Savage Fiend, page 41
part #1 of Forever Forsaken Series
Savage Fiend
A SUPERNATURAL SUSPENSE
FOREVER FORSAKEN
BOOK ONE
KELLEE L. GREENE
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2023 Kellee L. Greene
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the express written permission of the author.
First Edition April 2023
Contents
Books By Kellee L. Greene
Quote
Author’s Note
It Begins
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
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Pre-order Crude Beast
What’s next?
Books By Kellee L. Greene
About the Author
Books By Kellee L. Greene
Forever Forsaken
Savage Fiend - Book 1
Crude Beast - Book 2 - Pre-Order
Wicked Storms
Blight - Book 1
Tempest - Book 2
Disturbance - Book 3
The Great Solar Storm
Absolute Darkness - Book 1
Absolute Collapse - Book 2
Absolute Destruction - Book 3
Absolute Eradication - Book 4
Absolute Elimination - Book 5
After The Fires
The Water Farmer - Book 1
The Trials Ahead - Book 2
The Measures Taken - Book 3
The Reset Series
Flood - Book 1
Sinking - Book 2
Drowned - Book 3
Swamp - Book 4
Torrent - Book 5
Striking - Book 6
What Remains Series
Sickness - Book 1
Outpost - Book 2
Infected - Book 3
Evasion - Book 4
Red Sky Series
Red Sky - Book 1
Blue Cloud - Book 2
Black Rain - Book 3
White Dust - Book 4
Indigo Ice - Book 5
Yellow Heat - Book 6
Ravaged Land Series (1)
Ravaged Land -Book 1
Finding Home - Book 2
Crashing Down - Book 3
Running Away - Book 4
Escaping Fear - Book 5
Fighting Back - Book 6
Ravaged Land: Divided Series (2)
The Last Disaster - Book 1
The Last Remnants - Book 2
The Last Struggle - Book 3
Ravaged Land: Eventuality Series (3)
The Wall - Book 1
The Outside - Book 2
Falling Darkness Series
Unholy - Book 1
Uprising - Book 2
Hunted - Book 3
The Island Series
The Island - Book 1
The Fight - Book 2
The Escape - Book 3
The Erased - Book 4
From Below Series
Creatures - Book 1
Desolation - Book 2
The Alien Invasion Series
The Landing - Book 1
The Aftermath - Book 2
Destined Realms Series
Destined - Book 1
Quote
Darkness breeds lust, pain, and pleasure.
No one knew love could be found there too.
Author’s Note
Dear Reader,
This book is a work of fiction. I wrote this story for entertainment only and not to challenge or change anyone’s beliefs.
If you do not enjoy stories about good and evil, demons or angels, then this book may not be for you. I have taken some liberties for creative purposes. Again, this is a fictional story for entertainment.
Please note, this story may not be suitable for all readers and may contain topics that some readers find upsetting or triggering. It may be darker and grittier than my other works including language, violence, and sexual content. Reader discretion is advised.
Thank you for your understanding.
Kellee L. Greene
It Begins
Everything you’ve ever heard about God and the Devil was wrong.
Chapter
One
Sometimes things happen around us, and there is no way to explain what or why they happen. There are people who believe in God or Gods, the devil, ghosts, and everything in between. It’s a way for them to explain the unexplainable. And sometimes, the unexplainable becomes a reality.
The belief in heaven or the afterlife could ease a troubled mind or help someone who may have lost someone close to them. Spirits, demons, and angels waiting to lead you in a direction… protect you, or worse, coerce you into doing the unthinkable.
Then there are people like me that believe in nothing at all. After what I’d gone through, the only thing I believed was that life could be a living hell. But that all changed the night I nearly died.
I didn’t remember most of what happened, but there were bits and pieces that flashed back to me. My car was flying down the dark country road because I was anxious and eager to get back home. I hated the dark, and I hated the guy that dumped me for someone blonder. Someone who smiled and laughed. Someone who was far prettier. A happy, normal person. But I hated the dark more.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been truly happy. It had been too long ago, and the memories since then were far too painful. So, I buried them long ago. I buried them with my parents and my younger brother.
Thunder rumbled in the distance as I was trying to make it back to my Aunt Joyce’s house before the storm. I didn’t like much, but I definitely didn’t like being outside in a storm. There was so much that could go wrong during a storm — flooding, drowning, winds, electricity, and death.
The rain hadn’t started, but the bolts of lightning flashing across the sky flickered threateningly. It got closer to me with every mile I drove, and if I didn’t go faster, it was going to swallow me.
That’s when I sort of lost track of time. There were flashes of lights, but otherwise, my surroundings were terrifyingly dark. A set of headlights zipped by in the opposite direction. They were in a hurry too, but they were heading toward the storm, so it wasn’t like they were trying to outrun it like I was.
After that, things were even more fuzzy. The next thing I remembered was the slick wetness on the blades of grass, even though the rain hadn’t started.
It wasn’t damp from rain, mist, or even the thick humidity hanging in the air. It was blood — my blood.
My eyes fluttered open, and even with my car’s headlights practically blinding me, I could see the hole my body had left in the windshield. I didn’t remember it, but I’d been thrown from the car. My brain was working well enough to put the pieces together… at least some of them. I’d always worn my seatbelt, but I’d left his house in such a foggy hurry that I must have forgotten.
Walking in on him in bed with her had been like a fist to my face. A kick in my stomach. Both at the same time. The only thing I could think about was getting far away from him before the storm… before the darkness of night fell.
How could I forget my seatbelt? That wasn’t like me, and if I survived, I wouldn’t forgive myself for making such a horrific mistake.
I wasn’t a cat. I didn’t have nine lives. In fact, I was already living on borrowed time. At least, it had felt that way to me.
There were no other cars around, and no one would probably come down the road for hours. Everyone was safe at home, in their shelter, preparing for the coming storm. And I’d bleed out… slowly dying somewhere in the middle of nowhere.
The peculiar thing, though, was that I could hear voices. I couldn’t see anything from the ditch other than the darkness and shadows my headlights created. My body was outside of the light, and no matter how hard I tried to scootch my body into the beam, I couldn’t.
I didn’t want to die. No one would ever find me. My aunt didn’t know I was out there, and my only sort of friend in the world was busy. I heard from her maybe once a week because that was how our relationship worked.
My ex sure as hell wasn’t going to miss me. He hadn’t even tried to stop me from leaving.
If I could just get to my car, maybe my phone was still on the seat… or maybe the floor.
The crash was entirely my fault. No one had been around. I was going far too fast because I hated being in the dark alone. All I could think about was getting back to my aunt’s house and into the safety of my lighted bedroom. If I wanted every light on in my aunt’s old two-story home, she would help me turn them on. Every. Last. One.
I’d been afraid of the dark for my whole life, and after losing my parents, it had only gotten worse. Turning twenty-two hadn’t changed that. It was a fear that would stay with me forever, and I had long ago accepted it.
If I’d been more careful, I wouldn’t have been lying in the weeds, bleeding all over the tall grasses. I wouldn’t have had to swerve to avoid hitting a weird animal zipping across the road. And I definitely wouldn’t have slammed the front bumper into a tree, mangling the front half and crumpling the hood like a crushed beer can.
Was that what happened, or was it just my imagination? It was hard to know, as reality blended with dreams.
As I lay there, my eyes darting around, something touched my shoe and tugged on my pants. Pain ripped through me from my ankle, through my back, and deep into my neck.
“Don’t touch her,” a deep mellow voice said with authority.
I gasped as I searched the darkness for the owner of the voice. Other than the pain and stiffness, I could move. Sort of. I could move my head and my eyes, but still, I couldn’t find anyone.
“But Master, she would be a perfect addition to our menagerie,” a small raspy voice hissed.
“Yes,” the deeper voice replied. “I do not deny that, but there is still too much of her still there. I cannot take her. I made a promise to my brothers, and it’s a promise I intend to keep.”
A tiny snicker erupted from near my foot. My eyes shifted down, spotting something that looked like a raccoon standing on its hind legs. It took a step back into the shadow. The creature had resembled the beast I’d tried to avoid running over before I hit the tree.
The little beast stepped forward again, his lips curling and dark eyes wide. “Remove it. Take it from her. You can do that. She’s close. Your powers have no limits, Master! You can do that, and then we can keep this one.”
An ice-cold hand rested on my cheek, and I forced my eyes to the side. I gasped as I tried to slide away from the man looking down at me.
“She sees you! She sees us!” the little animal said gleefully.
“There are rules, imp,” the man said, fixing his eyes on mine. “She is interesting, though.”
“Wh—who are you?” I croaked like an elderly bullfrog.
“Pfft. Don’t be insulting,” the little raccoon-like animal said, stepping up on my other side. He looked up at the man. “Doesn’t everyone know you, sire?”
The man grumbled before standing. His tropical blue-green eyes glowed in the darkness.
“Hush!” he said sharply.
The man seemed impossibly tall. His legs stretched up to the moon like big city skyscrapers. His turquoise eyes shimmered like the water of a tropical beach where the sun met the crisp, gentle waves.
I wanted to raise my hand to push the raccoon beast away from my face, but my arm didn’t want to move. “I’m hurt.” I managed to choke out the words. “Can you call for help?”
The skin on my cheek where the man had touched me still felt cold. I wasn’t entirely sure why he wasn’t doing as I’d asked or trying to stop the bleeding, but it probably had something to do with the fact that he was talking to the weird animal.
“They’re coming, Master!” another raccoon creature said, sloppily sputtering the words from his mouth. Was there blood in the fur by his mouth? It hopped and pointed down the road. “They’re coming!”
My body couldn’t move to spot anything, but my eyes darted around, trying to make sense of the shadows moving around me. The grasses crunched, and twigs snapped as the creatures presumably departed.
I could hear something. A siren. Help was coming.
I didn’t know who the man staring down at me was, but I knew one thing for sure. He wasn’t there to help me.
He flicked his fingers, and the raccoon next to me scurried off behind a tree. My heart pounded as the man crouched down beside me.
The lights from the car gently grazed his face. The flawless skin of his angled face was paler than a piece of sidewalk chalk.
“You’re different,” he whispered as he twisted a strand of my hair around his finger.
“Help,” I said, forcing the word out from between my lips. It felt as though blood was pooling in the back of my throat.
He tilted his head from side to side as he studied me. His hand raised up over my eyes.
A medallion of some kind dangled from his wrist as he mumbled something that sounded like a prayer in another language. The flashing lights were coming closer. There was a chance I wasn’t going to die in the ditch, alone in the dark.
In a flash, his hand was gone, and so was he. I felt something cold on my neck, like a frozen worm taking a nap.
Two men, presumably paramedics, came rushing toward me. They asked questions that I couldn’t answer. I tried to look over my shoulder as they put me on the stretcher, but I couldn’t find the raccoons or the man that hadn’t cared if I lived or died.
“Did you see him?” I asked, my eyes lids fluttering until they remained closed.
“See who?” one of the paramedics asked as the gurney wheels bounced over the gravel-sprinkled road. “Was there someone else in the car with you?”
“No,” I muttered, as something was stuck into my arm.
Every muscle in my body relaxed, and their voices faded into almost nothing. If it wasn’t for the fact that I could still hear them speaking and the sirens blaring, I would have thought I was dead.
“Put that back on her so it doesn’t get lost,” a voice said. “Looks special.”
“Looks like it’s ancient,” the other voice said.
“Miss!” the first voice blasted near my ear like an air horn. “We’re going to get you to the hospital.”
I tried to nod, but I wasn’t sure if my head moved at all. My body was stiff, and my chest felt heavy. A tear leaked from the corner of my eye.
“We gotta get her to town and fast,” a man’s voice said.
“Where is all that blood coming from?” the other asked.
There was a loud thud. It wasn’t even a full second before the ambulance started bouncing down the country road. All I could do was hold still and picture the man with the turquoise eyes and marshmallow-white skin.
There was a chance I hadn’t survived. Or that I wouldn’t. But if I was already dead, then I knew only one thing… the afterlife was sure as hell a weird-ass place.
Chapter
Two
My eyes pressed together as I pushed myself up in the bed. The throbbing in my head felt like a drum solo during the middle of a heavy metal concert. It was like every bone in my body was made of toothpicks, and my muscles were rubber bands extended to the point of nearly snapping.
There were distracting beeps and clicks coming from behind my head. Despite the potent odor of bleach, I was able to force open my eyes.
