Sun God Seeks…Surrogate? (Accidentally Yours #3)(67)
Author: Mimi Jean Pamfiloff

I looked at Cimil and Zac, “Get ready boys and girls, because there’s a new sun god in town.”

***

Guy was the first to echo the sentiment that most of the gods were thinking. “We fight and attack as planned. Every last one of us.”

“All of us?” Bees, who wore a shades-of-summer camouflage jumpsuit, asked as she petted the hive on her head. The bees purred with delight.

“The Great War is the turning point,” Guy replied. “If we do not win, the apocalypse is inevitable. So we must use every means we can to win. Your bees can assist with monitoring the Maaskab’s movements during the battle.”

The bees made a cheery little buzz. Such little warriors.

Gabrán, who stood at my side, arms crossed, chimed in, “We should make the final decision when Niccolo arrives.”

“Niccolo answers to me,” Guy barked.

Gabrán frowned like a disapproving parent. “Yes, but he still leads the vampire army and is the de facto king. We must have his support.”

Guy growled. “The vampires will do as they are told or perish with the rest of the mortal world…”

Then rest of the conversation sounded like:

…Blah blah blah. I’m right and you’re wrong.

Blah. Blah. Am not. You’re wrong.

No, I’m right. Blah blah.

Blah blah…oh yeah? Prove it, blah blah…

I realized that the species was irrelevant; male posturing was universal.

“Both of you…can it!” I barked. “We’re sticking to the protocol, which is…” I looked at Gabrán.

“We list the options, debate the pros and cons of each, and then take a vote,” Gabrán stated with a disappointed sigh.

Very pragmatic. “Thank you.”

“Let’s start with thinking this through.” I glanced around the table. “Options?”

“We stay the course as Guy suggested,” Bees spoke up. “The gods will also fight—except for Cimil, Penelope, and Zac.”

That made sense, Zac said he was strong, but didn’t really have any gifts. I was pregnant—crappity-crap! Really? Really?—and Cimil was about as useful as a lump of dog poop.

“Okay, that’s one option. Others?”

“We do nothing,” Suicide suggested in a blasé voice.

I stared at her, wondering if she ever had the urge to apply her skills to herself.

“What?” she shrugged.

I shook my head. “Nothing.” I wrote down Do Nothing on my magic tablet, and then looked around the table again, hopeful that someone else might have a better suggestion. “Fate, how come you haven’t said anything?”

She waved her hand through the air. “Because, whatever we choose, this is our fate.”

Wow. Another shocking answer. No wonder the world was about to go down the crapper.

I thought about the tiny life in my belly. It didn’t feel real, but somewhere, buried beneath the layers of raw emotion was a gnawing urge to fight like hell to protect it.

Zac offered, “If the course we are on is the one that leads to the end, then we need to make a turn.”

“This is the problem,” K’ak pointed out, ever so carefully turning his head so as not to cause his enormous, two-foot-high turquoise-encrusted headdress to tip. “Without the book or Cimil’s powers, we do not know which action is truly the one we wish to avoid. What if the turn you suggest is the one we must avoid and the original plan is the one we must follow?”

“I have a coin,” Bees offered. “We could let Chance decide.”

“Chance is on vacation,” Ah-Ciliz, God of Eclipses, said in a dreary voice.

I looked at Zac, who stood by my side like a deadly sentry. “Who is Chance?” I whispered.

He leaned in and spoke quietly in my ear, “A friend of the family.” His warm breath sent a shiver down my spine.

As he pulled away, I couldn’t help but study Zac. His size matched Kinich’s, as did his confidence. His perfectly shaped body, packed with powerful muscles, only appeared fiercer in his black leather pants and dark tee.

“Seriously, you don’t have any powers?” I asked.

God of Seduction, perhaps? ’Cause…wow. I knew Kinich had given me the anti-deity whammy, but nonetheless, this guy still packed a punch. Pretty damned impressive, if you asked me, because I wanted nothing to do with men, and I’d just had my heart trampled.

He smiled. “Like I said, you’ll be the first to know.”

It pleased him that he was inspiring very inappropriate and unwelcome feelings at this time in my life when I was hanging on by a thread.

Interesting.

Belch, who still wore his shiny green running suit, which now boasted several nasty-looking stains down the front, chimed in, “Does anyone have vodka? I need more vodka.”

“Amen to that,” said Suicide.

“You are the biggest group of misfits I’ve ever seen,” I scolded.

Several of the gods looked at each other and nodded in agreement, the only exceptions being Zac and Votan.

Christ. We were all in so much trouble.

I took a deep, calming breath. We were flying blind, so any choice we made could be the exact choice we wanted to avoid. Not easy. So many lives depended on us, on our every move.

I ran my hands over my face. “So our options are to fight or do nothing? That’s it? Can’t we try to negotiate with the Mobscuros”—I decided the time had come to name our evil Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup treat—“or cripple them and buy some time?”

The group debated for a moment and came to the unanimous conclusion that the more time we gave, the worse off we were, and that the Mobscuros were not interested in negotiation.

I closed my eyes. We were missing something. Something big. It didn’t make sense that the Maaskab or Obscuros—Mobscuros—would want to end the world. Give it a yucky, evil makeover? Sure. But destroy it completely?

Regardless, the gods were right; we didn’t have many options: wait, fight, do nothing. The only one that felt right was to take out as many bad guys as possible. If we were going down, we’d go kicking and screaming.

“If no one has any other suggestions, then it’s time to vote. All in favor of initiating the Great War?”

I looked around the table. It was unanimous. Even Suicide raised her hand. Maybe we could send her ahead and then the Mobscuros would be too depressed to fight.

It was worth a try.

CHAPTER 36

I didn’t know exactly what to expect when I entered Kinich’s room. Part of me had pathetically hoped he’d changed his mind and stayed. Part of me kicked myself for wanting him to stay at all. I deserved better. I deserved to come first. Or even in the top three.