Accidentally…Over? (Accidentally Yours #5)(19)
Author: Mimi Jean Pamfiloff

This is very troubling.

Back off, man, you need to return to Ashli. Whatever troubles him can wait.

Máax’s gaze wondered back to Maggie. With her wide brown eyes and freckled nose, her aura of innocence was just the sort a deity—him, okay; him!—couldn’t turn away from.

Yes. Yes, you can. Think of Ashli. He had to see her again soon. Perhaps touch her silky, soft lips and get yet another glimpse of that perfect, smooth, round ass or those gorgeous, cocoa-brown br**sts with the pink little nip—

Maggie hiccuped once more and then snorted between heart-wrenching sobs.

Hell! Bloody deity hell, hell, hell!

Máax knew this wasn’t a detour he could afford, but his nature to ensure a just world drew him right in like a moth to a flame, like a bee to honey, like Cimil to a BOGO sale on pirate costumes. (She’d started some idiotic holiday having to do with pirates. How did a god have time for such frivolous bull crap?)

“Brother?” Máax placed his palms against the glass of Chaam’s cell, ignoring the raging voices exploding in all directions. “What is the matter?” Besides this f**king apocalypse.

Maggie looked up with wet doe eyes. “Máax! You have to help him. Please tell him! Tell him it’s not his fault!”

Chaam didn’t bother to lift his drooping head. His long hair hung like a flag of defeat. “Don’t defend me, Maggie. Don’t do it. Tell the vampires you’ve relinquished your love for me so they’ll set you free. Just… fucking go, woman.”

“How can you say that?” This time she wiped her tears with the backs of her hands. “After everything we’ve been through.”

It was true. Everyone knew the two had been through their share of pain and struggles. After meeting Maggie, his one true love, Chaam had been possessed by dark energy, committed a series of heinous atrocities—started breeding like a rabbit with random women and then murdered his female children to use them as some sort of apocalyptic biofuel (yeah, like he said, heinous)—then had been captured and imprisoned inside a real-life “temple of doom.” Maggie had also been imprisoned inside one of the tablets. Well, not inside, but in the dimension that existed between everything. Not pretty. Chaam had since been cured, thanks to Máax and their sister Ixtab—but Chaam had a mountain of baggage to deal with.

“Leave! Before I kill you!” Chaam raged and then sank back into his pit of despair.

Maggie hesitated for a moment and then wrapped her arms around Chaam’s hunched-over frame as he began to sob.

Saints of yore! Máax moaned in his head. Gods didn’t cry. Ever. This is too much to bear.

“No, baby.” Maggie squared her shoulders. “I won’t go. I don’t care what you say. I’ve watched you suffer”—Maggie pointed toward Cimil’s cell—“because of that evil… evil cow whore! I’m not leaving you! And I won’t rest until I see her pay.”

Máax glanced at Cimil, who seemed to be looking at someone nonexistent, and mouthed the words, “Cow whore? What the hell?” She then began singing “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” while merrily smacking that paddleball.

Máax groaned. He didn’t have time for this f**king drama. He had a crisis to tend to.

“Chaam. Brother. Tell me why you are so distraught,” Máax said, already suspecting he knew the answer.

Chaam shook his head with regret, the tears sheeting down his cheeks. “I killed them, my own daughters. I seduced their mothers. I had children with them. Then I slaughtered my own. I am a monster.”

Maggie punched Chaam, a man twice her size, in the shoulder. “No! That was Cimil! She made you do it.”

“No!” Chaam argued. “If I’d been strong enough, I could’ve resisted her. I’m weak and evil.”

Maggie looked up at Máax, and for a moment he wondered if she could see him. But of course, she could not. “Please help him, Máax. He trusts you. He knows you can’t lie. Tell him it’s not his fault.”

Máax took a deep, satisfying breath. These were the moments he lived for. Setting things right, helping others, serving truth. Yep, made him feel like a complete badass. Of course, he was a badass. Who else could pull off the kind of shit he did? No one. That’s why he would be the one to save the world. Okay, Ashli would, but he was her protector. Same thing.

Máax said with a loud voice for all to hear, “It is not your fault, brother. You are not evil. You have done no wrong.”

Chaam’s head snapped up. “What?”

Yes, Máax had gotten his attention, because everyone knew that Máax did not lie. Ever.

Máax crossed his arms over his chest, not that anyone could see him. Fucking sucked to be invisible. “I have undone every evil act, brother. Your children live on and you are free to enjoy a happy and peaceful life with Maggie, and blah, blah, you’re welcome, blah, blah, blah.”

Cimil suddenly jumped up and started clapping. “Yippee! Give that man a gold star! Woo!”

Chaam stood, crossed the cell, and looked straight at Máax. Well, straight at his ear. “What is the meaning of this?”

“Brother,” Máax said, “why the f**k do you think I made those trips to the past? To prove my badassery cannot be surpassed? I already know that.”

Chaam stared, speechless.

“Nice shooting the shit with you, as always, but I must—”

“I don’t understand,” Chaam said.

“I saved every one of them,” Máax admitted. “None have died by your hand, and most are happily living out their lives. And for those whom I could not find a safe home, I brought them forward.”

“You mean…” Maggie’s words crackled with emotion. “Those women, the Payals who can’t remember who they are?”

Máax’s patience wore thinner by the second. “Yes.” What? Did he have to spell it out? There had been approximately a thousand women of Chaam’s descent (called Payals), spanning over the course of eighty or so years, whom Máax had quietly plucked from death’s doorstep, relocating them before their fates took a turn for the worse. He’d helped all but two hundred find new lives, safe from Chaam’s evil henchmen, the Maaskab. Those two hundred had been severely traumatized, leaving him no choice but to employ the help of his sister, the Goddess of Forgetfulness. The women were now safe, living right there on the Uchben base where they could start anew. Not a perfect ending to their stories, but sometimes perfect wasn’t possible.