were weird and vague—at leas t those parts that I’d remember. It was rare that I’d remember everything. Sometimes I’d get a real nightmare about losing my family or the massacre that killed my biological parents. It wasn’t like I actually remembered said massacre. I was a newborn when it happened, but my psyche remembered.
But this dream . . .
This one wasn’t like any other.
The land was lush. Warm. Crystal clear water fell from a rocky outcrop high above me. Verdant ferns popped up from cracks along the rockface with some sort of glowing algae. I couldn’t see where the waterfall ended up, but the spray touched my legs as my toes curled in wet sand.
As amazing as it was, the tropical paradise wasn't even the best part. That award went to the sexiest man I'd ever seen as he pounded into me with some kind of hip roll, slowly driving me insane.
Dark hair fell around his face, creating a curtain between us and the surrounding paradise. He had bronze skin and wide shoulders. His muscles were significant, but not beefy like so many of the shifters back home. It was said that you can't visualize a face you've never seen before, but his features were plain as day. Yet, I was absolutely certain that I'd never laid eyes on this man. He wasn’t the kind you’d forget—and that wasn’t just because he fucked me like a god.
“Who owns you?” he grunted, kissing my heated skin. When I didn’t answer, he growled, his chest vibrating, the sensation sending shivers up my spine. Vines wrapped around my ankles and knees, spreading me for him. “Who fucking owns you, Kali?”
“Kali?”
That wasn’t my name.
What the hell?
The dream evaporated. Instead of the warm sand against my back, and a hot, hard body pressing into mine—I woke in a cold bed. Empty. Alone, as usual. My phone screen lit up my tiny room and it buzzed so hard against the nightstand that it rattled obnoxiously.
Two thuds sounded from the wall beside me, followed by an annoyed voice. “Can you get that?”
I sighed.
Fucking vampire hearing. Not that shifter dorm-mates were any better on that front.
You’d think the walls would be spelled for sound proofing when an assortment of supernaturals lived there, but no. Instead, the walls were paper thin and poorly insulated. They claimed it was because they were destroyed regularly from fighting or fucking, but I thought whoever was in charge of budgeting was just a cheapass when it came to living conditions.
I reached for my phone, already knowing who would be on the other end. Not many people had my personal line. Even fewer would call it at such a late hour.
“What?” I answered.
My sister's voice flooded through the shitty speaker. “Why do you sound like a chain smoker?”
I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and cleared my throat. It did jack shit. “Because it’s four in the morning, and not all of us have a filthy rich vampire mate that can portal us around the world for vacation.”
“It's not vacation,” Elias said.
I couldn't make out my sister’s response as Danni squealed. It didn’t take much imagination to figure out what they were doing. I groaned. “Seriously, you can't wait until after you're done to call me?”
“Hey,” she protested. “We're not—”
“Save it.”
“For your information, Elias is working. So this isn't a vacation. A vacation means that there are no kingly duties or contracts to be signed—” Danni’s voice turned muffled as the phone shifted. I rolled my eyes. Not having sex, my ass. “Or people requesting an audience with one of us. Nope. This is not vacation. It's just a . . . leisurely tour through all of his properties so that I can get acquainted with all of Blood and Beryl.”
“Mhmm.” I tried to clear my throat again. “Blood and Beryl. Suuuuure. Whatever you say, sis.”
Well, it was true that Blood and Beryl did have many territories and that Danni, who was now queen, needed to become familiar with them.
However, I wasn't an idiot.
She and her vampire mate had been trying to conceive for the better part of the last year and decided that some time away from home—i.e. our moms—was needed. Namely so they could fuck like rabbits without interruption.
Not that it had ever really stopped them before.
Danni wasn’t quiet. Even after the soundproofing Elias had installed when one of our moms made an offhand comment about it last Christmas, we could still hear her.
Apparently, complete soundproofing wasn’t an option because “safety reasons.”
I called bullshit on that given the sly smirk Elias made whenever it was mentioned, but what did I know? I was just a peacock shifter, sister of the Queen.
“I’m sorry that I woke you. I didn’t mean—I mean—I didn’t realize the time difference. It has me all mixed up.” I tried really, really hard not to think about the background noise coming through my speaker or why her breath was suddenly so hitched.
I cut her off with a heavy sigh and pinched the bridge of my nose. “It’s fine. It’s fine. Really. Where are you now?”
“Southeast Asia. It’s absolutely beautiful here. I think you’d love it. It’s a bit too warm for me, and it’s way too humid for Nova. But I think that your peacock would be in heaven here.”
I nodded along while she kept talking, then remembered she couldn’t see me. I switched to making the appropriate vocal acknowledgments when needed, while desperately wishing I could go back to sleep, or more accurately, back to that dream . . . Except the longer I tried to remember it, the more it slipped away, leaving me feeling uncomfortably hollow.
Portal Watch had its perks, namely the bachelorette (or bachelor) lifestyle that we all led. It made for some pretty awesome parties almost every night. Sometimes one of the embassies got hold of the good kind of contraband. Faery wine from the world of the fae. Ambrosia from the world of the gods. Every now and then, one of the Watchers would transfer, switching places with one from another Portal Watch location. It was something of an unspoken tradition to bring whatever goods you got from your old post to your new one.
Goods like that also didn’t hurt for making acquaintances.
I’d made several friends as a result—and some friends with benefits. I’d always been one to prepare for anything, and that included stockpiling methods of payment . . . or bribery. Tomato, tomahto. So, sure, I came bearing gifts from around the world that I’d acquired during my apprenticeship period. You never knew when you might need it.
But as great as the bachelorette lifestyle was, there were still drawbacks.
Early mornings being the largest one. I wasn’t sure whose idea it was to switch shifts in the morning but given that there needed to be people on watch for twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, all year round, I was convinced that it was one of the morning people who were at fault. After all, if you have to do twenty-four-hour shifts, wouldn’t it make more sense to do—I don’t know—noon to noon? Nine to nine? I mean really, there were a lot of options that didn’t involve early morning.
But I digress—mornings were the quietest. There was something bittersweet about watching the sun rise on the Portland skyline. It made my chest feel less heavy, but also pointedly reminded me of the missing piece that just always seemed out of reach. I was good at ignoring it. I did a great job of filling it with empty fucks, shallow relationships, and whatever good food I could find.
Danni was leading the life she was meant for. Stable. Steady. Filled with greatness, but still surrounded by people that loved her. Meanwhile, I was living mine to its fullest. Mostly. Sometimes when it was quiet and I couldn’t be distracted, that missing piece inside me was painstakingly obvious.
Reminding me that maybe, more than likely, I was meant for something more, and it was just out of reach.
“Adora? Are you listening to me?” Danni’s voice snapped me back to the present.
“Yes, sorry. Shit. It’s just really early right now. I need to get ready for my shift—”
