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  Sacrificed to the Beast

  JESSA KANE

  Copyright © 2019 Jessa Kane

  Kindle Edition

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Epilogue

  Let’s Stay in Touch!

  CHAPTER ONE

  Diana

  It all started when those chickens went missing.

  The townspeople had a meeting the very next day, right there in the village square. Everyone was in attendance, prepared to place blame on their neighbors’ Rottweiler or rogue teenagers. Accusations were thrown around. Denials were made. A lot of people went home angry.

  Then a cow turned up dead in the middle of Old Mister Ackerman’s field, mauled and bloody. And then another. Another. Dozens. In a farming town like Piccadily, livestock puts food on the table. Dead animals turning up was not just a cause for concern, it was catastrophic.

  A second meeting was held and this time, the villagers were mostly subdued. I’d stood beside my father near the front of the crowd, fanning his red face and reminding him to stay calm, so he wouldn’t rile his ulcer.

  “It’s the beast!”

  I can still remember the elderly man who’d stood up and wobbled his way to the front of the gathering, his cane tapping on the cracked concrete. Mister Ackerman’s great-great grandfather had founded Piccadily and when he spoke, everyone listened—and that day was no exception. I’d held my breath while waiting for him to continue. A beast? Surely I’d misheard him.

  “I’m telling you all, it’s that damn beast again.” He’d rapped his cane on the ground. “He’s roamed the hills of this town since I was a boy. I’ve seen this kind of destruction before. Long before any of you were born.”

  “A beast?” cried a female voice in the crowd. “What kind of beast?”

  “A predator the likes of which you’ve never seen.” His audience, now rapt, crowded closer. “Taller than two men stacked on top of one another. Fierce. Violent. Hungry. There hasn’t been a sighting since I was a boy. Since my grandfather found a way to appease the beast. To make him leave Piccadily alone!”

  “How did he do it?” My father wanted to know. “What does he want from us? I don’t know about everyone else, but if I lose any more cattle, I won’t be able to put a roof over our heads come the winter.”

  “Yes,” another eager voice had chimed in. “What does the beast want to leave us alone? We’ll do anything.”

  Mister Ackerman was silent for moment. “A sacrifice.” His cheeks deepened to red beneath his white whiskers. “A sacrifice of flesh.”

  Alarmed by the ominous sound of that, I’d tugged on my father’s sleeve. “What does that mean?”

  “We tried to fight the beast, but the men we sent up into the hills never returned,” Ackerman had continued, sounding weary. “My grandfather was the one who decided to…deliver the young girl. To the beast.”

  A gasp had gone up, followed by silence.

  My heartbeat was like the beating wings of a dove in my ears.

  Sacrifice.

  Young girl.

  Beast.

  These words used together were totally foreign. All of this had seemed like nothing but an outlandishly bad nightmare at the time.

  I’d been so wrong.

  A woman had stepped forward, holding a newborn in her arms. “Surely we can’t just give one of our own to a monster!”

  Ackerman shrugged. “It kept him away eighty years the first time. We can wait to see if the beast kills more of our precious livestock. Or we can act. We can employ the only tried and true method we know.”

  “But…who?”

  I didn’t miss the way Ackerman’s eyes slid over me. “She’ll need to be a, uh…” A cough rattled out of him. “A virgin. Pleasing to look at.”

  I’d buried my face in my father’s arm at that point, because every head in the crowd had turned to face me, to rake me with unsubtle scrutiny. I was used to being stared at. Seemed like it had been going on since I was in middle school and started looking just like my mother. She’d been beloved in Piccadily, but died giving birth to me. Not a day passes that someone doesn’t remind me I could be her twin, both of us blonde and fair with silver eyes.

  Ackerman had pointed a bony finger at me. “It’ll have to be that one.”

  And so. I’m currently being dragged through the forest in the middle of the night wearing a wedding dress, all trussed up to be sacrificed to a beast. So if this whole situation is indeed a nightmare, I would really appreciate someone waking me up about now. My own father marches me forward, his fingers twisted in the bindings that keep my wrists imprisoned. It’s a scene out of high school history books, though we live in the twenty-first century. I knew my small town was behind the times, but this is taking things to another level of old school. Case in point, I’m flanked on all sides by villagers carrying torches instead of flashlights, their eyes shifting nervously.

  “What do you all have to be nervous about?” Lord but I sound pitiful, my voice a tearful wail. “I’m the one that’s about to be the bride of Bigfoot.”

  “Now now, daughter,” comes my father’s voice from behind me. “You’re doing a real honorable thing here. You’ll be remembered as a hero.”

  “I don’t want to be remembered. I want to be alive.”

  “Selfish,” someone mutters in the crowd. “She couldn’t care less about those poor chickens and cows.”

  Hot, frustrated tears push behind my eyelids and I dig my heels into the ground, trying to stop our progress toward my doom. “Please, father. Please don’t do this. There has to be another way. Have we even tried bringing him a nice steak or a six pack or—”

  “Old Man Ackerman said it needed to be a sacrifice of flesh.” My father won’t meet my eyes. “A virgin.”

  “Listen to me. Okay? Just listen.” I’m desperate now. A wheeler-dealer trying to make a bargain for her life. “Pornography wasn’t even invented when Ackerman’s grandfather sacrificed the first girl. Can’t we even try to slip him some dirty magazines or something? I know Piccadily is a little behind the times, but virgins just aren’t sacrificed in the twenty-first century. This is insanity.”

  “Daughter…”

  My sandaled feet slide through the wet earth, propelled forward by my own flesh and blood. I can’t believe this is happening. “Don’t you need my help on the farm, father?” I say in a pleading voice, tears moving in a pulsing river down my cheeks. “Who will help you?”

  He seems to be hedging.

  “What is it?”

  “Well, if this is the last time I see you, I won’t end with a lie. You’re…not exactly a dab hand at farming, Diana,” he says on an exhale. “Come to think of it, you don’t really have any marketable skills to speak of.”

  “I…what?”

  “I shouldn’t have said that,” he rushes to say.

  “You think?” My jaw is unhinged. “Talk about adding insult to injury.”

  From that point on, I’m numb. Just numb. Not only am I stuck in this bizarre nightmare where I am being donated to gain a beast’s favor—and are we even sure there’s a beast?—but no one has come t
o my defense. Not a single person. And I’ve interacted with these villagers every day of my life. I’ve babysat their children, baked them pies, attended their weddings.

  Maybe it should give me comfort that they’re not thinking straight. That the possibility of losing their income and homes has made them desperate and in some cases, riddled with bitterness. It doesn’t help, though. I’ve been deemed disposable by the ones who should love me.

  We come to a stop at a large tree that sits at the edge of a clearing. I watch in silence as one of the male villagers wraps a rope around the trunk, leaving the ends loose. Then my father guides me forward and connects it to the bindings on my wrists.

  “What is this?” I murmur, dazedly. “The official sacrifice tree? You could at least throw up a string of lights or carve death tree into the trunk. Give it some flair.”

  No one responds.

  My father does seem like he wants to say something, but in the end he delivers a hard kiss to my cheek, before tearing himself away to follow the rest of the heartless, torch-wielding jerks back down to the village.

  Standing in the darkness with my hands bound to the tree, I’m more alone than I’ve ever felt in my life. And that’s saying something, considering I’ve never really felt like one of the townspeople. My jokes are always a little too weird. I ask deeply personal questions when people just want to make small talk about the weather. Worst of all, animals don’t like me—which is the mark of a witch in a farm town. I’ve just never fit in.

  I swipe my tears on my shoulder and try not to dwell on my circumstances. Or the fact that my father just abandoned me to a murderous monster.

  Know what?

  I’m getting loose of these stupid bonds. I’m going to free myself, hunker down for the night, and in the morning, I’m going out to embark on a fresh start. I’ll leave Piccadily behind and let them think I was devoured by the beast. He probably isn’t even real. It was probably a coyote that killed those cows—

  A deep howl rents the air and shakes the earth beneath my feet.

  “Oh fuuuuuck,” I whisper, my whole body beginning to shake. “Oh no.”

  In the distance, standing on a crest, a black silhouette stands in front of the full moon. It’s him. It’s the beast. And he’s even taller and broader than I imagined. His hair is long and full, in disarray around his face, reminding me of a lion. The rest of him doesn’t seem human, either. His shirtless torso is thick and laden with muscle, not to mention his thighs. They’re flexing with sinew and…and…

  Oh my God. Is that a loincloth?

  He throws his head back again howls again.

  I’m going to die. I’m going to die.

  With a whimper, I renew my struggle against my bonds.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Ike

  Wow. Look at the tiny, little person.

  What is she doing here?

  I was doing my nightly rounds of the forest when I smelled fire and came to inspect. This time of year, the danger of a fire igniting the dry branches and forest debris is much higher. My home is in these woods and I’ve been taught to protect the land. It’s a job I take very seriously.

  Villagers usually remain down in Piccadily where they belong with their machines and funny smells and food that comes in crinkly packages. So what is this one doing here? Tied to a tree, no less?

  With a grunt, I descend from the rise and approach the struggling…female. Oh, she is female. I scent her now. And the closer I come to her, the more her form begins to take shape in the moonlight. Moonlight that matches the color of her long, wavy hair. I try to ignore the odd liquid lightning in my loins, but there is something about her smell and those soft, moaning sounds she makes. They’re making my skin hot, even though it’s crisp and breezy at nighttime in the woods.

  I don’t come across many females. There is only one and she belongs to the Farley clan. To say I find her unappealing would be an understatement. She looks nothing like Ginger or Mary Ann from the Gilligan’s Island tapes my mother left behind. Will this one look like Ginger or Mary Ann?

  She turns her frightened face toward the moonlight and I stumble to a stop.

  Oh. Oh, this female looks nothing like either shipwrecked character.

  She is in a class unto herself, so beautiful I cannot see straight.

  Inside the wrap of my loincloth, my cock unfurls and becomes ramrod straight, attempting to free itself of the thin material. I long to reach down and move my fist up and down its length, the way I discovered by accident can relieve the worst of my male aches. Though I do have to perform the ritual several times a day to keep myself from an ill temper. It often gets in the way of hunting.

  I would like to perform it now while looking at the girl. Her face alone would be enough to bring me off with its innocence. To have those big eyes watch as I tugged on my balls and stroked my shaft would please me greatly. Damn, she is a creature with no equal, in possession of such beauty my chest aches…and I haven’t even glimpsed her body yet, buried as it is in that long, irritating dress. I would like very much to rip the offending thing off.

  A frown creases my brow when the girl plants both of her feet on the tree trunk and bows her back with the effort to free herself.

  “Enough of this struggle, tiny person,” I shout. “You do not have nearly enough strength to snap the ropes.”

  With a scream that startles even me, she drops her legs and cowers against the base of the tree. “Oh God. Make it fast. Please. Do you have a knife or something? Can you just aim for my brain? I don’t want to suffer.”

  Perhaps I shouldn’t have shouted. “You must untie the knots.”

  “You untie them,” she cries. “I’m not going to make this even easier for you.”

  Make what easier? What is the girl talking about?

  Despite my confusion, I move around to the back side of the tree and study the knots. I reach down and pull at them, but make no progress, thanks to my thick fingers. There’s no way to slide them beneath the tight loops. My neck heats over my failure and I refuse to let the girl know about it. Instead, I take the hunting knife out of the scabbard at the small of my back and lift it high, preparing to sever the rope.

  Before I can chop the ropes, the girl goes limp.

  A distressed sound leaves my mouth and I drop to my knees, not waiting for the ground to stop shaking before I go to her, sliding my hand beneath her cheek and the forest floor, cradling it to my thigh. Is she dead?

  Sweat beads on my forehead. “Don’t be dead,” I shout.

  She wakes up with a scream, her feet scrabbling in the dead leaves. “Oh man. Not a dream. Very real. You’re very real.” Her gaze travels to my lap and her skin turns an even whiter shade of pale. “Is that, like…a piece of firewood under there? Tell me it’s firewood.”

  I should answer her. I know I should, especially because nothing she has said makes sense and I want to know why she’s tied to this tree in my forest. But I can’t think straight enough to form sentences with her face suddenly so close to my cock. My stomach twists in a painful way and images implant themselves in my brain. Images I’ve never entertained about anyone, such as her lips closing around the tip of my shaft, her tongue digging into that sensitive slit right at the top.

  Before I can stop my body’s reaction to the thought, I shoot a rope of semen into the sack of my loincloth, the wet stain forming immediately, clearly visible to us both. “Ahhhhh!” I roar up at the night sky, torn between pleasure and frustration. “Not now.”

  “Agreed,” she breathes, staring at my straining cock. “Not now. Definitely not now. I’ve always been a later kind of girl.”

  I dig my fingers into my forehead, commanding myself to focus. “What is your name, tiny person, and why are you here?”

  When she turns a little green around the gills, I curse my booming voice and vow to begin speaking in a softer tone. “I’m Diana.”

  Her name creates an odd squeeze in my chest. “Diana.”

  “Yes.” She
closes her eyes. “Please, I’m so scared. Can we make it fast?”

  “Scared of what?” My teeth bare themselves as I scan the trees, looking and listening for threats. Anyone who thinks to cause harm to this innocent female will encounter my wrath instead. The idea that anyone might want to mar her skin or make her scared makes me want to rip the surrounding trees from the earth. “Who seeks to do you harm? I will slaughter them.”

  For long moments, her steady breathing is the only sound. “Are there two beasts? Do you have an evil twin?”

  Beast? Evil twin? I shake my head. “Who tied you to this tree?”

  Even in the muted moonlight, I witness the color that stains her cheeks. “My father. The villagers. I…they left me here as your sacrifice.” She sits up a little, turns, and the light bathes the slopes of her young breasts. My cock leaks anew and I’m ashamed to be finding any increment of pleasure while her hands are still bound to the tree. “What is your name?” she whispers.

  “I am Ike.”

  She licks her lips and I almost pounce on her. Almost push her down into the dirt and rub my cock on her smooth skin. Anywhere it will reach. I don’t know exactly what I am craving from her lush, little body, but there’s a vibration in my gut telling me she would provide the ultimate release. Ultimate pleasure.

  “And, um…don’t you require a sacrifice, Ike? Isn’t that why you’ve been terrorizing the village?”

  I rear back. “Terrorizing the village? How?”

  “Killing cattle and stealing chickens. General terror stuff.”

  “No, Diana. It was not me.” But I know quite well who it was. “Do you believe me?” For some reason, it’s very important she take me at my word. In order to be her protector, she must believe in me. She must rely on me.

  Ah God, I like that idea. Diana depending on me for food and comfort.

  What if her body needs release like mine?

  Could she depend on me for that, too?