Frozen Stiff Read online

  Table of Contents

  Frozen Stiff

  Publication Page

  Dedication

  PRAISE FOR AUTHOR

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Also Available

  Also Read

  Thank You

  Frozen Stiff

  by

  LJ Vickery

  Immortals Book Four

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Frozen Stiff

  COPYRIGHT © 2016 by LJ Vickery

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Contact Information: [email protected]

  Cover Art by Angela Anderson

  The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  PO Box 708

  Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708

  Visit us at www.thewilderroses.com

  Publishing History

  First Scarlet Rose Edition, 2016

  Print ISBN 978-1-5092-0836-4

  Digital ISBN 978-1-5092-0837-1

  Published in the United States of America

  Dedication

  First and always, thank you to my family for their love and support. But there’s no way I could do this without the myriad of wonderful people who have read and reviewed my books. Special thanks to Judy, Allie, Sheryl, Kelly, Marie, Britny, Hope, Bambi, and Tess!

  PRAISE FOR AUTHOR

  LJ Vickery

  AND HER BOOKS

  ROCK HARD

  “Want a spicy, hot, erotic paranormal romance that will leave you breathless? Rock Hard is a great romance filled with excitement, danger, and of course some seriously spectacular sex! Tess and Marduk are wonderful together! Their chemistry is WICKED good! I freaking LOVED the whole God and Goddess dynamic. I can’t wait to dive into book 2!”

  ~Marie’s Tempting Reads

  GOING DEEP

  “Going Deep didn’t disappoint, but I honestly don’t have a favorite god (or goddess) because they all bring different things to the table. The group as a whole is a testament to Vickery’s brilliance as a writer because literally no stone is left unturned. Every single person in the story has a significant purpose, and it is this craftiness that give the series its well-developed edge. The fans of this series will continuously keep coming back for more. I can’t be sure, but I anticipate that either Huxley’s or Erra’s story is next, and I can’t wait to read all about it!”

  ~Missing Button Publications

  Prologue

  Underworld

  Ereshkigal, queen goddess of the Underworld, snuggled into the imposing chest of her husband King Nergal and sighed. Not exactly what she’d been hoping for, but after two thousand years of total abstinence, she’d take it.

  She gazed up at his face, relaxed in sleep, and wondered again at how beautiful one male could be. An imposing seven feet tall with bulging muscles, a taut abdomen, and the nicest ass she’d ever seen, Nergal was the only god she’d ever wanted. Sure, he was arrogant and demanding, but what god wasn’t? Between his dark, chestnut hair and his flashing, green glance, Eresh had lost her heart to him the minute she’d laid eyes on him when she was a young girl.

  Her sister, Ishtar Dinitu, had told her if she settled her fate on Nergal, she would be in for millennium of heartbreak, but there was nothing Ereshkigal could do. She’d followed her instincts and been rapturously happy for a few hundred years before her sister’s prophecy came true.

  Ereshkigal hoped, with all that had happened in the past few months, Nergal would unbend from his rigid and frustrating resolve not to fuck her, but it hadn’t happened. Not yet.

  She stretched luxuriously and grinned. She supposed being under the ministrations of his magical tongue was a good start. And what a talented tongue he had. Ereshkigal just wished that he’d lost all of his restraint, and after giving her a most amazing orgasm, he’d succumbed to their mutual lust and made use of his luscious cock.

  Well, she wasn’t going to lament his intentional oversight, nor would she become irrational and demanding. That was what had put the nail in a very dead coffin the last time, and driven him away completely. No. She would take what she could get and plot patiently for everything else. She’d learned a few tricks over the ages. Let him see if he could resist her much longer.

  Eresh reached across Nergal’s large body, lifted his hand, and drew it over their entwined bodies, placing it on her ass. She cuddled in closer, feeling him stir, knowing he floated somewhere in never-land, halfway between sleeping and waking. She inched her fingers up under his loincloth and placed them over the thickening bulge of his dick, then yawned loudly—on purpose—and shut her eyes as his opened. Let him think she’d encircled his substantial girth unconsciously, and see how long it took him to get back to sleep. She had trouble keeping the smug satisfaction she felt from her face as her husband’s cock became fully erect.

  She’d have that hot penetration she craved before long, whether the king could wrap his brain around it or not.

  Chapter One

  “What the fuck? Absu,” Enten screamed as he fell. Suddenly corporeal, the god of winter no longer had the ability to stay airborne, and he cartwheeled in panic as he plummeted from the sky.

  It is your lucky day, my friend. He heard Absu chortle from above. You will thank me when you awaken. I cannot wait to witness your reaction.

  Enten had two thoughts as the beach rushed up to meet him. The first? He would fucking kill Absu the next time he saw him. The second? Since he’d become embodied, his Chosen waited below. Enten only hoped he wouldn’t look too beat up when he met the woman he’d been waiting for all of his life.

  ****

  “Holy shit, what…?” Glory Wingfeather looked around from her seat on the ground. Had anybody else seen that? Probably not. With this self-absorbed crowd, she’d be surprised if they noticed anything but themselves unless the seas actually opened up to swallow them whole.

  But what had it been? She had just witnessed the largest bird she’d ever seen falling, not flying, down from the sky. Or perhaps a part had dropped off an airplane headed into Logan Airport. That had to be it. She rose to her feet and brushed sand off her butt. Any excuse for a break. She would go have a look.

  “Take half an hour, kids.” Glory was only twenty-six, as opposed to the rest of the crowd who maxed out at twenty-two, but she felt much older and often acted as den mother as well as boss. She made sur
e, before walking away, that her giddy charges all got under cover, not inadvertently reddening from the hot sun.

  Size nine feet encased in canvas high-tops in deference to the rock strewn beaches, brought Glory toward the other end of the island. Her work, carried out on the western drumlin, meant she hadn’t explored the east end yet. That would soon be remedied. She loped, more than walked, wondering what she would find, but more anxious to enjoy an unexpected break. It felt good to be away from all the perfect, lithe young bodies in her charge, if only for a few minutes.

  Glory was considered tall at five foot nine. It went along with her big feet and slender but boyish figure. She lamented constantly her lack of breasts and hips, always wondering if her figure or her prominent Cleopatra-esque nose kept her—mostly—date free. If it was her figure, maybe by the time she reached her forties, when everyone else her age began to sag, she might attract a man or two.

  Taking stock, Glory knew she wasn’t all bad news. Her skin, which was a dusky, sun-kissed, mocha brown―a result of African American, Native American, and other unknown heritage―was completely blemish free and smooth. Her overly large mahogany-colored eyes were framed by thick, dark lashes. But then there was her hair. She shoved it out of her face as the wind whipped around. Dammit. Her twist of deep-black curls never behaved. Glory kept it short, just off her shoulders, so she didn’t have to think about it too much.

  She walked across the spit that separated the two halves of the island, beginning to doubt she’d seen anything at all. Had something really dropped from the sky? Once over the sandbar, the beach would take a sharp turn to the south before bending west again. Glory couldn’t see around the corner, but once she could, she’d know if she’d imagined things. If she had been hallucinating, she’d just turn back, relishing the brief period of solitude.

  The terrain presented roughly after many recent storms. The beach having been strewn with rocks. Glory had to watch her feet so she didn’t slip or twist an ankle. She snorted. If she hurt herself, none of the young people she was with would think to come to her rescue. If she didn’t return, it would be the boat operator—wanting to be paid—who would wonder where she was.

  Glory turned the corner and tromped several yards, putting up a hand and shielding her eyes from the sun.

  “Oh my God.” She gasped and broke into a sprint, no longer worried about a twisted ankle. Just ahead, a person lay prone in the sand. Dead still. Had someone fallen from a plane? Glory had read a story last year where a person hid in the wheel well of a jet, became frozen, and plunged to their death before the jet landed at Logan Airport. She swallowed convulsively as she approached the inert figure. Glory wasn’t squeamish, but what would a body look like after landing hard from such a fall?

  She got within twenty feet of the person, and noticed a large, barely clothed male. Glory stopped and took a breath into her lungs, which she’d lost due to fear. She was an avid runner and not prone to breathlessness.

  There was no blood. As far as she could see. Did that mean the guy was dead before he hit the ground? Wasn’t that a thing? That dead people didn’t bleed? Glory approached cautiously.

  He looked to be in perfect shape…and dammit, she meant perfect. Glory could tell he was well over six feet, even lying at her feet. His dark skin, maybe from a Middle-Eastern descent, lay taut and flawless, stretched over exquisitely sculpted muscles. He wore what looked to be a cloth of some kind wrapped around his hips, which led Glory to believe her first assumption had to be true. This guy had to be a stowaway on a plane from another country. She moved a little closer.

  His dreadlocks had been cropped neat, shoulder length and interspersed with braids adorned with what looked to be solid-gold beads. Couldn’t the guy have sold some of those to buy himself passage to Boston, instead of risking his life and ending up dead?

  Glory trembled. She’d never touched a lifeless body before, but she had to buck up and do it. If even a remote possibility existed that the guy lived, she needed to find out.

  “Okay, buddy,” she said to calm herself. “I’m just going to move close to you and feel for a pulse.” She approached, squatted on her heels, and slowly brought her hand up to the side of his neck.

  Glory snatched her hand back in horror. “Argh! No. Your body is completely cold.” Oh God. So cold, in fact, that the wheel well theory was now an absolute in her brain.

  “Oh, you poor man.” Tears welled in her eyes before she dashed them away. She laid a trembling palm on his vast chest. “No one deserves to die like that.”

  Wait. What? Was that a heartbeat? No. It wasn’t possible. The guy resembled an ice pop. She moved her hand to just over his heart. Damn. She was not mistaken. There came a steady thump, thump from his chest.

  The breath thing. The breath thing. She scrambled in her pocket, frantic now to find the truth. Glory always kept a small compact in her jeans, and she now fumbled to withdraw it. She opened the shell with trembling fingers and stuck it under the big man’s nose. It instantly fogged.

  “Oh my God. You’re still breathing.” Her brain regrouped.

  She had to do something fast. The victim was alive…but for how long? She quickly analyzed the facts, known and implied. He was obviously hypothermic and had most likely smashed every bone in his body from the fall. He needed help quickly, and she’d left her phone back at the site. What to do?

  She fought back borderline hysteria, and told herself if he’d survived the fall, a few extra minutes to figure out a course of action shouldn’t make any difference. As to how the guy still lived? Maybe, like when a totally inebriated drunk driver crashed, his body had stayed so loose, he’d suffered little injury. Was it possible a frozen guy falling from above would experience the same cosmic forgiveness?

  Frozen guy. Warmth. That was it. Glory tugged at the buttons of her shirt. She had a cotton long sleeve covering over her ever present spandex tank, and it felt right for Glory to get the man warm. She slipped the material down her arms and draped the small bit of shirt over his massive chest, then groaned. That wouldn’t do. He was so big, and there was too much skin for her meager shirt to make any difference. Why the hell had she left her cell phone back at the site?

  She tried to think rationally. Okay. Check for injuries.

  Without moving the man’s neck or head, Glory dug a little into the sand beneath him, and ran her hand over the back of his skull and down his spine. No blood, nothing smashed. It really was a miracle.

  Next, she picked up an arm and moved her fingers gently from his shoulder to his fingertips. His arm lay heavy in her hands, but Glory was strong, and moved as quickly as possible, amazed that nothing felt broken. She moved and repeated the process on his other arm. Same result. This was some very strange shit.

  ****

  Enten became aware that someone’s hands ran over his body. Soft fingers probed his arms. He kept his eyes closed. Sensations overwhelmed him. He held still while the gentle touch moved up to his shoulder, dropping away to begin again at his foot. The competent digits wandered up and over his knee, headed for his quad. If the touch went any higher, Enten didn’t know if he could control his awakening cock. After all, it had been almost four hundred years since he and his immortal penis had felt human contact. Enten and most of his buddies lamented being tactilely challenged.

  Twelve gods resided in a large mansion in the Blue Hills of Massachusetts, left to a fate of invisibility years ago when they’d failed in their mission to protect a human for whom they had been sent to Earth. Two gods―Marduk and Anshar―had subsequently become flesh again. They’d each been given a second chance, meeting and successfully protecting women―Tess and Lenore―who then became their Chosen…their fated mates. And as well as everlasting love, the now-goddesses had gifted the two immortals with the ability to, once again, become visible at will.

  It had been discovered that both females descended from other gods in the house; a result of indiscriminate copulating during the deitys’ time in Merrymount, the
1600s village where they’d sealed their fates. The bonus for that fucking god? Sperm donors who had sired the bloodline resulting in Chosen, would also become corporeal—albeit only when the progeny in question was within one hundred yards.

  On a different note, Dagon―a rogue god and previous nemesis of the Blue Hills gang—but also a direct ancestor of the new goddess, Lenore, had found his Chosen in Tess’s twin sister, Holly. The debate was on as to whether this new couple would get to live in the compound—aka, the Tiny Taj or T-Taj. Some of the gods, even after Dagon had proven worthy, didn’t trust the god’s darker side.

  The twin’s—Holly and Tess—had a brother, Huxley Abelard, who was a resident of the Blue Hills as well. He, in an unusual twist, could see and converse with the invisible immortals and had become helpful with his willingness to aid the rest of them with finding their Chosen, a daunting task, to say the least. Huxley currently remained in his own form of Hell―a relentless pull to the doctor in residence.

  The gods had discovered Doctor Dani-Lee and procured her services when Tess required stitches at the local hospital. Dani had been a valuable find. The good doctor had since taken on the challenge of caring for the immortals. And even though she couldn’t see any of the ethereal bodies in the house, she proved damned good at fixing up the ones she could.

  To round out the household, Lenore’s mother and grandmother, Angie and Addie May, both witches, had joined Lenore at the compound. They now lived—along with their cat Wizarr—in one of the snug arts and crafts cottages that had been built in the vast Blue Hills compound, adjoining the main house.

  And now, giving credence to the hands driving him nuts, Enten had somehow joined the ranks of the embodied.

  Chapter Two

  Enten drew tangy salt, sand, and seaweed odor into his rejuvenated nostrils and that, along with the smooth stroking of skin on skin, made lying still almost impossible.

  Luckily, the hands stopped just south of his loincloth before dropping to his other foot. The fingers moved in the same gentle way, and this time the actions were accompanied by a soft feminine voice, imploring him to be okay.