Page 85 of Immortal Bastard (The Order of Vampires)

It was their fault Cybil was the way she was, their neglected duty that allowed Isaiah to slaughter hundreds of women including his mother, and their enigmatic existence that wrecked whatever illusion of family he once had.

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.