Immortal Desires: A Depraved Gods Novel

by Elle Lincoln

  “Did they get where they needed to go?” I climb the few steps and enter the murky shop.

  “They did.”

  I pause, knowing this is going to hurt. “Thank you.” I push through the beaded curtain partition.

  “Was that so hard?” He’s laughing at me, I can hear it in his tone.

  “Yes.” I rush down the stairs and through the tunnel as quickly as I dare, knowing the vampire can see in the dark. I can, but not as well as him. I do hope I don’t run into anything.

  As I break into the library tunnel, he speaks once more. “So, this is it, huh?”

  “This is just the entrance.” Footsteps sound in the distance, and a part of me slowly begins to relax, but I won’t fully relax until I see Mae in person. Except it isn’t her who rounds the curve, it’s Rocco.

  “Hey!” He skips a bit to catch up.

  “Where’s Mae?” I demand.

  “Isn’t she out here?” His face scrunches up.

  Argos and Killian round the curve next with a notebook tucked under Argos’s arm. “What’s going on out there? Mae said it was bad,” Argos asks, distracted by something on the floor.

  “Where’s Mae?” I repeat, looking down at the stone floor to see what Argos is staring at.

  “That’s odd, she was right in front of us.” He points to the floor. “Something doesn’t feel right here.”

  Killian sniffs the air. “What is that?”

  “We aren’t all shifters, Killian,” I snap, losing my patience as flames shoot from my fingertips. I clench my fists, trying to rein it in, except I know, I just know that something terrible has happened to Mae. It’s a feeling I can’t deny as it poisons my veins and my consciousness.

  He gives me a bland stare before closing his eyes and slowly inhaling without a fucking care in the world. I’m sure if it was his woman, then he’d be just as impatient as I am right now. And I don’t even give a fuck.

  “I can’t pinpoint it. Human but not. Immortal but not. With just a tinge of anticipation.” He inhales again as my own breath rattles out of me in a hiss. “Fear. There’s a lingering scent of fear.”

  “Who does it belong to?”

  “I smell fear and Mae.” Killian crouches down, his big body moving along the floor in a graceful crouch.

  “You won’t find her.” I swallow the bile in my throat. “He has her.”

  Everyone freezes, but Alloysius is the first to move, swinging me around. His eyes turn red and his skin takes on a greyish undertone. His own beast pushing against his control. “You let him take her.”

  I push him back, uncaring of who he is to Mae at this point. “I did no such thing.” My own anger pulses as I struggle to rein in my control.

  “This is your fault!” He yells at me, spittle flying as his fangs descend.

  Before he can come at me, Killian is there, holding him back. I don’t quite grasp what he says to him, but Alloysius backs away, marching down the tunnel toward the entrance.

  I run my hands through my hair, yanking on the tender strands. “I have no idea what to do. No idea where to look. This bastard has been one step ahead of us the entire time.”

  “We have the tracking spell for your father, we can just adjust it to search for Mae.” Argos’s voice cracks just a bit, his emotions just as strong as my own. His love for Mae is evident in the tremble of his lips.

  “Yeah. It’s a start.” The need to blow something up nearly overwhelms me. I need to get the fuck out of here. I need to do something until Argos activates the spell. I turn, heading back down the tunnel.

  “Where are you going?” Rocco calls after me.

  “To find my brother.” And I know just who to ask first—my mother.

  Chapter 21

  Mae

  An itch nudges me awake, buried deep in my lungs, and I cough. A scoring burn trails up from my lungs, into my esophagus, and out my parched lips. My body aches with tight, unused muscles. A deep flutter sends adrenaline surging through my body and I sit up quickly.

  My head bangs against something hard above me, and dizziness destroys my equilibrium. I swallow nothing but dried saliva that painfully skips down my throat.

  “I would have told you not to do that, except it has been my only source of amusement for the past few days,” a dry and unamused voice states, contradicting his words.

  Annoyed, I lean back against a set of bars. Knowing who that voice belongs to, I close my eyes. “I’m in a cell, aren’t I?”

  “You are a smart one, aren’t you?” Again, his voice is painfully monotone.

  I prefer the silence.

  “Well, Neit, it’s almost good to know you’re alive.” I open my eyes to his snort of dissatisfaction. There would be no pleasing this man, even in a cell.

  I’m in a dank cell of sorts, a cage of metal bars locked away in a cellar or a dungeon. My head grazes the top if I slouch just right. Off to the side of a stone wall, a lone open window sits about six feet high. The only source of air in this damn place. And yet it holds bars, preventing that crisp wind from fully entering this small hell.

  Off in the distance, a slow drip-drip-drip taunts the senses. I can almost picture it as nature’s timeless clock, counting down until our complete destruction.

  A haze settles over what I now view as a dungeon. It has a medieval atmosphere with a dank chill that eases into your bones, settling there, and making it hard as hell to warm up.

  “Fuck.” I scrub my dirty face, thankful I’m still wearing my leather jacket, even though the cool bars chill my legs.

  “Not what you expected, Ms. Mae?” I can hear his silent tapping. A fingernail against the metal emitting a slow and steady tinkling that matches the beat of the water droplets.

  I squint, just barely making out his cage, which isn’t at all much bigger than my own.

  “Tell me, Neit, do you know at all what’s going on?” I settle against the bars, mildly wondering where the lock is. The other part of me knows this may be as good a time as any to figure out what Neit’s end game is.

  “Aside from my son believing he can overthrow me?” Even that sentence holds boredom.

  “Do you have any tone other than that?” I shiver against the bars, wishing for Flynn’s internal heat.

  “No.” I should have known better. “Tell me, Mae, do you know what’s going on?” I can hear the slight interest in his tone. Either he knows exactly what’s been going on, or he has no idea at all. Then why ask me?

  Fine, I’ll play the game, because what the hell else do I have to do? “I know you steal and abuse the magic of others.” The memory of him using a syringe to extract my own magic flashes before my eyes. A haunting memory of a month prior, and now the big bad God of War is trapped in a damn cage.

  “Is that what I do?” Always with the questions.

  “Why else would you try to take my magic?” Speaking of, I try my best to reach out to that part of me that so quickly became second nature. Yet it fails me. I grunt with my effort, a small bead of sweat rolls down my face.

  Laughter, cold and dry, wraps around me as Neit once more finds my efforts amusing. “Magical bars.” This time his voice is full of appreciation, like he is somehow jealous that he didn’t come up with the design.

  I allow the quiet to embrace me, the moments before my abduction playing through my memories. I play through everything I did wrong, silently chastising myself for not fleeing sooner. If it wasn’t me, however, then it could have been Argos, Rocco, or Killian. In that case, I’d stand in front of them any day. Though Killian and I have yet to forge a friendship, his genuine personality attracts me, making me want to be his friend. Perhaps it’s a wolf thing—hell, I don’t know.

  Either way, I knew there was something off with that woman. Now that I think back on that moment, I realize the library knew as well. Yet the library let the changeling in once before. So why not her? Who is she? She just felt wrong.

  “How’d they get you?” I ask Neit, honestly curious.

&nbs
p; “My greenhouse,” he states, telling me what I already know, and I heave out a breath, expressing my frustration. “Fine, if you must know, the bastard opened a portal.”

  “How is that even possible?” From everything I’ve learned, that shouldn’t be possible, but yet this mortal can do magic no other immortal can. Why?

  “That, Ms. Mae, is the correct question. How indeed.” It appears he doesn’t even know.

  “Look, since we are both stuck down here, I think there are a few things we need to work out.” May as well get this over with.

  “Oh, like killing me?” I sit in stunned silence at his words. “Oh yes, Ms. Mae, I am all too aware of your desire to kill me. Yet I wonder if you have figured out why you cannot yet?” He’s fucking smug about it too.

  I hate it.

  “Tit for tat, Neit. You tried to kidnap me and extract my juice.”

  “That sounds absurd.” I can almost visualize him brushing my words away and my attempt at banter.

  “You know what I mean. You can’t hold something against me if you were willing to do the same. It makes you a hypocrite.” I rub my numb legs, doing my best to get the circulation back into them. I hadn’t realized it before, but this damn cage makes me feel every ache and pain from my mortal days. Something else I’m not a fan of. Pain.

  “Of course, I’m a hypocrite. We all are, Ms. Mae. We want to do good, do right by others. And yet we live each day for no one but ourselves. When it comes down to it, who would you save, yourself or Flynn?”

  “Flynn—”

  “Don’t bullshit me, girl. The answer is that Flynn would want to save you, and you’d want to save him, thus creating an eternal cycle. When in your heart you want to survive, you want to live. Denial only makes this conversation sour.” His voice goes quiet and I snarl to myself. Irritated at myself and him.

  “That’s off point anyway.”

  “Is it?” he counters, before continuing, “Every move I make is for a reason, Mae. I want access to your magic, you denied me, so I decided to take a bit for myself. Does that make me a bad man?”

  “Yes, that is exactly what that makes you!” I squeal.

  “What of Flynn? I know he stole that last little drop. Giving him access to the veil. Allowing him to jump through and exit in another spot.” Every word is punctuated, making me wince.

  “That’s different.”

  “Oh, because you love him?” he sneers. “Love is nothing but a chemical reaction. It doesn’t last, dear girl. In a hundred years, you will hate him for stealing that bit of you. You will curse his name and then you will look to me for revenge.” I can’t tell if he’s being serious or not.

  I ignore it. “What of the panther sisters?”

  “That bitch tried to kill me. Tell me, do you not punish those who try to kill you?” I grind my teeth at his words. “Oh, that’s right, you just kill in cold blood.”

  “I would never just kill in cold blood,” I scoff.

  “Oh, but you do.” I hear his body shuffling, probably trying to get a better look at me. “You kill those loyal to me just for being loyal. Yet you don’t know their story. You know nothing about them. You just kill because you hate anything associated with me. Honestly, Mae, who is the true monster here?”

  His words try to poison me. I put up every mental guard I possibly can, and yet they still seep through, rotting me. “You killed Rhia,” I state simply, softly. Almost to myself. But we both know it for what it is. I’m grasping at straws.

  “I killed a fae that tried to kill my son. Wouldn’t you kill if anything tried to murder your child?” I stay quiet as his shuffling continues before it settles. “We are more alike than you realize, Mae, I tried to tell you that.”

  I grind my teeth harder, inhaling slowly before exhaling the emotions his words stir. I shiver into the damp atmosphere, listening to that slow drip of water and envisioning it on my tongue. Wetting my palate. Dehydration twists my gut. Hunger makes its presence known as my stomach rumbles loudly.

  “These cages are a work of art, allowing just a small slip of magic to keep us alive. Yet just out of reach where we cannot use it. In here, we are mortal. A feeling I haven’t had the pleasure of basking in, in far too long…” His voice turns nostalgic almost, trailing off as though his youth plays before his eyes.

  Me? It wasn’t so long ago. My memories of swimming in the ocean, dancing in the rain, and making s’mores—all with Gramps—are still easily accessible and far too real. Emotion grips me by the gut, I try like hell to shelve it to deal with it later.

  “Do you know the changeling?” I ask to distract myself.

  “Oh, yes.”

  I wait, but he doesn’t continue. “Neit, why did you arrange for Alloysius to be put in charge in case you ever disappeared?”

  “Again, the right question.” He sniffles a bit and I wonder at his health. Stealing magic, injecting something that isn’t yours, takes a toll on the body.

  Wait. “How is the changeling even alive? Magic comes at a price. Who is paying the price of the stolen magic?”

  “Again, the right question.”

  “Really, if you aren’t going to be any help then just shut the fuck up,” I snap.

  He chuckles into the dark—dark that appears to be getting even darker. So that was day, noted.

  “Alloysius and I go way back, though he may not know it.” His laughter dies. His words sober and his tone holds a serious note.

  “He said he hardly knows you,” I point out.

  “That is true. However, a long time ago, your grandfather tried calling on a djinn.” My eyes widen at all the truths in that one sentence. “He failed miserably. I was content to sit back and watch him suffer, while wanting nothing more in this life than a child.” I can’t discern what his mood is as he speaks of a child.

  “What changed your mind?”

  “Your meddling mentor.” Again, he chuckles, and it’s the oddest sound. Neither amused nor dry, but a neutral laugh that’s disturbing. “Morrigan had just banished her daughter to the Realm. She saw potential in his plea, but see she did not know where the djinn resided. I did.”

  I rub my face, realizing all the hands that played into my present reality.

  “So, in the end, I got Rocco out of the deal.”

  “How did you get a child out of a deal?” Poor Rocco, his fate doesn’t seem any better than my own.

  “The djinn need those wishes to survive. I wanted a child of my own,” he answers simply.

  Yet a chill slithers up my spine. His words are anything but simple. How could they know thousands of years in advanced where their futures would end up? But it’s the adoption of a child not of his own that has me sitting up.

  My heart pounds as pieces slowly connect. “Neit.”

  “Have you figured it out, Ms. Mae?” Back to the Ms., but I don’t mind, because my heart is beating too loudly for me to dissect his earlier faux pas.

  “The changeling.” I lick my dry lips.

  “Yes?” I hear him shift eagerly.

  A door creaks open, allowing light to stream in, blinding me. I blink rapidly and shrink back against the light. “Dinner time,” a cheerful voice announces, as her feet clack against the cool floor.

  I use the moment to take stock of everything surrounding me. The cage, where the lock sits, how many cages are in the room—seven, some with skeletons in them—and the light streaming in through the door.

  Real light. Electricity. I can hear it buzz just beyond, that low hum of energy flowing through lines and wires. Just outside, I can make out a set of steps leading up. So, we’re in a basement. Even if I escape this cage, we have the dungeon to escape as well. Beside me, there’s a small hole in the floor and a part of me hopes to hell that isn’t where I’m supposed to pee, but what the hell else could it be?

  A tray clatters to the ground in front of me, where a long opening will allow me to eat the meal she, that woman, set before me. Confusion settles in me as I look at the meal.

/>   A roast, complete with veggies, and a roll. Hell, she even has what I swear is red wine and a small bottle of water.

  “Eat up, dearie, we can’t have you dying on us.” Well, that clears one thing up at least.

  I shake out of it as she lays a tray in front of Neit. My eyes land on the man who is supposed to be this imposing force. A god to be feared. Yet his emaciated body sits in his own filth as he sneers at the food. His body wasting away. His eyes meet mine as the woman begins to leave, his lips spreading into a smile just as the world goes pitch-black once again.

  Chapter 22

  Mae

  I sit in the utter silence, listening for any sign of the world outside—hell, even inside. But not even a rat scurries across the floor. Just the slow drip I swear is intentional to make me insane.

  Well played. Well played.

  A snore erupts from Neit and a I swallow a laugh. No need to wake him. The dark is all consuming, I can’t even see my hand in front of my face. Again, another ploy to drive us insane? Probably. Including that home-cooked meal.

  I admit I debated if I should eat before my hunger demanded I give in. The smell alone was enough to drive me insane. Like the prisoner I am, I ate by touch, surely tracking half of my meal down my body.

  I take stock of everything on me. My boots still sit upon my feet. My socks keep my toes kind of warmer than my legs, but I’m starting to lose feeling in them. Whether that’s due to sitting crouched in a cage or the cool bars, I’m not sure. My leggings are worthless, as is my sports bra and top. However, my leather jacket still weighs warmly upon my shoulders.

  And inside are years’ worth of forgotten items. As quiet as I dare, I begin searching through my numerous pockets. Some hold only lint. Others a half-eaten candy bar I don’t dare touch. It’s probably covered in lint and other pocket debris. In one pocket, I find half a pack of cigarettes that I had forgotten were there. Hey, we all have those rebellious moments. I’m no damn exception. Inside that stale pack, I find a lighter.

  I squash the threat of triumph that damn near spills from my lips. No need to wake the sleeping god before me. After a few tries, a flick of flame comes to life. The image of Flynn dances behind my eyelids, causing an emotion to surface I’m not ready to deal with. I shelve that fucker and focus on my task at hand.