Accidentally…Evil? (Accidentally Yours #3.5)(16)
Author: Mimi Jean Pamfiloff

Chaam sucked in a deep breath, hoping that in time his sweet Maggie would heal. And with more time, grow to forgive him.

“Chaam? What’s going on?” Maggie’s panicked voice echoed through the chamber.

Christ no. “Leave, Maggie!” He did not want to have to execute her father right in front of her.

Confusion swept across her face the moment she registered the sight of her father gripping a large dagger. “Daddy? What are you doing? Why is Itzel tied to that altar?”

Chaam swallowed. She’d obviously just figured out her father was not right. “Maggie, honey, just leave—”

“Don’t you dare! Don’t you dare call me ‘honey’! Not after what you did!”

“What did you do to her?” Her father took one step forward with his trembling knife. “Did you touch my daughter?”

Oh hell. The man was going to attack, and Chaam’s mind was ten steps ahead. Step ten, destruction. Him. Maggie. Their hope for a future. It was one thing to kill her father, but it was another to make her watch.

Perhaps he could convince the man to come quietly.

Maggie’s father turned away toward the altar, raised the knife, and jerked it toward the young woman’s heart. Chaam lunged and caught the knife just in time with one hand. With his other free hand, Chaam wrenched the man’s neck. Blood poured from a tear at the base of the man’s skull as he fell over the woman on the altar. His red syrupy liquid flowed onto her face and she gurgled in horror, then passed out.

Suddenly, a violent wind kicked up inside the chamber behind him. Chaam watched in terror as a black empty vortex sucked Maggie inside.

“No!” He leapt forward, reaching for Maggie.

Horror filled her face as she reached for him, too, and for a brief moment, their eyes met. So many unspoken words passed between them. She knew Chaam was sorry for what he’d done, and she forgave him. “I love you,” her eyes said.

She loves me?

She slid away, disappearing into the darkness.

Wherever she was going, he would join her. He would not pass one second of his existence without her, without being able to tell her he loved her back.

He lunged forward and slammed into a cold, dark wall.

The portal closed.

Chaam’s heart turned a million shades of darkness.

Chapter 7

Sprawled out on the floor, Chaam’s head lolled from side to side. Maggie was gone. Maggie was gone. Maggie. Was. Gone. And mind-crippling rage was first on the scene. Self-loathing, the second to arrive. And third…

“Found him!” Cimil stood at the bottom of the steps, happy as an evil clam, pointing at Maggie’s father’s lifeless body.

“Fucking hell, Cimil,” he groaned.

“Wow.” She rolled her head and surveyed the room. “Looks like you had quite the shin-diggedy-dig party. Didn’t know bloodbaths were back in fashion. Personally, I’m tired of mud, so yippy! It’s my lucky day!”

She was always so damned evil. And late. “Where the hell have you been?”

“I stopped to have this frock-o-licious ensemble made. And by made, I mean I stole it.” She now wore an elaborately beaded white dress. “My mariachi suit was a loaner, and el Señor Trumpet had a wedding gig. But lucky me, I found this. Boy, did that bride look pissed. Maybe Señor Trumpet will loan her his outfit.” She grinned. “So, you need some help, yes?”

He scraped himself up off the grimy, blood-soaked floor and charged. She moved to the side, away from his open claw, but wasn’t fast enough. He slammed her against the wall. “Fuck you. This is your fault. You were supposed to find Maggie’s father.”

“Yeah. Funny you should mention that,” she grunted. “I actually took a peekee-poo into the future and saw all paths led to this one. No escape.”

He released her. “What are you saying?”

Cimil rubbed her neck. “This was Fate’s plan all along. You were meant to lose Maggie.”

Her words crushed his very soul. “No. This can’t be right. Fate wants me to suffer?”

“Yep! But there are many paths forward potentially ending in your happiness.”

He braced his two arms against the wall next. The air no longer wanted to enter his lungs, but the darkness did. This entire place was saturated with it, and his agony only seemed to amplify the potency. No wonder Maggie’s father had turned evil. But there might still be hope for himself. Maybe. He wanted to fight. “What do you mean?”

“What I mean is I can reunite you with your precious mortal.”

Could she? Cimil was known for her deception. That said, she was the Goddess of the Underworld. Her powers were an enigma, even to the gods.

“How?” he asked.

“Simple.” Cimil gyrated her hips.

Un-fucking-believable. “Are you dancing?”

Still circling her h*ps and staring off into space, she replied, “Uh-uh. I’ve got a Hula Hoop contest tonight. I’m gonna win this time. I can feeeel it!”

Chaam raised his open hand. “I don’t know what a Hula Hoop is, but you’re not winning shit without your head.”

She stopped her strange little dance and then rolled her eyes. “Fine! I will prevent Margaret from crossing over into the eternal light of the universe where she would be recycled—perhaps into a tree or a bullfrog or a chicken potpie. Or a very naughty clown. One never knows. Then we will find a way to reunite the two of you.”

“Are you telling me she’s… she’s…” A black cloud besieged him, and in that moment, the invisible shackles which had compelled him to protect the mortal world for thousands of years, snapped. Every. Single. Fucking. One of them.

“Maggie is dead?” Chaam sank down. He’d never imagined such emptiness and despair could exist inside him. It was like a cancer fed by his rage. A rage that would never cease until he had her back.

He now understood the true meaning of torment. He now understood Maggie’s father.

“Tell me what to do,” he mumbled.

“How far are you willing to go?” Cimil crouched in front of him. A sinister twinkle gleamed in her eyes.

“I would do anything.”

“Peachy! There are two options. One, you reopen the portal with the tablet—good luck with that, by the way—it’s nearly impossible.”

“Impossible?”

“Yes. Impossible. As in almost never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever… ever!”