Accidentally in Love with…a God?(Accidentally Yours #1)(35)
Author: Mimi Jean Pamfiloff

Cimil had said it, but what was the big deal? “Are we playing Rumpelstiltskin now? Unbelievable! Just tell me! What are you?”

He said, “Over the centuries, humans believed us to be many things: fae, aliens, even vampires—since we can’t really die—but you’d call us…gods.”

“Sorry. Did you just say ‘gods’?”

He nodded stiffly.

I was definitely going to need to take up drinking. “Like as in Zeus or Aphrodite?”

“More like Erebus and Gaia—the original primordial gods. But we were never overthrown from Mount Olympus, because there isn’t one, and there are only fourteen of us. We also don’t marry or have children, except for—”

“Sorry, but did you say ‘gods?’” The idea wasn’t digesting. Not at all.

“We are very similar to you; we are made of energy; however, our control of it is highly evolved. Like comparing a tree monkey to an ape, if that makes it easier to understand.”

Was I supposed to be the tree monkey? Well, at least he was the ape. Fitting. “Where did you come from?”

“We don’t know. One day we were here, conscious of our existence but without any knowledge or recollection of how. As best as we can determine, we’re simply another species, another miracle of life just as you are. Only, we’re far superior in terms of our abilities, our domain is energy based, and we never die.”

“Huh?”

“Emma, I can’t give you a physics lesson right now.”

“Huh?” My mind reverted back to the word “god.”

He released a slow breath. “Everything in its most basic form is energy. Energy is our realm, our plane of existence. As a result, we can manipulate and use it in many ways. We don’t even require bodies to live, although to do our jobs here, we sometimes have to take a form.”

“Jobs?” They had jobs. Why wasn’t there anyone else here to listen to this?

“Like any living creature, we have a purpose,” he elaborated. “Ours happens to be keeping humans from destroying themselves. You wouldn’t believe how tiresome it is. Your species is very determined. But even if I wanted something different for myself, I couldn’t have it. My role is hardwired, instinctual.”

I walked across the room and ran my hands through my wild curls. His answers had just led to more questions. To top it off, my relationship with Guy, only now we were calling it a “bond” of all ridiculous things, felt more horrifying, like I was handcuffed to another planet I didn’t want to live on.

There was a light knock at the door. “Mr. Santiago, I’ve got everything loaded in the truck.”

“Thank you, Tommaso. We’ll be right there,” Guy said without shifting his eyes from my face.

“Why does he call you ‘Mr. Santiago’?”

“We have many names, more than I can remember sometimes. And I grew tired of Votan, so changed it.”

“Why?” I asked. It seemed odd that after—well, I don’t know how many years, actually—that he’d stop using one name and adopted a new one.

“We have to go now.”

He wasn’t going to answer? Fine. I had other more important questions. “You didn’t finish,” I grabbed his arm to stop him from leaving. A jolt of energy shot through the bones in my hand. “What am I?”

“Your grandmother’s father is one of us. So, I supposed, that makes you a little like us, just diluted. However, unlike the gods, your form appears to be entirely anchored in the physical world as normal human. We remain separate species.”

“Oh,” was all I could manage to say as my mind digested. I knew when Arturo called me a half-breed, it wasn’t going to be something good. But I kind of expected I was part gypsy or clairvoyant, maybe even a circus freak. But part supernatural deity? What the heck did that even mean? The only references I had were from Greek mythology or Latin American anthropology.

Could I spit fire?

Or grow corn?

Wait. Come to think of it, nothing good ever happened to the gods in those stories. They were always at war, killing each other, getting broken into a million pieces to become constellations…

All right. This was no time to crumble. I’d been through an excessive amount of terrifying events. So I needed to take that scary little rabbit hole I was about to dive down, fold it neatly in the palm of my hand, and shove it into my pocket, my Can’t Deal With This Now Pocket. Later, when I could process this, I’d take that journey. Until then, I wouldn’t try to comprehend, rationalize, or analyze.

Just get the answers, Emma, so you can survive this, so you can save your family. “So, why did that Scab call me a Payal?” I asked.

“Scab?”

“My new nickname for the witchdoctors. Maaskab—Scab.”

Guy looked utterly…indifferent. “Payal is Mayan for ‘key’. I supposed it likens to calling you ‘the missing link.’ Or, perhaps, it means the link between gods and humans. In any case, we don’t know why they want you.”

Missing link? How rude. “Whatever the reason, it can’t be good,” I said.

He nodded. “The Uchben report that the priests have been busy for decades, taking females. We’re guessing these women are other Payals or were my brother’s mates. And since there are accounts of the priests killing women, we can only guess the ‘Scabs’ are trying to eliminate our offspring.”

“Why? It’s not like we’ve done anything wrong.”

“Emma, Maaskab are evil. They’re our enemy. The last thing they want is more of us roaming the planet. Even demigoddesses like you.”

I shook my head; this was all too surreal. “That’s why they wanted my grandmother?”

Guy frowned and grabbed my hand. “Come, Emma. We should leave before they return. I need to get you somewhere safe.”

It was a simple gesture, holding my hand, but I couldn’t help but marvel at it. For so long, he’d been just a voice. Now he was real, standing next to me, touching me. A real, live god, no less.

“Hey. You’re touching me. Why doesn’t it hurt?”

“When I focus and keep my emotions in check, I can turn the volume down.” He smiled wickedly. “Or way up if you don’t behave.”

Great. He had built in Emma-Control.

“What happens when you lose focus?” I asked.

He raised one brow as if he was considering saying something flirty, then decided against it. Good choice. I wasn’t in a laughing mood. “When the energy inside me flows at full-strength, I could kill a human by touching them with my pinky.”