Merry hops onto her skateboard and forges ahead, driving into battle. She’s weaponless but not about to let her savior—or whatever he prefers to be called—perish because of her. Not without an epic scuffle.
The board whisks. She spirals from Malice’s arrows, the slat whacking his jaw midflight, whipping his head sideways. When Merry lands, she squats and rams into him again, pitching his body into the air like a bowling pin.
Once he lands, his body tumbles, then he blasts to his feet, ready for a second brawl. The stranger indulges, and the two club each other with knuckles instead of arrows, their weapons distributed across the lane.
Suddenly, Malice backs off. His expression contorts, fixing on Merry’s companion.
She rolls her board toward the stranger and hooks her fingers around his arm, steadying him since he’s radiating with pent-up aggression. The visual of her touching this rebel becomes the focal point of Malice’s sniper pupils, so that he obsesses over the sight for a second.
He gives the archer a full-bodied appraisal, his lips crooking. He swaggers backward, then snatches his archery and tramples into the masses.
It’s a retreat that’s not actually a retreat. Merry has known him long enough. He wouldn’t turn the other cheek without a reason, without a plan festering in his mind.
The carousel whirls, cranking out a melody that tinkers into the atmosphere.
Not once has Merry seen her kindred’s face, barely having any chance to sketch his features. Now she turns, burning with anticipation. “Thank y—”
He crumbles to the grass.
Yelping, she falls beside him. “No! No, wait! Don’t pass out. You haven’t told me your name, or where, or why—”
Oh. Cradling his head and lolling it toward her, she sees him. She sees all of him. And she’s speechless, her mind glowing like a neon sign, brighter than the cotton candy tint of her hair.
Her heart turns into a skateboard, doing a bullflip in her chest. Gracious, he’s dreamy.
The unconscious stranger is young, maybe a little younger than she. His countenance is akin to a mortal of twenty, which puts him somewhere around two-hundredish years old.
He resembles a tornado—tapered, toned, and turbulent. He has an olive complexion and dark hair that hangs to his shoulders, the upper half knotted at the back of his head.
A stud pokes from one ear, and a sterling hoop glares from the other lobe. Instead of modern attire, the archer’s wearing a sleeveless tunic, plus the fingerless gloves made of braided leather, a companion to her own fishnet pair.
On that note, he’s got strong hands, which is the most divine thing about him.
She loves those hands. She loves him.
She instaloves him with her fanning lashes and zero-to-sixty pulse.
It happens at first sight, just like that, all or nothing beneath the night sky.
2
Merry
It’s a laborious journey back to the loft. Merry carries the skateboard with one arm while balancing the young man with the other. Smacking his cheek has failed to make a dent in his consciousness, so she resorts to a ride on the tram. The automatic doors whoosh open, and they hobble into her neighborhood, the archer’s dead weight pulling her down, forcing her to walk lopsided.
A human wouldn’t have made it this far with him. Being immortal has its perks, even if some are forfeit for exiles.
It’s a residual bonus that she can traverse long distances instantaneously from city to city, from country to country. But her kind is restricted across short radiuses, such as within this metropolis. And in any event, she can only travel individually, not ferry others with her, so it’s impossible to transit both of them at once.
Garlands of light spiral around the avenue of trees, and vegetation sprouts between the square margins of sidewalk slates. This realm is an urban terrarium of winking branches and overgrowth, of ornate historical buildings topped by gardens and thickets and conservatories, with telescopes at the helms. Everything resides beneath a dome of constellations bridging earth and sky, nature and starlight.
As Merry staggers down the lane, she coos to the unconscious archer. “We’re almost there, handsome. In your hour of need, I’ll nurse you back to health, and I’ll soothe those tough brows, and I’ll be there when you awaken, and then you’ll behold me, and—”
Her true love groans as if he needs her to stop talking. His head flops against her shoulder. Oh stars, he smells heroic, like sandalwood with dashes of tempest and fury.
They reach the block’s end, where an observatory looms. It’s a veritable temple to the stars, a planetarium attached to a brick building threaded in ivy. There are numerous observatories in the Celestial City, but this one is hers and thus invisible to mortals.
It’s yet another Herculean quest to pass the interior’s foyer and pendulum basin, then onward to the building’s stairway. Fates, he’s heavy, even for her. It must be on account of those whipcord abs and athletic biceps, since he’s not brawny by any means.
She’s caught between the young man’s heft and her own epiphany.
I’ve fallen in love. I’ve never been in love.
Do I look any different?
Hiking to the top floor, Merry dumps the skateboard and hoists the stranger across the floor. His pec rubs against the side of her breast. At the contact, a fluttery noise escapes her lips, her body venting with oxygen.
Making it to her sanctuary in the garret, she bumps open the door with her foot and stumbles inside with her patient. She flounders to the bed, both of them capsizing onto the mattress.
Wiggling upright, Merry perches on the edge and rolls the archer onto his back, then gazes at him in awe. She cannot resist sketching the ledge of his dusky jaw with her fingertips, which causes his face to scrunch. It’s the kind of expression that resents sleep and swoonery, like they’re annoyances.
Yet this savior must be a powerful deity, because he knows how to faint beautifully. One arm crooks above his head, the other covers his tapered waist. Merry wants to measure that waist, to gauge how her legs might fit around it, to see how hard her thighs would need to clamp while he moves in between them.
She shakes herself. They’ve only just met, and even though she adores him, there will be plenty of time to fantasize later.
First, recovery is paramount. This stranger has come to her rescue, and she needs to save him back.
Merry drapes a blanket over his frame while humming a ditty. Swaddled, he sinks into the pillows, his temple bruised from where Malice had pounded into him.
The stranger mumbles something, a single word from the tight plank of his mouth. “Love…”
Merry’s soul crescendos like a chorus, like the climax of a song. So he must have felt that same connection before falling into a stupor. In the Carnival of Stars, or maybe when he’d watched her being chased in Midnight Park, he must have felt something for her as well.
Who is he? Where has he come from?
Is he an outcast like she is? Like all of them?
She’s all too familiar with isolation. Lonesomeness radiates from him in waves, along with some sort of loss, some type of unfulfilled longing.
“Love,” he pants again, lost in a vacuum of dreams.
“There, there,” she coaxes, brushing aside his tresses. “What’s your name?”
But he just leans into her touch, wanting more of it. She strives to contain herself. Tonight, the stars have shone upon her, granting what she’d never thought she would have.
Is this destiny? Is he Merry’s soul mate?
Is he the one she was told about, for whom she’s been waiting? Is he the one whose heart she’s meant to win?
Will he free them from their trap? Will he help to break their banishment?
What emotion does—did—he wield before being exiled?
Destiny among mortals is controlled by the Fates, a mythological society who rules over humanity.
The hierarchy is simple. There are archers, each represe
nting a definitive human emotion, along with the power to wield that emotion through arrows. Essentially, it’s a civilization of Eros-like beings directing mortal states of feeling, except it’s not limited to love. There are gods and goddesses of joy, sorrow, fear, and so forth.
Those archers are mentored by Guides. And everyone answers to the five illustrious members of the Fate Court.
But the stars reign above all. At the very top of the serendipitous chain, they’re the ultimate monarchs. In the order of things, they have the final say.
From the onset, each deity is born inside a star. And from there, immortals like Merry grow up in the Peaks, trained by the Guides to become archers. After that, archers roam the human world, fulfilling their assignments.
That’s how it’s meant to go, with two exceptions. One, if a deity commits a crime or disobeys the rules, they get banished. Two, if a deity is born flawed, they get banished.
Merry is the latter.
She takes solace in her surroundings. In her short life—less than three centuries—she has sprinkled her home with charms. The room is a haven of blush neon, tinkling music, and ruffled linens. Double doors leads to the rooftop deck, where an abundance of light and greenery thrives, where a mobile of globes hangs from a trellis like planets yet to be discovered. Every corner out there is bloated with cushioned furniture and poufs the size of Jupiter.
The Fates may have tossed her aside, but that circumstance hasn’t left her destitute. Even outcasts retain their magical faculties—all but the single, most important one. From the beginning, Merry had made the best of it and conjured an observatory residence, then stocked it with consolation trinkets such as her records and skateboard.
Again, she wonders what her true love has done to offend their superiors.
She rushes downstairs to gather a wet cloth and a glass of water, then retraces her steps, her soles squeaking against the floor. At the landing, she kicks off her sneakers, padding the rest of the way in her glitter socks.
Tiptoeing into the garret, she’s awash in feels. A collection of neon cursive—Tragic, Beautiful, Magic—ornaments the walls, dousing her comatose savior in soft hues of pink, purple, and blue.
He’s on her bed.
On. Her. Bed.
By sunrise, her sanctuary will smell of him. Maybe she will, too.
He sleeps like a boulder. A freight train could howl, and he’d probably doze through it, which means she can freshen up before rousing him.
This calls for reinforcements. She has to set the mood, so she plays a record of melancholy noir tracks, a sad yet glamorous pining strewn within the lyrics.
Keeping the music low, Merry bustles to the mirror. So much for looking different when in love. She criticizes her chipped nail polish—an azure tint called Kismet—but there’s no time for a touch-up. Instead, she releases her gnarly ponytail and combs through the snags, then experiments with diverse hairstyles, but why break what doesn’t need fixing?
With a clean ponytail in place, she strips off her NASA T-shirt and stained tulle skirt. Nudity is the ultimate beauty. Deities aren’t prudes or monogamous, so there’s no need for underwear. But it’s also a shame, because lingerie is just so pretty.
Merry considers herself an exception to this rule. She likes her dainty black panties and matching bralette enough that she’s willing to thwart custom for them. Standing in her knickers, she considers the rack of wardrobe options in her armoire. When none of the eyelet or taffeta styles inspire her, she retreats to the dresser, yanking out garments and flicking them over her shoulder.
No. No. No.
Definitely noooooo.
Ah! Her loose, off-the-shoulder Scorpio blouse will work, if paired with a long accordion skirt.
What about tassel earrings? Or just the fishnet gloves? Maybe both?
As she debates the ensemble’s mismatched potential, a ballad resounds through the garret, and she begins to sway in front of the mirror. This is a good song for pole dancing, with all its sultry swagger.
Maybe when she’s dressed, she’ll exhale against her reflection and write a message there, as a goddess would. She’ll pen something clever and alluring and—
“Who the fuck are you?” a voice rumbles behind her.
3
Anger
He isn’t prepared for her. He isn’t prepared for any of this.
He isn’t prepared to awaken in a strange girl’s bed, nor to discover a heart-shaped, scantily-clad ass undulating in his face.
And he’s definitely not prepared for the scream.
She screeches like a puppy on helium, a squirting lurch of noise that’s both comical and annoying.
And very loud. Her lungs strike the ceiling as she whips around, her backside knocking into a full-length mirror. The fixture quakes. The female drops a shirt that she’d been holding, then plummets to the floor, snatching the cotton and holding it like a shield, blotting out the exposed flesh of her body.
She gawks at him with eyes like sparklers.
An outside observer would assume that he’s an intruder rather than an unwilling inhabitant, the occupant of a bed covered in ruffles, with no blasted clue how he got here.
Or one would assume that they’d…
Anger takes a second to formally panic. He’d been lost in a void, then he’d resurfaced to the sight of disheveled blankets, visible undergarments, and a bobbing rump. There are few scenarios in which a male will find himself in an anonymous bed, especially if he’s greeted with this particular visual: a disrobed female, clad in nothing but panties the color of foreplay.
He’s been intoxicated before. Not recently.
What’s more, he’s never been drunk during the act. In two centuries, Anger has only bedded the opposite sex while sober. Those empty, meaningless escapades had aspired to flush certain frustrations out of his system, to purge himself of feelings that ultimately can’t be purged.
But that’s another damnable story.
He’s not a lightarrow. It would have taken buckets of spirits to wipe last night from memory.
A few saving graces prevent him from having a fit. One, he’s fully garbed. Two, he doesn’t suffer the dregs of alcohol. Three, a shock of red surges up the girl’s—young woman’s—cheeks as she clutches the shirt to her figure, concealing hips and breasts.
A female would not behave this way if he’d spent hours giving her orgasms. And mated or not, an unclothed deity would not act modest in his presence.
Yet she’s an immortal. That much is evident, since only deities can see deities.
There’s only been one exception in history.
An exception that he doesn’t want to dwell on.
A song hiccups through the room. The source is a record player, which has begun to skip as a result of the young woman’s staggering gait.
A dozen fripperies swarm him, all of which belong on a parade float, not on a person. A beaded camisole hooks over his shoulder. A scalloped gown swoons brazenly across his lap. Had she idly tossed them his way while searching for something to wear?
Is she taking advantage of his incapacity? Is she a threat? Where is her bow?
Where is his bow?
Anger’s about to get angry. His arm lashes out, swatting the burdens from his proximity. The textiles go flying, making the female jump again.
He tears out of the bed and pounds up to her, his body halting centimeters from the shirt shield. Her eyes flex wide, as though scrambled in a pan. His shadow and height dwarf her, and he detects the barest hint of a shiver.
Yet she doesn’t appear intimidated or skittish. If anything, she’s spellbound.
“I asked you a question,” he grits out. “Who the fu—”
His growl causes a landslide in his head. He cringes, his skull jackhammering from one end to the other, forcing his digits to press against the pain.
His hostess snaps out of her trance. “My name is Merry,” she says, urging him back to bed and then rushing to get dressed, her choppy movement
s the very opposite of composed. “That’s Merry with an e and two r’s. As to the story, you were hurt—,” she crawls across the ground, “—after the carnival skirmish.” She retrieves a limp skirt and shimmies into it, wormlike on the ground. “That’s when you passed out—,” she twitches into the T-shirt she’d been carrying, “—and I brought you here.”
At the foot of the bed, she rises onto her knees and blows a lock of hair from her face. “We met at the Constellation Carousel.”
“Come again?” Anger demands.
“The carousel. You know, it’s a ride that—”
“I know what a carousel is!”
“It’s constellation-themed, like most things in this city. We met there, when you saved me from certain death and then fell into my arms. Can you think of no better location to have a first encounter? Right by an otherworldly carousel swirling round and round? And during a gallant rescue?” Her voice floats on a cloud while she squeezes the bed’s footboard. “Far be it from me to stand back and let you do all the badass work, which is why I joined the fray and defended you from Malice. But once he retreated, you were quite done for. Do you like music?”
Anger just stares at her.
She has a slot between her front teeth, a slight gap behind her lips. How can anyone pack so many words into such a compact space?
Merry bounces to her feet and adjusts the record’s needle, then glances at the vacant spot beside him. She hesitates, silently asking permission. The fluted skin between her brows is hopeful and oddly endearing.
Stumped, Anger doesn’t object.
Beaming, she plops on the blanket and scoots closer. A lot closer.
He hedges, unsure whether to interrogate her or evacuate the premises. She’s primping, threading through her ponytail and smoothing the pink layers. After that, she tugs on the cotton shirt, then on the pleated skirt, then on the fingerless gloves.
Fingerless gloves like his, except woven into black nets. He hadn’t noticed them until now. But once he does, Anger has trouble removing his gaze from them.
She has lovely, slender hands.
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