9
Behind a shrub on his property, Love crouches to the ground and taps the plume of her arrow against her chin. As much as she wants to complete this task swiftly—to strike Andrew and Holly with haste—matchmaking is a craft, which requires a tactful sleight of hand. She cannot breach their hearts without maneuvering the lovers into position. Not only must the targets know each other prior to the union, but they must also reach a state of mutual regard. Otherwise, they end up confused and anxious about their instantaneous connection.
Love’s weapons perch in her quiver, waiting to be used. Some myths claim that Eros carries two different arrows—one gold, one lead—to either incite ardor or extinguish it.
This is inaccurate. Iron is the only material for her.
Flipping her arrow, Love runs a thumb along its spine, its shaft inlaid with stardust. She’d practiced how to hold her archery before learning to use cutlery. The weapons have grown with her, the link as natural as the blood flowing through her veins.
What would it be like to relinquish her longbow? Would she miss an arrow’s whistle as she lets it fly, the vibration of the string, and the flash of light?
Love banishes the questions from her psyche. It’s pointless to dwell.
The first step is to explore Andrew’s life and how it may align with Holly. Beyond a second floor window, his shadow stalks through a bedroom suite. With a yawn, the mortal scrubs through layers of white hair and opens a dresser drawer.
Then he crosses his arms, grabs the hem of his shirt, and whips it off.
The breath drains from her lungs. Love’s mouth falls open, and her tongue dries like sandpaper. He’s sculpted beautifully, with an abdomen as tight as a lattice, his arms and shoulders rippling like rocks.
Love squirms, just as she had while reading the frequent erotic scenes in his novel. The pleat between her legs contracts, the folds of her pussy dampening. Her fingers sneak up her thighs, higher and higher, until Andrew drags a fresh shirt over his head, the movements bringing Love to her senses.
With a growl, she springs to her feet and marches across the snow. Closer now, she inhales the mint shampoo Andrew uses to lather his hair, the scent flooding her airways like a forbidden stimulant. She follows the thump of his footsteps hiking down the stairs, then rounds the corner to a back deck spanning the house, floor to ceiling glass panels offering a view of the custom kitchen.
Instead of an island, a dining table stands in the center beneath a metal and glass pendant. The fixture drenches the walnut surface in light, where a man hunches forward and slurps on his coffee. Ah, this is the relative Andrew had quarreled with the other day, then referred to as his stepfather.
The man wears a grease-stained jumpsuit the dispiriting color of mud, with a name tag sewn into the fabric, and his face is still as leathery as her first sighting of him. His eyes narrow to incisions and scrutinize Andrew, who steps into the kitchen in a sweater that clings to his frame and spends the next ten minutes frying two omelets. Eggshells crack, butter sizzles, and the burner hisses. Loading a pair of ceramic plates, Andrew drops one in front of the man, then sits across from him.
Love gazes at the pumping column of Andrew’s throat while he jabs a forkful into his mouth. At the vision of his lips in motion, a defiant noise of appreciation pushes against her teeth. She puts a leash on the sound, tugs it back into her chest, and wills herself to focus.
The interior is rustic but streamlined, with a mixture of old world pieces and warm neutral colors. Handmade crockery stands on the counter, and expensive curtains flank the high windows.
Andrew’s relative doesn’t touch the omelet. Instead, he grabs a butter knife and scrapes it over a burned piece of toast, which he must have prepared himself. Andrew’s teeth rip off a corner of his eggs.
The stepfather sips more coffee. Andrew spears the meal with his fork. Love shuffles behind another shrub weighed down by snow.
The coffee mug smacks the table. Love jumps. Andrew doesn’t.
The wraith waves a finger at the bruise darkening Andrew’s jaw. “You ever gonna tell me where that came from?”
“I woke up with it,” Andrew deadpans.
The man grunts. “You’ve been walking around here in a fucking daze and made me wait up for you. And shittiest of all, evidently you let somebody jump you.”
Andrew chews the omelet to a pulp, then swallows. “They tried.”
“Whatever. I got enough on my plate without you picking fights like some goddamn juvenile. If your ego isn’t big enough to resist a brawl, don’t bring the evidence home. You cause enough talk in this village.”
Love does her best to probe, but it’s official. Not only will her strength continue to ebb because of Andrew, but his emotions are impenetrable. That ability faded shortly after they met, when his eyes had landed on her and sealed their fate.
To compensate, Love hunts through the stepfather’s senses. Surely this man harbors some concern about who tried and failed to harm Andrew. Unfortunately, the man’s feelings fluctuate too quickly to grasp, his emotions grinding together as if someone has stuffed them into a blender.
“Who was that woman?”
The question knocks Love’s concentration off course. For a moment, she thinks the stepfather means her.
Andrew glances up from his plate. “Woman?”
The lethargic bastard scoffs, picks up his fork, and aims the prongs at Andrew. “Last night, when you got home. Who was the blonde walking with you?”
Holly. Love had just found out they’re the next match, but she hadn’t stayed behind to see what happened after the female caught up to Andrew in the park. Holly must have accompanied him back to his house. A promising start for them.
Love’s shoulders collapse beneath an unknown weight. If her wings were free, they would sag and curl in on themselves.
Andrew’s posture relaxes. “She’s a neighbor.”
“That ‘neighbor’ got anything to do with the shiner you’re wearing?” the man drawls. “Or maybe the dried blood that was coating your knuckles?”
“She walked home with me, then I drove her back to her place.”
“Women don’t walk to a man’s house, much less hitch a ride after, unless they’ve got an ulterior motive.”
“Christ’s sake,” Andrew mutters while tossing down his fork.
“What happened?” The relative goads, his voice as slippery as oil. “You played the hero?”
Andrew shoves back his chair, its legs screeching across the floor.
“Does she get off on having multiple men at each other’s throats? Maybe the misanthropic, tormented writer thing does it for her? Or maybe you’ve been too wrapped up in your work that you’ve forgotten where it’s safe to point your dick.”
Andrew stands, his shadow slashing over the table and cutting his relative in half.
“Because the stupidest thing to get into a fight about is a temporary side-serving of pussy.”
Andrew heads to the sink, his muscles tensing under that sweater.
The stepfather drops the fork, picks up his mug, and leans back, trapping the vessel in a chokehold. Love discerns one lucid thing about him. Resentment is webbed around this human, thin lines of tension weaving through him like a snare. No matter what’s about to happen, there’s no guarantee the men will leave their fists out of it.
He sneers, “You’re just about the biggest dumbfuck if you let a woman run you into the ground.”
Andrew’s dish clatters in the wide, steel sink. “You would know.”
As they become airborne, the words appear to surprise him, as if he rarely engages with the man’s tirades. For a second, he closes his eyes and mouths, Fuck .
Behind him, pain cleaves through the man’s face. Then comes the fury.
Something acidic rains down Love’s throat just as the stepfather’s chair skids across the floor. Within seconds, the man is whipping Andrew around and slamming him up against the cabinet-covered fridge. “What’d you say?”
With at least six inches on his relative, Andrew can easily overtake the man. Regardless, weariness drags down his features. He merely waits as if expecting this storm to pass, as though it’s a common occurrence.
Love is less patient. And far less composed. Her arrow catapults toward the translucent panel, punches a hole into the facade, grazes the stepfather’s temple, and spears past his vile head. Glasses filling a modern hutch shatter like fragile human hearts, then her arrow vanishes and reappears in her quiver.
The stepfather growls in pain and releases Andrew. He pats the side of his head and draws back crimson-speckled fingers, the cut oozing small dribbles of blood. Muttering a shocked oath, he strides toward the hutch, his shoes crunching shards of glass.
Andrew whirls the other way, toward the point of entry, a glimmer of recognition in his eyes. Love ducks, but it’s no use. He’s seen her. Once again, she hadn’t been quick enough.
“Did you feel that?” she hears the wraith say. “Like a kind of draft or some shit.”
Footsteps pound toward the back deck, followed by the stepfather plastering his leathery face against the pane. Bracing a cloth against his wound, the man glowers through the arrow hole and into the distance. His injury is minor, nothing a strip of gauze won’t fix. That said, the only reason he doesn’t have an arrow lodged in his miserable excuse for a cranium is because Love hadn’t been operating at her best. For she’d been too wrathful and careless to focus clearly.
Her temper flares. At herself, at Andrew, at this knave.
The stepfather growls, “So now you got people targeting you here? Climbing the gate and throwing crap through the back doors? What’d you do to piss them off?”
That does it. Love refuses to be likened to a second-rate antagonist. With her teeth bared, she launches to her feet, steps into full view, and aims another arrow at the slit of skin between the stepfather’s eyebrows.
Andrew storms forward and halts behind his stepfather, his eyes drilling into hers. With a livid glare, he raises his flat palm and makes a furious cutting motion across his neck, indicating for her to stop.
Almighty hell. This is what her destiny has come to. She has been reduced to taking orders from a mortal who exercises more mercy than she ever will.
Bristling, Love lowers her weapon. Andrew releases a breath that gets his relative to twist around. “Whatever. There’s a sharp rock somewhere in here with your name on it. I need to leave in five minutes.” He charges away, his shoes rapping on the wood floor as he vanishes down the hall.
The instant a door slams, Andrew whips open the glass panel and strikes across the deck. “What the fuck are you doing? How do you know where I live?”
A grisly protest roars up Love’s throat. “I—”
“I don’t give a shit if he can’t see you. He could have aimlessly thrown that rock back in your direction and hurt you! Then I would’ve been forced to snap his neck!”
“Rubbish. Even if I were visible to him, that pissant is no match for me,” she declares, boasts, insists. “Nor is he worthy of you.”
“You don’t know Ulrik,” Andrew grits out.
Ulrik. So that’s the relative’s name.
She gestures with her arrow toward the direction in which he’d disappeared. “Yet you’re doing a marvelous job knowing each other.”
Andrew points to the contusion on his face. “Well, he didn’t fucking do this. As hot as you look holding a fatal weapon, tame the impulse before going on a familial killing spree.”
Raising her chin, Love packs away the arrow. “From an author, I had expected more credit and creativity. I could have done worse to him.”
“From a reader, I had expected more faith in my imagination. Several excellent guesses about your capabilities come to mind. And relatives aside, bragging about your mercenary nature shouldn’t be a turn-on to me, but here we are.” Andrew studies the bow. “How does it work?”
Condemnation, she’s hinted too much. Realizing the brunt of her error, Love steps back. Under no circumstances is she going to explain.
Yet this insolent man stalks nearer. “I can make you talk. I’d bet that dress of yours on it.”
While she searches for a clever response, his gaze runs down her figure like honey. “You’re in my coat again,” he murmurs, his breath gusting into the morning air.
Fates curse him. This mortal’s voice makes the intonations of everyone else seem mass produced—unvarying and unspectacular by comparison. She wants to store the sound of him in a velvet pouch and carry it everywhere she goes.
He intones, “You came to see me.”
“I—”
“Does this mean you’re pining?”
Yes, he’s teasing. And yes, she takes it seriously.
Love squares her shoulders. “Desiring a mortal is beneath my concern. We may have engaged last night, but do not get the wrong impression. I’m here for practical reasons, not for pleasure. As to your question, my arrows exist for numerous purposes.”
“Too cryptic,” he revokes. “You need to give me more.”
“As a matter of fact: No, I don’t.”
Andrew just stares at Love, the liquid mercury of his eyes daring her to reply with a different answer. The silent request pushes too many frivolous buttons, from her vanity to her impulsive nature.
Because she’s linked to her weapons, Love may infuse whichever function she wishes—be it requited or unrequited love, the sheer inability to feel that emotion, or the throes of lust. She controls the intensity of the desire.
Regarding love strikes, she must bond each of her targets to another. If not, they will become consumed. They’ll wander around lovesick, desperate for affection, losing their mind if they don’t find their mate.
This goes for deities. They cannot feel love inherently, but they can feel it through her arrows. Blessedly, such a catastrophe hasn’t happened.
And although her weapons have been forged for matchmaking, they can also deliver a piercing deathblow in battle, if she wishes. As such, Love could have impaled Ulrik’s intestines or condemned the man to eternal heartsickness—to the point of madness.
She staples her tongue to the roof of her mouth. As tempting as it is to share the particulars with Andrew, he’s not getting this information out of her.
“Hey.” Ulrik emerges from his dungeon and passes the deck on his way through the house. “Are we going or what?”
After the relative has slithered out of view, Andrew explains, “Ulrik left his car at work. He needs a lift on my way to the bookstore.”
Love nods. “Very well. I’ll join you.”
“On one condition.” He reaches out and rattles the arrows in her quiver. “Keep these to yourself around him.”
“Very well,” she lies.