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  Atrocity

  Kassien and Calypso’s Song: Book 2

  C.F. Rabbiosi

  Contents

  Songs That Inspired the Story Otherworldly

  A warning from the author

  Prologue

  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

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Thank you!

  Copyright (C) 2020 C.F. Rabbiosi

  Layout design and Copyright (C) 2020 by Next Chapter

  Published 2020 by Sanguine – A Next Chapter Imprint

  Edited by Pinpoint Editing

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. 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 the author’s permission.

  Author Website: Deliciously Dark Reads

  “One thing I have learned is that love, rage, and desire are all universal. From star to the very farthest star, you cannot escape it.”

  Kassien

  Songs that inspired the story: Otherworldly

  1.With or Without you — Amy Lee

  2. Not Strong Enough — Apocolyptica

  3. Can I Exist? — Missio

  4. Deep End — Ruelle

  5. The Promise — In this Moment

  6. Nothing Else Matters — Metallica

  7. Anything but Love — Apocolyptica

  8. Wasp — Motionless in White

  9. Hand of Blood — Bullet for my Valentine

  10. Early Grave — The Contortionist

  11. Trip the Darkness — Lacuna Coil

  12. Unbreakable — Fireflight

  13. Feel — Skarlet Riot

  14. End of the Dream — Evanescence

  15. Blacklisted Me— Reprobate Romance

  16. Stay Close — Fireflight

  17. We are the Fallen — Through Hell

  18. The House of Shame — Lacuna Coil

  A warning from the author

  This dark romance contains violent themes, forced seduction, complete power exchange and possible triggers. So dig in if you don’t scare easily, and remember you’ve been warned. Now please…

  Enjoy deeply.

  Love,

  Faith

  Prologue

  Kassien

  Hooks pierce through my flesh, a broken body hung by the shoulder blades and denied the mercy of death. It is the Koridon way, and I would expect nothing less of my brutal kin.

  A traitor’s death.

  It won’t be long now. Tenak dangles beside me in the prisoner’s quarters, but the blood-soaked image of him fades along with the corners of my vision. I thrash my arms and legs, shoving the steel deeper, tearing the flesh and begging it to rip through. Darkness swirls and I fight it back, sure that oblivion will never release me this time.

  I’ve failed her.

  In the eye of my unconsciousness, Calypso struggles on the ground, beating into Brekter’s chest. He will have taken her carnally by now. Maybe even this very moment he has her broken beneath him! Screams tear from my throat and seep through my dream, blending with her own cries. I gasp in precious air and the world floods back to me. I should have known Brekter would risk everything, kill everyone to have her.

  I would.

  I’m tearing my own body to pieces to get to her. The steel spikes through my muscle, scraping bone and holding blood vessels off from rupturing. Hooks hold me under the collar bone no matter how my thrashing has ripped at them; strong bones have held, aching and never ceasing. But I’m bred for pain. It’s nothing to me. Tear through me already, you damned meat holders, and I’ll land on my feet, ready to fight!

  “Tenak, brividend cerncri… my friend,” I say to my first in command. “I have brought this upon us.” Guilt throbs beneath my breastbone, cleaving through my heart more painfully than the slow death washing over me. “I must get out of here. I must save us.” The words send a sharp pain through my stomach as I remember Ariquoi bleeding upon the ground and Tenak grieving over her body before he was ripped away to hang beside me. At least she is at peace, unlike my perfect warrior, Efaelty, after shots pierced her chest. If she does still breathe, her father, Drakon, will have brought her home to recover in the west.

  I hate that she was also a victim of my obsession. It was a deep, unyielding lust making me no longer myself, but I justified it, thinking that everything I did was to save our race. Calypso is a human woman but also of Koridon blood, so like her, our child would have survived the unfavorable conditions of this planet.

  We thought we could escape fate when we fled our dying world, but this world we have stolen is devouring us. Little by little, our children refused to come into the world. The hundreds of bacterial organisms that humans have a natural symbiotic relationship with are toxic to our newborns.

  In Calypso, I saw survival, hope, and a new reason to live. We could have united our people and built a new world where her kind would no longer be forced into hidden villages, out of the light and buried beneath the rubble of their past.

  I force away thoughts of Calypso being ravaged by the enemy and remember her the way she was. She twirled when she danced and trilled when she sang, and though it was an odd way for a being to move and to sound, I couldn’t take my eyes from such beauty. Was my species ever like her? I can’t see us as anything but brute warriors, and anyway, singing and dancing sure as hell won’t get me off this hook right now.

  Tenak’s chain creaks as he sways slowly beside me, his lips so pale and cracked, they say nothing to me any longer.

  Numb fingers hardly move upon my signal, but I tug at the leather pants that hang from my waist. They slide down easily now from my emaciated form. My fingertips scream from poor circulation, and I focus every fiber of my being to holding onto them. I grunt as extra stores of adrenaline pour, empowering my weak limbs, and up my knee rises to allow one pant leg to come off. I hold firm with my foot as they slip down, my flesh on fire around the hooks. If my grip fails, they’ll drop to the ground and it’s over.

  The leathers dangle, held by the tops of my toes, and I feel them slipping regardless of my desperation. The fatigued muscles in my thigh shake, and the material I had a mind to use to hoist myself off the cruel steel falls away.

  1

  Calypso

  The shining half-moon sends light glittering off every leaf and puddle left by the morning rain. The forest’s beauty assaults my bitter eyes as my feet drudge through the mud, still cracked and sore from yesterday. The rope around me cuts into my waist as Glenda falls once more.

  The big one who lingers near sneers, and I hoist her up. “Deep breaths,” I say into her ear, hoping her damaged lungs will disperse more oxygen as we’re forced to move forward without rest. “Don’t let them think you
’re weak.” I push her gently, though it pains me. As horrifying as it would be for her to be mated by the monstrous enemy, it would be worse for them to play with her to death because she’s of no use to them.

  A memory of Glenda plays through my mind: the covers pulled up to her chin, her face pale, her body trembling. So many days came where Finn’s lively expression dulled in worry and distraction made him falter during our lessons. Even now her frail body drags itself along in her ropes, her breath wheezing painfully, and there’s no relief in sight. The Koridon males who have stolen us from our village watch with predatory arousal in their silver gazes as they ride upon their beasts. Will they be cruel to us as Brekter is, or will any of them prove to be more like Kassien?

  Last night as Brekter laid with me in the dirt, the exhaustion of the day’s events forced sleep to overtake me. But rest never found me, for I dreamed. I relived the excitement of finally being given to the prince I wanted, the despair of him casting me aside, and finally the fear of being fully bedded by the massive and deadly Koridon. Finally, fatal shots rang out in my subconscious and shook me awake, leaving me to reimagine the rest of the scene in my light slumber. Brekter’s dispassionate touch re-burned into my body as he hurt me, my princely husband likely being tortured as I writhed.

  My fingers drift to my belly, and a hard lump forms in the back of my throat. Brekter says I carry a child now, one that could be the savior of their people. The conditions of earth, though favorable in water and oxygen, still bears down on their species. The females are conceiving less and less, and if they do swell with seed, the child doesn’t reach term and is lost from the body. Kassien realized when he saw me lying broken on the forest floor and used by another that I was special.

  That I was one of them.

  What will these imprisoned girls, my village mates, think of me when they find out my secret?

  My mother always knew what I was, that our two species could breed, but it had to be hidden to protect me, the children born of Koridon explained away as mutations left after the war. The child growing within me flows with 75% alien blood and will exhibit superior size, strength, and senses…

  But my child will not lose human values. They are bred for size and skill, but a human can be beaten down twice as hard and will still crawl to their feet. We don’t give up, and we will devise a way to beat our enemy.

  I just wish this could have ended with me. How could I have let Brekter follow me to the village? Hot tears sting my eyes, but there’s no time to wipe them away. Glenda stumbles, and as the ground moves toward her I lunge forward to catch her. The Koridons close in with cruel countenances, and the big one who always hovers near Glenda lifts a fist at her.

  “Brekter!” I scream and the giant pauses. His fist flies toward us, and I hold the small Glenda into my chest. My eyes burn into the aggressor as pain rips through my cheek, and I try like hell to conceal how much it hurts.

  “Keep moving!” he bellows.

  “Hit me again if you want,” I yell back, “but let us rest before we all collapse!”

  The huge Koridon in armor scrunches his brows and unsheathes his sword of moving metal. “Perhaps if she is too weak to walk, then she should never be bred with our superior genes.” The tip of his blade divots the skin of her neck and she whimpers, fear emanating from her shivering form.

  “No!” I growl and hit the strange weapon away. The skin splits on my forearm and warm liquid seeps to the ground. “Send her back home, but don’t hurt her!”

  Brekter jumps between us and grabs my bloody hand. “What have you done?” He bristles as my crimson mixes with the dirt on my feet

  “This brute would kill Glenda! Don’t let him!” I reach my fingers around his wrist and squeeze.

  He shakes my grip away and pulls Finn’s sister from my arms. She hits the ground, the corded rope indenting her exposed belly. The women behind us groan as they’re yanked forward, though I try to hold my position. “Kraetorr, you may be the first son of this sect’s commander,” says Brekter, “but unless your father orders it, do not harm the breeders.”

  His eyes like molten quicksilver, Kraetorr looks upon Glenda with pinched features. “I do not understand how we are expected to mate such sorry beasts.” His blade finds her chin, and, with its scathing promise, she scurries to her feet. His shadow eclipses her, and though I’m larger than most girls I grew up with, Glenda is positively tiny for a seventeen-year-old. The hovering monster grasps her dress material and rips it apart in his fingers. She sucks in a breath as her breasts are exposed to the cool morning air and her satin lips part, but the protest cannot be born from tortured lungs.

  “Stop this,” I growl and remove the coat Brekter had placed upon my shoulders yesterday. I cringe putting it on her, seeing her surprisingly mature body. The males must be stirring into a frenzy.

  “Why should I stop? Everything will be done to her soon enough.” Kraetorr squeezes Glenda’s nipple. Her chest heaves with an accompanying whistle as he kneads her pale breast. “Perhaps I will claim this one after all.”

  Every nerve in my body lights on fire at the thought of this careless ogre bedding my dear Finn’s younger sister. Finn became more than my friend, but he was the first one to ever make me feel as though I looked acceptable when my odd features and coloration had always made me feel so low. We were betrothed before Kassien took me to be his, but he must hate me now.

  I led the monsters we had always been warned about straight to his sister and all the beloved women of my village.

  I had only thought to change things for my people by marrying one of them and having his child, for all we do is hide from them and fear every moment of the day. With a Koridon prince at my side, we could have arranged marriages between our species and done things in a proper way that would benefit everyone.

  “She can’t be claimed at all,” I say. “None of us can be.”

  The sword tip invades my vision, sitting an inch from my eye, its strange material blinding, and I fight the urge to jerk away.

  “Not another word, half-breed, or I will do it here,” says Kraetorr, “where everyone can watch her tear apart from the inside out.”

  Poisonous words beg to slip from my tongue, but I bite the defiant muscle and glare instead. What he could do to her with his oversized form is monstrous, and though it will be done eventually, I can’t bear to watch it now.

  Kraetorr bends down to Glenda and takes a handful of her hair, letting it slip through his fingers slowly. I wish she had the power of the good witch she was named for so she could drop a house on his arrogant face. He leans down and breathes in her scent, and the air around him changes. Pupils enlarge, overtaking his silvery irises, and the azure shimmer in his skin flushes with heat as he grips the girl to his chest.

  “She calls to me,” he says, his voice a song of bewitchment, and Glenda whimpers as he crushes her. His breathing is as sharp and pained as hers now, and I fear he has been possessed. Our human pheromones hypnotize and tantalize parts of them that have been long dormant. They have evolved in the way of size and strength, so sex is a duty to reproduce, not in any way meant for enjoyment, but a woman’s scent turns their blood to liquid fire. So long without such intense feeling, it shocks their system with ecstasy so strong he may love her to death, slowly, painfully, leaving nothing but a pile of broken and bloody flesh.

  Brekter tips his head, his face a mask of warning, and the Koridons’ stallions strike the dirt with their hooves and snort.

  Kraetorr wildly takes her by the neck. “My loins ache, and though I am built for pain, she makes me hurt beyond understanding.” He shudders and rips the ropes around her to shreds. I jerk with the force and plead toward Brekter. He and Kassien showed control with me, but some are incapable when intoxicated by a woman. Why won’t anyone intervene? Is this clan full of nothing but rabid beasts?

  2

  Kraetorr’s thickness bulges through his leathers as he rips the remaining cloth from Glenda’s body. “Wait!” she
cries, hitting the ground, her weak arms flailing as she thrashes beneath him. “Don’t do this!”

  She has no idea the love that can be transferred from Koridon to woman. All she can imagine is the carnage they leave behind in the dirt. The girls cry out, their own fates displayed before them, their nightmares brought to life. Brekter grabs Kraetorr’s shoulder and yanks him off, but the possessed fool sends him flying backwards.

  “Kraetorr!” a voice booms. Drakon rides up, and dust clouds over their chaotic movements. “Not here! Compose yourself, I demand it!”

  Kraetorr rips himself from Glenda, releasing a roar that frightens the birds from their roosts. I reach for her but am knocked back as the crazed Koridon attacks again. Drakon jumps down from his horse, and, together with Brekter and another, they finally subdue him.

  The forest is alive with screaming and heavy breaths as they drag him away. They yell at him in Koridon, though our language is second nature to them. I can already make out several words, such as survival, control and mate. Kassien told me they speak the language of the land in order to converse with their stolen home’s inhabitants about growing in our soil, medicines for our bacteria, and other vital survival aspects.