Worship Me

Worship Me BABE 2023 EDITION IMMORTAL VICES AND VIRTUES AURELIA JANE KEL CARPENTER Worship Me Kel Carpenter and Aurelia Jane Published by Raging Hippo LLC Copyright © 2022, Raging Hippo LLC Cover Art by Amanda Pillar All rights reserved under 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 publisher. 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. Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal and subject to penalties and fines. Contents About the Authors 1. Pan 2. Adora 3. Pan 4. Adora 5. Pan 6. Adora 7. Pan 8. Adora 9. Pan 10. Adora 11. Pan 12. Adora 13. Pan About the Authors Kel Carpenter and Aurelia Jane are the hilarious team behind the international bestselling series, A Demon’s Guide to the Afterlife. They pride themselves in being absolute weirdos, spending hours on the phone coming up with detailed worlds, and laughing about crazy ideas for torturing characters. While they believe they each have the personality of a rabid badger, people still seem to like them okay. They share a love of coffee, travel, and tacos, and they’ve made some adorable tiny people with their equally weird husbands. Best friends and work wives, Kel has the audacity to live in Maryland while Aurelia lives in Texas, but they try to see each other as much as possible. For all the misunderstood badass women out there that just want a good fuck and blissful quiet. We see you. Chapter 1 Pan Nightmares plagued me. Awake or asleep, it didn’t matter. Her ghost lingered. Phantom touches caressed my skin. Peals of her laughter echoed, and whispers of shattered promises replayed in my mind. The scent of her arousal and the memory of her heat against my body toyed with my sanity. Gods, I missed her, or at least that version of her. “Fuck,” I growled, running my hands through my hair. It felt like an eternity since I’d heard my own voice, and even then, it was only to scream. Sitting up from my bed, I shook off the madness as it tried to sink its claws into me. She wasn’t here. No one was. My steps were silent as I crossed the room. The eerie glow of candlelight flickered, casting a shadow dance on the walls of my underground tomb. I stopped at her altar. An altar made not for what she was to our realm, but for what she had once been to me. All that remained was a single black feather. An iridescent shade of dark blue shimmered when brought near the light. I smashed my fist into the marble dais. I would not mourn for what could have been. I knew what that led to. Pain. Death. Destruction. It was all her doing, and there was nothing I could do to stop it . . . nothing except what I was doing now. “Your Majesty?” A voice broke through my thoughts, and I turned to see a young shifter standing at the bottom of the stone steps that led to my quarters. His lower half resembled a goat, and his upper remained human-like. A faun? In Arcadia? “What’s happened to you, child?” I asked him, my voice scratchy from years of disuse in my solitude. The boy dipped his head, casting his eyes down. “One day I tried to shift when I was playing with my sister, and I’ve been this way since,” he said quietly. “Our power . . . it’s like we’re broken.” “What do you mean by that?” The child was stuck mid-shift, and my brows furrowed as concern lanced through me. “You said ‘our’ . . .” Refusing to meet my gaze, the boy continued. “It’s what’s happened to us all.” My heart sank. Had this truly happened to all of Arcadia? I’d tried to protect my people. Instead, I’d damned them. “The guardians sent you for me, haven’t they?” I glanced at the parcel he held in his hands. He nodded. “I come with a message from the Temple of the Gods,” he said softly. I approached him, taking the parchment and unrolling it. Tufts of wolf fur had been placed inside, one brown and one gray—and now they were speckled white. The demand was simple. It is time. My hands shook with fury, and I crumpled the paper as I headed to meet them. I ascended the stairs that led from my tomb to the world above. Arcadia. My home. How long had it been since I’d breathed fresh air? Smelled the night irises? Run through the forests? Too long. I climbed and climbed. When the first light of day reached me, my steps quickened. It was only when I saw a figure standing in front of the entrance that I slowed to a stop. A tall, slender woman in blue robes regarded me with cold eyes. “Go back to your temple, priestess. You’re not welcome here.” My voice came out thick. Dark. She raised a single brow. “Have you decided to end your self-imposed exile, my king?” At that moment, she glanced behind me. I turned to see the faun-like boy as he approached from his climb up the stairs. The sadness in his expression tore at me. “You see what you’ve done to your people? They looked to you, and you abandoned them. You are no god.” She curled her lip in disgust. I ground my teeth together, canines lengthening. My love for my people was unending. Arcadia had once been a paradise with thriving cities and happy shifters. That had changed over time as one catastrophe after