Page 96 of Immortal Bastard

Discovering the existence of immortals complicated everything. Learning he shared their superior bloodlines was a curse because he would never be accepted as one of them, and his life would never feel normal again.

He didn’t fully belong here or in the human world. But there was no going back. No return to any sense of fullness. He’d always be half of what he once was. Living a half-life compared to the wholesome one he’d lost. That was the inescapable truth about being a half-breed, half as good, half as powerful, half normal, everything was now half.

They would never fully accept him. Just as racism and xenophobia existed in the outside world, it existed here. Their prejudice toward the human race was only kept in check by their Amish values, but beneath their polite show of acceptance lived a deep-seated disregard for the lesser creatures, and he would always be seen as less.

He came here to get his mind off of Gracie, an impossible task. The nerve of her calling him a whore. Compared to the others, his interactions with the females on the farm were practically nonexistent, save his encounters with Maggie.

Maggie was a distraction, but the longer their association carried on the less enchanted with her sweetness and beauty he became. Gracie remained in the forefront of his mind. He dared not measure the space she occupied in his heart, for there was no recourse there for them.

She made it perfectly clear she would never accept him in any sort of romantic way because she couldn’t accept his mortal blood, not when she’d spent her life saving herself for her one true mate.

When he’d learned of his birth father and discovered he shared Christian Schrock’s immortal genes, he had hoped Gracie might change her mind, but she hadn’t. It had been quite the opposite. The discovery of his partial immortality angered her. Why?

In his mind, his bloodlines made the impossible more plausible. But to Gracie it was a taunt. One step closer to something they would never have. Like a hand reaching through a cage for a prize it would never touch, a temptation that would always be there, existing and forever out of reach.

That was her own stubborn fault. There was no law that said they couldn’t find some sort of happiness together. She was the one so dead set on waiting for her calling. That could be a thousand years away. A thousand years he didn’t have.

Half-breeds did not live as long as full-bred immortals. They could not be called either, and that lack of divination lost him a lifetime of respect. Many of the immortals on the farm viewed him with contempt, as if he suffered a genetic mutation. They viewed his mortal blood as an infection that tarnished the immaculate flawlessness of what they considered an otherwise perfect race.

Even the bonded mates, like Annalise, were accepted once the transition was complete. Destiny was not bonded, and therefore a half-breed like him, but she didn’t seem to mind the label because she had Cain. Cain was the only one who didn’t make him feel like a pariah. The others…they would never accept him.

He didn’t want to care what they thought. He decided to reject them long before they rejected him. But Grace was different. The Hartzlers were different. They loved him as much as any foster family could love an orphan, but they all knew, compared to their eternal existence, his time here was temporary for more reasons than one.

Gracie didn’t believe he was defective, but she did see him as forbidden. And then, once he’d started seeing Maggie, it didn’t matter what was in his blood. Gracie despised him for finding comfort in the arms of another female, as if he owed her loyalty when she’d shown him none.

She’d made it more than clear that she wanted nothing to do with him in any sort of romantic sense. But she also wanted no one else to get close to him. It was selfish of her, and he was growing tired of her bitchy commentary and dirty looks.

He hated the prophetic importance The Order placed on callings. He didn’t believe the link was any stronger than that of a couple in love. Yet, Gracie had decided long before his arrival on the farm that she would save herself for the one God ordained the other half of her soul.

A shadow moved at the far end of the hall by the door to the stairs. The witch was walking again, which meant that her feet had healed. He wasn’t sure what they gave her to make the burns clear up so fast, but when he passed her cell tonight, she’d been sleeping and he caught a glimpse of uninjured pink toes, marked only from the dirt of her cell.

Picking up a chipped stone, he flicked it into the shadows. Part of him wanted to check on her, but Cain had made such a fuss about the witch he figured it was best to leave it alone. He had enough problems of his own to worry about anyway.

Dane had told the bishop about the bruising on her legs and made it clear that he didn’t approve of her living conditions. That was more than anyone else had done for her.

While The Council viewed the witch’s undefined sentence as merciful because it permitted her to live, it was a ruthless condemnation with no end in sight. He wouldn’t be surprised if she eventually became a bondslave—one more layer of cruelty they’d twist and call lenient. But there was no clemency here. Immortals served themselves above all else, and that witch had tried to kill the son of an elder. There was no saving her.

Anger rolled through him in a slow boiling rage as Juniper and many others—including himself—helplessly suffered the hypocrisy of such a pious order. There was no greater power on the farm than that of The Council, and as long as they could wrap their logic up in a biblical bow, they felt justified to discipline lesser sinners as they saw fit.

He shamefully took comfort in knowing he wasn’t the only victim of their unfair laws . There were a few other ostracized half-breeds on the farm that would never fully fit in.

The women also faced challenges. The discrepancies between males and females here were disgraceful, but the females had been oppressed and sheltered for so long, indoctrinated to fear the outside world, that they actually felt safe and protected by such heavy-handed control. If only they knew the freedoms they could have elsewhere. But no one had it as bad as the witch.

His gaze, once again, returned to the end of the hall. She was quiet, due to her bondage, but he knew she was awake. The shadow of her frame fell past the bars of her cell and stretched toward the torch on the wall.

Could she see him? Was she still blindfolded? He couldn’t see her from his angle but sensed she had a better view. Whether she was able to see him or not, he sensed her attention on him.

Acidic emotions soured his stomach. Indigestion had become a familiar and expected part of his day. Like clockwork, he never made it past sunset without suffering the burn of resentment, the sting of loneliness, and the scorching frustration of his powerless position.

There was no cure for that kind of burn. It would only relent if he left this place, but even then, regret would sizzle inside of him.

There was no leaving. He was here. His sister was here. His enemy was here. Gracie was here.

“Pray,” Adam had advised him when he once told him about the anxiety keeping him up at night.

Dane scoffed. Their god was not any god he wanted help from. If their god was purely a good god, his sister would not be deranged and in a cell. His mother would not have been ripped to shreds by a vampire and slaughtered right before his eyes.

Breathing deeply, he let his rage settle, deliberately trying to recalibrate his line of thinking so he didn’t spiral into a tailspin and burn a stress-hole through his stomach. If not for his minor immortal healing, he’d probably have a belly full of ulcers by now.

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