Bloody Savage God

BLOODY SAVAGE GOD GODLESS HEATHENS BOOK ONE JORDAN GRANT The characters, events, and places portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, or distributed in any form or by any means, whether electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the author. Copyright © 2023 by Jordan Grant. AUTHOR'S NOTE Some readers may be offended by the nasty, dirty words in this book, those like asylum and institutionalization and psychopath. If you are, that's okay, but stop reading now. This one isn't for you. If you are willing to consider the message hidden beneath those ugly words, I think you'll find this book neither romanticizes mental illness nor puts it in a stereotypical box. Even psychopaths can feel love (in their own way) and not everyone who slits their wrists wants to die. My grandmother experienced auditory and visual hallucinations her entire life. My father couldn't hear a car backfire without returning to Vietnam. Maybe one day, I'll tell you my story too. There is hope, darling reader. Even when the whole world tells you not to believe. - Jordan CONTENT WARNING Dear Reader: This book is dark, graphic, and intended for those 18+. There are no anti-heroes here, only villains, but if you prefer your villains to be sinfully gorgeous with nonexistent morals, dark obsessions, even darker compulsions, and touch her and die vibes, this one's for you. Don't expect a dash of enemies-to-lovers or bully romance here. Saint Laurier is a psycopath. To him, the world is one big transaction. People are possessions to the bloody, savage king, and Willow is the most prized possession of them all. Please read the content warning before proceeding, which may be found here. Your mental health matters. - J ACKNOWLEDGMENTS A special thank you to: Alpha & Beta Readers: Edie, Ashlee, Lainey, Danielle M., Danielle G., Martha, Jessica, & Nicole Copyeditors: Virginia Tesi Carey & Owl Eyes Proofs & Edits Proofreader: Roxana Coumans Cover Designer: Lori Jackson Photographer: Ren Saliba For those treated like a problem, rather than simply human. PLAYLIST Grimstone Manor — Nox Arcana Lost — Linkin Park Red Flag — Natalie Jane Heathens — Twenty One Pilots The Unquiet Grave — Karliene I Wanna Be Sedated — Benjamin Wallfisch The Cell — Gorjira Come, Gentle Night — Abel Korzeniowski no body, no crime — Taylor Swift, et al. G.O.A.T. — Polyphia Rotoscope — Spiritbox The Devil in I — Slipknot For the full playlist, click here. CONTENTS 1. Saint 2. Willow 3. Willow 4. Saint 5. Willow 6. Saint 7. Saint 8. Willow 9. Willow 10. Willow 11. Saint 12. Willow 13. Saint 14. Willow 15. Willow 16. Saint 17. Willow 18. Willow 19. Saint 20. Willow 21. Willow 22. Saint 23. Willow 24. Willow 25. Saint 26. Willow 27. Saint 28. Willow Epilogue Wicked Vile King Enter to Win! Free from Jordan More from Jordan About Jordan 1 SAINT I breathe in, slow and deep, savoring the taste of hell. Death whispers in the early morning air, twining with the incurable fog that shrouds the campus. It reeks of wet, rotting earth and decay, as though the abandoned graves at the northeast corner, long relinquished to the forest, have split from the earth to poison those of us still above. Most students hate it here at Chryseum Reformatory Academy—the place we call the Asylum. But not me. I fucking love it. I've known its distinct flavor of ruination for the past three years, since the day I was dumped at the tall, wrought iron gates and abandoned by those biologically designed to give a fuck about me. I craved this place long before I knew it existed, when I was still the odd child my parents were afraid of, the one that earned long stares from their affluent friends and hushed whispers from their even more affluent family members. Hell, I might even miss this place when I graduate in the spring and leave it behind. On the heels of my nineteenth birthday, I'll be deposited back into neurotypical land. I don't even remember what it was like, not really. Outside these walls is just one long, distant memory of someone else's life, but I still smell it in my nightmares. It's the place where everything is sugarcoated normalcy and chemically created, lab-perfected sweetness, where the world tastes like a burst of serotonin. It doesn't smell like death outside the Academy's walls, and that's a shame. Because at least death doesn't hide what it is. There are no masks, no pretenses, no apologies, and here, at the Asylum, I don't have to pretend either. It's a relief too. I am goddamned tired of pretending. Pretending to care. Pretending to feel. Pretending to be normal. Dawn needles the horizon as I crouch on the stone parapet, the leather soles of my boots biting into the stubby wall beneath my feet. It's maybe ten inches wide, probably less, and below it, death waits for me. One slip, and I'd enter the great unknown in a nasty, bloody splat. But I'm not afraid. I have been here a thousand times, maybe more. I won't slip. I never do. And even if I did, I don't think I'd care. To my right sits one of the angels of the Academy, original to the building's construction in the early 1900s. It's one of four, each perched at a cornerstone of the building. Rumor is the angels were put here to protect the typhus patients and to heal them with the hand of God. Maybe that's true, but if it is, then God abandoned this place long ago and left his angels to crumble at the deathwatch. The one across from me sits with its talons curled into the carved ledge beneath its feet. Its stone mouth is open, eroded to the elements with its lower mandible