Crimes of Cupidity (Heart Hassle Book 3)

Gods. Today is just not my day.

“Arachno? As in that super scary fae with the bazillion eyes, who likes to trap people in her web and has the creepy habit of being a freaking cannibal? That Arachno?”

Princess Soora nods, and my stomach drops.

“But how could he be at her island? He wouldn’t be able to get past the barrier.”

“I used my power to create a doorway into the barrier. He asked me to,” she explains. “It’s small, only large enough for a single body to fit through and very well hidden, but it’s there.”

I go over, in great detail, exactly where his hidden hideout is on the island. When I’m confident I can find it, I get ready to leave.

“Okay. I’ll go find him for you. Don’t worry, I can do this.”

She gives me a strained smile.

“How did you find me?” she asks, eating some more of the bread.

“I was actually looking for my guys,” I admit. Feeling slightly guilty. “I don’t know where my genfins are, and I haven’t seen Okot since you sent him on that mission.”

“About that—”

A noise sounds down the hall, and her explanation gets cut short.

“The guards are coming for their usual checks,” she whispers hurriedly.

She grabs my hand again like she doesn’t want me to leave her here, but I gently extract myself. “I’ll find Belren, don’t worry.”

I give her a quick nod and then go invisible. I fly past the guard walking up the stairs, and go back to the palace.

As I’m zooming through the walls of the palace, I pull up short when I fly through a particular room. Screeching to a halt, I double back, and then stop dead at the scene in front of me.

Okot.

He’s here.

He’s here in a palace bedroom, sitting in a chair with his head hanging, his forearms draped over his thighs. I float closer, so surprised that I’ve found him that I nearly choke on joy. I’ve missed him so much it hurts.

As I get closer, his head jerks up, and I startle back in surprise, and then notice that something is very, very wrong.

His bright-red mohawk is unwashed and disheveled; nothing like his usual sleek locks that fall to one side. He leaps to his feet and starts pacing around the room like he’s a bull in a pen, just waiting to rush someone, and oddly enough, he paces around me.

All the while, his expression changes back and forth between being utterly blank, to becoming absolutely enraged. His head ticks and he pulls at his bright-red hair, clearly in distress.

As he paces, I’m able to take in the room. It’s a mess. All the blankets from the bed are twisted, hanging half-off, and lanterns are knocked over with their glass in shattered pieces on the floor.

He keeps up his inexorable pacing, and I inadvertently float further away from him. I back myself into a table, but in one quick motion, he rushes forward, reaches down with both hands and sends the table flying across the room. I flinch as it goes through me, watching with wide eyes as it crashes against the wall and lands in splinters on the floor.

I look back at him, wide-eyed. Something is seriously wrong, and I can’t wait another second to comfort him. I pop myself into the physical realm and take a tentative step forward.

“Okot?” I say quietly.

At first, he doesn’t hear me. He’s grumbling under his breath, although I can’t make out what he’s saying.

I take another careful step forward. “Okot?” I say again.

He stops dead in his tracks, and his head whips up. I suck in a breath at the sight of the deep purple circles under his eyes and his eyes themselves. His red irises aren’t visible at all. His pupils have completely taken over, and the whites of his eyes are bloodshot. And the expression on his face…it doesn’t look like him at all.

What happened to my gentle giant?

For a moment, we just stare at each other, neither of us moving. Seeing how awful he looks makes tears prick the back of my eyes. I so badly want to curl up in his big arms and breathe him in.

“Okot, are you okay?” I ask, my voice barely above a whisper. I smile at him, but my bottom lip shakes slightly. Why isn’t he moving? Why isn’t he saying anything?

But then it’s like the spell breaks, and in the next instant, he’s coming at me. My heart picks up the pace, desperate for this reunion. My smile widens as he makes his way across the room. He reaches for me and takes me by the arms.

But instead of pulling me into him and holding me against his chest, I find myself suddenly slammed against the wall.

A surprised shriek escapes me as my head smacks against the hard stone. I blink up at him, shock covering my face. His black eyes and the look of utter hatred on his face fills me with both shock and fear.

“Okot, what—”

My words cut off as he grips a hand around my neck. And not in the very adoring way that he usually does. No, this hold on my neck isn’t tender. It’s violent, and panic shoots through me as he puts pressure on my windpipe.

I keep waiting, though. Waiting for this nightmare to stop. Waiting for him to snap out of whatever madness this is. Because I don’t understand what the fuck is happening.

But as my vision begins to dim, his thumb choking off my air supply, the sickening realization that I’ve been so utterly wrong about him finally sets in.

He said he had a mission for the princess. The princess was put in prison, but Okot is…here. In the palace. Trying to choke the life out of me.

I mouth “Please,” through my lips, since no sound can escape me except for a wheezed exhale. I plead with my eyes as tears start to fall down my cheeks. He doesn’t relent. If anything, his grip tightens.

Just as I start to black out, I finally concede that this is really happening, that’s it not some sort of sick joke, and I pop back into the Veil.

His body falls against the wall where I was, and I fall to the floor, heaving out fake-breaths with my invisible lungs. I float out of range of him and hover on top of the four-poster bed at the very top of the banister before I reappear.

I take in a few gasping breaths despite my sore throat. “Okot,” I croak. “It’s me. Your mate.”

I’ve never wanted to hear the words, “My beloved,” so much in my whole life.

Except he doesn’t suddenly snap out of it and come to his senses. No, he just sneers at me in an expression I’ve never seen on his face before. At least, not directed at me. He comes forward and grips the banister that I’m straddling and with the strength of his massive arms, he snaps it in half, sending me flying to the floor. I have about two seconds to react.

Unfortunately, I don’t react by popping invisible, because I’m an idiot. Instead, I just shriek and crash to the floor, landing painfully on my shoulder. I barely have time to roll over before he’s on me again. He hauls me to my feet, keeping a painful hold on my arm.

“Okot. Just talk to me,” I beg. “Tell me why you’re doing this!”

I don’t understand. I’m a mess of confusion and emotions. Okot loves me. I could tell every time he looked at me. He couldn’t have faked that…right?

He ignores me and pulls me toward the door, his fingers digging painfully into my skin. “The cupid is the enemy.”

I shake my head, wishing it would clear the nonsense he’s spewing. “So you just lied the whole time?” I ask, my voice cracking.

I feel the hot tears trail down my cheeks, but I don’t register that I’m crying. I’m too shocked. It’s like my brain is still refusing to believe that he betrayed me. The Okot currently pulling me down the corridor, ready to haul me off to the prince, is not the same Okot who cradled me in his arms and petted my hair. I just can’t reconcile the two, and yet, my mate-bond tells me without a shadow of a doubt, that this in indeed my Okot.

He doesn’t answer, just continues to pull me forward. “Okot, if the prince is threatening you or something, just tell me. Let me help–”

Instantly, a puff of pink smoke appears at my side, and then there’s Lex, her face beaming with a ready smile…until she sees me, at which point that smile quickly falls from her face. “Madame Cupid Emelle?”

Okot whirls on her and then it’s her throat that he’s gripping. “Okot, no!”

I try to claw at him to get him to release her, but of course, the freaking lamassu is way too strong. “Lex. Go invisible now,” I order.

Just like that, she disappears, and Okot’s fists clench around nothing.

He turns a livid face on me, but before he can get a grip on me again, I go invisible. Lex is there, hovering beside me with wide eyes. We both watch as Okot yells in frustration and punches his fist at the stone wall so hard that chunks of rock fall to the floor. When palace guards come running up, I turn to leave, floating through the walls and out of the palace as quickly as my intangible body will take me.

For decades, I have watched people’s hearts break into a million pieces. It just comes with the job as a cupid. You don’t get love without that risk of it going all wrong. For years, I struggled to put hearts back together again. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn’t. Sometimes, I had to watch the loveliest of people suffer in the worst of ways.

I would watch them cry or scream or shut down, and I would hate that I had played a part in their misery of broken love. But I never really knew what it actually felt like. Not until right now, at this moment.

It’s ironic, really. I’m a cupid, and my heart has just broken.