Sun God Seeks…Surrogate? (Accidentally Yours #3)(25)
Author: Mimi Jean Pamfiloff

“Oh my God! Who do you think you are? I’m a grown woman—I can take care of myself. And for the record, you can’t ‘find yourself dead.’ That’s silly. ”

A low growl came through the phone. “Where?”

“I want it back! Where’s the stick, Kinich? What did you do with it? What did it say?”

“Stick? You have Maaskab trying to kill you, and you’re worried about a twig? Why didn’t you stay with Andrus?” He then grumbled something that sounded like “foolish morals.” Or did he say “foolish mortals?”

“But you said the monster wasn’t trying to kill me.”

“Yet!” he screamed. “Not yet! But soon! Gods dammit, woman. Tell me where you are so I can come get you.”

Yet? I must’ve missed that part. Oooh. Not good. “I’m…” I paused. Something on the floor right next to the vanity caught my eye. The pregnancy test. It must have fallen.

I plucked it off the floor, almost dropping it with my trembling hands. It took only a moment for my eyes to deliver the answer I needed.

My heart dropped to my ankles. “Oooh,” I said, followed by a slow breath out. “I’m—uh…uh…Good-bye, Kinich. I’ll be fine. Just—just leave me alone. Okay?”

“PENELOPE!!” He screamed before I hit End Call.

***

With three minutes to spare, I arrived at my class, grateful for the escape of one single, solitary, normal activity. I needed a distraction from the emotional hokey-pokey going on inside my head. Take my feelings toward Nick, for example. Was I in? Was I out? Or would I just keep shaking it all about?

Yikes. What a horrible analogy.

Fine. Let’s move to hands.

What? Now you’re an octopus? Because you’ll need lots of hands to weigh the pros and cons of this cluster.

Ugh! Stop it.

On one hand, his arrogance made me want to knee him right in his man-fritters. And yet, I had to admit, a part of me felt slightly terrified because of what I’d seen him do. It wasn’t…normal for a man to have those abilities.

Then, on the other hand, I liked him. A lot. He made me feel things that, frankly, I didn’t know one person could feel for another—like earth-shattering, burning, uncontrollable lust. Then there was that connection. It ran deep into my bones, though I didn’t know why or care to truly admit it. And, finally, I had an irrational desire to make him mine and never let go, which led to my next emotional dance-off between loss and relief. No hokey-pokey for those two. Uh-uh. The pregnancy issue was a definite tango. Maybe even a lambada followed by some hula dancing and a luau. With poi. I shivered. Poi was gross.

In any case, with so much noise inside my head and heart, I needed a healthy distraction, and the kids, ages three to five, were exactly what I needed. Nothing eased my heavy thoughts more than seeing their eager little faces as they laughed and punched and screamed “Hai-ya!” I loved children.

In college, I was a karate camp counselor three summers in a row. I supposed I liked it because teaching was something I was good at. I showed the kids respect. They listened. We understood each other. Simple.

Relationships with grown-ups were always so complex. Hokey-pokey case in point…Nick.

Well, at least now it was slightly less complex. Not being pregnant was, first and foremost, a huge relief, despite any irrational mixed feelings I might have.

And never, ever, ever—cross my heart and hope to die, stick a champagne roofie in my eye—would I again put myself in that situation. Yes, yes. There were extenuating circumstances—like being drugged—but that didn’t excuse my stupidity for having gotten mixed up with these people.

It’s in the past so get the hell over it.

I would. I knew I would. I simply needed time. Lots of time. And to talk to my mom. The good news out of all this was her being off in Sweden getting her treatment, thanks to Cimil who let me keep the money just for “showing up to the party.”

Well, I sure as hell showed up. Danced on the frigging table and put a lampshade on my head, too!

While I packed up my gear and waved goodbye to my last student, I called Anne, my best friend in the whole world besides Jess. I’d met both my freshman year at a romance book club slash tapas cooking club called “We Take Off Our Tapas.” Anyhow, the three of us clicked and were friends ever since. They’d been especially good to me this past year while I’d been dealing with my mother.

“Penelope!” Anne squealed over the phone. “Where the hell have you been?”

I rubbed my forehead. “You would so never believe me in a million years. Hey, I need a favor. Can I stay with you for a while?”

“Sure. Is everything okay?” Anne asked.

I noticed a tall blond man dressed in black sweep past the plate glass window. He was larger than your average guy, which was noteworthy in itself, but what caught my attention was the way he moved. He sort of…

Floated?

“Um. Yeah. I’ll be there in a few. Okay?”

“Okay, girlie,” she said. “See you pronto.”

I hung up the phone, flung my duffel bag over my shoulder, and reached to flip off the lights. Something told me I was an idiot—yes, yes…again—for not telling Kinich where I was.

I toggled to Kinich’s number and was about to hit Send when the blond man came out of nowhere.

I shrieked and smashed my cell phone into the side of his face. He stumbled to the side and grunted. I didn’t look back as I bolted for the door and out onto the street. It was cold and dark, but at least there were people. I rounded the corner as a woman was getting out of a cab. I jumped in and slammed the door shut.

“Drive! Go! Go!” I screamed at the driver through the Plexiglas.

“Well…sure thing, baby cakes!” she said.

I flashed several glances over my shoulder, thankful not to see the man following.

“So, what are we running from, Penelope?”

Huh? I looked at the driver. “Oh my God. It’s you!”

“Miss me?” Cimil cackled as we screeched into traffic.

CHAPTER 15

Unable to believe his thousand-year-old Viking eyes, Viktor stared at the woman’s cell phone in his hand. There, on the tiny screen, peering out from behind the streaks of blood—damn, that human hits hard!—was the image of the blond female he’d dreamt of for five centuries.

His heart pounded inside his chest, but his body remained immobile. He knew he was supposed to go after the human girl, Penelope, but this was bigger than Niccolo—his best friend for the last millennium who’d sent him to watch over her—this was Fate’s handy work. It had to be. Because only Fate had such a wicked, sadistic sense of humor.