5
Orion
I have to say I didn’t even taste the meal. Yes, I ate, but I was too focused on the crazy magnetic pull drawing me closer and closer to Kaden. All through dinner, he kept looking at his healed finger as if he expected to see it covered in blood. I wasn’t in the habit of using my magic in public, but I’d made an exception for Kaden. When he cut himself, it was as if I could feel his pain. I hadn’t experienced anything like that in my life. I couldn’t figure out if I was more shaken over healing Kaden or my growing attraction for him.
“You’re pretty quiet,” Kaden said as we made our way back toward the library after class ended. A note of worry sounded in his voice.
“I was just thinking about tonight. When we first met, I didn’t think we had anything in common, and now it feels like we’re two halves of the same whole.” I still didn’t know how this was possible after only spending a few short hours with Kaden, but then it hit me. Cupid. He was responsible for my feelings of instant love toward my date.
Kaden nodded. “I was thinking the same thing. I mean, how could a gorgeous man like you even look twice at someone like me?”
A flash of anger made my heart beat faster. I grabbed Kaden’s slim shoulders and pulled him into me. “Don’t say that. You’re handsome. Brilliant. Perfect.” I bent low and brushed my lips against his. An all-consuming inferno ignited in my soul.
Wrapping his arms around me, Kaden moaned and tentatively kissed me back, his tongue sliding against my own.
I was lost, awash in a sea of emotion I could never hope to contain. At this moment, I wasn’t sure I wanted to. Content to let these new feelings burn bright, I gave in to the kiss, taking control. My hands cupped either side of Kaden’s face. His freshly shaved skin was smooth under my fingers.
Bucking my hips against Kaden’s, I could feel the heat of his erection against my own. All I could think about was marking him and making him mine.
“Get a room, assholes!” someone shouted as they walked past us.
I pulled back from Kaden to get a look at the man who’d yelled at us. Thankfully, he’d said his piece and was walking away. The last thing I needed was to get in a fistfight with some drunken jerk in the middle of Boylston Street.
When I turned back to look at my date, he was gone. I spun around in a complete circle, and all I saw was a mangy dog.
“Achoo! Choo! Choo!” The dog shook his head after every sneeze.
“Kaden?” I called out, keeping one eye on the dog. I know this is an unpopular and even controversial thing to say, but I didn’t like pets. I wouldn’t say I hated dogs, but I didn’t want them in my house either.
The dog leaped up on his back legs and set his large paws on my chest. It was a lot bigger than I thought it was originally. “Nice doggy,” I said, setting my hands over his paws. Getting a closer look at the animal, I realized it wasn’t a dog at all. It was a wolf. A black wolf with the most gorgeous green eyes I’d ever seen. What the hell was a wolf doing in the middle of downtown Boston? Wouldn’t there have been some kind of alert sent to my phone if a vicious wild animal had gotten loose from the Franklin Park Zoo? “Good boy,” I whispered, pushing gently against his paws.
“Achoo! Choo! Choo!” The wolf backed away from me and continued to sneeze. He sat back on his haunches, looking as if he was waiting for something.
My mind turned back to Kaden. Where the hell had he gone? The wolf whined. He got back to his feet and brushed against my leg. He looked at me with what I couldn’t help thinking was longing. “Kaden?”
The wolf nodded his head.
“You’re a werewolf?” I asked, unable to believe my eyes. The man I’d spent the evening with and had started falling in love with was a shape-shifter?
Before my eyes, Kaden shifted back to his human self. It was like nothing I’d ever seen before. Hollywood movies got the transformation all wrong. “What the actual fuck?” I whispered, taking several steps back.
“Uh, yeah. I was going to tell you,” Kaden began.
“When? Back at my place? After I’d fucked you? After you ripped out my throat and I was bleeding to death? What the hell is wrong with you? There was nothing about your…your condition on the dating site.” My mind was spinning a mile a minute. I needed to calm the hell down before he shifted again and tried to eat me.
“I’m sorry, Orion.” Kaden’s gaze was on my feet. “I should have told you, but most people react like you did just now, so I kept it to myself.”
“What made you shift? Were you afraid of the man who shouted at us?”
Kaden shook his head. “No, it was from my arousal. I mean, I can shift at will, but sometimes, when my gears are grinding, so to speak, it just…happens.”
“ Acne just happens!” I half shouted. “A sneeze just happens. Not shifting into some kind of movie monster.” I gasped at the words rushing out of my mouth. Hell, I was a five-thousand-year-old demigod; I was the last person who should be judging Kaden, but fuck me blue, this was a nightmare.
“I get it. If my own family shunned me and kicked me out of my pack, what chance did I have with a total stranger?” Kaden asked. He sounded resigned to his fate. “It was nice to meet you, Orion. I guess Cupid doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing after all.” Without looking up at me, he walked away.
I spun around to watch him go. Part of me knew I should go after him and apologize, offer to walk him back to his car, but the other part was pissed. Not at Kaden. After the kind of reaction he got from me, it was painfully obvious why he didn’t tell me he was a werewolf in the first place. I was mad at Cupid. Actually, mad was a gross understatement of what I was feeling. Bone-deep rage was a better way of putting it. When I got my hands on the son-of-a-goddess, I was going to let my fists do the talking.
Twenty minutes later, I walked back into my condo. Instead of dissipating, my rage had only burned brighter. Closing my eyes, I cast my memory back to the ancient words used to summon a god. I said them over and over in my head, knowing Cupid would be powerless to resist me.
“Orion!” Cupid said, his eyes dancing with obvious merriment. “You’re looking good. It’s been a while.”
Rushing forward, I grabbed the cherub by the throat. “It’s been a while because the last time we saw each other, you got me killed, asshole!”
Shoving back against me, Cupid freed himself from my iron grip. He raised a sardonic eyebrow as he tried to get his breath back. “It seems you’ve recovered.”
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I challenged. “Why is it every time we come in contact with each other, you fuck me over?”
Cupid held up his hands. “How was I to know Apollo would react to you spending time with Artemis the way he did?”
“You’re fucking Cupid! Couldn’t you have zinged one of your arrows at him so he’d have known I was in love with him and not his sister?” The innocent look on Cupid’s face only served to fuel my anger.
“You know my arrows don’t work on the gods and goddesses of Olympus.” Cupid took a deep breath and walked to my fridge. He pulled out a bottle of water and handed it to me. “Drink this. You’re going to spontaneously combust if you don’t cool off.”
I hated how Cupid knew another of my weaknesses but twisted off the cap and took a long drink anyway.
“I don’t know what you think is going on here.” Cupid sat down hard on the edge of my leather sectional. “I did everything in my power to hook you up with Apollo. You know I did. What he did to you in a fit of rage should tell you more about him than anything. He was obscenely jealous. Hotheaded. Irrational. And those are some of his better qualities. The man you were in love with killed you, Orion.”
As angry as I was at the moment, I had to admit to myself Cupid had a point. All I cared about were Apollo’s looks. His dark eyes and his muscled physique haunted my dreams. I thought if he would only notice me, we could have built something to last. Instead, he made our first meeting my last day on earth. “Yeah, I remember. I’d still be with Hades in the Underworld if it wasn’t for Aphrodite.”
Cupid laughed. His giggles filled the room, making me feel impossibly lighter in the process.
“What the hell is so funny?” I growled. There was nothing remotely humorous about being stung repeatedly by the scorpion, his venom coursing through my veins like wildfire, while the love of my life looked on and laughed.
“Who do you think sent the goddess of love to you?” Cupid asked, pointing to himself. “My mother knew how devastated I was over your death. She knew I blamed myself. Aphrodite took it upon herself to save you, risking not only Apollo’s wrath but Zeus’s as well.”
Damn, what Cupid was saying had never crossed my mind. His helping to mop up after the fact wasn’t enough. Not only did I end up in the Underworld, but if things had gone differently tonight, Kaden could have sent me back. I didn’t need to be a demigod to know there would be no saving me a second time. “Yeah, well, whatever. My date tonight almost finished what Apollo started. Kaden could have torn me limb from limb. Don’t you even try to tell me you didn’t know he was a shifter.” Most of my anger was gone; what I felt instead was bone-weary and lost.
“Of course I know Kaden is a werewolf. I also know he’s walked a similar road as you, being ostracized from his family, living a life devoid of love. Sound familiar? He never would have hurt you. Neither would I.” Cupid seemed to study me for a few silent seconds. “I spent centuries watching you suffer over the loss of Apollo. Your pain was mine. When I sent you the invitation to join the dating agency, it was because I’d found your true soul mate. I’m doing this to make amends for what happened in the past. You healed Kaden tonight; now it’s time to finally heal yourself.”
I looked at Cupid and could see every word he’d said was the truth. “I’m sorry I tried to kill you.”
Cupid snickered. “What’s a little attempted murder between friends?”
Despite everything that happened tonight, I laughed along with him. My heart felt impossibly lighter.
“I know this is a lot for you to handle, but I wouldn’t have brought Kaden to you if I didn’t think you could handle his unique circumstance. Take some time to think things over. Remember the way it felt to hold him. To kiss him. I know you’ll make the right decision.” Cupid stood up, stretching his arms. “I’ll see you around. Hopefully, we won’t go millennia without seeing each other again.” With a wave, he began to dematerialize.
“Wait!” I shouted. “How do I know the feelings I have for Kaden are mine and not the result of your special arrows?”
“Kaden is your destiny. There were no arrows involved. Your feelings are your own. His too.” Setting his hand over his heart, Cupid vanished.
What the hell had I done? I sank into the sofa, trying to wrap my head around the complete and total disaster I’d made. More than anything, I wanted to go to Kaden and beg him to forgive me, to make things right, but I wouldn’t. Not yet.
I needed a way to woo back the man of my dreams. My soul mate. All I needed to do now was make a plan of action. One Kaden couldn’t resist. I could win him back.
I would win him back. I just had to.