Sun God Seeks…Surrogate? (Accidentally Yours #3)(72)
Author: Mimi Jean Pamfiloff

I rushed outside. “Emma, calm down!” I yelled.

“I’m going to kill him, Penelope! Kill him!” She looked down at the man who lay on the ground writhing in pain. “Do you hear me, Tommaso? Do you? You’re a dead man. You f**king traitor!”

Tommaso? This had been the man who’d betrayed her.

“Lock him up,” I commanded the two Uchben soldiers, who suddenly resembled deer in the headlights.

“We were given orders to take care of him,” the taller of the two spoke up.

Emma screamed at the top of her lungs. “No! I get that honor. Me!”

The soldier shifted his weight. “No. We were given the order to care for him, make sure his wounds are bandaged.”

The soldier helped Tommaso stand. I could tell he was a man who’d seen better days; he was very thin and haggard. His dark hair was straggly and his eyes—hell, they’re turquoise—could only be described as desolate.

“Who? Who told you take care of him?” I asked the soldier.

Unexpectedly, Tommaso reached for Emma’s hand. “I would never betray you.”

She snapped it away. “Liar! It should be you who’s trapped. Not Guy!”

Zac chimed in. “Emma, he tells the truth. Guy told me before he left—in case anything happened. Tommaso did not betray you; he went back as a spy, to prove himself to us and the Uchben.”

Emma froze. “What are you trying to say?”

Tommaso, a braver soul than I, stepped toward her. “Guy had me free your grandmother to gain her trust and get me back inside the Maaskab. But I got caught when I saved that woman—they said she was an angel and were torturing her with their sick f**king experiments.”

Um. Wow. I wasn’t sure which part of the story was more shocking, the freeing of Emma’s grandma or the part about the angel.

I went with the latter.

“Angel? Like, as in, fluffy wings, lives in heaven…yadda yadda?”

Tommaso gave a nod.

Hmmm. So we had gods, vampires, ex-vampire demigods (like Andrus and Niccolo), evil priests (Maaskab), vampire evil priests (Mobscuros)—or are they now dead ex-vampire evil priests?

I think we call those “dead.”

Oh yeah.

Then there were the gods’ mortal daughters (Payals); demigod Payals who were immortal (like Emma); a half-vampire, half-human baby (Niccolo and Helena’s baby); an ex-god who’s now mortal (Kinich); a human who’s now a god with no dang clue about her mortality status and is pregnant with the ex-god’s baby (that one is me, in case you were wondering); leprechauns; and—deep breath—angels.

Well, goody. Now the only thing missing from our little paranormal soap opera were the magical talking animals.

You forgot about Cimil’s unicorn.

I wondered if it talked.

“I don’t f**king believe you!” Emma screamed. Her face was wrath personified. No, wait. Devastated. Nooo…Shit! Pissed! I jumped in front of Tommaso to shield him because there was no doubt in my mind she was about to split the man down the middle like a baked potato about to receive all the fixings.

“Emma! Stop!” I yelled.

“Goddamn him! How could Guy lie to me like that? How could he?” she screamed.

I brushed her shoulder. “I don’t know, Em.”

But I did know.

And, I guessed, so did she.

When all was said and done, the gods couldn’t help being who they were; their hardwiring would always win, always take precedence over personal loyalties. It was exactly as Kinich said…Guy had been a fool to think he could have a relationship, because sooner or later he’d put his role first and break Emma’s heart.

Goddammit. Kinich was right. I didn’t want him to be. I wanted to believe there was hope for us still.

Emma reached around me, clawing for Tommaso. “And where the f**k is my grandmother?”

He stepped back, avoiding Emma’s deadly hands. “Emma, you need to know, your grandmother, she—”

“Where! Where is she, you motherfucker! And where the hell is Guy?” Emma’s face turned redder than a beet.

Tommaso stared at the ground, speaking softly, “The last time I saw them, they were facing off—Guy was winning. I don’t know if she’s still alive.”

Oh man. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing that Guy was trapped somewhere. Because if he’d been there inside this vacuous airplane hangar with Emma, she’d have it decorated with his man parts by now.

Emma’s face, still filled with an unspeakable rage, turned paler than a scoop of vanilla ice cream. She threw up on the cement.

I steadied her so she wouldn’t fall over. “Are you okay, Emma?”

She slowly rose and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Morning sickness,” she mumbled.

Oh. Add half-immortal Payal, half-god baby to the list.

Not knowing what else to say, I went for cheery. Not the best call of my life. “Wow! Congratulations,” I said. “Does Guy know?”

“Uh-uh,” she replied.

Wow again. This was turning out to be one giant cluster.

“You need to rest.” I turned to one of the two Uchben standing with us. “Take her to her room.” I glanced at Tommaso. “And take him down to the hospital.”

The soldiers nodded. Then, from the corner of my eye, I saw a large blond man, approaching us. He was covered in dirt and dressed in black. “Viktor!”

He looked like he’d been through the vampire-Maaskab ringer. “Oh my God!”

Then I noticed he held a woman in his arms. The hole in my heart filled up.

It was her.

“You brought her back,” I whispered, not believing my eyes.

The smile on his face said it all.

“Mom.” I stroked her cheek. “It’s me.” Her heavy lids parted. “Is she okay? What did they do to her?” I asked Viktor.

With deep regret, he replied, “They tortured her.”

Simultaneously, my blood boiled and my heart sank. They had tortured her. My mother. What kind of sick, sick beings would torture someone so sweet and kind. For what purpose? She had nothing to give them, no information to share. The only explanation was that they did it for their enjoyment.

I would kill every f**king last one of them.

“Penelope? Baby, is it really you?” my mother mumbled.

“Yes, it’s me. You’re safe now.”

I looked into Viktor’s cobalt blue eyes. They were filled with the deepest joy I’d ever seen in a man.