“I do not joke, Ashli,” he censured her. His hot, sensual scent filled her nostrils. “You will cease your foolish behavior and listen carefully because there is nothing more important than saving you.”
Simultaneous explosions of heated thunderbolts and ice-cold shivers exploded over her body. She didn’t know why, but she found herself needing to touch him, to make sure he was real. It was… as if… she needed it more than the blood in her veins. She felt her heart might actually collapse if she couldn’t have proof. Proof he was really, really there.
Cautiously, she reached for him, her breath sticking in her throat. Her palms collided with hot flesh. A man’s flesh. She gasped as a jolt of unchaste neediness surged through her. She couldn’t pull back. Her hands molded to his face and began to explore. A sculpted jaw covered in a thick, short beard; sharp cheekbones; soft, thick brows. She heard his breathing stop. Was he holding it? Did he feel the same wanton elation? Ohmygod. It was amazing, like nothing she’d ever experienced in her entire life.
Her hands slid just above his ears and found soft hair. She gingerly glided her fingertips down, down, down, following the silky strands until she reached their tips, lingering just above his shoulder. Skin. Oh, God. She wanted to touch every taut inch.
“What are you?” she whispered.
He pulled away, leaving her grasping nothing but air.
She blinked and snapped out of her trance. Had it been an illusion? No. Please, no. She just might die if she discovered that pool of lifesaving water was a mirage.
“Don’t go,” she begged. She never begged anyone for anything.
“I am here.” His voice sounded irritated, shaken.
“Please, tell me. What are you?”
Máax stood with his back pressed to the wall and stared down at Ashli, her hands extended in midair as if beckoning him to return.
What happened? He didn’t know, but now he was in a state of what he believed humans referred to as WTFH. Because he knew damned well that LOVE was just an acronym for “loss of valuable energy,” and love was exactly what he’d felt. Or was it merely his mate’s bond drawing him in, the Universe’s masterful way of conspiring?
The moment Ashli touched him, his light erupted with rapturous energy that spiraled and twisted, coalescing into a single strand of light. He wanted to envelop himself in it and drink from it. Then the strand sieved through his skin, into his veins, and tangled itself around his heart like a boa constrictor capturing its prey. The cord began to elongate, stretching through time, through this world into the next, until it reached the land of dead souls. Ashli. Ashli was there! He witnessed the strand of brilliant light tether itself to Ashli’s wrist. He began pulling, exerting every fiber of his being to extract her like a desperate man attempting to salvage his own heart from a pit of hungry vipers. Máax watched in terror as his grip faltered, and the cord slid from his blistering hands. He screamed Ashli’s name, mirroring her cries of agony as she dissolved inside a pool of vicious, hungry souls, feeding from her light.
WTFAIGTDN? What the fuck am I going to do now?
And why do I keep speaking to myself in acronyms? They are quite annoying.
Máax’s heart raced at a sickening pace, and his chest expanded with one careful breath, the kind of breath a man takes when he’s about to pray for a miracle. What had the vision meant? Yes, he understood his role was to save her, but there was something else. The Universe was trying to tell him something.
“What. Are. You?” she repeated.
He felt an unfamiliar lump of doubt in his throat. “I am your mate.”
“Sorry?” she said.
He cleared his throat. “You are my… match. My soul mate, which I already knew. But what I do not comprehend is why the Universe wants to exterminate you. And she will not quit until she has you.”
Some things in life have no explanation. This was one of them. Because when the strange male voice spoke those words, Ashli knew he’d spoken the truth. It was like drinking a glass of cold water from a mountain stream; you recognize the taste of purity, even if you’re unable to describe or articulate it. That’s how his words felt. There was simply an absence of lies or deceit. Just… truth.
“Oh, God.” She sat up slowly, rubbing her forehead. “I always knew I was different, but this is too much.”
A warm hand embraced her own and that strange current of electricity once again flowed through her body. Her eyes couldn’t help but seek him out.
“Why can’t I see you?” she said. She recalled the image of the man coming from the ocean, the outline of his flawless male body glistening in the sun. He was definitely worth seeing.
Ohmygod. The dreams! She’d had them ever since the accident. This man in her dreams had been faceless, he’d done things to her body that left her feeling almost embarrassed but also deliciously weak and sated, and he’d pleasured her in every possible way known to man—errr, woman.
That’s him! He’s the man from my dreams!
“It is my punishment for breaking a few rules,” he explained without emotion. “My mortal shell was taken from me. But I do not want to discuss that now. I must go to see my brethren.”
What? He was leaving? “You can’t go.”
That warm hand, gentle but rough, trailed across her cheek. “I will return as quickly as I can.”
“Why do you have to leave?”
“Because the Universe is waiting for any opportunity to take you. I must find out why.”
She watched the door open.
“Wait!” But he was already gone. She felt his absence in the air.
She shook her head—ow, ow, ow—unable to process the barrage of emotions barreling over her. He was real. He wasn’t Death, but an invisible god. He was her soul mate. The Universe wanted to kill her.
This can’t be happening. I need meds. “Dr. Ruiz?”
Eight
Like a drippy old faucet, an anxious voice inside Máax’s head commenced nagging the moment he walked out of that hospital. “Go back. Go back to her,” it said. And while the sensible part of his mind understood this to be the effect of their bond—a bond he was still determined to forget once this mission concluded—his body did not seem to give a rat’s ass and protested violently. Leaving her felt like having his atoms busted apart with a crowbar. Not only that, but traveling to a time where Ashli no longer existed felt like traveling to hell. In the future, she was still dead. He had not saved her yet.
Thanks for the reminder, asshole.
Yes, he’d prevented her from dying this time. But what about the next? And the next? That was the conundrum. When he’d originally agreed to this whole thing, he’d assumed that saving Ashli from death was a onetime deal. Humans die all the time in accidents—cars, drowning, falling off a cliff when searching for a secret stash of rare Miss Piggy Pez dispensers.
That was actually Cimil who fell off the cliff.
Right.
Point was, he’d believed, erroneously, that saving Ashli was simply a question of inserting himself at the right place at the right time. Afterward, she’d be free to live a full, healthy, happy existence. Now, after the vision, he understood this was not the case. Death would come for her again and again. But why would the Universe want such a thing?
It can’t fucking have her. Especially if she was the key to stopping his brethren from going to war with each other. But he still couldn’t figure out how. That was the kicker. By now, he would’ve expected to see some clue as to why this was her destiny.
He rubbed his brow. So what’s the plan, Máax?
You must go to Cimil and force her to tell you what she knows. She is hiding something. The vision had something to do with the realm of the dead, and that was Cimil’s turf.
But what leverage could he employ? You’ll think of something. Or perhaps you should try to think like Cimil. What would she do?
She would find your weakness, the thing you desire most, and then make you hop through flame-engulfed hoops until
you lost your mind and all sense of hope. Then she’d torture you some more, talk to a bug or two, go shopping for useless used human merchandise, and then you’d get your prize.
Hell. I don’t have time for that crap. He’d opt for threatening her.
Planting his bare feet firmly in the sand, he stood over the buried tablet, focused his thoughts, and watched a small pit the size of a manhole open in the sand. The portal.
Not wanting to walk in on Cimil and Roberto mid-coitus, lest he be forced to remove his own eyeballs, he aimed his arrival a few moments ahead. He stepped inside the portal, successfully landing in the same conference room he’d departed from twenty years into the future. He approached the heavy metal door and cracked it open, listening for any signs of lovemaking. Or in Cimil’s case, noises resembling animal fornication.
To his delight, prison riot–like shouting greeted his ears instead. Not to his delight, the foundation began to shimmy and creak all around him.
Splendid. Another earthquake. He wondered what the score was now.
Máax entered the long, sterile-looking hallway—gray paint and fluorescent lights—turned the corner, and immediately spotted Cimil, sitting cross-legged on her cell floor, playing paddleball. Toward the center of the cellblock, a line of vampires attired in black leather and tees stood in formation like an immortal football team, their gazes cold and alert, ready for anything.
Except for that guy. Máax quirked a brow. One of the vampires, a blond on the end, stroked an empty space of air to his side. “There, there, Minky. All will be well.”
Cimil’s unicorn. How the hell had it gotten inside the prison? Damned beast was as big as a rhino.
Thankfully, his brethren remained inside their glass holding tanks, each in varying states of “pissed as hell” or “freaking the hell out.”
Máax had to admit, despite the dire situation and countdown to doom, seeing all thirteen gods jailed, guarded by fucking huge vampires, had some entertainment value. They had even managed to capture the infamous chick magnet Zac Cimi, Bacab of the North (also known as Ix Zacal, the inventor of weaving; Z, Keeper of Tchotchkes; and Kuju, the Yukaghir Spirit God of Food—his specialty happened to be creamy sauces—among many, many other titles and gifts), and most recently titled God of Temptation. Zac had gone into hiding because he also held the honor of being the gods’ most wanted. (Not wanted in a sexy way, but in a “you’re in a heap of shit” way for trying to steal another god’s mate.) While it was common for the deities to have many, many gifts and to be known by many, many names, depending on the culture, “most wanted” was not a title anyone desired. Not even Máax who prided himself on being known as the bad boy of the gods.
Bastard deserves to be locked up. In fact, perhaps they will all benefit from a little reflection time.
Sure he loved them just as a human might love his or her siblings—though the gods were not truly related—but they’d all used Máax in one way or another, taking advantage of his need to see justice served at any cost. Example: There was the time Camaxtli, aka Fate, had Máax travel back to ancient Greece to steal the book of the Oracle of Delphi. Fate had used the book for years to predict the future. Why? A secret. One she made him swear to keep until his grave. Example two: The time Cimil had him steal the book away from Fate so she could give it to some Demilord. Why? Yeah, another secret. The list of manipulations, deceit, and games went on and on. And yet Máax never turned his back on the other gods—not even that lying coward, Fate—when they asked for help. Not even when his suffering became almost too much to bear.
So, yeah, despite the apparent eminent destruction of their world, he found it pretty damned satisfying to see them all incarcerated. Too bad the moment felt ruined by his need to return to Ashli. And the fact that the Universe wanted to kill her.
Oh, well. “Revenge is completely overrated anyway,” he muttered.
All heads swiveled in his general direction.
Kinich, ex–God of the Sun, was the first to start yelling at him. “Máax, you will release us from these cells! Immediately!” His long golden-brown hair fell about his face while he pounded his fists into the glass.
Then came the screaming from Ixtab, Ah-Ciliz, Zac, Akna, Acan, K’ak, Votan, and the rest, including his other sister—the one whose name no one ever remembered. Sucked to be the Goddess of Forgetfulness.
Yes, everyone yelled, except Cimil, who looked bored out of her immortal mind. Then she simply held up five fingers. “Rumble, rumble. Ticktock, Invisi-boy!”
Máax knew she meant five earthquakes had now passed and was about to say something else when he noticed one other god oblivious to the chaos: Chaam.
His large frame, draped in a black caftan garment, sagged on his bed. Next to him, his mate Maggie, with long brown hair and wearing a light gray dress, resembled a barnacle clinging to a sinking battleship.
Maggie hiccuped and mopped her tears with Chaam’s long black hair.
This is very troubling.
Back off, man, you need to return to Ashli. Whatever troubles him can wait.
Máax’s gaze wondered back to Maggie. With her wide brown eyes and freckled nose, her aura of innocence was just the sort a deity—him, okay; him!—couldn’t turn away from.
Yes. Yes, you can. Think of Ashli. He had to see her again soon. Perhaps touch her silky, soft lips and get yet another glimpse of that perfect, smooth, round ass or those gorgeous, cocoa-brown breasts with the pink little nip—
Maggie hiccuped once more and then snorted between heart-wrenching sobs.
Hell! Bloody deity hell, hell, hell!
Máax knew this wasn’t a detour he could afford, but his nature to ensure a just world drew him right in like a moth to a flame, like a bee to honey, like Cimil to a BOGO sale on pirate costumes. (She’d started some idiotic holiday having to do with pirates. How did a god have time for such frivolous bull crap?)
“Brother?” Máax placed his palms against the glass of Chaam’s cell, ignoring the raging voices exploding in all directions. “What is the matter?” Besides this fucking apocalypse.
Maggie looked up with wet doe eyes. “Máax! You have to help him. Please tell him! Tell him it’s not his fault!”
Chaam didn’t bother to lift his drooping head. His long hair hung like a flag of defeat. “Don’t defend me, Maggie. Don’t do it. Tell the vampires you’ve relinquished your love for me so they’ll set you free. Just… fucking go, woman.”
“How can you say that?” This time she wiped her tears with the backs of her hands. “After everything we’ve been through.”
It was true. Everyone knew the two had been through their share of pain and struggles. After meeting Maggie, his one true love, Chaam had been possessed by dark energy, committed a series of heinous atrocities—started breeding like a rabbit with random women and then murdered his female children to use them as some sort of apocalyptic biofuel (yeah, like he said, heinous)—then had been captured and imprisoned inside a real-life “temple of doom.” Maggie had also been imprisoned inside one of the tablets. Well, not inside, but in the dimension that existed between everything. Not pretty. Chaam had since been cured, thanks to Máax and their sister Ixtab—but Chaam had a mountain of baggage to deal with.
“Leave! Before I kill you!” Chaam raged and then sank back into his pit of despair.
Maggie hesitated for a moment and then wrapped her arms around Chaam’s hunched-over frame as he began to sob.
Saints of yore! Máax moaned in his head. Gods didn’t cry. Ever. This is too much to bear.
“No, baby.” Maggie squared her shoulders. “I won’t go. I don’t care what you say. I’ve watched you suffer”—Maggie pointed toward Cimil’s cell—“because of that evil… evil cow whore! I’m not leaving you! And I won’t rest until I see her pay.”
Máax glanced at Cimil, who seemed to be looking at someone nonexistent, and mouthed the words, “Cow whore? What the hell?” She then began singing “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” while merri
ly smacking that paddleball.
Máax groaned. He didn’t have time for this fucking drama. He had a crisis to tend to.
“Chaam. Brother. Tell me why you are so distraught,” Máax said, already suspecting he knew the answer.
Chaam shook his head with regret, the tears sheeting down his cheeks. “I killed them, my own daughters. I seduced their mothers. I had children with them. Then I slaughtered my own. I am a monster.”
Maggie punched Chaam, a man twice her size, in the shoulder. “No! That was Cimil! She made you do it.”
“No!” Chaam argued. “If I’d been strong enough, I could’ve resisted her. I’m weak and evil.”
Maggie looked up at Máax, and for a moment he wondered if she could see him. But of course, she could not. “Please help him, Máax. He trusts you. He knows you can’t lie. Tell him it’s not his fault.”
Máax took a deep, satisfying breath. These were the moments he lived for. Setting things right, helping others, serving truth. Yep, made him feel like a complete badass. Of course, he was a badass. Who else could pull off the kind of shit he did? No one. That’s why he would be the one to save the world. Okay, Ashli would, but he was her protector. Same thing.
Máax said with a loud voice for all to hear, “It is not your fault, brother. You are not evil. You have done no wrong.”
Chaam’s head snapped up. “What?”
Yes, Máax had gotten his attention, because everyone knew that Máax did not lie. Ever.
Máax crossed his arms over his chest, not that anyone could see him. Fucking sucked to be invisible. “I have undone every evil act, brother. Your children live on and you are free to enjoy a happy and peaceful life with Maggie, and blah, blah, you’re welcome, blah, blah, blah.”
Cimil suddenly jumped up and started clapping. “Yippee! Give that man a gold star! Woo!”
Chaam stood, crossed the cell, and looked straight at Máax. Well, straight at his ear. “What is the meaning of this?”
“Brother,” Máax said, “why the fuck do you think I made those trips to the past? To prove my badassery cannot be surpassed? I already know that.”
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