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  Praise for Mayan Lover:

  Wendy S. Hales weaves a tale of sensuality and seduction that has everything a reader could want. Her voice is distinctive and she uses it to send you to a world of pure fantasy. This is one of the most unique stories I've ever read and the twists and turns not only edify me, they educated me as well. I learned about a culture, about a place, and, because of the emotional depth contained in the story, a little about myself.

  ~Kerrigan Byrne, Best-selling Author of Unspoken and Unwilling

  Entwining an ancient love into a present day love triangle and tossing in a cosmic storm, Hales creates the perfect sultry, suspenseful, romantic trifecta. A sexy Mayan Journeyer, a vulnerable archaeologist who greatest fear is falling for the wrong man again, and the demon who broke her, prove "Mayan Lover" to be another stellar example of Hales’ ability to write emotional stories that stay with you long after you close the book.

  ~Harley Brooks, Author of Riley’s Pond

  Wendy Hales is not just gifted with imagination--she's gifted with an incredible ability to create. I would compare her storytelling to Karen Marie Moning. I can only imagine how mind-boggling are the worlds she conjures for a full-length novel! One day, fantasy readers will discover her and she'll have a cult following if she doesn't already. I was completely entrenched in the lives of these characters. But the greatest compliment I can award any writer is that I forgot I was reading--like being under water and forgetting the need to breathe. I spent the day in Central America drooling over the hero. And this story will stay with me for a long time, I'm sure of it.

  Brava! I was pleasantly, ecstatically, surprised.

  ~L.L. Muir, Author of Going Back for Romeo

  Mayan Lover

  A Time Travel Novella

  By

  Wendy S. Hales

  AMAZON KINDLE EDITION

  PUBLISHED BY

  Wendy S. Hales

  www.wendyshales.com

  Mayan Lover © 2012 Wendy S. Hales

  All rights reserved

  Amazon Kindle Edition License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. The ebook contained herein constitutes a copyrighted work and may not be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, or stored in or introduced into an information storage and retrieval system in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the copyright owner, except in the case of brief quotation embodied in critical articles and reviews. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This ebook is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  Cover Design by Kelli Ann Morgan

  www.inspirecreativeservices.com/

  Formatting by

  Bob Houston eBook Formatting

  http://about.me/BobHouston

  Editing by Alisa Carter

  The Professional Editing Edge

  http://theproeditingedge.com

  ISBN: 978-1476121925

  Dedication

  To my husband.

  You love my quirks, encourage my wackiness.

  And when I ask, “why do you love me?”

  Your answer is to smile and say:

  ‘Because I’m supposed to’.

  Acknowledgments

  A huge thank you to my beta readers: Kim, Shavaughn, Lacey and Ashley, for taking the time, letting me pick your brains about every detail and giving me honest feedback.

  To my sister, Patty, for always being there. Putting aside everything when I need you. Doing so much to help me every step of the way. And being the most amazing sister and friend anyone could ever have.

  To my children, I’m so proud of you. You lift me up, make my life complete, and fill my world with laughter.

  A special thank you to the readers of Mayan Lover.

  Chapter One

  The further his feet took him through the village, the more his stomach knotted. His path had been dictated by the position of the earth, moon, and planets at the moment of his birth. As the Journeyer, he’d prepared for this night all of his life. It didn’t make the future any less inundating.

  “Did you hide it well, my son?” His mother stood beautiful and proud at the entry to the sweat lodge.

  “Yes, mother. I will be able to find it at the end of my Journey.” Arka noted the moisture his mother quickly blinked away. It had taken Arka ten years to lovingly create the detailed skull offering from the raw amethyst-colored quartz crystal his mother had gifted to the Goddess of Moonlight.

  His mother pursed her lips, though her chin had a slight quiver. “You are sure it will remain safe?”

  He pulled his mother into a hug. “I must trust the gods to keep it safe now.”

  “Did you speak with your sister?” His mother held the embrace.

  He nodded sadly with his chin resting on his mother’s hair. The goodbye with his beloved little sister was still fresh in his mind; Gia had wrapped her small arms around his neck when he’d squatted down to look in her ten-year-old, tear-streaked face. “I don’t want you to go, Arka,” she had cried. “How come the gods can’t send someone else’s brother?”

  “It’s my destiny,” he had explained for the hundredth time. “Gia, you will have many children. Tell them of me; keep me with you in your memories, as I will keep you.” He kissed her cheek. “I love you, sister.”

  His mother sighed sadly and clung to him tightly a few more minutes, and then she pushed his chest, squared her shoulders, and dipped her head. “I bid you good Journey. You carry the weight of the gods’ bidding, but also the love of your mother…” Her voice broke and trailed off.

  “I leave you with a son’s love.” He dipped his chin to her in return. Her concern over his hiding place was justified—if the skull where uncovered before his arrival, all would be lost. Their eyes met one last time before she gave him a nod and walked away.

  Arka shed his loincloth and took one final look at the village below, absently tracing the intricate tribal tattoo declaring him Journeyer from his right mid-abdomen to his thigh. Inscribed on his body during infancy, the ink, like the Journey ahead, had always been his defined reality. Great passage of time meant great change. He vowed to face the changes ahead with honor.

  The sun dipped low on the horizon, gracing his view with shades of orange and purple. Light smoke lifted from the clay homes and rose to merge with the clouds, which moved in slowly from either side of the sky on track to clash into a violent, fast-moving storm.

  Each home had a small garden for herbs, sweet potatoes, and prickly cactus. Beyond the community were fields of maize, squash, cocoa, and enough beans to sustain the village. Irrigation trenches emerged from the surrounding dense forest and cut through the terrain in an intricate pattern. The gods were good to their people.

  Naked except for his jade and crystal totem, leather-bound and tied at his ankle, he lifted the flap and entered the steamy sweat lodge to be purified. This would be his final chance to spirit-walk, to feel the strength of the goddess’s life force. Once they’d met nearly every night in dream, her face and body obscured in silhouette. Long, nearly white curls shone under the light of the moon that always caressed her. Then, for reasons he did not understand, the dreams ended. Once he’d reached manhood,
did his undeniable attraction to her silhouetted image offend her?

  Legs crossed, he set his wrists palm up on his knees and cleared his mind. Deep breaths of steam, sage, and incense filled his lungs, making him light as air. Glowing moonlight flooded his vision. A ripple through the light held him spellbound. After all this time, would the Goddess of Moonlight appear to him again? Would she remember him? Regulating his heart rate, he peered through the ripple with bated breath.

  “Arka.” A voice from deeper in the lodge startled him back into himself. At first he thought it was her, though he’d never heard her speak aloud. They communicated by shared mental images as children. She stepped through the fog, had she grown tall and lean over the past six years? “I wish to bid you good Journey.” Disappointment and annoyance flared when he realized who spoke.

  Arjuna dropped to her knees in front of him, her brown eyes liquid with tears. Dark brown braids hung from either side of her head and brushed the deep pink nipples of her small breasts. He knew the feel of her soft tan skin intimately.

  “Arjuna, you are not to be here. We said our goodbye last night at ceremony.” Arka tried to disguise his irritation. Arjuna had been his manhood rites priestess. At her hand he’d learned to give pleasure to a woman. Against tradition, she had grown attached in a manner that should anyone discover it, would make her the target of scoff and ridicule.

  Beautiful and a few years older than Arka, she was the only barren widow of young age in the village and currently the only rites priestess. Every young man had been sent to her for training, yet at pleasure ceremonies when she could have any unmated man she wanted, she always sought him; including last night.

  “I wish you to travel with my crystal, Arka. Without you I no longer desire protection for my life force.” She untied the straps of the leather-bound pouch from her neck.

  Women wore Crystal totems at the neck. He didn’t want to hurt Arjuna’s feelings by refusing the gift, nor would he risk dishonoring the Sun God, Moon Goddess, and the Goddess of Moonlight by accepting her offer.

  Arka held up his hand, unwilling to defile his purification by touching her. “You know I cannot. It is forbidden to travel with anything bound to the spirit of another.”

  She sighed and retied it to her neck. Her tan, silken skin beaded with sweat; he could smell her arousal. “You must leave, Arjuna” To go into the land where the Goddess of Moonlight lived in human form with the scent of another woman felt like sacrilege.

  She stood quickly with a snorted sob. The brush of cool night air surged in, receding the layers of steam. Arjuna looked back. “This magic won’t work. Your soul will be lost while I mourn you.” Then she was gone.

  His chest constricted. She’d voiced his greatest fear. His Journey was dependent on those at the other side. What if none waited? Faith. He struggled to reconnect with his faith in the stars, the sun, and the moon; with his belief that the Journey destined for him would not be futile.

  “It is time, my son.” The voice of his father rang from outside the flap.

  His eyes fluttered open. Time. He drew in a deep breath and held it in prayer. May you guide this servant’s path to the Goddess of Moonlight. He released the breath and rose.

  His father, dressed in heavy ceremonial shaman robes, held the large, crystal-clear skull of the sun god, Kinich Ahau, by the jaw. His father dipped his head in greeting. From this moment forward, no earthy words were allowed spoken. Silently they walked up the rain-soaked trail toward the sacred Temple of Seasons.

  Lightening ripped across the sky and thunder shook the earth beneath his feet. His mind felt freed by a euphoric sense of divine purpose. The storm raged around them, yet as they reached the monument, the winds calmed. The stones were dry despite the deluge of rain.

  At the base of the sacred temple steps, Arka bent to one knee as his father climbed ahead of him. His father reached the top, turned, and met Arka’s gaze, slowly lifting the sun god’s skull high above his head. The crystal eyes lit from within and illuminated the three hundred and sixty-four steps. Every thirtieth step, which represented a lunar cycle, glistened in blood. A shaman stood on each, holding one of the twelve skulls honoring each completion of a moon phase needed for the Sun God to begin life anew.

  Arka rose to his feet and lifted his hands to the heavens. Though it was absent in the sky, his fingertips tingled with the warmth of the sun, and the heat traveled down his arms, through his body, and radiated in the center of his chest. He began to climb.

  Upon each blood-soaked step, Arka bowed and touched his forehead to the forehead of the skull in the hands of the shaman. Once the skull was touched, the shaman would raise it to the heavens before Arka moved on to the next. With each touch he felt strength, wisdom, and health infuse his cells.

  No one knew why the first Maya created a skull, touched foreheads to it, or stared into the skull’s vacant, hollow-eye sockets of crystal. The old stories tell of the Sun God and the Moon Goddess giving the first thirteen skulls to Arka’s people. Within the eyes of the skulls, the lights of the universe unfolded before them. Through those heavenly lights and astral bodies, the magical power of time was revealed. A cycle of new life, youthful vitality, maturity, and death compiled and denoted by the steps of this sacred temple.

  At the top he knelt to one knee and bowed with his forearm braced at his thigh to the Sun God held high above his father’s head. He could hear the shuffle of the twelve shamans coming up the steps behind him to encircle the stone altar that awaited him. The illumination from the skull faded away. Arka met the tear-filled eyes of his father one last time, rose, and strode proudly to the stone-slab altar.

  With eyes closed, the twelve shamans began to chant low in their chests, giving off an eerie vibration sound. Arka felt the cool stone on his back when he lay down. A wealth of jade, shell beads, pearls, obsidian, raw quartz and pyrite were placed at his head and feet. The face of each skull held high by the shaman reflected light down on him. His eyes were captured by the one held directly above him in his father’s hands as it descended with its face to Arka’s heart. His father backed away, empty handed, disappearing behind the circle of shaman.

  The tone and intensity of the chant increased; lightening arced wildly in the sky. To his amazement the thick clouds parted directly overhead, revealing the moon in full glory, so close he felt like he could reach up and touch Ixchel, the Moon Goddess herself. She bathed him with the moonlight of her daughter. A single tear rolled to his hair from the honor he felt.

  The chant grew to a continuous rolling harmony of indistinguishable sound. Twelve bolts of lightning hit the raised skulls simultaneously, sending blinding rays out of the eye sockets directly into the Sun God skull on his chest. He held his breath, waiting for it to scorch his flesh, yet it remained cool as it glowed brighter and brighter, forcing him to close his lids. His corneas burned behind his closed eyelids. In an instant thunder overshadowed the chant, and the blinding light turned to blinding, silent darkness.

  Slowly his muscles relaxed under the weight of the skull at his chest. The pitch black brightened behind his lids. He opened his eyes to see a clear, cloudless night sky. The moon, full and bright, sat high above him. The silence was broken by an odd hum in the distance, and the sounds of the forest returning to life. It was as if even the creatures had been holding their breath for his arrival. He grasped the skull, cleaving to it with both hands as an anchor against the dizziness he felt. He drew a breath, ensuring he still lived. It had a metallic taste to it.

  Chapter Two

  “How am I supposed to say no?” Gwen felt trapped. Her mother had called an hour ago to spring the already planned farewell dinner on her—her mother knew she wouldn’t want to go and had a manipulative twist of guilt at the ready when Gwen tried to decline.

  Her best friend Maggie gave her a hard look. “By saying: ‘Hells no, Carol.’ How did she even find out about your internship, hmm? I’ll tell you how—that psycho ex-husband of yours.”

  “H
e can’t be there. The restraining order is still in place.” At least she hoped it was. Her nerves were already frazzled from having to sit across from John in the courtroom this morning. He’d argued with her attorney, Martha, before a judge for over an hour to get the restraining order removed. The judge was supposed to make his decision by the end of day. Of course, her mother planned the dinner for 4:30. If the judge decided to throw out the RO, John would show up with a rolled-out red carpet invitation from her mother. “Even if he did … I don’t think he’d try anything in front of my mother.”

  Maggie choked with a can of Diet Coke to her lips. “Restraining orders are put against people who need to be restrained. It’s not safe, Gwen. I still can’t believe you dropped the charges against him.”

  Usually Maggie steered clear of the painful memory. Gwen knew she brought it up now to emphasize the risk of going to her mother’s for dinner. If Maggie hadn’t shown up when she did, there wasn’t a doubt in Gwen’s mind that John would have killed her. “It was the only way Martha got him to sign the divorce papers before my internship starts. I can’t afford to go back and forth for two more years fighting him in court.”

  The drink sloshed with the impact of Maggie slamming it down on the cafeteria table. “He’s the reason you can’t afford it. Jesus, it’s not like he had anything to fight you over. You gave up the house, cars, alimony … everything.”

  “And I’d do it again. All I wanted was my maiden name back; the material things just gave him power over me.” It had taken intensive therapy before Gwen saw any value in herself, let alone put self-value first in her life. “My bags are packed in the back of your truck. Will you just pick me up from my mom’s when you get off work?”