Accidentally in Love with…a God?(Accidentally Yours #1)(18)
Author: Mimi Jean Pamfiloff

“No. Promise now, or I turn around.”

“I must see you…safely back.” There was a long silent pause. “I will not promise.”

“I’m out of here! And don’t try talking to me anymore because the first thing I’m doing is checking into the psych ward where they’re going to medicate me so heavily that I won’t even hear myself. I bet Mexico has great drugs!”

“Emma, you have to—”

“No. You shut the hell up! You’re not even real. You never were!”

“Emma, I’m sorry, but you’ve given me no other choice.”

I felt something soft and furry rub against my leg. “Holy—” I stumbled back, falling to the ground.

Inches from my face, a giant black cat hissed, its bright green eyes boring a hole through my soul. I quickly eyed the water. It was looking much more inviting now; cats didn’t like water, right? I slowly rose to my knees, holding out my hands. “Good kitty. Stay kitty.” I inched toward the edge of the cenote. It was a long way down, but maybe I could—

The cat took a small step forward and displayed its incisors.

“Never mind!” I jumped and hit the water sideways with a loud slap!, plunging several feet under. My head broke through the surface where I saw the jaguar leaning over the edge, preparing to pounce in after me. No doubt it wanted to play “bobbing for humans.”

My heart pounded furiously, and for a moment, I forgot all about my little insanity dilemma.

I looked for something to throw—a fallen branch or magic floating rock—but there were just my sneakers.

Treading water, I awkwardly used one foot to pry off a shoe and chucked it at the furry beast. It hissed as my shoe hit the concave wall of the cenote several feet below. “Dammit!” I slipped off the other and overthrew. “Christ. This can’t be happening!” I cried. The cat was leaning over the edge; if it didn’t jump, it might fall in, anyway.

I did several three-sixties in the water, hoping to find something—anything—to throw. But there was nothing except…

Near the wall directly behind me, a miniature drum-shaped object bobbed in the water. I swam toward it and tried to hug it into my chest. The jar, ten inches wide and made of a dark gray ceramic material, rolled. I maneuvered the jar closer and got a firm grasp. In one adrenaline charged motion, I kicked with all my strength and hurled it over my head at the cat.

I nailed it right on the head. “Yes!” The hairy monster scampered away, deciding I wasn’t a worthy snack.

I felt utterly ecstatic for two glorious seconds until I realized I was still in hot water…or, funky cenote water. Whichever.

I pivoted in the pool, sadly noticing there was no way to climb out. With its ten-foot-high inward sloping walls, slick with algae, I was stuck. “Lord love a duck,” I muttered. “Can this get any worse?”

Silence.

“Guy? Hello?” But there was no Guy, no humming, no toucans. It was beyond eerie. “Guy? Are you there? What do I do now? I’m stuck here.”

Again, nothing but sweet silence. A lovely way to end my life. Except, I wasn’t ready to die yet.

Something tickled the back of my brain, something I was supposed to do. Something Guy had told me.

Yes! The phrase!

That fleeting thought lasted two more seconds until I realized that ready or not, I was going to die. The water began swirling violently like someone had triggered the auto-flush—pulling me down. I flopped my arms wildly in the water, but it took less than a minute before it won.

Chapter TWELVE

When Emma hit the water, Guy poised himself like a racehorse waiting to explode from the gate; the anticipation was almost unbearable. So many years he’d suffered inside this frigid, watery prison, cut off from his world, tormented by the physical comforts—air and warmth—just outside his reach.

Worst of all, that torment had deeply scarred him, weakened him. He’d once been free of the smorgasbord of dysfunctional neediness that plagued humans. Now, he was filled with it. The need to kill his enemy, to punish them for hurting Gabriela. The need to see Emma with his own eyes and touch her. Perhaps, even beg her forgiveness for the pain he’d caused her.

The need to feel the fibers of his world tugging through his soul. Hell, he was even tormented by the need for food. He salivated, thinking about the delectable human treats he’d once prepared in the kitchen of his human home in Italy.

Weak. Weak. Weak, he thought, hoping that time would heal him and return him to his former, heartless deity-self.

But he doubted it. Seriously doubted it. Sharing his life with a human female for twenty-two years had drastically, permanently changed him. Fate always took such pleasure in teaching humility, even to the gods.

Right now, for example. A minute had ticked by without incident. Emma must have recited the phrase already. Something must be wrong. The portal remained closed.

But why? Emma had enough of their blood in her veins to open it. Well, so he thought. Could he have been wrong? But he was never wrong. He’d had seven sufferable decades to think through every possible explanation of how the cenote’s curse functioned, and only one made sense: the Maaskab had used dark energy to shift the chemistry of the water, thereby altering the charge of energy needed to complete the final step of his transformation into a tangible state.

Unable to solidify, he could not enter the physical world nor could he create the sound waves necessary to reopen the portal. And while humans didn’t have the necessary physical make up to open the portal, Emma had enough of their light that she should’ve been able to open the portal and not end up trapped herself. After all, she wasn’t bound to the cenote to create her form.

Dammit! He’d been so sure this would work. Perhaps his mind had rotted with cursed water.

Guy screamed and struggled violently under the water, unable to make her hear him. His hand passed through her leg as if he were merely a ghost. They were both in the pool, but in two different dimensions. Emma would die in this horrible place, and Guy would watch helplessly, the memory forever branded into his essence. He’d lose the only being in the world he felt truly connected to.

“Emma! Emma!” he screamed, pounding his fists on the underside of the water’s surface. He knew his efforts were useless, but he couldn’t stop trying.

“Emma, if you can hear me, I am sorry, sweetheart. I never meant for this to happen.” He floated at her side, hoping by some miracle of the gods something would change, that she’d somehow sense him. Useless.