Accidentally in Love With a God (2012) (26 page)

So brave. So full of light. Adorable.

His second thought was how badly he wanted her to understand. If he could get her to calm down, he could start explaining how things worked in his world. For gods, mankind came first. Responsibility came first. He truly didn’t mean to hurt her, but something about Tommaso made him uneasy. Maybe he simply wasn’t good enough for her. But then again, no one was.

But Guy had been ready to tell her everything, including why he’d rejected her; he felt she deserved the truth. But when she broke the bond, something snapped. It wasn’t simply the hit to his male ego—because, yes, he’d never been rejected in such a monolithic manner—it was the excruciating pain as she ripped her essence away. A piece of their souls dwelled inside the other. That’s how the bond, the link, was formed. Severing something so strong was like cracking an atom. His atoms.

Worst of all, was the giant gaping hole left behind. Her light was the only piece of him that felt peaceful and warm. Without this tiny fragment of Emma, he was just a savage, a coldhearted deity.

“You’re always so full of surprises, my sweet.” He reached out and roughly stroked the light copper spirals that framed her delicate face and vibrant dark green eyes—eyes that were, at the moment, filled with a cocktail of anger and lust.

She turned her head away from him.

“Can’t you feel it now?” he said in a low voice. “The emptiness? You. Need. Me.”

“No. You’re a killer, a demon. You forced yourself into my life and don’t ever forget it.”

“Emma, I am the darkness that makes light possible. I kill because someone has to destroy those born soulless and evil, those who rape, murder, and breed darkness. And for this, you reject me? Judge me? You have no clue what I’ve endured, what I’ve sacrificed for humanity.”

Her gaze was white hot. “No. I don’t. But how could I? You never tell me anything!”

“Because I want to shield you from such drudgery. But trust me—I have given everything!” His anger quickly spiraled as more of Emma’s calming essence abandoned him, returning to her.

Guy pushed her against the wall, pinning her with his hard body. “Say it again, Emma,” he snarled in her ear. “Say it, God dammit. Say you don’t need me to keep those Maaskab from finding you and tearing out your heart, or keeping them from killing your family. Say. It. Because without the bond, without me, you’re as good as dead—just like Gabriela.”

She tightened her lips and ground her teeth before stiffly turning her head to meet his smoldering glare. “I will never fucking need you. You’re nothing but a medieval bastard. The Uchben will still protect me.
Tommaso
will protect me.”

Guy could feel her slipping farther away, and his savage side becoming more dominant. He could take no more. He pulled back his body a fraction of an inch and pinned her arms above her head to peer into her eyes. Her pupils were wide and inviting.

Yes. Lust and anger
, matching his own, he thought. He could smell the intoxicating cocktail of emotions wafting from her skin.

He sucked in a deep breath wanting to pull some piece of her, any piece of her back inside him. Thoughts of their bare, sweaty flesh sliding against each other flashed in his mind. He felt his cock stiffen and his human like body flood with need. “Tell me, Emma.” He exhaled into her ear, then ran his lips down her neck. “Tell me that you don’t need me, that you don’t want me.”

He moved his mouth to that sensitive spot just below her earlobe. “Tell me you don’t ache to have my tongue inside your mouth, licking every inch of your body. That you don’t want the tip of my hard cock slipping inside you, dipping in and out, until I break you of that horrible, distasteful attitude of yours. Tell me you don’t want me to fill you over and over again, making you come so hard that I brand myself in your mind. That after I’ve made you swollen from riding you for hours, how you abhor the thought of me taking you slowly, slipping between your hot thighs until you moan one last time and convulse underneath me. Say you don’t want it, little virgin, say it.”

Her body collapsed against him, but Emma’s eyes were shut tight, her face a fortress of flushed turmoil.

No female could resist the potent pheromones radiating from his body; it was one of his best tricks of the trade. Even better than his voice or the categorical perfection of his male form. All he had to do was focus and his body turned into a seduction factory. He could hypnotize an entire city block of women with it if he wanted. This was how he would get Emma to return the bond, to need him again like he needed her. Oh, yes. He could already smell her pungent desire leaking from every pore in her body, from between her legs. Each molecule vibrated with one unified message: “I want you,” they said.

“I. Don’t. Want. You.” Emma panted.

What?
Guy slammed his fist past her head and into the wall.
Stubborn woman!
She was driving him mad. And she was lying.

“You’ll regret saying that,” he growled.

“Go ahead.” She lifted her chin. “Hurt me. I know you’re not capable of anything else.”

He took several calming breaths to get a hold of himself. What was he doing? He didn’t need her. He didn’t need anyone. As painful as it was for him to go back to his old self, it did give him back his freedom. Freedom from this painful neediness for a human.
No. This is good
, he thought.
I’ve lived all but twenty-two years of my existence without being bonded to Emma. I’ll be heartless, never again know peace, but fine.

He gathered himself together, burying his pain.
I still need to protect her. I still need her help.
He suddenly felt drained, like someone had pulled the plug from his body and every ounce of energy had been ripped away. His heart ached. His head throbbed. He wanted to simply wither away quietly. Alone. Facing eternity as the coldhearted God of Death and War.

Her eyes flipped open and her gorgeous mouth held a wicked smile. “It’s your move, Mr. War and Death. The bond is broken, and I’m not putting up with your bully tactics any longer. I’m not your plaything and if you ever cared for me, even one tiny arrogant cell in your pea-sized brain, you’d let me go.”

“Fine. You win,” he said, removing his grip. “You’re on your own. I only ask you do one thing.”

“What?” She remained against the wall, holding herself upright.

“Remember when I told you in the car that the other gods are trapped in the cenotes?”

She nodded yes.

He shoved his hands through his hair. “We need you to go back to Mexico and free them.”

Her expression was unreadable and without the bond, he couldn’t sense her emotions like before. Was she frightened or just angry?

“Are you serious?” she responded. “That place is crawling with Scabs.”

“You were able to free me, so you can free them, too. There is no one else to do it.”

“I almost drowned, Guy,” she protested.

“We’ll take precautions, but I need the other gods free, Emma. I can’t coordinate the Uchben, hunt Cimil, and take care of the Maaskab by myself. It’s ultimately your choice. But know if you don’t do this, women will continue being stolen from their families and slaughtered. Your family will continue to be in danger.”

“Sure. No pressure. Can I ask you something?”

Guy nodded.

“Did you ever care about me? Or was it always about this?”

“Emma, I care. More than you’ll ever know. But you’re right to push me away. I’m a coldhearted being, incapable of truly caring for anyone. As soon as this is over, you shall be free from me.”

Chapter TWENTY-NINE

Adrenaline shot through every crack and crevice of my smoldering body. He had each one of my cells aching for him. Yes. I wanted him. So badly it almost split me in two and left me hollow. It took every ounce of strength in my quaking body to lie to him. But I couldn’t allow him to further his dangerous, emotional strangle-hold on me. I needed it to end because I needed to belong—lock, stock, and barrel—to one person and one person only: me.

That’s what I believed, anyway, until I spouted off that phrase, breaking our bond. Afterward, I felt anything but free. It felt like a piece of me had been ripped away. Empty.

Why didn’t he feel the same? How could he go from a chest-pounding, feral, seduction machine to Mr. Cool-As-A-Cucumber? Because our link was meaningless to a deity like him. He had plenty other humans he was bonded to, according to Tommaso.

Yes. I’d made the right decision. It had to be this way.

“Fine. I accept. Oh, and there are two conditions.”

He waved his hand lazily through the air. Was he bored by all this? Sure, he was. “Go on.”

“First, you tell me everything you know about my grandmother. Second, Tommaso has to come with us, and you let him pick his assignment after.”

Guy’s eyes twitched the moment the word ‘Tommaso’ left my lips. “That’s three.”

“Yeah, I guess it is, but those are my
three
conditions. Take it or leave it,” I said, as if I were in a position to negotiate. Ha. Finally, unquestionable proof. I really was insane.

“Agreed,” he said as if utterly uninterested by the whole situation.

What was with this man?

He walked over to the bed and lay down, lacing his fingers behind his head before shutting his eyes.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

He cracked open one shimmering turquoise eye, then snapped it shut. “Now that you’ve released me, I thought I might enjoy the serenity and relax.”

“You’re supposed to tell me everything you know about my grandmother.”

“I agreed to tell you, but you didn’t specify when. So, I’m going to sleep. We’ll talk in the morning.”

Damn that man! Damn him to hell. When would I learn? “You can’t sleep there,” I said.

“You don’t need me, remember?” he said drowsily. “And, these are my quarters. But just to prove how gracious of a god I can be, you can have the couch,” he mumbled.

“I’d rather sleep in the dirt than be in the same room with you.”

He pulled the covers over his shoulders. “Fine by me, little girl. Just stay on the compound since I’m sure the Scabs have people waiting outside hoping for the opportunity to snap you up.”

“Maybe I’ll go see where Tommaso is sleeping.”

“He’s already gone.” He rolled over and gave me his back.

“Where?”

He yawned. “I saw you talking to him at dinner and knew you’d insist he go to Mexico with us. So, I sent him on ahead to start scouting.”

Sneaky jerk. Tommaso hadn’t been sent to Siberia.

“What are you doing, Guy? One minute you’re ready to tear off my clothes and the next you’re—”

“Emma, you’ve made yourself clear. Take glory in your success. You have no need for me, nor desire me in your life. I concede. And now if you’ll let me get some rest, I’ve been seventy years without sleeping in a bed.” He turned off the lamp.

***

It was almost midnight, but I figured it was worth taking a chance. I knocked quietly on the door and waited, listening for some movement inside.

The door cracked open. “Emma! What a pleasant surprise. A late one, but…come in.”

Xavier wore a navy blue jogging suit. I guessed those were his pajamas. “Yeah. I hope you don’t mind, but I asked the guards at the gate where to find you. It took me a while; this compound is gigantic.”

He smiled warmly. “I get lost all the time. Just wait until you see what we have underground—oh.” He placed his hands over his mouth. “I’m not supposed to talk about that. It’s such a bad habit of mine, saying things I shouldn’t.”

I'd definitely come to the right place.

Xavier offered me green tea, and we sat down at his kitchen table. The small cottage had a charming feel despite the piles of books in every corner and the dried-out plant hanging from the ceiling near the soot-coated chimney. In fact, every building I’d seen on the compound had some kind of rustic charm. Everything in Uchben Land—my new name for this crazy place—was remarkably beautiful. Stone walkways, fountains, blossoming gardens with marble statues, and perfectly preserved stone buildings; these people had to have significant means to maintain everything so immaculately.

“So, what brings you to my doorstep so late at night?” he asked.

I shrugged. “I didn’t really know where else to go. Guy and I don’t exactly get along sometimes, maybe never again.”

“Ah, yes. He’s got a temper, that one, and can be quite arrogant. But they’re all that way.”

“So you know them—the other gods?” I sipped my tea.

“No. Heavens, I’ve just read about them. I’m only sixty-eight and the gods have been…indisposed, as you’re aware. But soon, I hope to have the honor. Nothing would satisfy this old man more.”

“You’re not that old,” I pointed out. “Sixty-eight is the new forty-eight.”