Accidentally in Love with…a God?(Accidentally Yours #1)(31)
Author: Mimi Jean Pamfiloff

“Don’t just stand there, girl,” she whispered coldly, hanging halfway through the door. “Get your ass over here. Let’s go.” She snapped her fingers and pointed to the floor directly in front of her.

No. She did not just call me like a dog. Okay. Yes. Yes, she did. “Snapping only works if you rub my tummy and give me a treat. Did you bring one?”

The woman stared with confusion.

“Didn’t think so,” I said. “Why don’t you try telling me who you are, then?” I hopped off the stool, considering the option of using it as a weapon.

The room, now stuffed with her ill-omened energy, closed in on me. Just then I realized she was one of them. Guy’s kind. I could feel it in my bones.

“I don’t have time for this,” she scowled. She walked over and stared at my face. We were exactly the same height. “Listen you idiot. They’ll be here any second, and if you don’t want to end up having your throat slit, then you’d better hurry.”

“Guy’s goon squad?” I asked. “They want to kill me?”

“Not those tame little zookeepers, girl, the Maaskab.” She started toward the door, motioning for me to follow.

I felt my skin crawl. I had no idea who this woman was, but she didn’t give me warm-fuzzies. For all I knew she was working for the Maaskab or for the monster in my dream. Christ! That’s when I remembered. The monster had said someone was coming for me. How in the world could I have forgotten that? “Who the hell are you, and how do you know they’re coming?” I asked.

“I’ve been watching and tracking them. Not so easy, either. They’ve been learning how to create portals and putting them all over the stupid planet. Not even I can do that! Dammit! Though, they’re not very good at it yet. The portals don’t stay open long, so it makes them easier to corner when I pick them off. And by picking off, I mean I sometimes run them over with my Jeep and lob hand grenades.”

She shrugged casually. “Good times.” She froze and stared out the window as if listening to something, and then she snapped back to life. “But all play and no work, makes me a lazy…fork? Dork?” She scratched her temple. “What word rhymes with work?”

I stared blankly trying to figure out what to do or how to answer. This lady was crazy. “Lurk?” I answered hesitantly, trying to buy a little time to think.

“No! There is no time for lurking,” she barked. “There’s an army surrounding this place as we speak, and I can’t fight them all. We have to run.”

Crazy was too kind. She was bat-shit crazy. “But this place is as secure as the White

House—”

“Oh, for the love of gods. If my brother didn’t need you for his eternal happiness, and spiritual growth, and blah, blah, love, blah, blah…” She stormed across the room again. I wanted to back away, but there was nowhere for me to go; I was cornered by the wall and the bookshelf. The redhead grabbed my shoulder. I stared into her incensed eyes as they turned confused.

“What the—it’s not working.” She glared at her hands.

Then I realized she was trying to do that Vulcan grip thing on me like Guy had done. Not good. With my luck, I’d wake up in two days chained to a rock in a cave somewhere. No thanks.

I took advantage of her momentary distraction and slid several large books from the shelf. She let out a tiny curse as they hit her on the head. That split second was long enough for me to sidestep past her and bolt for the door.

“Tommaso!” I screamed as I made it out to the hall. I was almost to the staircase when she sacked me from behind. I landed palms down on the tiled floor.

“No you don’t, little girl,” she scathed. “I’m turning up the volume, and you’re coming with me.” As her hands hit my ankles, a numbing sensation crawled up my legs. She’d apparently got her hands working again. Lucky me.

I twisted onto my back and wiggled one leg away, but the sensation was slowly traveling up my thigh. I couldn’t kick her like she deserved. That felt very disappointing.

I heard the thunder of loud footsteps rolling through the great room below toward the bottom of the stairs. I knew it was Tommaso and the other men. “Now you’re going to get it!” I growled.

The redhead looked down at me, raining irritation. “Yeah, right. I’ve been wishing for someone to give ‘it’”— she made quotation marks in the air with her hands—“to me for hundreds of centuries, and suddenly you think those mongrels can do the job? The only thing I’m going to get is exiled by Votan for hurting his little Uchi-pets and not rescuing his demigoddess.”

Was Votan Guy’s real name? And did this crazy woman just say “hundreds of centuries”? And was she talking about sex? Who the hell was his demigoddess?

“Cimil, let Emma go,” Tommaso ordered from the bottom of the stairs.

“I don’t take orders from humans,” Cimil hissed. She leaped over me, bounding down the stairs. The grunting and screaming started immediately. As for me, I could barely move. The numbness was spreading through my body like poison.

I managed to flop onto my stomach and drag my way to the top of the stairs where a tiny click, click, click like a marble bouncing caught my attention. The amulet Tommaso gave me had come loose and was rolling down the stairs. I figured I’d retrieve it later…if I was still alive, because down below, chaos ensued.

At least a dozen men were being tossed about the room like rag dolls. Oddly enough, they didn’t appear to be attacking Cimil, but were instead defending themselves. Well, attempting to defend themselves. Very unsuccessfully. Within sixty seconds, Cimil was doubled over laughing in the center of the room that now looked like it had been hit by the Tasmanian Devil. Like the other men, Tommaso was lying on his back holding his head between his hands.

Cimil crouched over Tommaso, gleefully took him by the neck, and then lifted him with one hand. She shook him violently. “You need to learn your manners. I am your master too, and don’t you ever forget it.”

“I have no master!” he croaked, gasping and clawing at her hands.

Her face went stone cold. There was no doubt in my mind she’d kill him. In that moment, something powerful began percolating deep within the pit of my stomach. It was that same sensation I’d had earlier when Tommaso lost his temper and kissed me. It was as if a circuit had been tripped, activating some sort of dormant energy. The numbing pain began to dissipate from my body as my muscles vibrated and tingled with energy.