She stopped struggling and her body relaxed, but she still didn’t kiss him back. Was it because of the odd sensation she experienced with his touch? He was more or less managing to suppress the flow of energy pulsing through him.
Curious, he opened his eyes and found Emma preparing to detonate. He quickly released her and then proceeded to adjust his growing bulge.
She briefly fixated on his groin while he did this, and then snapped, “Un-effing-believable. Are you done yet?” she scorned.
Guy flashed a wicked smile and arched one brow. “For now, my little meerkat.”
He turned away from her to find Tommaso’s livid face. Yes. Something was clearly going on between these two. The room was filled with jealous energy—not all his, either.
Guy stared at the man, sizing him up. Tommaso’s commander—or chief as the Uchben called him—had said that Tommaso was one of the smartest, strongest and most loyal guards. But Guy wanted to punch him right in that pretty-boy face of his. “Tommaso. My apologies for accosting you. As long as you keep your hands off my Emma, I promise it won’t happen again.”
Emma huffed and rolled her eyes. “The day I’m yours, is the day you stop being an arrogant, self-centered tyrant. Never gonna happen.”
Guy snickered. “A challenge. I like those.” He turned to Tommaso who was now sitting on the edge of the bed rubbing his red, battered neck. “Tell me what happened here.”
Tommaso began debriefing Guy in detail, explaining how he’d blacked out after Emma clocked Cimil. When he woke up in the closet, he’d heard grunts and screams as the Uchben fought the Maaskab outside. He cracked open the door, finding Emma entangled in a net, falling unconscious. The Maaskab were too distracted to notice as Tommaso dragged her inside.
After several minutes, the house fell silent. When he emerged, there was no sign of Cimil, and the remaining live Uchben were gone, too.
“I unwrapped Emma,” Tommaso explained, “but when she came around, she started screaming at the sight of all the blood. So I took her up here, to the only untouched room in the house.” His tone turned apologetic. “I swear, I was only comforting her, and maybe using her to keep from falling over. Cimil’s touch packs quite a punch.”
“Not really,” Emma said.
“What do you mean?” Guy asked.
“When she came into my room,” Emma elaborated, “she tried to do that thing to me. You know—that feels like being hit with a stun gun. But nothing.”
Guy was fascinated. “It didn’t affect you?”
Emma shook her head no. “Not at first. Cimil looked kind of confused. Anyhow, she did it again later, and it hurt a little, but she didn’t knock me out. In fact, I was able to shake it off completely after a minute.”
Guy stared at her, unable to make any conclusion.
“Guy?” Emma asked. “What am I? Please, you have to tell me.”
“I’ll give you two a minute,” Tommaso stood to leave.
“Tommaso,” Guy said with short tone. “Gather up weapons and supplies; we’re leaving for the compound. The Maaskab will be back soon for their unclaimed prize.” Guy looked at Emma: the prize.
Tommaso nodded and left the room without glancing once at Emma, but she watched him until he was out of view.
Irritated by this, Guy pointed to the couch. “Sit.”
“Thanks, but I’d rather stand.”
Of course she would. She hated being given orders. Stubborn little thing. “I meant—please, sit down. I have much to say, my sweet.”
Chapter TWENTY-TWO
I was dumbfounded as I searched in Guy’s stunningly surreal turquoise eyes for an answer. Why had he kissed me? Of all the absurd things. We were surrounded by death, yet he felt that was the appropriate response? That, and acting like a dog fighting over a bone? Obviously, I was the bone in this analogy.
In any case, his reaction to the hug was so over the top. Tommaso was preventing me from wandering off the edge of sanity. I didn’t know how to deal with the shock of what I’d just seen: flying knives, guns going off, and blood, limbs, and other body parts exploding. All the while, I was tangled in that net, which was draining the energy from my body. I was alert, still able to move, yet I could barely gather the strength to scratch my nose. I just laid there like a wet noodle until Tommaso pulled me into the closet.
The next thing I remembered was Tommaso holding me, acting as psychiatric glue—the extra-strong, anti-meltdown kind—and then Guy showed up armed to the hilt, doing his impression of Conan the Barbarian on steroids. Only, he was dressed in a dark gray commando outfit, complete with black leather boots, military style cargo pants, and a dark gray, tight fitting t-shirt. Could Guy possibly look more menacing at a worse time? It was the exact opposite of what I needed to see…more ferocious, scary men. He even smelled angry, like a smoldering, chocolaty campfire. Okay, maybe that part wasn’t so bad. Who doesn’t love dessert-scented campfires?
Sadly, I should have been infuriated by his misogynist display of insensitivity, but now, now he was staring at me with his docile eyes, his straight, black brows shrugged worriedly together. And what was I thinking of all ludicrous things? After days of fantasizing what I’d say to him or do to his neck—like breaking it—I was thinking about how angry I was because he’d left me alone to face the monsters. I felt relieved to see him again. I needed him. I’d never believed in the Boogieman until today, and lucky me, there wasn’t just one, there were fifty. And bonus! They all shopped at the same Boogieman-Outlet so they could coordinate their scary costumes. Just thinking about those dreads or crusty muddy bodies dressed in loincloths…yack!
But being with Guy somehow made it all better. Like being home. “Well? Tell me?” I prodded.
“I—uh.” He turned away and scratched the black stubble on his jaw.
“Oh, for crying out loud.” I sat on the edge of the leather couch and waited as Guy paced the length of the room.
“I supposed I owe you an explanation—”
“Or two,” I added.
He frowned. “But we don’t have much time.”
“Exactly, so spit it out.”
“Right. You remember the story I used to tell you about the evil king who stole the young maidens, and then they were rescued by a handsome prince?”
I nodded, fearing where this conversation was heading.
“Well,” he continued, “that’s not this story.”
“Shocker.”
He pulled the thick black braid from the back of his head and began nervously twiddling the end. “This one doesn’t have a happy ending for everyone, and the good guys might not win. And the young maidens, well, most of them die.”
Was he really doing this to me? Trying to explain this lethal situation in the context of a fairytale? “Enough! Just tell me!” I exploded. “What the ever-loving-hell is going on? Who the hell are you? And where the hell were you?”
He continued pacing, shaking his head from side to side. “Hell, woman, that’s a lot of hells.”
I stood up and blocked him from pacing, planting my palms flat on his chest. I quickly snapped them away. Touching him felt like shoving a fork into an electrical socket.
“Yes,” I answered with a forced calm. “And you can go there if you don’t start giving me answers.”
“The bond.” His eyes drifted off momentarily. “You and I are bonded.”
“Bonded? Thanks, that just made as much sense as an inflatable dartboard.” Yes, those really exist.
“It means...we are connected and you are under my protection,” he elaborated.
For once, I finally understood why I needed protection, but…“How did we get ‘bonded’?” I asked.
“You inherited it from your grandmother. We met in 1940. She was just a child, but I bound myself to her light. It followed her lineage.”
“Why her?”
“She was special. I thought it would protect her. It didn’t.”
This conversation was moving way slower than I like
d and my patience was over. “Guy, Votan—whoever you are…”
Anger flickered across his face. “Who gave you my old name?”
Cimil had said it, but what was the big deal? “Are we playing Rumpelstiltskin now? Unbelievable! Just tell me! What are you?”
He said, “Over the centuries, humans believed us to be many things: fae, aliens, even vampires—since we can’t really die—but you’d call us…gods.”
“Sorry. Did you just say ‘gods’?”
He nodded stiffly.
I was definitely going to need to take up drinking. “Like as in Zeus or Aphrodite?”
“More like Erebus and Gaia—the original primordial gods. But we were never overthrown from Mount Olympus, because there isn’t one, and there are only fourteen of us. We also don’t marry or have children, except for—”
“Sorry, but did you say ‘gods?’” The idea wasn’t digesting. Not at all.
“We are very similar to you; we are made of energy; however, our control of it is highly evolved. Like comparing a tree monkey to an ape, if that makes it easier to understand.”
Was I supposed to be the tree monkey? Well, at least he was the ape. Fitting. “Where did you come from?”
“We don’t know. One day we were here, conscious of our existence but without any knowledge or recollection of how. As best as we can determine, we’re simply another species, another miracle of life just as you are. Only, we’re far superior in terms of our abilities, our domain is energy based, and we never die.”
“Huh?”
“Emma, I can’t give you a physics lesson right now.”
“Huh?” My mind reverted back to the word “god.”
He released a slow breath. “Everything in its most basic form is energy. Energy is our realm, our plane of existence. As a result, we can manipulate and use it in many ways. We don’t even require bodies to live, although to do our jobs here, we sometimes have to take a form.”
“Jobs?” They had jobs. Why wasn’t there anyone else here to listen to this?
“Like any living creature, we have a purpose,” he elaborated. “Ours happens to be keeping humans from destroying themselves. You wouldn’t believe how tiresome it is. Your species is very determined. But even if I wanted something different for myself, I couldn’t have it. My role is hardwired, instinctual.”
I walked across the room and ran my hands through my wild curls. His answers had just led to more questions. To top it off, my relationship with Guy, only now we were calling it a “bond” of all ridiculous things, felt more horrifying, like I was handcuffed to another planet I didn’t want to live on.
There was a light knock at the door. “Mr. Santiago, I’ve got everything loaded in the truck.”
“Thank you, Tommaso. We’ll be right there,” Guy said without shifting his eyes from my face.
“Why does he call you ‘Mr. Santiago’?”
“We have many names, more than I can remember sometimes. And I grew tired of Votan, so changed it.”
“Why?” I asked. It seemed odd that after—well, I don’t know how many years, actually—that he’d stop using one name and adopted a new one.
“We have to go now.”
He wasn’t going to answer? Fine. I had other more important questions. “You didn’t finish,” I grabbed his arm to stop him from leaving. A jolt of energy shot through the bones in my hand. “What am I?”
“Your grandmother’s father is one of us. So, I supposed, that makes you a little like us, just diluted. However, unlike the gods, your form appears to be entirely anchored in the physical world as normal human. We remain separate species.”
“Oh,” was all I could manage to say as my mind digested. I knew when Arturo called me a half-breed, it wasn’t going to be something good. But I kind of expected I was part gypsy or clairvoyant, maybe even a circus freak. But part supernatural deity? What the heck did that even mean? The only references I had were from Greek mythology or Latin American anthropology.
Could I spit fire?
Or grow corn?
Wait. Come to think of it, nothing good ever happened to the gods in those stories. They were always at war, killing each other, getting broken into a million pieces to become constellations...
All right. This was no time to crumble. I’d been through an excessive amount of terrifying events. So I needed to take that scary little rabbit hole I was about to dive down, fold it neatly in the palm of my hand, and shove it into my pocket, my Can’t Deal With This Now Pocket. Later, when I could process this, I’d take that journey. Until then, I wouldn’t try to comprehend, rationalize, or analyze.
Just get the answers, Emma, so you can survive this, so you can save your family. “So, why did that Scab call me a Payal?” I asked.
“Scab?”
“My new nickname for the witchdoctors. Maaskab—Scab.”
Guy looked utterly…indifferent. “Payal is Mayan for ‘key’. I supposed it likens to calling you ‘the missing link.’ Or, perhaps, it means the link between gods and humans. In any case, we don’t know why they want you.”
Missing link? How rude. “Whatever the reason, it can’t be good,” I said.
He nodded. “The Uchben report that the priests have been busy for decades, taking females. We’re guessing these women are other Payals or were my brother’s mates. And since there are accounts of the priests killing women, we can only guess the ‘Scabs’ are trying to eliminate our offspring.”
“Why? It’s not like we’ve done anything wrong.”
“Emma, Maaskab are evil. They’re our enemy. The last thing they want is more of us roaming the planet. Even demigoddesses like you.”
I shook my head; this was all too surreal. “That’s why they wanted my grandmother?”
Guy frowned and grabbed my hand. “Come, Emma. We should leave before they return. I need to get you somewhere safe.”
It was a simple gesture, holding my hand, but I couldn’t help but marvel at it. For so long, he’d been just a voice. Now he was real, standing next to me, touching me. A real, live god, no less.
“Hey. You’re touching me. Why doesn’t it hurt?”
“When I focus and keep my emotions in check, I can turn the volume down.” He smiled wickedly. “Or way up if you don’t behave.”
Great. He had built in Emma-Control.
“What happens when you lose focus?” I asked.
He raised one brow as if he was considering saying something flirty, then decided against it. Good choice. I wasn’t in a laughing mood. “When the energy inside me flows at full-strength, I could kill a human by touching them with my pinky.”
Imagine the obituary on that one: Emma Keane, killed by a deadly pinky. How embarrassing. Then I wondered, with so much power, why did he even need the Uchben? Maybe he just liked having people to boss around. Yeah, that was it.
“I don’t get it, Guy. You had the Uchben at your beckoned call all these years. Why didn’t you just have me go to them to spring you from the cenote?”
“The thought had entered my mind as a last resort only. When I realized there’d be no rescue from the other gods, I began to groom you for the task—toughen you up, mentally. I also needed to wait until you were old enough. I thought, perhaps, in another year or two, you’d be ready. Then you pulled that stunt with the cab, and I had no choice.”
“I didn’t pull anything,” I reminded him. “But you shouldn’t have waited so long; you weren’t the only one suffering.”
He nodded and stared at the floor. “I had no idea that when I bound myself to Gabriela, that I’d be condemning you to a life with me.” He suddenly sounded angry, or perhaps, resentful. “You didn’t even exist yet. But had I known, I would have made another choice.”
He was lying again. I could feel it. “And if I hadn’t been able to jar you lose from the cenote, what then?” I asked.
“I would have sent you to the Uchben. But I’m not sure they could have helped; they don’t have our blood, and therefore can�
��t open the portal. Second, they’re not as strong as you or I, not even your precious Tommaso.”
He was still jealous? Figured.
Then I began digesting what he said. He thought I was stronger than someone like Tommaso? I’d punched him as hard as I could in his stomach and all that did was double him over. On the other hand, I clocked Cimil and she flew—I mean she really, really flew across that room. Incredible, but it didn’t make any sense.
“Honestly,” he continued, “I was afraid what might happen if you came into contact with the Uchben. They might’ve thought you were a Maaskab spy if you just showed up claiming to be my spokesperson. They aren’t the most trusting people; they’re warriors.”
“So? What would they have done?” I asked.
“They would have tortured you to find out the truth,” he said flatly.
Torture? His backup plan was me getting tortured? Nice.
Midway down the hall, he abruptly stopped. I collided with his broad back. It was like a brick wall. “What? What’s wrong?” I asked, expecting him to say the Scabs were back.
“I forgot something important.”
He darted back into the room, reemerging moments later with that enormous, ancient cookbook. “Let’s go.”
Cookie baking gods?
“Pocket. Put in your ‘can’t deal with it now’ pocket, Emma,” I said.
Chapter TWENTY-THREE
Guy was relieved to find Tommaso had removed the bodies from the stairs and placed sheets over the others lying about the house.
Emma was strong, after all she had the blood of the gods flowing in her veins. And to her credit, she’d taken the news of her heritage rather well. But ultimately she was still human. Bound to the physical world. Fragile. Mortal.
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