PROLOGUE & QUIZ
NOTE FROM CIMIL, GODDESS OF THE UNDERWORLD:
Aloha from non-paradise! First, allow me to apologize. This note has been written on Votan’s underpants; thus I must be brief!
See what I did there? I must be brief because I’m writing on… Oh, neverthefuck mind.
Let’s move on to congratulating you. Yes, you! All of my fun-loving people pets! Bravo for making it to the end of this bumpy tale of immortal matchmaking, starring some of the sexiest, but most difficult immortal clients to ever walk into my matchmaking office: Andrus, Tommaso, Belch, Forgetty, Colel, and Brutus. Very few humans have the coconuts, huevos, and backbone to look behind the scenes at the immortal world and the inner workings of the Universe.
Kinda scary learnin’ how many times the world has almost gone kaput!
Scarier yet, though? Knowing that I have been responsible. Okay, okay. And I saved you all. I’m a generous and giving goddess that way.
However, in the interest of fairness (aka “sharing the blame”), I cannot take all the credit for the roller coaster of apocalypses and plagues.
Oh no, mon cher. Because we all know that behind every great story is a great villain. And boy, do I have a villain for you!
He’s creepy.
He’s crawly.
He deserves his very own section at Walmart called “icky crap no one wants to buy.” So do not, I repeat, do not skip over the warning. See “warning” section posted before this note. It is muy importante. Now, on to business! Quiz time!
Regrettably, this shall be your final pop quiz from yours truly, since all good (and not so good) things must come to an end.
How does it all end? you ask. You are about to find out. So buckle up. Find a bottle of fermented something and then trust in the gods to take you on a ride to Hell and back. Wink, wink. Say no more.
Now time for the quiz. Don’t miss the answers in the back.
Let us begin!
1. Last time we saw the gods, they were:
a. Frolicking naked in a bouncy house at the Naked Deity Bouncy House Festival.
b. On a world tour with Roen the traveling merman because they wanted to see how mortals and fishy dudes truly live.
c. We didn’t see them, Cimil, because they disappeared, and everyone knows you can’t see things that are gone. Duh…
2. Mimi is the real devil in this story because you never know:
a. When she says “it’s the end” if she REALLLY means it.
b. She enjoys mindfucking her fans, but only because they secretly love it.
c. If this is the one time she won’t try to surprise you with a crazy plot twist, simply because you’re expecting a plot twist, and not doing one is really a twist of its own.
d. All of the above.
3. Mimi gives free shit to her fans, such as signed bookmarks, if they:
a. Ask nicely and include all of their shipping info in an email. SEE AUTHOR’S NOTE.
b. If they send her weird unicorn shit that makes her office increasingly harder to work in because she finds herself drifting away to a magical place filled with said creatures.
c. If they show up at her front door in yellow ducky PJs with an empty bowl and say, “Please, Mimi, may I have some more?”
4. Tula and Zac are getting this book because out of all the Immortal Matchmaker characters:
a. They have suffered the longest and need a full-blown HEA.
b. Mimi was frightened of what her readers might do if she didn’t write it.
c. Minky needs to find closure over her crush on Zac.
d. The gods are missing, and a series just can’t end like that!
e. None of the above.
GO TO END OF BOOK FOR ANSWERS.
GOD
OF
TEMPTATION
CHAPTER ONE
“Jeez, can it possibly get any more hellish down here?” From deep inside the cave, Tula grabbed the front of her pink T-shirt and peeled the fabric from her sweat-soaked skin. She’d never been so hot, like the meat was slowly cooking off her bones. Every breath of putrid sulfur-scented air left a foul taste on her tongue that made her retch.
“Da. It can,” said Yuri, the Russian guide, trailing behind her. “Which is why I’m sorry, Miss Tula. Diss is where I muss leave you.”
Tula glanced over her shoulder at Yuri’s red face. He was an older man in his late sixties with thinning gray hair, but his looks were deceiving. Normally, she couldn’t keep up with him despite being in great shape herself.
He’s slowing down because he doesn’t want to go farther. She couldn’t blame him. Yuri had gotten her all the way here to Siberia, down the steep ravine of slushy, melting permafrost, and deep inside this dark labyrinth of foul, steaming caves. “The mouth of Hell,” the locals called it, which was why Tula was here. Hell was exactly where she needed to go, if she could find a way in without having to be dead. Again.
Tula was only twenty-eight, but she’d already spent some time in Hell, aka “the underworld,” after dying once. A tragic boating incident. Luckily, she got to come back, and now she hoped her unfortunate experience might work as some sort of entry pass, like a member of an exclusive club.
Fingers crossed? Honestly, she just didn’t know, but Tula had nothing left to lose.
“Are you sure you’ll make it out on your own okay?” Tula unhooked the half-empty water bottle dangling from the side of her backpack and took a small sip. “You look like you’re about to have heatstroke.”
“Da. I will be fine. More better if I leave this place, yah?”
She gave him a quick nod. “Wait at the trailhead like we agreed. If I don’t show up after twenty-four hours, then you go.”
Yuri’s dark eyes turned glassy. Maybe the nasty cave fumes? Maybe worry. “Miss Tula, we have traveled to many danger places over these many months. You and me make good friendship now, da? I wait for you.”
“You only have a few days’ supply of food, Yuri.”
“I can hunt and—”
“No. One day. That’s it.” Tula held up her index finger with chipped pink nail polish and shook it at him. “I won’t have you risking yourself out there for nothing.” Besides, if this cave was truly an entrance to the underworld, her fate wasn’t going to rest on whether or not Yuri hung around, freezing his butt off outside. Much bigger forces were at play. Things completely out of her control.
For example, over nine months ago, almost every naturally born immortal—demons, mermen, fairies, Minky the unicorn, Bigfoot, the gods, etc.—disappeared, including Zac, God of Temptation. The other immortals, who were originally born human, such as demigods and vampires, remained on Earth but had their powers taken away. Human again. She’d heard rumors of a few odd exceptions, but one thing was clear: Anyone still on Earth was mortal again. No powers. No magic. Everyone else? Poof! Gone. Disappeared.
How had it happened?
Why?
That was what Tula hoped to find out. Well, mostly. In truth, she was here for Zac. She’d never truly loved anyone until him, and he claimed to love her back. Now she had her doubts.
If he really loved her, why was he messing around with all those women down in the underworld? Or up in the underworld? Whatever. She didn’t know exactly where this underworld existed in the cosmos, but a mystery person had texted her pics of three women straddling Zac’s naked body, everyone in various stages of ecstasy, with “o” and “o-o-ooh…” expressions on their faces.