Cat Out of Hell Volume I (Out of the Fire Book 4), page 1
Contents
Connect with Candace
Blurb
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
Bibliography
Cat out of Hell v2 Excerpt
About the Author
Cat out of Hell Volume I © July 2021 by Candace Blevins
All rights reserved under United States of America copyright law, and 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 author.
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. All sexually active characters in this work are 18 years of age or older.
This book is for sale to ADULT AUDIENCES ONLY. It contains substantial sexually explicit scenes and graphic language which may be considered offensive by some readers. Please store your files where they cannot be accessed by minors.
Cover design © 2021 Candace Blevins
First Edition July 2021
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Blurb
Becca was traded to the Hell realm when she finally messed up enough to receive a death sentence. At first, she’d preferred Hell to death most days, but once she was traded to a different Lord of Hell, even a painful death would’ve been preferable.
The Amakhosi couldn’t leave Becca in the situation she’d landed, but what to do with her if he could get her back? She’d earned her death sentence and couldn’t be trusted on her own, but what if her years in Hell had changed her?
Kendric was once known as Caligula. Now he’s a porn king, and the Master Vampire of Florida. His tastes have always run to the sadistic and macabre, but he’s known for being fair to his slaves and underlings. He also prefers feline shifters to all others. When the Amakhosi offers him one of his problem cats, neither man is sure who will be doing whom a favor. They agree to decide that part later, and Becca lands in Kendric’s coterie house as his newest slave.
After two thousand years of life, Kendric has never found another soul so much like him. Letting others see his preferences and penchants once set him up for assassination, and it got Becca sent to Hell. Could he teach her how to hide her true nature and play by the rules of society when in public? Most importantly, after the decades of abuse she’s survived, could she ever enjoy intimacy with a man? Was this his punishment for breaking so many people over the centuries, so when he finally found his soul mate, she’d been irreparably broken?
Prologue
She woke to the smell of sulfur, and then there was pain.
Bright, sharp, blinding pain on her foot and her hip.
Fuck, she’d shifted to human again in her sleep. It was hard to change back to lion while she was being fucking shocked, but she was getting better at it. Instead of trying, she had to just let go and let the lion come forth. Eventually, the lion would be all there was of her. The human was slowly fading away, until she wouldn’t exist anymore. It’d been weeks since she’d spoken a word — the penalties for doing so under this new master were harsh.
She’d never thought she could be broken, but she’d been wrong.
The lion came forth again, and the human went away. Someday, the human would go away forever. Was it this time? She let the lion take her over, knowing she may never be her human self again.
1
Kendric walked along the beach, breathed in the salt air, and luxuriated in the feel of the ocean breeze billowing his shirt around him. He most often wore suits, but he’d donned board shorts and a t-shirt for this meeting. It occurred to him the King of the Lions may have set this meeting along the beach in an effort to get him out of his suit, but he figured the lion shifter was probably just in the mood for fresh seafood.
The real question was why the Amakhosi had asked for a public meeting. The two men had met, as per tradition, when Kendric became Master of Florida, and Kendric had agreed to His Majesty’s stipulations about bringing lions into his household. The Amakhosi hadn’t been a hard-ass about it, so negotiations had been minimal. His Majesty was protecting his people, while realizing some lions were happier outside the basic pride structure. Joining a vampire’s coterie gave them a sense of belonging without having to deal with the pride’s strict rules and culture.
Kendric didn’t have to breathe except to speak, but he took in another lungful of the salty air. He rarely missed the sun, but walking along the ocean at night sometimes made him wistful for it. He wasn’t one for looking backwards, though, so he turned away from the water and climbed the steps to the restaurant. The Amakhosi was already seated on the deck, with no humans close. Meeting on a Tuesday night gave them a little privacy.
“Your Majesty,” Kendric said as he neared and offered his hand.
Once, people had used similar phrasing for Kendric, and this was something he didn’t miss at all. He much preferred to live in the shadows.
The Amakhosi stood to shake the Master Vampire’s hand, and said, “Master Kendric. Thank you for meeting with me, and please, call me Nathan. I assume you’ve made the switch in your head from Omar to Kendric? I’m also told you’re still in the porn industry. We usually have to change careers when we move to a new identity.”
“True, but it worked to my benefit this time. I sold my porn holdings in Greece, and the new owner is also staying behind the scenes, so it’s as if I never left. I kept my head shaved as Omar, and wore traditional robes when I met with people. Here, with blond hair and Italian suits — or beachwear, when appropriate — it seems safe to stay in the same industry.” He shrugged. “You’ve managed to stay in the security business for a few centuries. It’s possible.”
The two men sat, and Nathan said, “Thanks again for meeting with me. I’m sure you have a full schedule. The thing is, I don’t know if what I’m bringing to the table is a favor to you, or a favor I’m asking for. If you agree to it, then I’ll agree to wait it out and see how things go. If they go to shit, I’ll owe you for trying to help. If they turn out spectacularly good, you’ll owe me. Somewhere in between, maybe we call it a draw. I’ll even trust you to decide which it is.”
“Stop talking in riddles, lion. What is it you want of me?”
“First, you need to understand that my personal pride is mostly made up of women too strong-willed to fit into a normal pride. A while back, a lioness got into the kind of trouble that should’ve brought the Concilio to her doorstep, and likely either her death or lifetime slavery. My position allowed me to fix the problem and try to deal with her. I brought her into my personal pride, but it didn’t work out. I was prepared to kill her, but then I had a problem with someone from the Hell Realm, and trading her fixed everything. It resolved my problem with the other realm, and it meant I didn’t have to kill Becca.”
Kendric raised an eyebrow. Was the Amakhosi about to offer him a problem lioness? He kept listening. He excelled in breaking and reshaping problem individuals to his needs. Doing so with a lioness always proved especially challenging, and he loved a challenge.
“I kept an eye on her. She did much better with the Lord of Lust than she had with me. He gave her a job she enjoyed, and if she hadn’t been a slave, I believe she’d have thrived. Later, she was traded to the Prince of Darkness and she didn’t do as well, and yet, she still seemed better — happier, better adjusted — than she’d been in my pride. At the very least, she didn’t hate it as much.”
He sighed. “She was given to the Lord of Envy a few weeks ago, which is several months in Hell since time doesn’t run the same. My sources tell me he’s turning her into a pet. She’s always at his side in lion form when he makes appearances, and he’s forcing her to stay in lion form. She’s never fed as a human, and is punished in horrifying ways if she dares use words — not just out loud around anyone, but she can’t ev
“Fuck.” Even when he was known as Caligula, Kendric wouldn’t have done that to a changeling shifter who hadn’t earned the utmost revenge.
“I have a rescue planned, but I need someone who can take her on once I have her back in this realm. She’ll probably need at least two or three dozen shifts to completely get the Hell Realm out of her system, and I’ll need to be present until that happens, but then, I’ll have to trust that whoever I hand her over to will be able to give her what she needs.”
Kendric sat back. “You understand that if I manage to tame her, she’ll likely end up a porn actress, right?” There was no need to ask for pictures. He’d yet to meet an ugly lioness. Most were drop-dead gorgeous, but even the ones who weren’t could do wonders with makeup — and all had a svelte figure to die for, with excellent muscle tone. A small percentage had more of a manly look to their muscles, but even those women could be utilized in the kink sector.
Nathan took a sip of his beer and sat back in his chair. “She’ll be yours for eighteen months. If you want her to stay on as a porn star, you’ll have to make her like it. Also, you’ll have to let her use a disguise on camera if she requests it. Otherwise, I won’t interfere.”
“How do I know someone from the Hell Realm won’t show up in a few months to retrieve her? Will you have a legal claim, or are you planning an elaborate game of keep-away with the Lords of Hell?”
“A lion — a true lion, not a shifter — in the Masai Mara left the reserve and was eating too much livestock. The villagers had arranged a hunting party to kill it, and I captured him and put him elsewhere, in the hopes he’d stay in the reserve, but he’d learned about the farms and easy pickings, so he once again left the reserve and was about to be killed. I have him in a cage, and we’re working out a swap — a true male lion for a female shifter lioness. His mane is impressive. People will be even more envious. I feel certain I can make the trade with the Lord of Envy. When Becca returns, she’ll do so as my lion. My offer to you is only because I believe you’re one of the few people in this realm who might be able to handle her.”
Nathan hadn’t eaten any of his food since Kendric arrived, but now he tore into the crab legs to remove the flesh from inside, and ate while he waited for Kendric to come to a decision.
“How did her previous pride leader handle her? How did you handle her?”
“Her previous pride leader beat the hell out of her, fucked the hell out of her, and basically did everything right when it came to the carrot and the stick. Nothing worked. The pride leader knew she wasn’t able to get past Becca’s walls, and she was beyond frustrated when I came to check on the all-female pack who’d been slaughtering every other lion who came to try to take control.”
“An all-female pack?”
“Becca had issues with men. I assume those have been either dealt with or made worse by her time in Hell.”
“What issues?”
“Her great-uncle took custody of her, away from her loving family, on her eighth birthday. He threw her the most fantastic birthday party ever, and then raped her in all three holes that night. She lived with him until she ran away at seventeen. She slept in his bed with him most nights, unless he had a woman over. It was expected that she’d service him under the table while he ate breakfast every day, and punishment for not doing it right wasn’t pretty. He began loaning her out, to either pay a debt or to give someone a special thank-you, when she was thirteen or fourteen, but that seems to have been limited to once or twice a month. At sixteen, he began whoring her out, and that was multiple johns a day, though she was still expected to give him his breakfast blow job, and she was in his bed at night if she wasn’t in the bed of a john.”
“Which explains why she chose an all-female pride,” Kendric said.
Nathan gave a single nod, and Kendric sat back and looked at the Amakhosi a few moments before saying, “So you’ll trade a lion for your lioness. How are those morals of yours holding up?” Kendric probably shouldn’t be poking the lion, but it was in his nature. How can you see what someone’s made of if you don’t anger them now and again?
“I’m not the only one who’s fought with morals, Caligula.”
Ah, so the lion wanted to show his claws. That was fine. “No, you aren’t. I’ve never tried to be good, however. Only less bad.”
Nathan shook his head. “I don’t believe that for a second. I believe you’ve found ways to exercise your proclivities without being seen as a bloodthirsty maniac who must be killed. My only question is whether you’ve done it for appearances’ sake, or because you’ve actually decided to be good. Or, as good as I suppose you can manage.”
“Such serious talk, Your Majesty. Are you still feeling me out? Trying to assure yourself you’re sending your little lioness from the fire back to the frying pan, rather than the other way around?”
When it was clear the Amakhosi wasn’t going to answer, Kendric leaned forward and met his gaze. “You mentioned the carrot and the stick. You know how this works. Positive and negative reinforcements, and you have to know a shapeshifter in my household will face some pretty tough consequences for acting outside the rules. I won’t apologize for that, but if she isn’t broken beyond repair, I’m probably your best bet for bringing her back to some semblance of humanity.”
“And a life beyond that. If I didn’t think she was capable of finding happiness at some point, I’d make the trade and then take her head off from behind, before she knew what was coming.”
Lions are, if nothing else, supremely practical.
“Give me a moment.” Kendric had telepathed Beckett what he learned as it came to him, and now Beckett had some information. He walked to the railing and looked out over the ocean while his longtime assistant and friend told him, “Her full name is Rebecca deAslan Lionne. That middle name means she’s part of the prophecy that everyone was making such a big deal of when His Majesty became the Amakhosi around eight hundred years ago.”
“Remind me of the prophecy? History being made true, duality being wiped away. It was quite long, if I remember.”
“Yes, and it reads kind of like the book of Revelations, so no one really knows what to think of it. There are lots of interpretations, but no agreement on which is correct, if any. It’s clear that a descendent of the former Amakhosi starts the chain, though. There were some who thought His Majesty should just kill the entire bloodline, but even when His Majesty lost most of his humanity, he refused.”
“Thank you, old friend. The odds of this particular lioness being part of the prophecy are small, but it’s good to know. I assume there’s nothing else of note?”
“She’s twenty-seven, though she’ll feel as if she’s older because her year and a half in Hell has probably felt like a decade or more to her. No high school diploma, but she tested for a GED while she was in His Majesty’s pride, so it appears he had a little authority over her. She has a current driver’s license, which means someone has paid to keep it that way, because it expired and was renewed while she’s been in Hell. I can probably come up with more in the coming days, but that’s all I can come up with on the fly.”
“What you came up with is impressive, as always. I’ll make personal contact with people from her past if I choose to take her on, but anything you can find out without doing so will be appreciated.”
