Crimes of Cupidity (Heart Hassle Book 3)

I blink open my eyes at the daylight streaming across my face, and I groan. Feeling like total shit, I sit up, only to clutch my stomach, feeling a tinge of pain.

All night, I kept tossing and turning, pain radiating from my gut. I don’t know if it’s the stress, or if I’m getting sick—I didn’t even know cupids could get sick. But instead of feeling better this morning, I feel worse.

The guys are all out of bed, so I’m alone on the large mattress, but I can hear someone in the bathroom running water. Hopefully someone left to go let Ronak out. Sylred tried to train him to use the toilet. Let’s just say he ended up with a clawed arm and piss all over his boots. So now, the guys just take turns bringing him outside.

Needing a drink of water, I sit up and fling the covers off of me, only to freeze in horror.

“Oh my gods!” I screech.

I don’t even blink. I just keep staring at my lap like maybe I’m hallucinating and it will go away. Blood. There’s so much blood. I check myself for a wound, thinking maybe someone snuck in this morning and stabbed me, but I find no wound. When another pain wracks my body, it makes me whimper and curl into myself.

I must’ve made enough noise to alert him, because Sylred suddenly comes barreling out of the bathroom, looking around widely for the threat, and then he’s at my side in a flash.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” he asks, his voice tight with concern.

“I’ve been poisoned!” I cry, my eyes wild with panic. “That tea. I think it was the tea, Syl. Maybe someone tricked Mossie into bringing it up. I bet it was that super pissed genfin guy. “I’ll make you pay,” that’s what he said, remember? He basically warned us that he was gonna kill me!” I whimper again as another wave of pain crashes over me. “Oh gods, it hurts. I’m bleeding out. I have internal injuries. The poison is stripping out my insides. I’m dying, Syl!”

My panicked babbling cuts off with my dismayed sob.

Sylred is frozen, probably from the shock of watching me bleed out. I look up at him, my face watery. A strange expression crosses his face, and then he clears his throat and says, “Umm, Emelle? Sweetheart? I think you’re just…menstruating.”

“Don’t say words with more than two syllables right now, Sylred,” I snap. “I’m freaking dying! You should be running to the healer or something. This poison is making my internal organs bleed out of me! Look!” I screech, showing him the very obvious bloodstains on my nightdress and blankets.

“Emelle,” he says gently. “You’re not dying, I promise. You’re just experiencing your first period. It makes you bleed and have cramps. You’re going to be okay.”

I shake my head adamantly. He’s not taking this seriously. He’s gonna feel so guilty after I keel over from blood loss. “No. There are invisible knives stabbing my gut. I can feel it. I’m definitely dying. Look at all the blood, Syl! That’s not normal!”

He bites his bottom lip, like he’s actually trying to hold in a laugh. I nearly crack him over the head. As if sensing my fury, he digs into his pocket and pulls out an offering. “Here.”

I perk up. “The whole box?” I ask, looking at the chocolates warily.

He never lets me have the whole box. He always feeds me one by one, otherwise he says I’ll turn into a gluttonous vulture and devour the whole thing in seconds. He’s not wrong.

“Yep. The whole box,” he says, sounding way too friendly. “It’ll make it all better.”

I sniff. “Until I die, you mean.”

This time, he lets the smile break through. “You’re still not dying. It’s just your period.”

I look at him dubiously. “That can’t be right. Surely females don’t deal with this? I mean, I saw the occasional tampon-toting woman, and I heard about a million complaints about periods while I worked on earth, but this…this seems a bit extreme. I think something is wrong. Are you sure I haven’t been poisoned? Like really, really sure?”

“I’m sure,” he says, his brown eyes lit up with amusement. “I had a cup of that tea myself, and I’m fine.”

“Maybe just my cup was poisoned,” I point out.

“No.”

“You’re not just trying to keep me calm because I’m on my literal death bed right now, are you?” I ask, eyeing him suspiciously.

He full on beams. “Nope.”

Opening the box of chocolates, I start shoving them into my mouth. “Well, this sucks. I mean, people always said periods sucked, but I just thought they were being dramatic. But no. This is legitimately the worst. It feels like I’m being juiced like a lemon. Except instead of lemonade leaking out, it’s freaking period blood!”

Sylred grimaces a bit, but otherwise stays wisely silent.

“If you’re wrong, and I really have been poisoned and am bleeding out, you’re gonna feel so bad,” I tell him.

He laughs. “I’m not wrong.”

“How you do you know? This can’t possibly be natural.”

He taps his nose, and I blanche. “Oh my gods, you can smell me bleeding from my vagina?”

He chuckles and rubs the back of his neck. “It’s nothing to be embarrassed about.”

“Don’t smell me,” I order him.

“I kinda can’t help it.”

I glare at him. Looking contrite, he slowly raises his hand and makes a show of plugging his nose.

I nod. “Better.”

Another cramp stabs my insides, and I flop back onto the bed with a groan. “How can females bleed this much without dying? We’re freaking warriors, Syl.”

When he doesn’t reply, I pick up my head from the pillow to look at him. He quickly nods. “Oh. Yeah. Warriors.”

Nodding in satisfaction, I drop back down and eat another chocolate. Oddly, it does help. “Keep these comin’, genfin,” I tell him.

“I’ve got it handled,” he says. “I’ll take care of you.”

And he does. Because my sweet genfin always takes care of me. Even when I’m being a feisty, raging, hormonal beast.