Cupid's Light

by Tami Lund

  He whistled. “That sucks.” And then he shook it off and resumed striding toward the house. This wasn’t his problem. He hadn’t asked for a Cupid, didn’t need anyone to help him find a mate. He tossed over his shoulder, “Sorry about your luck, honey, but you were assigned to the wrong shifter. Taking a mate is not in my future.”

  She trailed after him. “Why not?”

  He didn’t answer for a few moments. “I’ve been burned before, okay? I guess I have trust issues.”

  She nodded solemnly. “That’s a very common obstacle. We can work together to overcome it. I’m very good at reading people, so I can warn you if you come across a potential mate who isn’t trustworthy.”

  “I don’t need your help.”

  “Obviously you do. You just said you have trust issues.”

  “I don’t need your help because I’m not interested in taking a mate. Period. Trust issues or not. My life is perfectly fine the way it is. I get laid when I want, and I have plenty of family and friends to hang out with. Although I’m the beta to my cousin, who’s the pack master, I’m sure he and his new mate are going to get busy making pups soon, so I won’t have to worry about taking over. There’s no need whatsoever for me to take a mate.” He took a deep breath and increased his pace, as if that might somehow cause her to give up her determination to keep up with him.

  But those translucent wings simply beat all that much faster, propelling her along so she remained at his side. “Everyone needs a partner in life,” Adora insisted. “Someone to grow old with. Someone to be there, to be your support, your other half. Every creature is just one half of a whole, and my job is to help you find that other half.”

  “That sounds like something you read in a textbook.” He did not slow his pace.

  “It is,” she confirmed. “In Cupid School. We are all required to complete five years of Cupid School before we start taking assignments.”

  Matt stopped walking again and turned to face her. They were at the edge of the stone patio jutting from the walkout basement in Josh’s house. In a few short days, this area would be swarming with shifters—and a handful of Lightbearers, along with one human woman—as Josh and Rachel planned to throw their pack a party that was meant to warm them to the fact that their pack master was now mated to a human.

  He could feel someone’s gaze on him, and he knew without looking to confirm it that Josh and Rachel were watching from the window of the library, two stories above. Wondering about, no doubt, the woman floating next to him.

  “Look, babe, I guess your Cupid School didn’t take into account real life. In real life, there are some of us who are perfectly satisfied with being alone.”

  “That’s absolutely ridiculous, and you well know it,” she shot back. “For one thing, you are a shifter, a pack animal by nature. Shifters never want to be alone. And no species, no matter what they are, wants to spend the entirety of their lives alone. It isn’t natural. Even the fae, who are the most solitary species in any world, take lovers, sometimes for centuries at a time.”

  “I guess I’m unnatural then. Now leave me the hell alone. Which is exactly what I want right now: to be alone.”

  Josh and Rachel appeared on the other side of the four panel glass doors leading into the house. Josh looked suspicious, whereas Rachel appeared utterly entranced by the woman fluttering at Matt’s side.

  “You just outed yourself to a human,” Matt commented as he watched Josh try to keep Rachel from opening the door and heading outside.

  “It wouldn’t be the first time,” Adora muttered. “And besides, this human is already aware of the existence of magic.”

  Rachel won the struggle and shoved open the door, stumbling outside and hurrying across the flagstone toward Adora. “Hi,” she said as she thrust out her hand. “Are you a Lightbearer?”

  Adora’s tinkling laugh washed over all of them, momentarily putting all three into a trance. She enthusiastically pumped Rachel’s hand. “Oh no, although they are quite adorable, and much, much easier to match than some others I could name.” She tossed a dark look in Matt’s direction. He smirked.

  “I am a Cupid,” she announced. “And my name is Adora Adone. And you are?”

  “Rachel Whitaker,” Rachel replied.

  “Tigre,” Josh said, a growl in his voice. “You’re Rachel Tigre now.”

  Rachel giggled. “Yes, I suppose I am. I keep forgetting that I have a new last name now. Shifter matings are so different from human relationships.”

  Adora nodded her agreement. “Shifters are the only people who simply have sex in a specific way and then are declared mates. All other species have some sort of ritual to tie it all together first.”

  “All other species?” Rachel was clearly entranced. “How many are there? And what is a Cupid? Is that like the little matchmaking cherubs that go around with a bow and arrow? Is that really real?”

  Adora was clearly thrilled to fill Rachel in on the ins and outs of her job, and Matt used the distraction as an excuse the get the hell away from her. He claimed he wanted to be alone, but that had been a lie. What he wanted was to find a woman—preferably one who didn’t care to share her name, who would ask no more than a few hours of nakedness together—and lose himself in the moment. Mindless sex, that’s what he wanted. That’s all he ever wanted.

  Ever.

  Chapter 3

  ADORA waited until the woman stepped into the bathroom and closed the door before making her appearance. She slipped into the apartment through a crack under the door and didn’t summon her human form until she stood in the bedroom.

  Matt lay on the bed, asleep and reeking of whisky, and quite utterly naked. Adora sucked in a breath as she came to a stuttering halt and stared at the glorious body laid out before her. He was all muscle, every bit of him, even that one part that had been well used a short time ago and now lay in a state of relaxed calm.

  Don’t think about what he would look like aroused. Cupids were absolutely forbidden to intermingle with their assignments in that way. The consequences were, she well knew, dire.

  She fluttered her wings for a moment before making them disappear, a reminder of why she could not fail at this particular assignment. Without those wings, she would never be able to get back to Cupid’s Plain. To the only home she’d ever known.

  She dropped onto the bed with enough force to bounce Matt into wakefulness. He lurched into a seated position, appeared to realize he was naked and she was not the woman who had aided him to that particular state, and grabbed a fistful of the sheet and pulled it into his lap.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” he demanded as he shot a glance at the closed bathroom door. “And how did you get in here?”

  Adora gave him her patented patient smile. “Are you really asking how I could get into this room? The first time you saw me, I was just a bunch of swirling lights. Cupids cannot quite shape shift like you can, but we can condense our energy into little more than a bundle of light as the need warrants.”

  “Handy for breaking and entering,” he muttered. “Why are you here?”

  She watched as his gaze darted around the room. She guessed he wanted his clothing, so she summoned it using her magic. A pair of jeans, red boxer shorts, and a black long sleeved T-shirt fell into his lap. He shot her a solid glare as he pulled the boxers under the sheet and worked to tug them over his hips without showing off anything he didn’t think she needed to see.

  “Do you think she could be the one?” Adora asked, nodding toward the closed bathroom door.

  She watched, appreciating the view, as he stood up and pulled his jeans over his legs. Damn, the man had a nice backside.

  “Hell no. I don’t even know her name. How many times do I have to tell you: I don’t need your services?”

  “You can say it as many times as you want, it makes no difference to me. I was assigned to find you a love match, and that is precisely what I intend to do. It would benefit us bo
th if you stopped trying to thwart my efforts.”

  “Lady, if you think that woman in there could be my love match, you don’t know the first thing about me. And if you don’t know the first thing about me, how the hell are you supposed to find me a love match?”

  Adora frowned. He had a fair point, unfortunately. “Normally, we’re given a dossier on our assignments. But I didn’t get one on you. The Assigner said it wasn’t available. You must be a very private person.”

  “I am.”

  “Well, I suppose I will just have to get to know you. Most assignments generally take less than a month, although this one could take significantly longer.”

  Matt looked horrified at the prospect of spending a month—or longer—in her company. Adora couldn’t help her smile. Male assignments always had the hardest time accepting that it was their time to find love. So few truly believed in it, until a Cupid came along and shoved it in their face.

  “I could make you fall in love with the woman on the other side of that door,” she lied, figuring he told the truth earlier when he said he knew nothing at all about her kind.

  His horrified look became even more pronounced. “Don’t you dare. She’s—she’s human. And I’m pretty sure she’s dating someone else.”

  “Oh? What are you doing here then?”

  “They’re fighting. She’s pissed because he won’t commit. I took advantage of the situation.” He shrugged and pulled the T-shirt over his head, effectively hiding the view of his spectacular abs.

  “That’s terrible,” Adora admonished. “I can’t believe you took advantage of her like that.” She hurried over to the bathroom door and knocked.

  “I didn’t—What the hell are you doing?” Matt asked in disbelief, as he strode over to stand next to her.

  “Fixing this.”

  The door opened and a woman with wide hips, giant breasts, dark locks, and dark eyes stood on the threshold, naked, her hair mussed and makeup smudged. Adora gave Matt a speculative look before turning her focus onto the human, who was clearly confused by the fact that another woman stood in her bedroom.

  Using her magic, Adora summoned the woman’s cell phone and then held it out before her. The woman blinked at the phone in a bemused way.

  “He’s called multiple times,” Adora said, her gaze focused on the woman.

  The woman hesitated, and then reached out to take the phone. As soon as their hands touched, Adora closed her fingers around the woman’s hand, keeping the connection, as she pumped the usual amount of love-laced magic into the woman’s system. She meant for the woman to keep her focus on the phone, and the man she believed had called and texted multiple times while she’d been otherwise occupied with Matt. Unfortunately, before the spell was quite cast, the woman’s gaze lifted and strayed toward Matt.

  “Oh, damn it,” Adora cursed as she quickly released the woman’s hand. But it was too late. The woman’s eyes had already gone soft, her lips partially opened as if on a sigh, and her entire body turned toward Matt as if he were a beacon and she was a ship lost out to sea.

  “Uh, we should probably leave,” Adora muttered to Matt, who stood there watching as the woman sidled over and all but wrapped her body around him. When she cupped his package through his jeans, he gave Adora a raised eyebrow look.

  “Unless you think she is the one, I suggest we leave right now,” Adora said impatiently. She did not like the way the woman was manhandling Matt. One hand massaged his groin, while the other squeezed his butt and her lips sucked on his neck. She was completely oblivious to the fact that Adora was even in the room.

  “I could go another round,” Matt commented with mirth in his eyes.

  “She thinks you’re her true love,” Adora said as she grabbed his arm and gave it a tug. “We need to get you out of her sight. The spell wasn’t fully enacted, so if we get you away from her, it should dissipate, hopefully rather quickly. You should probably not respond to her calls though, just in case.”

  When Matt allowed himself to be pulled out of the woman’s embrace, she became aware of Adora’s presence and gave the Cupid a murderous look. “What are you doing with my lover?”

  Before Adora could react, the woman gave her a push that sent her stumbling backwards. She tripped over a high-heeled shoe lying in the middle of the floor and fell, slamming her head against the corner of a bedside table, sending pain shooting through her brain.

  “Hey,” Matt snapped, and Adora was vaguely aware of some sort of struggle, before she felt herself being lifted into a pair of rather strong and muscular arms. And then she was being carried, and a short time later, deposited into the passenger seat of a human vehicle. A truck. She groaned and closed her eyes against the pain as her head lolled to the side. A hand came up and cupped her neck.

  “Careful,” a masculine voice murmured. “Don’t hit your head again. Here.” Something soft that smelled of leather and Matt Tigre was shoved against her head. And then she was gently eased back against the material before the door slammed closed, and another opened, as Matt slid into the driver’s seat.

  “We don’t have any magical healers like the Lightbearers do,” he said as the truck began to move. “All we have are midwives and elders. Should I take you to a human doctor?”

  “Why?” Adora asked. Her head still swam, but the pain had begun to recede.

  “You’re bleeding. Head wound. What do Cupids normally do in this situation?”

  Adora lifted her hand and gingerly touched the back of her head. Her hand came away sticky and black with blood. Her stomach heaved once and then she promptly threw up all over the floorboard. Matt cursed and nearly sent the truck careening into a ditch before regaining control.

  “Holy fuck—you just threw up in my truck!”

  “Sorry,” Adora said as she wiped her mouth with the back of the hand that did not have blood on it. “Cupids don’t normally do well with the sight of blood. Even our own. I’ll be fine shortly, though. We heal rather quickly, under most circumstances.”

  “My truck,” Matt protested, and pushed the button to roll down the windows.

  Half an hour later, Adora found herself sitting on the closed toilet seat in a bathroom in Josh and Rachel’s mansion, as Rachel herself cleansed the quickly healing wound and then covered it with gauze and wrapped an elastic bandage around Adora’s head.

  “Thank you,” she said when Rachel stepped back to admire her handiwork.

  “No problem.” Rachel sifted around in a large cabinet next to the sink. “Ah, here we go.” She produced a plastic wrapped toothbrush and offered it to Adora.

  “Thanks.” Adora took the proffered toothbrush and cleaned her teeth.

  “The sight of blood gets to you, huh?”

  Adora nodded and wiped her mouth on a hand towel. “We’re Cupids. The polar opposite of all things destructive and warlike. I’ve never met a Cupid who didn’t lose it at the sight of blood.”

  “It’s terribly ironic that you are trying to help a shifter find love. They are very aggressive and tend to fight a lot, all things considered.”

  Adora nodded and followed Rachel out of the bathroom. “I know. We don’t get assigned to them very often. Usually, if they don’t find a mate on their own, they are assigned to one or it happens accidentally and they just live with it. As a rule, most shifters are pretty content with their lot in life.”

  “I haven’t been around them for very long, but I get that sense, too. It still blows my mind that all they have to do is have sex a certain way and bam—” Rachel snapped her fingers, “—they’re mated.”

  “As I understand it, the pack master has to give his stamp of approval, as well.”

  “Yeah, I guess that’s true. But Josh says he almost never says no.”

  “Everyone makes mistakes,” Adora countered. “And everyone deserves a chance to make up for them.”

  “Don’t I know it,” Rachel agreed. “But I’m not exactly in a position to try t
o change status quo. I’m human, and there are still plenty in this pack who resent that fact.”

  She paused in the middle of the bedroom in which they’d walked and asked, “Do you have a place to stay while you’re in town? If not, you’re welcome to stay here. We have plenty of room. And it would be nice to have a girlfriend around who didn’t give me glaring looks all the time.”

  “There are other females living here?”

  Rachel shook her head. “No, it’s just Josh and I. But the housekeeper is here five days a week, and since it’s the pack master’s home, apparently that gives the entire pack carte blanche to come and go as they please. They’ve all made at least one appearance since we mated, to look at me as if I’m a specimen, and then, when they verify that I am indeed human, they all look at me resentfully, as if I stole their precious pack master away from them.” Adora could hear the sadness beneath the bitterness in her words.

  Adora considered her options. Normally, if she were assigned to a female, she insinuated herself into that woman’s life, convincing her to let Adora stay at her home for the duration of the hunt for the woman’s true love. If she were assigned to a male, well, it depended upon the circumstances. She’d had occasion to stay with her male assignment—which more often than not got her into trouble, thanks to the low levels of desire-like pheromones all Cupids gave off. When she was actually smart about it, she stayed in different quarters from her male assignments.

  Staying here, at the pack master’s house, was the optimal solution. She would be near to Matt but not so close as to potentially compromise their relationship, and she would get to hang out with a girlfriend. Adora loved hanging out with friends, and she did not do it nearly often enough. Usually, when Cupids were not out on assignment, they were heading to or returning from the Procreation Chamber. While Adora had not yet visited that place herself, as she understood it, it wasn’t exactly conducive to simply hanging out with one’s friends, even if hers tended to disappear there for long months at a time.

  She suppressed a shudder. Going to the Procreation Chamber was just beneath losing her wings, on Adora’s What Not To Do list. It was a conundrum, since if she kept her wings, she would, at some point, be sent there to make Cupid babies to carry on their tradition of helping all other beings find true love.