Sun God Seeks…Surrogate? (Accidentally Yours #3)(75)
Author: Mimi Jean Pamfiloff

“Penelope, how rude,” my mother said.

Viktor chuckled and looked at my mother. “She is correct, Julie. I am metro and proud. I much prefer fashion and fine fabrics to weapons and killing—it gets old after a thousand years. My new favorite pastime is shopping. I will take you next week now that you are completely healed. We can stay at my Italian villa near—”

“Whoa! Whoa! You’re healed? And you two are planning a vacation together? You’re going to leave? What’s going on?”

My mother looked at Viktor. “Can we have a minute alone? I need to talk to my daughter.”

He bowed his head and stood. “I won’t be far if you need me.” I could tell he was about to sift, but then he realized he couldn’t. “Damn, this is annoying,” he grumbled as he walked from the room.

“This is going to take a lot of explaining, so why don’t you sit, honey,” she pointed to Viktor’s chair.

“You mean the Viktor part, the healing part, or the angel part?” I asked and took the seat.

Her face froze. “All three.”

Hell. I really wasn’t ready for this. “So it’s true? You’re not human?”

She wrung her hands and then placed them neatly in her lap. “I am human. I mean—I was. But I wasn’t always.”

Oh great. It was going to be another of those stories. The ones that left my head feeling like I’d taken it for a spin on a lazy Susan.

“Go on.”

“First, I must tell you it is forbidden to talk about my past life—or where I came from.” Her eyes flashed toward the ceiling. “They will punish me if I do. So you must be careful, Penelope. You must keep what you already know a secret.”

Oh great! More crap to worry about. Just put it right on top of this other giant pile over here. And dammit! I couldn’t believe there was a gag order on her. I had so many questions.

Find the silver lining, Pen. Your mother is alive and healed.

“My lips are sealed,” I said.

My mother smiled and began telling me how twenty-six years ago, while she was “on duty” she’d met a man and fallen in love. At first, she tried convincing herself that her feelings weren’t real, but the more she resisted the stronger her feelings became.

“So, I had to choose. Him or my ‘job’; they don’t allow both.”

“You chose him, obviously.”

“Yes,” she replied. “And we were very happy, Penelope. Your father was…magnificent. His laughter, his thirst for life, he made me feel so alive.”

“Then why did he leave?” I wondered.

Her eyes dropped. “He died the day I found out I was pregnant.”

I wanted to gasp, but there were no gasps left inside my body. All gasped out. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t want your life to be marked with such a tragedy. He was murdered—killed by a very evil man who hunts people like me.”

And this was where the story got weirder. To protect me, my mother ran. And she kept running for the next ten years, finally settling us in New York. “I thought we were safe. Or maybe he’d forgotten about me, but I was wrong. One year ago, he found us.”

“What did he want?”

“What he always wanted: my blood. He believes it has powers—ones he can use to create an unstoppable army. I explained again and again that I was completely human, but he spent the next year drinking from me, anyway. I think he just enjoyed making me suffer.”

I was horrified. “A vampire?”

“Yes. And the most evil vampire of them all.”

Holy crap. The entire time I thought she’d been sick when really, some psycho vampire made her his personal blood bank. And to boot, it had been the vampire who killed my father. She must have gone through hell. “I’m so sorry, Mom.”

“He said if I did not give him what he wanted, if I tried to run, he’d come after you. I had no idea what to do until the goddess Cimil came to me with her plan to get you somewhere safe—with her brother—and make it look like I’d gone to a clinic so you wouldn’t worry.”

Okay. Now that was just messed up. “Mom, you made a deal with Cimil? You?”

She reached for my hand. “I’m so sorry for deceiving you. But Cimil said it had to be this way. Of course, everything went wrong. Probably because she’s bat-shit crazy.”

“You have no idea,” I responded.

“I’m so sorry, honey. Sorry for all the lies. But the truth wasn’t an option. Can you ever forgive me?” Guilt filled her big, hazel eyes. I wanted to be angry, but somehow couldn’t. Not when I knew she’d done what she thought was best for me and acted out of love.

“Kinich left me and I’m pregnant—thanks to Cimil, by the way,” I bitterly confessed.

“I know. Viktor told me everything. But have faith, honey. Have faith that everything will work out as it should.”

I wasn’t ready to do that.

“Let’s not talk about it now,” I suddenly blurted out. “I want my year to end on a happy note. Who is this bastard that’s hunting you?” Revenge qualified for happy, didn’t it? Sure felt like it. And I was definitely going to look him up, because now…now I knew “people.” Oh yeah, a lot of really f**king deadly people.

“Philippe—he is what they call an Ancient One. But that’s not important: If he finds me again, he won’t touch me. I’ve made sure of it.”

Of course. She had one of the toughest vampires roaming the planet obsessed with saving her, and now he was apparently her personal guard dog. “Viktor—he told Kinich that he dreamed about saving you for five hundred years. Do you know why?”

She nodded. “He believes he was destined to love me. That I am his soul mate.”

“So he loves you?”

“Yes,” she replied. “Very much.”

“And you? Do you love him back?” How very strange it would be if Viktor became my stepdad.

She ran her fragile, pale finger over her heart-shaped lips, giving the question some thought. “I can’t remember what happened when we were imprisoned, but I know I love him, too.”

Well, there you go. Munsters, watch out! We’ve got a vampire dad, fallen-angel mom, and pregnant sun goddess daughter. We were just missing someone with fur and perhaps a reanimated human or two to complete our cast of zany characters.

But in all seriousness, after everything that happened, this was the one part that made me happy. She’d found love.