His darkest deceit, p.1
His Darkest Deceit, page 1
HIS DARKEST DECEIT
INSATIABLE INSTINCT, BOOK ONE
ADDISON CAIN
CONTENTS
Copyright
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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
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Also by Addison Cain
About the Author
©2023 by Addison Cain
All rights reserved.
No part of the 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, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
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“Unapologetically raw and deliciously filthy!”
- NYT Bestselling author Anna Zaires
I dedicate this book to Karen the Emu, who resides in all her rage at Useless Farms. Karen, the terrifying noises you make, the drumming and booming, are so chilling that they had to be celebrated. Your vocal threats have now been bastardized into sexy racket made by horny hybrid humans in the Insatiable Instinct series. You’re welcome.
Please do not complain to your manager.
1
To fail within the academy amounted to certain death.
To shine, to draw our illustrious general’s attention, would result in ruin.
Every last recruit contained within the academy’s walls had been created by the human government of Risa Colony. We were owned by their military, our genetics mixed with the hostile planet's apex predator, the vorec. Given life for a single purpose—to protect humans.
Fail to perform in that purpose, demonstrate that you were unworthy of the vast expense and time spent in one’s creation and training, and your life was forfeit.
Once per annum, a compulsory evaluation was required for every hybrid recruit. A student would enter the cold-blooded General Cyderial’s office. My colleagues, friends who had grown up beside me—some would enter those doors and… never come out again.
I had learned from the age of five that if I portrayed a front of absolute mediocrity, I would mostly be ignored by those in power.
Never test too high, regardless of how well one comprehended the materials.
Do not build strong relationships with professors or staff.
Be immemorable.
Stay respectful but distant.
Friendships were for later in the day, in the privacy of dorms, when the vault separating the female students from the academy proper was sealed. Armed watchers—elite male guards—were forbidden from female spaces. With no one cataloging our every move, there was a semblance of freedom. Our own secret after-hours culture.
But where the watchers lingered, conversations were to be kept to an absolute minimum.
Making eye contact with an authority figure was tantamount to instant punishment.
Minor infractions could result in death.
Never get caught breaking the rules, break them in such a way that culpability was questionable. If you were apprehended, it was smarter to say nothing, accept the punishment, and leave without complaint.
With only six weeks until graduation, it was required that I endure only one final meeting with General Cyderial until my future placement would be decided. I had calculated the exact scores I would need to squeak by and maintain my façade of middling intelligence. With a ranking so unimpressive, I would be given the position of surveyor—a dangerous job for the more expendable hybrids.
A post the majority of my colleagues would cringe to be associated with.
One I greatly coveted. One where I could explore this fog-covered hostile planet with a small team of genetically modified hybrid humans like myself.
Leave the academy behind, forever.
I had no fear of the wilderness that surrounded our burgeoning city. I was mesmerized by what I might find within its dense mists. Heard the call of the beasts who lived there, and knew the fog was where I belonged.
One final meeting with a terror and I would be free.
I was so close to my ultimate goal.
And damned proud of myself for making it so far.
Formal uniform impeccable, brown hair pulled away from my face and tightly knotted at my nape, I walked through the general’s office door stiff with decorum—in exactly the way expected of me. The nature of the chamber was unusual for a workspace, the main area housing his desk past an extended museum-like vestibule.
But it was beautiful… so many pretty things on so many delicate shelves.
Once, when I was very young, in a fit of temper, I'd swiped a little geode off the fancy display near the door. I still had it tucked away where no soul would ever find it. It was pink, glittery, and still one of the prettiest things I had ever seen.
Even though I had been only twelve when I had taken it, I’m pretty sure that if he had ever noticed it was missing or had the general suspected it was me, I would have received far more than a beating.
Hybrids regenerated at an extreme pace, making torture survivable and a real threat to consider. Every student had seen the consequences of his wrath in those who failed to live up to the academy’s high standards.
Death.
It had not always been so bad for recruits. General Cyderial did not take the position of Academy Director until I was twelve. His predecessor had been stern but far more gentle. Too gentle, by Cyderial’s estimation.
He expected killing machines and perfect poise. There was no room for anything soft. Not when we were reminded that this was a boot camp for children. That we were being trained for war.
Against what? A planet where everything wanted to kill you.
That’s why humans had broken an ancient taboo and genetically modified select embryos for a higher purpose—so hybrids, like myself, might keep the humans alive and guarantee that the survivors of a desiccated earth might build civilization anew.
For a human mother to undergo the treatments and bear a hybrid baby was a guarantee of comfort for the rest of one’s short human years. It raised a family’s status socially and was done with great honor.
I had even been told there were some human women who saw gestating hybrids as their holy calling. However, it was not easy work to bear and birth my kind.
To bond with an exotic baby you knew you could not keep.
We looked more or less the same as our human counterparts, but hybrids were stronger, faster. For some, the reptilian Vorec genes were more dominant—iridescent scales blended with our skin. Unusual colorings in moments of high emotion.
Much of what set us apart was concealed at all times under uniforms, yet some key traits could not be hidden.
My nails were hooked and required daily tending to remain at a length that made holding a stylus possible. Extremely sharp talons were a common trait amongst the females in the dorms. We were not taught human anatomy, so I had no basis of comparison, but I did know they had only one heart. We had two.
Our respiratory systems were more advanced than a humans, to facilitate breathing the planet's toxic fog with no issue. Hybrids possessed a vorec internal organ tucked near our lungs. Its purpose? To pulse out a drum-like rhythm when we grew especially aggressive.
For the vorec, that thumping sound alerted whoever was on guard that an enraged beast was preparing an imminent attack. In the hybrid population, to be able to create that deep booming drum came with age. I had only accidentally let out a series of threatening thumps and hisses when engaged in rigorous hand-to-hand combat training or in battle defending the humans from wildlife that strayed too close to civilization.
It was considered the apex of threatening, and absolutely unallowed in the academy, the aforementioned circumstances aside.
Most remarkably, hybrids lived significantly longer than unmodified humans. Physical aging ceased upon maturity. Some of the earliest hybrids still lived hundreds of years after their birth.
I had been five when my birth mother completed her duty and handed me over for collection. Five when an instructor handed me a sharp training sword, locked me in an empty room, and unleashed an enraged adolescent vorec looking for blood. Through an observation window, I was observed fending it off with my unfamiliar weapon. Ultimately, I had killed it quite by accident. My jab pierced its soft palate, and the poor, small female died in minutes.
I was given top grades.
Nothing like a brush with death to welcome one to one’s new home. And those were the gentle years.
That was the previous general who didn’t look at me as if he wanted to swallow me whole.
General Cyderial possessed an unholy stare that even the blond hair that hung over his eyes could not conceal. Broad-shouldered, anything but relaxed, my first impression of him was… to steer clear.
Only twelve, I had polished my brass buttons, donned my best uniform, stood at attention before his desk, and made the mistake of meeting his eye.
Lesson learned from that point forward—avoid eye contact with the man at all costs.
Not once did he speak to me upon that first appointment. No comment on my subpar marks, no feedback nor encouragement. Nothing more than that unnerving, weighty glare.
I’d left that odd encounter feeling as if I had been marked and found wanting. The whole exchange was painfully uncomfortable. Keyed up and agitated, I had done the unthinkable on my way out. I swiped that pretty pink geode off one of his fancy shelves.
I still couldn’t tell you why I dared such a petty, stupid crime. Perhaps it was because I was young and embarrassed. Perhaps I had wanted to punish him for making me feel so strange.
Perhaps it was because his office had been so unusual and smelled so nice, yet the man within it was awful.
I learned to hate him.
Change for the academy came hard and fast after our initial meeting. Life became much more complicated. Training harder, classes more intense.
Punishments far more severe.
Recruits entered the office and were never seen again.
One of them had been my seat partner in biology, a nice boy who smiled at me and shared his notes.
Shortly after, classes became fully segregated. Girls to the right, boys to the left. Our classrooms were invaded by grown men, armed watchers positioned in every corner to ensure the genders did not intermingle.
Violence would be used on any boy caught glancing at the female side of the room. Those boys who thought to tease by sticking out their incredibly long tongues were beaten beyond recognition. The watchers were relentless.
There were no more jokes in the hall. There was no more comradery at meals.
The women had no one but each other, and the culture in the dorms underwent a dramatic shift.
After a few years, it seemed almost normal to live in such isolation, but there were mental consequences to the general’s edicts.
It appeared worse for the boys, but the girls suffered too. Loneliness, an unnatural life of isolation. It took some time to find a new female-only equilibrium.
Changes in behavior that no one talked about, lest they get a fellow sister in trouble.
Some of the older girls began to act in strange ways. They started to wander in the night. Headed for our male counterparts.
To be caught out in the halls unchaperoned was unthinkable.
The older the student, the more severe the reprimand.
A young man caught fornicating with one of the older female classmates led to immediate public execution.
I had witnessed frightened boys dangling from a rope more times than I cared to remember. Had to live with the terrified girls in the barracks. The brokenhearted, the lonely, and the very, very sad.
The women who participated in sexual escapades and got caught were never seen again. Their fate, I feared, was far worse than a noose.
At twelve, I had little more than a passing interest in boys, but I understood the older girls' sorrow. They had already taken our parents, then they had segregated us from our brothers, and finally stolen their sweethearts.
And I was one last meeting and six final weeks of training away from freedom.
Assuming the general was unaware of the contraband hidden in my dorm room: a tube of lipstick, three women's magazines, and a dress I had sewn myself from old uniform scraps collected over the years. A very pretty dress, considering what I’d had to work with.
Pretty, but not beautiful like the space he had chosen for his office. Thousands of books in exquisitely carved cases outlined the room. White millwork and glowing walls. Bits of art, pottery, even artifacts from old Earth.
General Cyderial’s office looked nothing like the rooms I trained in, ate in, or lived in.
Shelves of glittering stones, a few well-tended, native toxic plants. Pretty things that bloomed and made the air sweet. Polished wood floors, soft rugs, well-crafted furnishings that led to the impression the general was an avid reader in his spare time. The terror of an immaculate white couch. Creamy tufted softness, a beacon of comfort. A lie.
Only once in my life had I been ordered to sit there—those following moments something I didn’t want to think about, nor would I.
That horrible memory aside, had the room not housed a particularly insane and very dangerous tenant, I would have risked serious punishment in my younger years to sneak in and touch all the things.
I liked pretty. I liked soft.
So, I mentally reminded myself to perform perfectly. To let him stare, to keep my answers short and impersonal, and that I would graduate and be free to seek out my own collection in the wilds.
Only ten steps remained between myself and his desk. Five breaths more and I would come to attention.
One lifetime of freedom was so close I could taste it.
All would be fine, and I would no longer be under General Cyderial’s thumb. He would sit there, call me unremarkable, pass me, ordain my new position as surveyor, order me away, and I would sleep the sleep of the soon-to-be free.
Except, once I stood before his desk, the man began to stand from his chair.
My alarm at his unexpected movement was quickly concealed. Yet I could not fail to notice the looming largeness of him, an internal warning telling me it would be wise to take a step back.
Yet, I remained at attention, determined not to ruin my chance.
Uniform immaculate. Brass buttons perfect. Not a wrinkle or a stain upon the cloth of his station. His various insignias and rankings sparkled, on display, winking with his movement as he grew taller. Fully upright, he could have been a portrait. Beautiful, deadly, horrible, unkind.
And I’d made a grave mistake. Broke my one precious rule of survival in this hell.
I’d stupidly met his unblinking stare.
2
Something was wrong.
Very wrong.
Entering General Cyderial’s space was already an anxiety-inducing endeavor, but I felt an overpowering sense of danger standing in his shadow at that moment.
Attention on high alert, I calculated why he might be looking at me that way. What I might have done to offend him.
And fought with all I had to suppress a desire to rumble a warning drum from my chest.
No one was safe when this man did unusual things.
Not only had he stood upon my arrival, towering over me, his massive desk between us, but something in his usually bleak demeanor, something I could not put my finger on, had altered.
But what?
Blond hair was styled in his customary method, long in front, hanging in his eyes. His uniform had no new adornment, nor was it missing anything I recognized.
He looked exactly the same as he always did. Leveling me with a menacing and acutely focused glare—as he always would when I was forced to endure his presence.
His jaw did not appear to be ticking, and his eyes were not narrowed. The room did not smell of anger or aggression.
But I was unsafe.
Locked in his gaze, I tried my best to read what I found there, and came up at a loss.
He possessed that same measured, unblinking stare, pouring it over me. A glare that would make a grown man cower. Hell, I had seen him make grown men cower with a glance. Twice, in fact, both watchers—armed men—who had looked away from the general when they were being addressed for some breach in behavior.
