For the Love of Cupidity: A Valentine’s Day Novella (Heart Hassle Book 4)

When we’re all sitting, the table soon picks up with several conversations at once, and I watch as my genfins reconnect with their parents. Okot sits on my left, and joins in the talks. It admittedly took a bit for them to get used to having another non-genfin in our covey, but the males saw him turn into his lamassu bull form once, and they’ve respected him ever since.

By the time the food arrives, the guys and their parents have shed the stuffiness of their first meeting, and now they’re all swapping stories about their time apart. The guys and I catch them up on all things Amorette, which is always a sure way to get everyone one the same page. Except Ronak’s parents, of course, since Ronak banned them, they haven’t actually met Amorette yet. I’m hoping to fix that.

Huge platters of tender meat, grilled vegetables, and spiced rice gets brought out, and all of the alphas from each covey serves his mate first, before serving the rest of his covey. It’s such a sweet gesture to see Ronak serving me, Okot, Evert, and Sylred, and I can’t help the smile that spreads across my face.

“How was your vacation?” I ask Resha. I have to kind of yell, since we’re sitting at opposite ends of the table, so everyone else’s conversations cut off, as they wait to see what she’ll say.

Resha takes a bite of her food and chews extra slowly, making me wait. I just keep smiling patiently. Finally, she says, “It was fine.”

My eye twitches a bit. She sure isn’t making this easy on me. “The guys tell me that you all went to visit one of the tropical islands south of here. That must have been lovely.”

“There were too many insects.”

I start scratching my arm. “Oh, that’s too bad. You guys do have crazy looking bugs. There were some gross ones on the earth realm, but those are nothing compared to the bugs here. I found a bug in my closet a few weeks ago that looked like a giant grasshopper except with people-lips.” I pucker up my lips and tap them to demonstrate. “They were seriously luscious. I was tempted to grab some lipstick and put it on the thing. But I’m pretty sure it catcalled to me when I walked by, so I threw a bowl over it and waited for Ronak to come home so he could take it outside.”

Resha looks like I’m going to make her ears bleed if I don’t stop talking. “If you were a proper genfin mate, you would not cower in your own home because of a little bug,” she says.

“This sucker wasn’t small.”

She just stares at me, unimpressed.

I look over at Ronak a bit desperately. “It was as big as Ronak’s—”

He clamps a hand over my mouth before I can finish. The parents shift uncomfortably in their chairs. Evert snickers.

“Mother,” Ronak says, addressing her. “Stop being so difficult to Emelle.”

She just sniffs and raises her chin haughtily.

I try to push Ronak’s hand off my mouth, but he doesn’t let go. I stick my tongue out and slather it all over his palm, but that doesn’t work either, so I change tactics and push his fingers even further in, and then I bite him. Hard.

He snatches his hand away, and I rush to explain. “I was gonna say the bug was as big as Ronak’s foot!” I say primly. I turn to glare at Ronak for making it seem worse than it was. “I wasn’t gonna say it was as big as your as your co—”

He clamps a hand over my mouth again.

That time it was justified. Whoops.

Ronak’s fathers look like they want to crawl into a genfin cave and hide.

Ronak leans in to speak into my ear. “Can you not talk about the size of my dick at the dinner table with our parents?”

I nod and a muffled, “Yep,” comes out against his hand.

He drops his hand again, and I smile sheepishly. “Words just come out sometimes,” I tell his parents.

“That kind of thing would never happen to a nice high-ranking society girl like that Delsheen,” Resha says.

The fork in my hand nearly bends from me clutching it so hard.

Don’t forking stab her, don’t forking stab her, don’t forking stab her.

I smile tightly. “Delsheen is a self-absorbed jerk.”

Resha smooths her gray hair. “Yes, but she has excellent table manners.”

“I totally have good table manners,” I blurt out.

Resha cocks a thin brow and looks down at my plate. Okay, plates. Plural. I have four. And yeah, I ate most of it with my fingers, so my cloth napkin is covered in meat stains, and not the sexual kind.

I quickly pile my four plates up on top of each other, but there’s still food on some of them, so it kind of makes this weird unsteady tower. “There,” I say proudly. “Oh, wait.” I take the gross napkin and smooth it out before folding it into a fancy heart shape. I place it on top of the plate tower. “That’s better,” I say proudly.

“Hmm,” Resha says.

Operation Love Me isn’t going so well.

“Mother, just because Emelle is being so kind and forgiving about your behavior tonight, doesn’t mean that I am. If you want to meet your granddaughter, then I expect you to treat her with respect, and I don’t ever want to hear you bring up Delsheen’s name again, is that clear?” Ronak says, as his tail curls around my calf.

“Delsheen was a nightmare,” Evia cuts in. “I’m glad you didn’t mate to her.”

The other fathers nod. “Yes, she was quite difficult,” Sylred’s father adds.

“She comes from good genfin blood,” Resha argues.

“She fucked the prince during our mating celebration,” Evert says dryly.

“Evert! Don’t swear at the dinner table,” Evia scolds.

He just shrugs.

“I apologize for my mother’s behavior,” Ronak says to me, although he does it loudly enough that it’s clear he wants his mother to hear. “Let’s go.”

“Wait,” I blurt. “Why don’t we all go enjoy the fair? It’ll be fun!”

Evert’s parents are already nodding, Sylred’s fathers look a bit nervous, and Ronak’s fathers are watching Resha for confirmation either way.

If I’m going to get her to love me, then I can’t just let the night end like this. Ronak is pissed, which means he’ll probably ban her again, and then I’ll have to wait another long stint before I get to try again. I want Amorette to be able to spend time with all of her grandparents, and I want Ronak to have a relationship with his parents again. I love Ronak for always putting me first. I love that my alpha adores me enough to cut his parents off for disrespecting me. It proves just how much he’s in my corner. But I know he misses his family, so I’m determined to change things.

“It will be great,” I say, my high-beam smile on. “I bet there’ll be honey cakes. Will there be honey cakes?” I ask.

“I’m sure we can find you some,” Sylred assures me.

“I could do with some honey cakes,” Evert’s father says.

I smile at him. “Exactly! Honey cakes are the best.”

Sylred’s father, Perel, says, “I prefer chocolate.”

I start gagging.

Yep. Just the mention of chocolate these days sends me into a fit of heaves. It’s heartbreaking. Sylred had to throw away all of his old pants, since he couldn’t get the chocolate scent out of his pockets.

Okot rubs my back while my eyes water, and I try to convince my stomach to keep everything down.

“Was it something I said?” I hear Perel ask.

“She can’t tolerate the C word,” Okot says politely.

Evert snickers again.

By the time I manage to stop gagging, I’m pretty sure my eye makeup is ruined because I have tears running down my cheeks. I pick up my soiled heart napkin and start dabbing myself. I’m pretty sure all I’m doing is just smearing meat juice on my face, though. Again, not the sex kind.