Sheer Cupidity: A Standalone Cupidity Romance (Heart Hassle Book 5)

BELREN

The pull is incredible.

I thought it was strong before, and it was, but something is different. I felt the difference as soon as I was yanked here with Lex, but I thought it was because of the portal.

It’s not the portal; that much is clear now.

The longer I’ve been here, it’s become increasingly apparent that something has changed. I feel like time is running out.

At first, with Lex grounding me, I was able to keep it at bay, but now…

That all-encompassing tug is insistent. Without Lex’s touch, I’m drifting. The invisible tide wants to drag me away, and for some reason, Lex can’t touch me anymore. This time, I think it’s because of me.

I don’t want to admit the fact that I’m fading, but even I can see the way my body has gone translucent and drab.

Real fear simmers in me.

But then when my sister’s name falls from the princess’s lips again, a jolt goes through me, like a bolt of lightning electrifying me from the inside out.

Benicia.

Then the rest of the princess’s words filter through my mind, and my eyes go wide. “She’s here?” I know Soora can’t hear me, but Lex can, and with it, she can hear how hoarse my voice is, the struggle it is to speak.

Bits and pieces of my sister come swimming into my mind. I can’t quite picture her face, but I can recall the fierce determination I had to find her. That, and the guilt for not being able to.

“Where is she?” I ask, but as soon as the question is out of my lips, another jolt goes through me, and preternatural realization suddenly slams into me. “Soora’s glamour power,” I whisper hoarsely. “It was hiding it.”

Lex shoots me a worried look. “Hiding what?”

“I wasn’t being pulled to my deathplace. I was being pulled to her, but Soora’s magic was blocking me.”

I stagger on my feet, like someone has wrapped a rope around my midsection and is pulling me forward.

“Belren!” Lex comes forward like she’s going to try to catch me, but our bodies pass right through each other.

“It’s alright,” I assure her.

And it is.

Everything clicks into place, and something quiet and settling drapes over my spirit. Like I know exactly what I have to do. I’m walking forward before I even register the movement. Instead of fighting the pull, I’m letting it lead me. This is what I have to do.

The feeling I have adds another missing puzzle piece from my past life. This deeper intuition is something I used to get. I’d just know where to go, and I’d follow my gut when I tracked things down. Maybe it was some sort of sixth sense, but feeling it now makes me feel more like me.

I’m pulled forward by the invisible force, the soles of my shoes sinking through the floor as I go. I stop when I get to the thick purple curtains hanging from floor to ceiling.

I think I hear Lex say something behind me, but sound is nearly drowned out with a low-pitched hum that’s droning in my ears. Like a long-forgotten song that I’m straining to hear.

I just need to get closer.

Without hesitation, I step into the curtains and go right through the wall. Once I’m inside the dark space, I realize it’s not a wall at all, but a secret door. I stride forward, something like adrenaline and a nearly debilitating hope fueling my steps as I go.

Through the wall, there’s a set of stairs that leads up, and up, and up. I’m not sure if I actually walk them or if I just float right up, but either way, I make it to another closed door at the very top.

I think I hear Lex calling my name below, but I can’t turn back now. I can’t stop. The tug is too insistent, the urge to find too strong.

I have to know…

Pushing my way in, I drift through the door, my eyes instantly taking in the scene. The room is circular, with beams all meeting at the same center point on the ceiling. Unlike the purple mash-up happening in the rest of the house, this room is clad in browns and creams. With a single sweep, I take in the fur rug and the plush bed before all awareness snags on the shadowed figure sitting on a window seat.

If I had breath to lose, it would’ve gotten stuck in my throat.

Even though she’s sitting in the dark without any lanterns or candles lit, the moonlight coming in from the huge window she’s sitting at allows me to see the silvery sheen of her skin and the darker horns curling back around her head. Her white hair is cut short, barely brushing against the tops of her ears. A pair of delicate wings that resemble a moth’s are clasped together at her back, single eyes at the center of each one.

“Benicia.”

Her name passes from my lips like a prayer to the fae gods of old. And the pull is just suddenly…gone.

I hadn’t realized how constant the force was, just how strong, until this moment.

Soora was right.

The princess was never my unfinished business. I wasn’t being pulled to my deathplace. I was being led here. To finally find my sister.

To do in death what I couldn’t do in life.

She shouldn’t hear me. Shouldn’t know that I’m standing here like I’m the one seeing the ghost. She shouldn’t, but when I call her name, my sister’s spine suddenly goes stiff, and her head whips around.

Glowing gray eyes are wide as she looks wildly around the room. “Who’s there?”

I’m stuck in shock for a second, my mind whirring as it tries to fill in all the blanks of everything I’ve forgotten about her, as it simultaneously realizes that she reacted to my voice.

I take a tentative step forward. “Benicia, can you hear me?”

She leaps to her feet this time, head snapping left and right. She might’ve heard me—or at least heard something—but she doesn’t know where I am, considering her eyes keep jumping all over the room.

The door behind me opens, and Soora and Lex step inside. As soon as my cupid sees me, relief spreads over her expression.

“Soora…” At my sister’s call, the princess immediately walks over, the two of them embracing.

“What’s wrong?”

A deep frown line has appeared between Benicia’s brows. “I thought I heard something.” Then her eye snags on Lex, and she startles. “Who’s that?”

“It’s alright,” Soora tells her. “This is Lex, and she’s come to say hello.”

Benicia doesn’t let go of Soora, and she continues to eye Lex warily. I know I still have a lot of missing memories, but this vision of Benicia cowering and confused hits me hard, because this doesn’t seem like her.

“Hello,” Lex greets with a warm smile. I notice her glancing between the two of them, and then a soft sigh escapes her that I’m probably the only one who can hear since I’m standing so close. “You two…so much love,” she says, almost dreamily. “I haven’t felt that much love between two people in a long time.”

Benicia doesn’t seem to have heard Lex’s words, but for the first time since we’ve gotten here, Soora’s face softens until there’s a barely-there smile.

The hot torch of anger I’ve been carrying gets smothered a bit because of it.

How can I hate her if she loves my sister that much?

“Are you okay?” Lex whispers beneath her breath. Her face is pinched with worry, her pretty lips pressed thin. But gods, is she beautiful.

I wish I could remember her more from before.

“I am now,” I reply, and she must hear how the strain has left my voice, because her brows lift in surprise. “It was pulling me here all along.”

Warring sentiments cross her face. She looks happy for me, and yet there’s a sadness in the depths of her eyes that guts me.

“I’m glad you found her,” she murmurs.

Benicia seems to get distracted and wanders back over to the window seat, where she tucks her legs beneath herself elegantly and gazes out at the moon.

A flash of vulnerable pain crosses Soora’s face as she watches her. “Benicia has had some…difficulty. What the king and prince did to her, the mind control…it affected her. She doesn’t like to leave this room. She forgets things sometimes, gets upset. But looking out the window soothes her, even when I can’t.”

A quick glance outside makes me realize that she’s looking in the direction of my deathplace. Thick emotion clogs my throat.

“I couldn’t let them kill her,” Soora goes on, and I see a flash of a tear trail down her cheek before she quickly dashes it away. She sounds as if she’s been waiting to say this to someone for years. Like it’s been pent-up inside of her and she desperately needed to get it out, for someone to hear her.

Something like pity crosses Lex’s face. “I understand.”

As if she hates being so exposed and real, Soora takes a breath and slams her internal barriers back up until she looks cool and collected again. “The entire realm can hate me. They can all wish me dead and call me a traitor. I don’t care,” she says with vehemence, cutting her gaze to Lex. “I made the mistake of sacrificing Benicia once, when I decided to go along with the plan to marry the prince to help the fae, and I broke her heart in the process. I couldn’t sacrifice her again. So I chose her that day instead, and I’d do it all over again if I had to. Because she needs me, and I wasn’t going to let her down again.”

Well, fuck. I can’t fault that.

“You did it for love,” Lex says, giving a sad smile of understanding. “Love…changes things.”

Soora nods tersely, but I see the minuscule tell of relief as her hands loosen slightly at her sides. “I don’t know how Prince Elphar tracked Benicia down, but he did it because of me. He found my one weak point, and he exploited it.” She turns to watch my sister, who’s trailing a finger over the window. “I couldn’t leave her at his mercy when it was my fault she was there in the first place.”

All of those fae we’ve seen in the realm who spit at Soora’s name and call her things worse than a traitor…I wonder what they’d say right now, if they could see her as we see her.

Because Lex is right. Love changes things.

“So,” Soora starts, drawing herself up like she’s raising an internal shield. “Do you still want to kill me?”

Lex shares a look with me. “No, I think I can pass on the whole premeditated murder thing. I’d much rather use my arrows for Love, though you don’t seem to need my help on that front.”

Soora glances affectionately at Benicia again. “No. I don’t.”

I move forward, stopping right next to my sister, watching as she continues to drag her finger against the glass, drawing lines through the condensation. As I observe her, a profound melancholy washes over me. “I’m sorry it took me so long to find you, Beni.”

The nickname rolls off my tongue, forgotten until this very moment, but it feels inherently familiar.

My sister jerks away from the window, and then her head swings in my direction, her gray eyes locking onto me.

I rear back in surprise, and she mirrors the movement.

“Belren?”

Shock slams into me, and it feels as if the ground is shaking, threatening to toss me off my feet, the movement roaring in my ears like an angry sea.

“What did you say?” Soora asks.

Benicia doesn’t answer. She’s too busy staring wide-eyed at me.

“You’re here.”

For a moment, I can’t say anything at all. I’m afraid to even blink, worried that she’ll lose this connection to me. Or worse, that I’ll realize I was imagining it all.

But when she continues to stare at me, I finally come up with a response. “I’m here.”

“Who’s here, Benicia?” Soora asks carefully, coming to stand beside her.

Beni finally glances over at her, though she’s quick to lock her eyes on me again, and then she gives me a smile that simultaneously breaks my heart and makes it soar.

“My brother. He finally found his way.”

I’m not sure how much Soora really believed Lex before, but Benicia saying it, is a completely different story.

“Belren? He’s really here?” she whispers, lavender skin going pale.

Beni smiles at me. “He’s just there,” she says with a nod. “I knew he’d find me eventually.”

She’s right. An unexplainable feeling inside me knows that she’s right. I was always going to find her, because it was my life’s mission. It just took death for me to be able to finally do it.

I give her a wry smile. “You were always the patient one,” I say, somehow knowing it’s true.

She laughs, but the joy from my sister’s face slowly fades, and I can see every thought as it crosses her open face, right down to the sadness of her trembling lip. “You died.”

My head tips. “I did.”

“You weren’t supposed to die, brother.”

A lump forms in my throat, and I look back at Lex, who’s still standing by the door, watching everything with a sorrowful look on her face. “Love changes things.”

Lex sucks in a breath, tears collecting in her eyes. I might be dead, useless, incorporeal, but I know I love her.

Maybe I somehow knew I was going to.

I’ve always had a sixth sense when it came to finding things—to taking them. So perhaps in that split-second decision I made to jump in front of her, I was simply following my gut.

I knew I wanted to find her. To have her.

But it just wasn’t in the fates for me to be able to keep her.