Soul in Darkness (Page 35)

In the back of my mind a voice was screaming for me to put out the candle, but I was too mesmerized. His face was perfection. Every defined angle. The darkest, thickest lashes. And those bow-shaped lips. They were as full as they felt, and so beautiful my chest ached. Behind him lay giant, majestic wings of white, tipped in smoke gray.

This was no monster. My eyes darted to beside the bed and took in the golden bow and a quiver of ornate arrows. A tremor ran through me as realization slammed my soul like a tidal wave.

My husband was a god. The god of love. Cupid himself.

I yanked the candle back to extinguish it, and as I did, a drop of hot wax dripped straight onto my husband’s hand. It happened so fast, and yet so slow.

He sucked in a sharp breath and his eyes opened. I froze, falling into those blue depths, more exquisite than anything I had ever seen.

“Psyche?” he whispered, his eyes going to my face, then the candle. “What have you done?” His voice, full of horror, was not the voice I’d come to know. It was as if the rough, scratchy layers had been scraped away to reveal the sensual melody hidden underneath.

I shook my head, stepping back, shaking, my jaw unhinging and my voice dead. In my movements, the pillow had shifted, and Cupid caught sight of the blade.

“Were you to kill me, Wife?” His eyes bore into mine, the pain there causing my mouth to open and close, my head to shake back and forth. “You know I am immortal.”

“I know,” I whispered. “I was…I would never—” Again, I gaped.

He leapt from the bed with inhuman grace, wearing a warrior’s pleated wrap around his waist. Landing before me, he blew out the candle and grasped my upper arms, giving me a small shake in the darkness.

“Quickly,” he said. “Tell me how you feel, Psyche.”

“I am sorry!” I wanted to collapse. I had been so wrong.

“Not an apology! Your feelings!”

“I feel horrible,” I shouted.

“Your feelings about me!”

“I love you!” As soon as I said it, I knew it was what he wanted all along—my love. And I knew, without a doubt, that it was too late. “I broke the rules.” A sob of disbelief and shame tumbled from my throat. “Oh, gods! What have I done?” I wanted to sink to the ground, but he held my arms tight.

Daylight filled the room, and my husband still stood there before me, larger than life, so real and beyond beautiful.

“I will fix this.” With a fierce look, filled with all the things he had never said, he turned and bolted through the room, through the window, wings tucked tightly behind him and then shooting outward in an ethereal arc when he hit the air. I could only stare as he flew away.

Fast clomping came from the hall and the door to my bedchamber burst open. A short, rotund, middle-aged woman stood there. Well, a woman on the top half, and goat on the bottom half. She smacked a hand over her mouth as I looked her up and down.

“Renae?”

“You can see me? The binding has been broken!” A pretty smile filled her face until I collapsed into the nearest chair, heaving for air. I barely noticed Mino jumping at me excitedly, and then running to hike a leg on the bed.

“I have ruined everything,” I said, my breaths coming fast and short. “I—I…” I pointed to the candle on the floor, hot wax splattered against the marble.

She stared at it, her hand on her chest, shaking her head. “You didn’t.” She turned saddened eyes on me. “Oh, dear. It was your sisters, wasn’t it? I knew something bad had happened!”

“I should never have doubted.”

“Oh, Princess.” She knelt and hugged me, rubbing my back. I didn’t deserve her kindness. “You must go to the temple of Venus.” She pulled away to hold my shoulders and look into my eyes. “Go. Beg for her mercy. Tell her how you feel for her son!”

“But I broke the rules! What will she do to me?”

“I don’t know,” she said frankly. “May the gods have mercy.” Renae kissed my forehead and called to the windows. “Zephyr!”

I stared as the god of the west wind flew gently into the room, smaller than Cupid, his hair and wings dark in color, his face lovely and delicate. He nodded at me.

“Zep,” Renae said frantically. “You need to take Psyche to the temple of Venus at once. She broke the binding. There is no time to waste.”

“Where is Cupid?” His melodious voice was soft and comforting.

“I don’t know! Take her—go!” She shoved me toward him and he lifted me easily.

“Maybe I should wait for him to return?” I began, but he was already lifting me into the air. “Renae!” I called. “Take care of Mino and Sphinx!”

She bent and lifted the puppy as Sphinx leapt onto the window sill. The three of them watched Zephyr fly me away. I held tight around his shoulders and pressed my forehead to his neck, praying silently all the while.

Cupid, my husband, forgive me. Venus, celestial goddess…hear my heart.

CUPID

One Year Earlier…

“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind

And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.

Nor hath love’s mind of any judgment taste;

Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste.

And therefore is love said to be a child

Because in choice he is so oft beguiled.”

~William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

GODDESS IMPOSTOR

Cupid perched his lithe body in a twisted, thick olive tree overlooking a winery and inn. More often than not, humans disgusted him, yet he could never stay away. The very idea of their souls was fascinating, especially since he was the only god who could sense that brightness or dimness from within each human. It helped him decide who to punish and who to gift.

But mostly who to punish.

He was not permitted to kill their mortal bodies and send their souls to the Underworld, but he could bring chaos to their dull lives by playing on their emotions. Most knew him as the god of love, but he was more than that. He was the god of sensuality and eroticism. With his nature, wreaking havoc on humans was too simple.

Right now, he spied the wife of the winery innkeeper stomping grapes with two fellow employees, skirts lifted to their thighs, as her husband entertained prestigious guests inside. Indeed, the night before he had entertained the daughter of a guest once his wife and the girl’s parents had fallen asleep.

For a human male, the innkeeper was attractive, but his soul was muddied by vanity and a constant need to have his physical prowess validated. It was this weakness—the human male’s blatant desperation—that earned the wrath of the youngest god.

Cupid’s fingers ran deftly up and down the strings of his bow as he pondered his arsenal of tonics. Along his low-slung belt, he carried potions with the ability to temporarily heighten almost any human emotion: anger, sadness, humor, regret, and yes…love. Though love, being complicated, was the most temporary of all. Love started as a series of attraction followed closely by interest, then adoration. But then love morphed into something more significant, requiring action, not just feeling. Humans had to choose each day to continue on that path of devotion and loyalty, and often it was simply too much work for their meager minds and bodies.

No creatures were as easily bored, distracted, or ungrateful as humans. Except, perhaps, gods.

But gods were not weak, and Cupid would never love. Not in the foolhardy way humans did. Unlike them, he was immortal and never in a hurry. Never hasty. Never in need of validation. His confidence was as eternal as his body. Someday his perfect goddess would be created, and they would find one another. His mother would be sure of it—a flawless match. Cupid had faith in the future. For now, he was content to meddle in the lives of those on Earth, and when the urge took him, to shift into his mortal disguise and sate his appetite with human women.

In fact, the innkeeper’s wife was looking more attractive the longer he watched her dancing in the fruit, legs staining purple and red, a light sheen of sweat along her brow. He had punished many mortal men by having their women for a night. Cupid had always enjoyed the causticness of it. Where his true form was golden and awe-inspiring, his chosen human form was dark and intriguing. Both stunning in their own ways, but human women cherished a dangerous challenge.

A light tingle along his skin alerted him of the presence of another god. He turned on his branch to find his mother approaching, a vision of beauty gliding across the swaying grass, slowly being lifted by small clouds that puffed into and out of existence with each graceful step, like a staircase leading up to his perch in the tree.

The goddess of love was able to take away the breath of even the mightiest of gods. To Cupid, her presence was the ultimate comfort, for she alone loved him. He could tell from the pursed pout of her lips she was not pleased.

“What is it, Mother?”

Instead of answering immediately, she glimpsed the women below, nearly finished with their grape crushing.

“Why do you humor yourself in such a way, my son?” She touched the bluish-white waves that framed his face, her eyes searching the pronounced bow of his lips, turned down. “I worry you spend too much time among their kind and not your own. Are you lonely? Shall I speak to Jupiter about a match for you?”