Accidentally...Over?: Accidentally Yours 5 (4 page)

She dug for her keys, but remembered she’d left them inside the café on the counter. “Jeez.”
I’m forgetting everything today.

She turned and walked right into a wall. Only there was no wall. It was an empty, dark parking lot. “What the f—”

“Hello, Ashli,” said the deep male voice.

She shrieked.

Máax stared down at the hysterical, screaming woman. He was about to offer a few calming words, such as “Shut the hell up,” but then something peculiar happened.

What the fuu…?
He stumbled to the side but caught himself. He’d never experienced anything so unusual, so potent. But what was it? It didn’t hurt. No, quite the opposite. It felt like a sack of fucking wonderful dropped on his head.

Máax looked at the woman once more, and it hit him again.

Click.

He gasped.
She
was doing this to him? How? There was no logical explanation, other than…

He lost his train of thought.
Gods, she is magnificent.

Holy Christ!
He stepped back and stared at Ashli.
Is that… Am I…?
He was drooling! Like a hungry dog!

The odd, euphoric sensation hit him again, nearly tumbling him over. Nothing in his seventy thousand years of existence could help him articulate the sensation. It was as if the damned woman had jumped inside his body,
soldered herself to every molecule of his light, and then sucked away any rational thought. The hollow pit in his chest, one he hadn’t known existed, felt instantly placated. That spot now felt warm and mushy. The center of gravity shifted from beneath his feet toward the direction of the woman and began pulling him to her like a shooting star.

Oh, shit. She’s my mate?
He took two more steps back.
No. No. Hell no! But how?
And why now? He’d never asked the Universe for a mate. He didn’t want this. He didn’t want to be tethered to some… some
weak mortal
woman, or any woman for that matter. Where was the godsdamned logic in that? For fuck sake, he was a lone wolf—answered to no one and nothing. And he was invisible, went where he liked when he liked. (For the time being, anyway.) After he went on trial for his recent multitude of offenses, he’d be entombed for a very, very, very… yes,
very
fucking long time! And now this, this…
woman
had messed it all up!
Filii canis!
Now he was truly going to suffer. He’d have something to miss!

Then another truth dawned on him.
Cimil set me up! Again!
He was going to kill her. And, gods fucking dammit, did the woman—this, this, Ashli—have to be so godsdamned hot?

Infernum.
Her beauty was beyond that of any deity. Dark golden-brown skin, hair like black-licorice ribbons wild about her face and trailing down her back, and exotic eyes, turning up in the corners like a feline’s. And her lips… Her lips were plump and full, just the sort a man longs to feel sliding over every inch of his—

Get a hold of yourself, man!
But holy saints she was hot. What was he going to do?

Why don’t you start by saving her, asshole?

Right. First things first, though; he had to get her to stop screaming. “Ashli, I command you to stop screaming.”

Her beautiful hazel eyes widened, and she bolted toward the dusty, narrow road that ran along the beachfront.

Sanguine ad infernum! She’s running away?
“Ashli, I command you to stop. I won’t hurt—” A large silver bus came out of nowhere. “No!”

Three

“Cimiiil,” Máax roared.

“Máax, honey.” Cimil pulled down the front of her dress and Roberto dropped his hands. “I didn’t expect to see you back so soon!” Cimil snorted. “Get it? See you? Damn, I’m funny.”

“Have you completed the task?” Roberto asked. “You’ve only been gone for one minute.”

Máax tried to speak, but his red-hot anger and desire to punch something got in the way.

Cimil waved her hands in the air. “Máax? You still here?”

Máax cleared the rage-coated lump in his throat. “Yeah. I’m here.”

“What’s wrong?” Cimil placed her palms against the glass.

What was wrong? What was wrong? She had the impudence to ask what was wrong? “You set me up, Cimil! That’s what’s fucking wrong!”

Cimil began chewing her index finger. “Why, Máax,” she said in an exaggerated southern belle accent, “I do believe you’re vexed. But I assure you, sir, I don’t have the slightest clue what’s gotten your man-fritters in a pickle.” She fanned her face.

“Don’t start your bullshit, Cimil. You knew who she was, didn’t you? And you sent me to her! What the
sanguine ad infernum
were you thinking?” he roared.

“I was
thinking
,” Cimil replied, “that the doom clock is ticking, and it’s about time you met your
media naranja
, the other half of your orange, the hop in your scotch, the ohhhhh in your oh, baby. And don’t you speak Latin to me! I hate Latin. It reminds me of the time a bunch of witches threw me in a pot and cooked me! With carrots and onions, no less. Can you believe that? Not everything tastes like chicken.”

“I’m going to kill you, Cimil.” What had she gotten him into?

A mate? A mate?
He didn’t want a damned mate!

“Now, now, brother—”

“You know I face entombment. For eternity!
If
we survive this!”

Cimil sighed. “Máax, I’m sorry—not really—but the woman must be saved regardless, and you’re truly the only god for the job. Besides, who’s to say you wouldn’t have met her anyway? She is your destiny, your fate—the good kind. And you’re right, who’s to say we all get out of this apocalypse alive? Don’t you want to experience true love just once before your time is up?”

True love? Being mated wasn’t true love. It was being shackled against one’s will. It was cosmic brainwashing. “So I may act like a pathetic, lovesick idiot, unable
to control his physical desires even when in public? No, thank you.”

“Don’t know what you’re missin’.” Cimil sang her words and then did her strange little jazz hands move. “It’s magical. Besides, if you really, really don’t want her, you can always have what’s-her-face erase Ashli from your memory.”

What’s-her-face was their sister, the Goddess of Forgetfulness. Actually, that was a pretty good idea.

Roberto pulled Cimil close. “You are so sexy when you’re thoughtful, my love. I am going to bone you until your head spins.” The two began mauling each other with hands and tongues.

Love was so degrading. Why would he want that?

“Guys,” Máax said.

They ignored him as they grunted, ground, moaned, and slurped. Máax felt his immortal skin crawl.

“Guys!” he yelled.

The two paused and sneered in his general direction.

“I need to—”

“Máax,” Cimil said. “Yes. You still have to save her—”

“But—”

“Okay!” she barked. “I’m sorry for introducing you to the one woman in the world who has any chance in hell of making you happy. And perhaps less bitter. And prickish. But what’s done is done and—”

“I killed her,” he blurted out.

Fuck.
How had it gone so wrong? He was there with her one moment, the next she was gone.

“You killed her?” Roberto stifled a snicker.

“I did not mean to,” Máax explained. “Irrational, crazy woman. She ran out in front of a bus. There wasn’t even
any fucking traffic. It was seven in the godsdamned morning. She just”—he let out an anguished sigh—“ran away.”

Cimil burst with laughter.

“This is not funny.” Perhaps this woman was not really his mate, he thought. Perhaps the Universe and Cimil simply wanted to have a little fun with him. Because he’d never heard of one’s mate fleeing in terror.

But why did it chafe him?

Cimil continued to giggle. “Like hell it’s not funny. I sent you back to save someone, and you get her killed in what—sixty seconds? Nice job, Buck Rogers. Biddy, biddy!” Cimil elbowed Roberto. “Get it? Get it? Biddy, biddy. Like the little robot who always caused problems.” Her laughter died with a sad, little sputter when she noticed Roberto’s cold stare. “Oh, never mind. Listen, Máax, glad you came back to report on the fine work you just did. But—and I mean this with all of the hate in my cold, twisted heart—what the hell are you doing here? We’ve already had two earthquakes. Two! Get your ass back to 1993 and fix it. You still have to save her.”

Hmmm. Good point. What
was
he doing there? He guessed he had been so shocked by what happened to Ashli that he hadn’t quite known what to do. Thankfully, the bus had been going so fast that she’d not suffered, but that did not make the event any less traumatic. She died. She’d run away from him and died.

“I’m leaving,” he grumbled.

“Thatta boy! And next time, could you come back ten minutes later? Roberto and I need a chance to play hokey-pokey.” She winked.

“Two minutes. Make it two mind-blowing minutes.” Roberto began unzipping his leather pants.

Máax grimaced. Had they no shame? Were they really going to have sex in a cell with a glass wall, with Roberto’s men milling about, and the other gods and their mates drugged, moments from waking up?

“As you wish.” Máax took the tablet—the other had been left behind in 1993—and headed to the conference room in the back of the prison. This time, he would play this out differently. Perhaps save Ashli without revealing his presence. Completely incognito.

Aren’t you forgetting something?

Infernum.
Yes, he was. He’d have to rethink the plan. He needed to return to the past. Return to her. Which meant if he wasn’t careful, he might bump into himself. That couldn’t happen. Allowing oneself to overlap, being in the same place at the same time, started a feedback loop similar to reverb on a guitar. It fed off itself, creating a chain reaction of dark, nasty, evil energy that circled the globe, raining down hate and destruction for centuries.

How’d he know? Two words:
Cimil
and
dinosaurs
. Oh yes. Humans liked to believe that those giant beasts died when an asteroid crashed to Earth, but nothing could be further from the truth. It was all Cimil. Cimil and her destructive curiosity: “I wonder what it would be like to go back in time and ride a velociraptor?” Apparently, she’d had that thought more than twice and bumped into herself. It wasn’t until the gods started to experience violent episodes of seizures, followed by decades of amnesia and sugar cravings, that they realized what Cimil had done. Not only had she wiped out the creatures and drastically altered the future, but she could’ve destroyed humanity, too.

From that day forward, time travel was banned—no exceptions—and there was a damned good reason for it.

So now what? Not only did a past version of him exist in 1993, the version actually alive at that time, but now there was another version of himself from moments ago.

The ground rumbled violently beneath his feet, causing him to stumble to one side. The dangling overhead lamps swung like a recently vacated trapeze.

Shit…
Was this really happening? He scratched his overly scruffy chin. Apparently, it was.

All right. Perhaps if he returned one week earlier than he’d originally encountered Ashli, that would resolve the issue. Yes. That would work. And how hard would it be to ensure they were nowhere near her café on the day of his original visit? He’d figure something out.
There’s always a solution.

Is there now?

Yes.

Are you so foolish as to believe that your sister, the Goddess of Forgetfulness, can truly make you forget your mate if we manage to survive this?

What’s-her-face can make anyone forget anything.

He sighed. He hoped he was right about that. Eternal entombment would be bad enough without having to pine away for some female. It would be too much pain and suffering for any being to bear.

Four