by LJ Vickery
“Well, there’s no time like the present,” he grumbled, and walked back to Anna, who looked horrified.
“No way.” She backed away from the blade Jake cradled. “This is crazy.” Her eyes implored Jake to stop the madness. “What if you’re not the one? What if I kill you?” She shook her head in a clear panic.
“You won’t.” Jake had never been so sure of anything in his life. He was a dog, he admitted to himself. There had been many women in his past, but he’d never experienced with any of them what he did with Anna. “I love you,” he declared. It was a definite first, and he’d said it in front of everyone. “And I feel in my bones that this is right.”
Anna’s face melted at his words, but she still didn’t look convinced. She turned to her sister. “How about I become mortal instead. We both drop all this live-forever nonsense, and I just age nicely with Jake until we die of natural causes?”
Ereshkigal’s eyes were sad. “Unfortunately, sister, that’s not the way it works,” she stated. “Only those convicted of harsh, unforgivable crimes have their god essence stripped away, and they age instantly to the proper number of years. Most gods are so old, they disintegrate into dust. So even if you were allowed to become human, you would age to seventy-six years old.” Eresh’s face fell. Jake knew the queen wished she could fix things for Anna, but fate was fate after all.
“Anna, honey,” Jake whispered the endearment. “Take the knife. Do what you have to do. It will be all right…I promise. I love you,” he reiterated.
Anna looked at him in awe, searching his face, but he didn’t let her glimpse a moment’s hesitation. He really was sure of this.
“I love you too, Jake.” Clearly, she needed him to know that before she proceeded. Anna drew the knife from his grasp and swallowed. “Is there anything special I have to do?” she questioned the royals, voice trembling. “Some magic words or…anything?”
“No.” The king crossed his arms over his massive chest. “Just aim for the heart.”
Anna closed her eyes and raised the blade. “Forgive me, Jake.” she murmured, and thrust forward with a wrenching cry.
Jake didn’t close his eyes, just barely able to stop from flinching, when the blade ran its course and stopped within centimeters of his chest. He let out the breath he’d been holding.
“See? And I didn’t even wet my pants,” he bragged shakily, trying to laugh. “But I think I came close.”
Anna dropped the knife and launched herself at him, kissing his face frantically. “It worked. It’s okay. You’re alive. And we’re meant to be together.” Everyone in the room smiled in relief. It had been a tense few moments, but now it was all joy.
Ereshkigal turned to Marduk. “Would you be so kind as to give a shout-out to Dani-Lee? We’ll need her for the next step.”
****
Across the bay in a warehouse in Boston’s North End, Beletseri paced. “Do you know what you have cost me?” she railed at Matthew, who had the prudence to act contrite. When Bel was in a rage, it was better to lie low and let her get it all out. “We lost the queen because of you. We lost the Chosen, Dani-Lee.” Beletseri stomped some more. “We had to trade Nedu’s life for yours, and he’s suffering mightily in the Underworld right now.”
Matthew didn’t think these things were his fault, but once again, he was bright enough to bite his tongue.
“This time, you have forfeited me another Chosen, Charlie, and I have sacrificed untold numbers of hard-won demons to affect your rescue.”
The demon part was right, but was she really blaming him for losing Charlie? That had been her fuck-up. Matthew stood a little taller and took a few steps toward Bel. He really shouldn’t argue with her, but it wasn’t in his nature to take blame. The words he formed to dispute her accusations died in his throat. His lady love had whipped a knife from the folds of her skirt.
“What the hell? Bel. Put the knife down.” Matthew froze in place, incredulous. Did she want to kill him? “W…we can work this out,” he stammered. “I’m valuable to you.”
“I’m about to see if that’s true,” the goddess said, and before he could move or deflect, she struck forward with immortal speed, aiming for his heart. He flinched on the down stroke, and as the blade bounced away from his chest, his arm got nicked.
“Ouch?” His voice came out weak and questioning. He looked at the small cut that bled through his shirt, before raising eyes to Bel.
“What the fuck?” His vocal chords gained volume. “Are you shitting me? What was that all about?”
Beletseri looked damned pleased for someone who’d just tried to kill him…and failed.
“I wasn’t sure.” She placed the knife back in its sheath high up on her leg. “But now I am,” she said in a tone that was almost gleeful. “You’ve cost me too much to go on the way we have.”
What? Was she going to try again? Maybe choke him this time? No. There was an amorous spark in her eye that was far from her battle-ready visage. He knew that look, and it only had to do with la petite mort.
Bel came to Matthew and entwined her arms around his neck. He yanked her close, molding his hips to her firm belly. Damned if nearly being killed didn’t spike his libido. “So you tried to stab me, then changed your mind at the last minute?” He tugged her head back, using her thick hair. Her behavior had been awfully strange, and she needed to feel some pain to assuage for it.
“Yes…no.” She pulled against his grip, raining small kisses on his neck and chin. “I’ve had my suspicions for a while, but I needed to be sure.”
She was still talking in riddles as far as Matthew was concerned.
“Needed to be sure about what.” He dropped her hair and filled his hand with one warm breast squeezing hard. His dick swelled.
“That you’re my true mate.” Bel drew back as if to catch his reaction, and she wasn’t disappointed because his jaw had to have fallen at least a foot.
“You mean…like a…Chosen?” He had trouble getting the word out of his mouth.
“That’s exactly what I mean.” She rubbed up against his hardened cock while he digested that. “Matthew, my love?” Bel’s face looked smug as she nearly purred her next words in his ear. “How would you like to become a god?”
Chapter Thirty-One
Charlie lay curled up in bed with Absu, her back nestled snugly against his chest. Since returning from California, they’d spent the last couple of days in a perpetual state of sexual arousal and bliss.
They’d abandoned the collar after about their tenth encounter, and it had worked well for both of them. Absu was delighted he could control his beast, and Charlie was happy he wasn’t holding back. She was getting one hundred percent Absu, but―she sucked in her bottom lip―she sensed he was still keeping something from her. Their mating ceremony was set for later in the week, and she wanted Absu to go into it knowing she’d love him forever no matter what. She wiggled her bottom against his burgeoning morning wood.
“Continue to cavort in such a manner with your delectable bottom, and I shan’t be held accountable for the consequences,” he breathed in her ear. She turned in his arms.
“Much as I’d like a repeat of”―she lifted and glanced over his shoulder at the bedside clock―”what we were doing three hours ago, I think it’s time you came clean.” She infused as much authority into her voice as she could muster. Her confidence had been soaring since spending time with the other extremely intrepid women in the household.
“Come clean,” he mused. “I may not be familiar with that particular turn of phrase.” He waited for her to explain, running one large finger down the valley between her breasts.
Charlie expelled a frustrated breath. He wasn’t going to make this easy. “There’s something you’re hiding from me,” she accused. “I can feel it more when your beast arises, but there’s a hesitancy that’s clear, an inability to let go fully.”
Absu drew away, and Charlie felt cold without his arms around her. He settled on his back, staring at
the ceiling.
“You are correct, and you have every right to know.” His voice was remote, cold. “I’ve been a coward, withholding information that may color your desire to mate with me. On my own behalf, I can only state that our joining is not just for my benefit, but for the good of all who dwell in this house. I wanted to bind you to me first, and reveal my sordid past after.” His tone was filled with self-loathing.
Charlie sought to reassure him. “There’s nothing you could tell me that would make me change my mind. I love you, Absu. You know that.” She pursed her lips and reached for his hand. Absu had never said the words to her. Perhaps she was about to find out why.
Absu curled his fingers into hers and sucked up some air. He shuddered, and then began his story.
“I was born in the Overworld.” His eyes closed, and the words flowed past his clenched jaw. “And I had what I considered a perfectly normal life until I was around five years old. That was when I realized that other goddesses shunned my mother.” He rubbed the spot between his eyes. “I knew, even then, that it had to irk my father. He was an important man in the high senate, and rubbing elbows with constituents was almost a requirement. But, because of my mother, my parents were never invited to private functions.” Absu hesitated, but Charlie squeezed his hand to go on. “You see, my father wasn’t mated to my mother. He had taken her as consort instead, because she wasn’t his Chosen.”
Geezus, thought Charlie. God politics were as fucked up as the human version. She let her empathy show, and Absu went on.
“For a goddess to settle on a man who could not join to her through the mating ceremony was considered base and degrading, but my mother didn’t care. She was wholeheartedly in love with my father, and didn’t give a damn for the consequences.” He swallowed visibly.
“When I was conceived, I guess it was considered a near miracle. It was unheard of for an unbonded, fully immortal, couple to reproduce. Many were appalled, but my mother took it as a sign that she had made the right choice. Her relationship with my father was a happy one. They didn’t fight. I was raised within a loving, contented atmosphere. That all changed the day of my seventh birthday.”
Absu’s brows drew together in consternation. “When a god turns seven, their official training in all things divine begins. It is an enormous event, almost like humans with their sweet sixteen celebrations. Father thought I should be feted with a prestigious gathering, since he held a position of such importance.”
Absu groaned. “If only I could go back and change what happened.”
Charlie grew worried as he continued. “Other children of similar age were invited to this event―that my father had assiduously planned―and were paraded into our home by mothers and nannies. One such boy, for whom I had no liking, had been escorted by his older sister. Her name was Desdora, and in a horrible twist of fate, my father coveted her on sight. I remember how depressed and defeated my mother became in the ensuing weeks.
“I’m not sure if Desdora and my father began an affair, or if their mere closeness was enough, but it was revealed by way of her exuberant family that she was my father’s true Chosen.”
When Charlie would have spoken, Absu forestalled her. “You have to understand, I cannot blame my father. The bond between a man and his Chosen is undeniable. My mother also had to be aware that the day might come when he’d stumble upon his true mate.
“To give him his due, my father was ready to set Mother up in a house of her own with money to keep her, but with the way our laws work, she would have nothing else. Not even me.”
Charlie’s heart turned over in her chest and ached for Absu as she made a small, pained noise.
“Being a male offspring, I would not be allowed to go with my mother, and I could never enter her household or even see her. She would be shunned by all of society, and would live a solitary life from that point on throughout eternity.”
Charlie couldn’t help herself. She had to speak. “That’s so cruel. So horrible.”
“And so my mother believed,” Absu agreed, trying to calm his racing heart. “If I could relive that period over again, I would have convinced her to run away with me. There was always Earth, and no god would have bothered looking for us there. As it occurred, I was no better than a bastard child in the eyes of society. But as my father’s eldest, I would carry many of his powers, and as long as I remained in the Overworld, my training was his duty. I may not have been aware of all this until I was older, but I’ve relived it as an adult every day of my life.”
“The day my mother was to move out, I entered her chambers and saw her lying motionless on the bed, covered in blood. There are very few ways gods can end their immortal existence. One is to drain the life-giving substance from many points on one’s extremities, so the body has no ability to refill the missing life fluid. That was the way my mother chose to go. I went in that morning and saw the bloody carnage of slashed wrists, neck, and thighs, and I ran screaming from her room.
Charlie was up on her knees now, patting Absu soothingly. Smoothing the lines from between his brows while he continued his story. “My father’s servants took care of everything. I don’t even have a clue as to where my mother’s remains were interred. And I was never allowed to speak of her again.”
“Cruel. So cruel,” Charlie intoned.
“Days later, Desdora became my stepmother. At first, she barely acknowledged my presence. I was nothing to her but an afterthought. I kept up my schooling, and our lives didn’t often cross paths. But it wasn’t long before she became pregnant. My father was overjoyed. He’d always wanted more children, and the fact that he would have offspring by his Chosen was cause for great joy.” A solitary tear tracked down his cheek. “Of course, it changed everything as far as Desdora was concerned.”
“My twin brothers were born, and my very existence became a thorn in her side. Because I was my father’s eldest, bastard or not, I was to inherit his greatest powers, as well as his senate seat when the time came for him to abdicate. It ate away at Desdora until she could no longer stand the sight of me in the hallways. I was nearly nine when, with her constant nagging and orchestration, I was sent to Earth into the Himalayas to a monastery that catered to less-than-welcome immortal children. It was a stark, barren place, where speech was discouraged, and the cold sank into your bones. Many children suffered from this, but oddly I seemed to thrive.”
“As long as chores were accomplished, the brothers in charge didn’t care if any of us ventured out to explore. The air was so frigid and the snows so deep, if a boarder became lost or purposely wandered away, it was one less mouth to feed. And it wasn’t as if any of us could die of hypothermia, so their consciences remained clear.
“I took to the steep mountain paths at every opportunity. For me, it was a freedom unlike any I had ever experienced. I was only unhappy during the high-god holidays, when I was required to return home and attend state functions at my father’s side. Of course, it made Desdora unhappy as well.”
When Absu remained silent for a long time, Charlie urged him to continue. “But you continued to be happy in the mountains and the snow. Right?”
He huffed. “One day, shortly after reaching puberty, I was out exploring some caves and experienced the most horrible cramps. My feet and hands became twisted with pain, and my skull nearly split apart. I lost consciousness, and when I came to, I was no longer myself.”
“You’d turned into your polar bear,” Charlie supplied.
“I did. But you have to understand. At that time, I had no idea what the creature was who had overtaken me. In the Himalayas, we had no contact with the Arctic north or knowledge of the fauna that therein resided. So to myself, I was a freak. And to make matters worse, each time I went through the metamorphosis, I lost several hours of time while changed into the white beast.”
Charlie’s heart ached for the whole horrible tale. No wonder Absu lacked the ability to trust and love. She wanted to bitch-slap the goddess who had made his life such
a travesty. Maybe it would be possible once she reached immortal status. She’d have to ask one of the higher goddesses, perhaps the queen, and she would avenge him.
But Absu was not through. A smile actually touched his lips.
“Enten was beside me one day when I woke up.”
Charlie liked Enten a lot. She’d taken to him immediately.
“If it weren’t for him, I don’t know what I would have done. Perhaps ended my life, bleeding out into the snow. But he came to me, and followed me when I turned to creature form. He kept me informed of all that occurred when I was unaware. He marveled at what a ferocious fighter I was, downing foxes, wolves, and even snow leopards with a single swipe of a claw. He accompanied me for several years before he disappeared. I had no idea where he had gone, and missed him terribly.”
Charlie sensed that the story was coming to an end.
“I know now that he had been sentenced to the Underworld for misdeeds, because,” Absu laughed bitterly, “it wouldn’t be long before I joined him.”
“Joined him? I don’t understand.” Charlie couldn’t see Absu or Enten doing anything illegal.
“One late, dark winter day, when out of my mind, I invaded a small village north of what is now Sikkim, India, and wiped out the entire population. It was clearly my doing. The carnage had been done by an animal. I felt so guilty that I confessed my sins to the brothers, who immediately sent for my father. Once apprised of the horrors, there never even needed to be a tribunal to determine guilt or innocence. The verdict, passed solely by him, was simple, and I was hurled directly from a mountain cave into the depths of Hell where I remained until given a second chance in the year 1624.” Absu kept his eyes averted from Charlie. “The rest you know.”
Charlie didn’t hesitate. She glowered and leaned over Absu’s dejected form. “I don’t believe it,” she told him in a completely no-nonsense tone. “It’s not you, Absu. I’ve seen your bear. I know him. Even without the collar, you are fully in control of him at all times whether you believe it or not.”