Sun God Seeks…Surrogate? (Accidentally Yours #3)(47)
Author: Mimi Jean Pamfiloff

Wait. This so didn’t make any sense. They couldn’t have taken down the Maaskab that quickly. Was it a trap?

Oh my gods. Oh my gods…

The unmistakable, hulking shadow of Brutus emerged from the nocturnal shadows. He signaled for me to follow.

I scrambled over. “What’s going on?”

Of course, he didn’t answer.

“Nice time to pull the mute card, Brutus. I’m beginning to see why Emma has it in for you.”

I thought I heard him chuckle, but couldn’t be certain.

Brutus whipped out a machete and hacked away at the small branches while we slogged forward. With my night-vision goggles everything resembled a leafy version of Tron. “Brutus, you have to tell me. Please?” I begged.

He marched ahead at a steady clip until we arrived at another clearing. A group of twenty men, Emma, and Guy congregated near a small hut. Several men gripped flashlights and everyone frantically debated.

This didn’t look good at all. “What’s going on?”

Emma turned toward me. “Oh, Penelope. Listen—”

“Where’s my mom?”

Guy stepped forward. “She is not here.”

My heart trembled. “What do you mean, ‘not here’?”

Emma gently squeezed my arm. “The village is empty.”

No. No. No! “Where’d they all go?”

“We do not know,” Guy answered. “Our satellites show this camp is occupied. Our people back in the control room also confirm they still see it as such.”

I flipped off my visor and looked around. “I don’t understand. How can they see Maaskab on the satellite, but there’s no one here? Have they hacked into your system?”

Guy shook his head. “Not likely. The Maaskab are not technologically savvy.”

Apparently not. This village reminded me of a pre-Hispanic version of the Renaissance Fair…but without the ale, hippies, or ouds.

“It is an illusion,” Guy said. “They are becoming more powerful with their dark arts by the day.”

That sounded bad. Really bad. “So what do we do? Are there other villages or places they could hide her?”

“I must return to my realm,” Guy stated acrimoniously. “I have a much better chance of spotting traces of them from there. I will also look for that goddamned sister of mine.”

“Cimil?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“If you find her, tell her I have a few bones to pick,” I griped.

“Get in line,” he responded.

“Do you have to leave?” Emma sounded on the verge of tears.

Guy cupped her cheek and kissed her deeply. She pulled back and whisked away a tear with her camouflage sleeve. “I’m sorry. I know the fiancée of the mighty God of Death and War shouldn’t cry.”

“I love you, Emma. Tears and all. I will see you back in Sedona and we will spend the entire day making love.”

“That would be nice,” she said in melancholy voice.

That was my cue to leave. I was in no mood to listen to their horny little plans, but then Guy turned to leave. I guessed he was heading to find a portal cenote thingy.

“Hey!” Emma called out. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

Oh great. Are they going to have a quickie before he goes?

Guy stopped in his tracks, his back to us. Did he groan?

“Please?” she begged. “It will grow back.”

Grow back? Yikes. I so don’t want to know…

He turned slowly, his eyes glowing in the night. “Yes, my love. Of course.” He reached around to the small of his back and whipped out a large knife.

What the hell was he going to do with that?

He spun Emma and swiped the blade across her braid near the nape of her neck and then promptly cut off his own ponytail.

He held the braids to his chest and chanted toward the starlit sky, “In halach puczical, in uchucil, ca kaxah yokolcab ichi pixan.”

The air kicked up around us and as it did, my memory flashed to when Kinich last spoke to me.

My blood pressure plummeted when I realized he’d recited those exact words the moment he incinerated the Scab.

Guy quickly kissed Emma’s nose. “I suggest you don’t break the bond this time, my love.”

She lovingly brushed his stubble-covered cheek. “Never.”

He crouched down, placed the locks of hair in the dirt, and ignited the pile of strands. Brutus and the other men stood quietly behind him, staring in awe as the hair quickly dissolved into nothing.

My mind raced. What did it mean?

“Good-bye, my sweet.” Before you could say “flaming hair ball,” Guy disappeared into the jungle.

“Well. Time to go back to Sedona, I guess.” She wiped away another tear and began walking.

“Emma?” I trailed behind her like an eager puppy. “What did it mean? That phrase and burning your hair?”

Quietly, with an unmistakable sadness in her voice, she said, “My heart, my power, we unite in this world inside my soul—it’s a prayer, the Prayer of Loyalty and Protection.”

What a beautiful phrase. “And the hair?”

“It completes the ritual; it creates a bond between two souls. I guess you could burn another part of your body if you wanted, but hair is the least painless thing to lose.”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t understand. What do you mean by ‘bond’?”

“It creates a connection that enables the gods to keep track of you more easily. It’s like being tethered to their life force. With Guy, it allowed him to speak to me when he, well, his soul was trapped in the cenote by the Maaskab and…”

Emma continued to speak, but my mind detached from present time. It spiraled and swirled as it computed and calculated and put the pieces together.

Oh my gods! Kinich.

CHAPTER 26

The long flight back on Air Uchben was the worst, most depressing wait of my existence. No one spoke a word. But what was there to say? The bad guys had outsmarted us, and everything we loved and cared about was on the line.

Strangely enough, I sensed that my mother remained alive, though I had no clue in what condition. But a hopeful little voice inside my head told me she hadn’t left this world yet and we still had time to save her. I clung to that thought like a lifeboat.

As for Kinich, well that was a whole other enchilada in the oven. My heart and stomach were vacillating between elation (Kinich tried to bind himself to me) and terror (I didn’t know what would happen when I completed the ritual).