by A L Magnus
Totaled
New Gods 2
by A. L. Magnus
All Rights Reserved.
Copyright ©2019 Hughes Unlimited.
No part of this publication may be copied, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the express written permission of the author except for brief excerpts in a review. Cover photo ©Deposit Photos and the photographer, all rights reserved.
First electronic book publication August 2019.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual businesses, entities, places, governments, politicians, or persons living or dead is purely coincidental. All people, politicians, gods, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination. Do not use while driving. This short fantasy is for adult readers.
Table of Contents
Copyright Page
Her Mission
The Time Problem
Chariot
Two Gods. Damn.
Sandwich
About A. L. Magnus
Her Mission
SHAKING HER HEAD AT the sight of her dreaded visitor, she avoided eye contact. The buff god who punched her V-card towered over her. She ached for her world to come back. Because of this giant Viking, life would never be the way she planned it. She glared at Erik.
The wrecker who blew her life apart at the asylum stood next to the door. His broad, muscular body turned her studio into a doll’s house.
“Excuse me for dropping in unannounced, but you’re important to me.” He set his huge hand on her shoulder and squeezed. “Sorry for the disruption, Sparks.” Raking his hair, he gave her his killer slow smile. “I’m overjoyed I found you. I haven’t done a good job filling you in on the war.” As he stroked his red beard, his eyes blazed over her body.
Happy to see her was one way to describe it. He wrecked her at that abandoned horror hole. A hard as hell fuck must be the god version of hello.
She rounded on Corey. “You sent me to him. He’s the reason you baited me to go to the asylum.”
“I meant well.” Corey shrugged. The morning light played over his muscular torso. His golden curls bounced. He wore cobalt blue boxer briefs.
“You meant well?” Her voice rose in pitch, threatening to break. She’d thought Corey was her friend. For the first time, she regretted picking him for her roommate. “You meant to be a shit-disturbing twit.” Sparks pressed her fists against her thighs.
“Talk to the hand, as the locals say.” Corey held up his palm and stalked out.
“Ease up, Ed—I mean, Sparks. You know him. You used to call him the mini-Loki.” He waggled his eyebrows. “Our favorite trickster lacks giant blood.” He flexed. “I’ve got giant enough n my veins for both of us.”
“In your pants, too.” Sparks cocked one brow, a trick she’d practiced for weeks.
“He’s your friend. Calling names isn’t the way to go.”
“It isn’t? What way do you want me to respond? Tell me, Red Beard. You know, after a huge oaf breaks your world and tells you have to leave everything for another realm. Oh, and be someone else—and that you’ve got freaking ancient history with your roommate.”
“I could spank you until you stop calling me Red Beard, and then answer your questions.”
“Oh, you mean like inform me of what the hell is going on, like you could have done from the beginning?”
His finger slipped into the cleft on his chin usually hidden by his beard. The gesture thoroughly distracted Sparks.
He slid his finger up and down in the red hair with the same rhythm he licked her between her legs.
A tear crept down her face and she backhanded it away. “When were you going to tell me you two are lovers?” Her hands reached her shoulders, and she held herself.
“Tell you?” His brows shot up and he tilted his head. “Oh, you mean it matters to you. You truly have been fully involved in the human world.” He sat and patted the couch. “Come on, I won’t bite. Yet.” He grinned, and his face was so open and guileless, Sparks let go of herself and dropped next to him. “Look, being gods—being gods for a long time, we don’t think about the limits in human morality. Especially being the ancient kinds of gods where gods are fun and flawed. We get called all kinds of names by humans. You’re seeing us near the forms preferred by the vikings, although we aren’t exactly any one form. We have versions in ancient Rome, Sumeria, Egypt, more places than you need to know right now. We’re busy bastards. You, too. I’m rather fond of your Egyptian version, Maat. Justice is fierce and beautiful, and you’re still that way that here.” He stroked his beard. “Those sheer linen low-cut gowns give me a powerful boner.”
“Is that all you think about, sex?”
“Well, they say human men in this time think of sex hundreds of times a day, and well,” he sighed, “My abilities are far beyond these males. I can go all night. I sex-focus without thinking. The same as I consider battle strategy, war, torture, spying, intrigue— the important things.”
She shook her head. “I don’t understand you. Isn’t anything important to you? You act as if everything is a game.”
“Oh, you want to treat of weighty matters. My beloved, the topic there is you.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s my duty to return you to your time and place.”
“Wait. My time?”
“You were playing, and got ahead of yourself. We’re not sure yet if someone trapped you here for mischief, or if it was a calculated enemy act. Given how gods roll, we suspect sabotage.”
“We?”
“The two of us, as well as friends in our realm.”
“That realm, that’s where you want to take me.”
“Right.” He nodded encouragingly. His warm breath touched her shoulders and sent a flame between her legs. He could go all night. Why was she asking him so many questions when they could be fucking? Focus, Sparks. This hunk was trying to remove her from her entire life.
She drew in a long breath and expelled it, forcing herself to become calm. “This realm, it’s far from here.”
“Oh, yes. Farther than you can conceive with your limited human mind. When you come back to yourself more fully, you’ll understand things better. We talk about time and space, but it’s all at once. Things aren’t as separated as people pretend.” He leaned closer, his breath caressing her ear. “That’s why I didn’t think how you’d react to my pleasure with Corey. I’m sorry, Sparks. I didn’t mean to hurt you.” His thumb slid across her lips.
She blinked, creaming her panties. “Okay, apology accepted. I get it, you’re a horny old goat ancient god, free and limitless as the stars, why would you consider a college freshman’s silly feelings for the man who took her virginity?” She flipped her hands and covered her face.
Her ears rumbled, warning tears. She bit her lip, wanting desperately not to cry while he looked at her with those deep eyes. Compassion, the man had compassion on tap, and she was drowning in it. Her face flamed. Why couldn’t he stop looking at her? She yanked the leather lacing out of her hair and let her hair fall, a curtain between them.
“Sweet flower. You’ve grown so tender.” A growl underlay his voice as though he were a beast or a vampire using all his will not to rend her for her blood.
She wrapped the leather around her wrist, making it snug, crisscrossing it up her forearm, tying it. Staring at the thong pressing her flesh, she recognized it. She’d worn leather gauntlets that laced, long ago in battle. The warrior woman she saw in her studio, that was her. Edrial, her warrior goddess self. Not all of her incarnations sat in judgment, weighing the dead’s heart against a feather as Maat liked to do.
“Sparks, I’ve blown this badly. Please forgive me, and let’s start over. The thing is, we come from the past, the ancient pa
st. Because time is happening all at once, we’re free to play. We take care not to muck around too much with the course of events.” He shrugged and his hard torso rippled. “Not everyone cares to avoid causing chaos, though. Many god enjoy creating mayhem and suffering.” He sighed, looking older. “It’s a matter of taste. For the most part, I stay out of what others do. You, however, are my beloved.” His lips flickered with a smile that belonged to a young bridegroom. “Yes, we were young lovers, eons ago. Listen, we’re at war. It’s my duty to return you to our time and place.” Her rubbed a massive boot back and forth across the floor, scattering dust-rhinos.
“Our time and place,” she whispered. She drew a stubby, grubby nail down her thigh. Really needed a shower and fresh panties. Every time she moved, she went squish. All his fault, big sexy fucking hunky bruiser.
“I heard that.”
“I know you did.” She stuck her tongue out at him.
He grabbed her and wrestled her onto his lap.
She didn’t resist much, just enough to feel manhandled in a good way.
“Now I’ve got you.”
“Fucker.”
“Yes.”
“So the idea is you’ll carry me away against my will and force me to live as a stranger, the god or goddess Edrial. You expect me to give up everything I’ve worked to get, everything that matters to me. For some crazy reason, you left me here and let these insane humans torture me. Did you know that part, Erik? That my mother here was insane and beat me unconscious more times than I can remember? That I was hospitalized with a head injury? That she lied about all the accidents I had? Do you know I’m fucking glad the bitch is dead?”
He put his arms around her, moving slowly and gently. “I didn’t know. I’m sorry. I would never have let that happen to you. I would have gotten you out of here sooner if I could have. I swear it to you. It took until now to find you.” He rested his hands on her back like wings, his fingertips pressing near her spine, somehow freeing her, making her lighter, making the shadows fade away replaced with light. “I love you. I have always loved you, and I will protect you to my dying breath.”
She drew back. “You’ll die?”
“In a sense. All things die. We live more slowly than most, so our cycles comprise ages, but yes, eventually, I, too, will experience the turning of the wheel and come up for renewal.” He frowned. “We can be killed, too. Even our original being died by murder. That seems to be what happened to you, and why you were so difficult to locate.” He ducked his head. “I’ve been searching for a long time.” His voice caught.
“How long?” She peered into his face. The pain in his eyes shot to her heart. He did love her. This wasn’t some smooth seducer’s act. Losing her ripped his heart.
His Adam’s apple bobbed. “More than 300 years by the reckoning of this era.”
“Oh. Well, thank you. I mean, I’m still mad at you, I can’t help it, but I think I understand better, that you’ve been hurting, too.” She shrugged and hid in her hair. She swallowed hard. “I just need more time, Erik. Let me take all this in, and let me finish my mission.” She sighed, and a tear escaped. He caught it with his tongue, and she ran her hand through his burnished hair. “I need to do what I set out to do. Then I can maybe find some peace with what you want from me.”
His eyes narrowed, and he raised her chin. “How long do you need?”
“I’m not sure.”
“What’s your mission?”
“To overthrow the stinking officials who are ruining this city and bring an end to suffering of the people who need help.”
“That’s a big mission.”
“I have a plan.”
His slow smile spread over his face and his knuckles rubbed her cheek. “I’m sure you do.”
She rested her face on his hand. “In fact, you two can help.”
The Time Problem
IT WAS DIFFICULT TO get used to having a giant Viking god—and other kinds of a god as well—making her studio resemble a doll house. He took up most of the couch.
Erik’s eyes flashed. “What can we do? Mind you, we can’t stay here indefinitely.” He leaned toward her, his arms bulging.
“Yeah, I got that. While you were tilting what’s left of my world, you dropped the bomb that I was murdered by enemies. You sure know how to make me want to get back to my own time and place.” She cocked one brow.
Frowning, he put a finger on it and pressed it downward, as though trying to match the other one. “You’re crooked.”
“Stop that!” She sputtered, swatting his hand. Okay, forget impressing him with tricks. This was like having a visitor from another planet. Plus, he was freaking ancient, despite the rocking body. They shared no frame of reference, except his, and most of that was stuff she didn’t remember.
Sparks sat back and rubbed her head. She really wished this would all go away. Except maybe his cock, and all those delicious muscles, and his eyes, looking at her as though they loved her, and getting so close hers crossed. “Hey, what, wait, you’re distracting me.”
“On purpose,” his deep voice rumbled. The low tone went right between her legs.
“Stop that, knock it off—.” He stole one kiss.
She kissed him back. No, she had to resist, or he’d render her brainless again.
She grabbed his shoulders and pushed. It was hard as trying to move that big granite angel in the cemetery.
“You shouldn’t disturb monuments to the dead.”
“Shut up and stop reading my mind,” she muttered.
He moved back and sighed. The sigh did obscene things to his chest and abdominal muscles.
She kept her eyes off his enormous trouser snake. One look at that and she’d be lost. Maybe he was the dude version of Medusa.
He cracked up next to her, laughing so hard the couch shook and crept across the floor.
The downstairs neighbor cursed.
“Just stay out of my mind. I’m trying to have a conversation with you.” She bit her lip against calling him Red Beard. Something told her the spanking threat might be for real.
“Fine. He held up his hand for truce. “How can we help? If it’s within reason, we’ll do what we can to help you finish up what you want to do here.”
“Even if it’s only a blink?” She pressed her fingers hard into her legs, but couldn’t stop a tear from spilling.
He caught her tear and licked it off his thumb. “Yes, because it matters to you.” He gave her an appraising glance. “You have a lot in common with Syn.”
“Sin?”
“No, S-y-n, a god of truth. She’s a protector. I see her ferocity in you. You’ve been coming back to yourself. That’s why you’re so passionate and need to help the downtrodden. It matters to you intensely that corrupt people are harming people who can’t defend themselves.”
“Yes, that’s it exactly.” She didn’t expect him to understand. It took some of the starch out of her that he knew her so well.
A smile flickered through her at Grandma’s phrase. She’d had one kind family member, and lost her too soon. She dug her nails into her palms. No, damn it, no, if he was right, none of it was real, and Grandma and the few things she cherished here—it was all like a dream. It would be gone in a blink, and she’d leave it all to become—like him. She flinched, expecting him to interrupt her again and disapprove.
She flicked a glance at the tight T-shirt and second-skin jeans, traveled his powerful throat to his weathered face. His placid expression reassured her. It seemed he’d stopped trespassing in her mind. That was an improvement, anyway.
“Tell me your plan.” His voice purred.
He seduced her. It wasn’t fair. But she sat up straight, looked right into his eyes, and embraced herself as Sparks the Truth Teller. If this was her last mission, she’d damned well make it phenomenal. Time to empty the turd-bucket politicians infecting city hall with injustice.
“Tonight, I’m going after Council Member Alten.” Her doubts and fears evaporated
as she returned to the game plan she’d been working toward for weeks. “I’ll catch him on camera coming out of the au pair’s room and send it out live on my feed. It’s his wife’s bridge night. The video will discredit his hypocritical treatment of immigrants. He got the girl pregnant.”
“I see,” Erik nodded.
“You guys can stand watch. I’ll be on a tree branch over the pool house where he moved her after his wife caught him. They’re pretending they don’t know who the father is. I won’t put the pregnant au pair in the vlog, none of this is her fault. And I think she’ll be safer when the public knows what he’s been doing. This means nothing to you, with your attitudes about multiple partners...”
“It’s not that. Differences in codes of honor don’t come into weighing his behavior. He damned himself with corruption and lying. He broke his vows to his wife. That means something to me.” He caressed her cheek. “Edrial, Sparks, we both loved others. If you want things to be different now, we can change.” A wicked smile flickered over his mouth. “You might want to think it through before you decide.”
She was tempted to ask if Edrial, if she’d ever mm, never mind. She swatted away the fantasy. No more distractions. The wicked man had already undermined any allegiance she might have to monogamy. The thought of a Corey and Erik sandwich was driving her out of her mind.
“I’m glad you understand.” She swallowed. “I mean, about the council member.”
“I do. I want to do better at giving you time. This is ‘a lot to process,’ as you say here.”
“Hey, what happened with the asylum?”
“It’s gone. Kah-blam!” He mimed an explosion so forcefully he blew her hair back.
She patted his arm. “Okay, I get it. How?”
“I’d already set the charges. Not that I needed them, but part of this visit, well, in my ethics, I intrude as little as possible, so I wanted to leave everything as the contractors would expect to find it, even though I could have done a much cleaner job.”
She stared. “You mean there were explosives in there while we were fucking?”
