by Tami Lund
“I don’t know what’s gotten into him,” Tanner said as he handed off the infant.
“He just wants his momma,” Olivia replied. But it wasn’t Olivia he wanted. As soon as she pulled him into her arms, he launched himself at Adora. She caught him and laughed.
“This happens all the time,” she explained to the room at large. “Babes always react this way when they are in the vicinity of a Cupid.” Little Austin settled himself into her lap and with a contented sigh, laid his head against her breast and stuck his thumb into his mouth.
She glanced up and saw Matt watching her with a peculiar look on his face. His eyes were glowing faintly, a sign, she knew from her studies, that his emotions were heightened. She wondered what it meant. Was the image of her, with a child in her lap, making him realize that maybe he did want to take a mate after all? She hoped so. The idea of losing her wings frightened her far more than she was willing to admit, even to herself.
“Why do you think that is?” Rachel wondered as she stroked the babe’s downy hair.
Adora shifted her focus from Matt to Rachel and Olivia and explained in low tones, even though she’d read in her shifter manual that they all had enhanced hearing and could probably hear everything she said anyway.
“We let off this…aura or scent, or some call it pheromones. It’s supposed to help us encourage our assignments to find their true love. With babes, it just makes them adore us. I’ve never come into contact with a non-Cupid babe that did not react this exact same way.”
Josh snorted. “Maybe you and Rachel can start that daycare together. If all the pups act like that one, the parents won’t be able to say no.”
Matt arched his brows, and she knew it was a silent challenge, but she ignored him.
Tanner laughed and tipped back the last of the whiskey in his glass. “Good luck with your assignment, Adora. I couldn’t imagine any woman wanting to spend the rest of her life shackled to this guy.” He delivered a punch to Matt’s shoulder.
“He’s not that bad,” Adora defended him. “He’s actually quite considerate and nice. He’ll make a wonderful mate. I just have to find the right girl.”
Tanner and Josh continued to rib Matt about his impending matrimonial status, while he argued against them.
“Oh, ignore them,” Rachel said, waving as if dismissing the three shifters. “Let’s talk strategy. Olivia and I will help you try to fix him up at the party.”
“Oh, no, you won’t,” Matt warned, breaking away from the teasing to focus on Adora and her new friends. “I’m out of here if you do.”
Adora frowned.
“You can stay. I don’t care. But I’m not sticking around if you three are going to try to mate me to every female who walks by.”
“Not every one,” Rachel said, and the three women dissolved into giggles.
*
They held true to Rachel’s words. The list she and Adora had drafted earlier that morning had apparently been short. He should have looked at it when he had the chance, so he would know what he was up against. The problem was, Adora was clearly an expert at this gig, and with Rachel and Olivia’s help, they were awfully damn stealthy.
An attractive female from his pack who was a few years older than him walked up and began chatting to him about the brewery Josh had purchased the year before, and Matt grew instantly suspicious. When the woman walked away, he stalked over to Adora and latched onto her arm.
“Knock it off. I’m not interested.”
“What are you talking about?”
“That woman,” he said, and he turned around to point. As he did so, he watched her walk up to a man with a swath of gray at his temples. She wound her arms around his chest from behind and kissed the back of his ear.
“I never try to arrange something between my assignments and someone who is already in a relationship,” Adora told him. “And as I understand it, shifters mate for life. If she was meant to be your true love, it’s too late now. We have to go with plan B.”
“What’s plan B?”
“I have no idea. Yet. I’ll let you know when we see her.” And with an impish smile, she bounced away, barely refraining from flying. He could tell. The wings made a brief appearance before she checked herself and hid them from view again. He understood how she felt. He too wanted to shift into a different form and run free, away from the constraints of civilized society for a while.
But he couldn’t. He had to schmooze his fellow pack members, and work at convincing them that Rachel was a worthy pack master’s mate, and that Josh was justified in using pack money to support his favorite human interest causes.
Resolutely, he joined a conversation in progress and set out to do just that. It was a small gathering of shifters he knew fairly well, as they were all about the same age, and he’d gone to school with most of them. They were discussing Rachel when he walked up.
“Don’t stop on my behalf,” he said mildly, as he tipped his beer bottle to his lips.
The lone female in the group sneered. “Right, Matt. You’re Josh’s cousin. We know how tight you two are.”
“True. So ask away. What do you want to know about his mate? I’m an open book. I’ll tell you anything.”
“Even about their sex life?” Oscar asked.
“I don’t know how much I can tell you about that, since they don’t make it a habit of asking me to join them. But if you’re wondering if they do have sex, yes, I’m pretty sure they do.”
“I bet she tricked him into doing it shifter style, so he’d be forced to mate with her,” Laurie said.
“Considering she had no earthly idea what it meant to have sex shifter style at the time, I highly doubt it,” Matt replied.
“It just doesn’t seem right,” Sal complained. By the bleary look in his eyes, he had already tipped the scale into wasted territory. “The pack master and a human. What does she have that a female shifter doesn’t?”
Matt took another pull from his beer and shrugged. “I don’t quite think it happened that way. It wasn’t a conscious decision. They just fell in love. Yes, it would have been easier if she’d been a shifter, but she isn’t. And Josh is happy, she’s accepted our existence and her role as his mate, and we have to figure out a way to live with it.”
“Brilliantly said,” Adora said approvingly, as she walked up to stand next to him.
Four shifter gazes locked onto her.
“Jesus, you’re small,” Laurie said. “What are you?”
“She’s hot.” Oscar leered her breasts.
Matt thrust out his arm and slammed his palm into Oscar’s chest, sending him stumbling backwards. He glanced at Adora. “You aren’t going to puke, are you?”
She swallowed and shook her head. “No, I’m okay.”
Laurie leaned close and sniffed. “You kind of smell like sex.”
“Desire, actually,” Adora corrected her. “And love.”
“What does love smell like?”
Adora shrugged. “Me, I guess.”
Matt thought about when he’d first captured her, and they’d ended up on the ground, with him straddling her hips, while she lay on her back. He’d been turned on despite the fact that she wasn’t exactly his type. Was that why? Because of her scent?
Laurie eyed each of the three males in the group. “It sort of turns me on,” she admitted to the group at large. Matt was annoyed when Adora gave him a hopeful look.
“Really? You think some woman who just announces to a group of guys that she wants to get laid is my future mate?”
“Good point,” she admitted. “Besides, I really think she and Oscar are better for one another.”
As if to prove her point, Oscar reached over and cupped the back of Laurie’s neck, and leaned close to whisper something in her ear. In very short order, they slipped away from the group. Matt watched them leave.
“I suppose, even if it isn’t forever, it’s definitely for tonight.”
&nb
sp; “Sometimes, that can turn into forever. I’ve helped numerous couples who thought they only wanted one night, and are blissfully happy together nearly ten years later.”
“How old are you Cupids when you start getting assigned to finding mates for people?”
“We start Cupid School when we are fifteen, and most have their first assignments when they are twenty.”
“So how old are you?”
“That isn’t a question a lady should answer,” was Adora’s tart reply.
He laughed. “Okay, fine. How long have you been hooking people up?”
She gave him a knowing smile. “Nearly ten years.”
“You said you were Level One. What does that mean? How many levels are there?”
Her face darkened as if a cloud just covered the moon. Whatever he said, it hadn’t been the right thing. “There are four levels, and then, if you are good enough, you get asked to become an Assigner.”
“It must be damn hard to move up a level, if you’re still a Level One.”
“I was once a Level Four.”
Matt gave her a surprised look. “What happened?”
Adora turned away and for a few moments, looked everywhere but at him. The third member of their group had wandered away by this point, and they were momentarily alone. He touched her arm.
“What happened?” he asked again.
She sighed. “I was demoted. I made a rather…large mistake. And my heart hasn’t quite been in my assignments since. I truly am on my last leg here.”
“Was it your fault? The demotion, I mean.”
She sipped from her wine glass and fidgeted with the scarf draped around her neck. “I suppose yes is the correct answer. I made several poor decisions that interfered with my assignment actually sealing the deal with his true love.”
“Why?”
She pursed her lips. “I don’t want to talk about this.”
“Why?” he asked again, ignoring her comment.
“I said—”
He cut her off. “I’m not going to let it go. Remember, I’m an animal by nature. Very tenacious. You might as well tell me. It might garner sympathy. Maybe I’ll even let you find me a mate.”
She gave him a startled look, clearly shocked by his flip comment. He drained the last of his beer and placed it on the tray of a passing server, and grabbed a full one.
“Let’s just say I’m starting to like you. And that makes me sympathetic to your cause. And being around all these other shifters who are happy in their relationships…” He waved at the room at large with his beer bottle. “Maybe it’s not such a bad thing. As long as it’s a love match,” he warned her.
She beamed and grabbed his arm and squeezed. “Truly? You’re going to let me find you a mate? You won’t fight me anymore?” She looked delighted, as if she were a child and he’d just promised her a double dipped ice cream cone.
“I’ll still fight you, but let’s just say I’m resigned to the fact that it’s probably going to happen. I’d feel like shit if you lose your wings because of me. I think it’s pretty cool that you can fly. Maybe tomorrow we can go flying together. I can shift into a hawk or eagle or something.”
Her smile widened. “That sounds fabulous. I love flying.”
“Well, now you’re so damn happy that I feel bad asking what went wrong.” He waved his beer bottle at the crowd again. “So I guess you should focus on your task. Tell me: Who’s on that list? I get first rights of refusal, right?”
“Of course.” She snapped her fingers and the tightly rolled scroll appeared in her hand. As she opened it, she said, “Let’s get to work, shall we?”
*
He told her she had good taste in women. To some women, that might seem like a strange comment. Offensive, even. But to Adora, it was one of the highest compliments she could receive. It meant she was damn good at her job. It meant she might not be stuck at a Level One for much longer.
Hopefully, she’d gotten her groove back. Finding a mate for a shifter would certainly help. Most Cupids shied away from the task of matching shifters. As much as they were pack-like creatures with an inborn desire to mate, generally, by the time they were assigned a Cupid, shifters were almost beyond help. Helping Matt find love was bound to move her up a level—maybe even two. Level Three. It’d been a while since she’d been at a Level Three. The assignments were more prime at Level Three. And she’d have a better shot at avoiding the Procreation Chamber if she was a Level Three.
She felt both flattered and guilty that he decided to accept the fact that he needed a mate just to keep her from losing her wings. Such a truly wonderful guy. Whoever she matched him with was a damn lucky female. Adora was determined that whoever it was, she would be perfect for Matt. He deserved no less. She would make sure he spent the rest of his days happy with his life partner—and glad for Adora, for helping him find her.
At the moment, he was across the room, chatting up a lovely female from Adora’s list. Things were going well, she judged, by the way he leaned into her, and the way she giggled and lightly touched the front of his shirt when he spoke.
She had a momentary flash of herself in that very same position, with Matt standing over her, leaning in suggestively, as if he were having a difficult time keeping himself from kissing her. What would she do in that position? Would she turn her face up, and silently offer her lips for kissing? Or would she play coy and look at him through her lashes, smiling prettily and giving him just enough to keep him trying for more?
Did it really matter what she would do? It wasn’t her in that particular position, and she needed to stop thinking such thoughts, unless she wanted to find herself in trouble again. Only this time, she would lose her wings over it.
Olivia wandered over and joined Matt’s conversation, and in the space of one heartbeat and the next, the dynamics changed. The woman said something to Olivia. Olivia looked offended, put out, possibly frightened. Matt snarled something into the woman’s face, and she cowered under the strength of his words. And then Matt grabbed Olivia’s arm and dragged her away from the offending female.
A moment later, he hovered over Adora, invading her space, stabbing his finger at her chest.
“You need to be a little more thorough in your research, Cupid,” he snapped.
Adora blinked up at him, forcing herself not to cower. Matt wouldn’t hurt her. She didn’t know why, but she was absolutely certain of that fact. But damn, he was scary like this.
“That woman over there just threatened to eat Olivia,” he added, answering her unspoken question.
“Oh.” Adora clapped her hand over her mouth and fought the wave of nausea threatening her far-too-sensitive stomach. “I had no idea.”
Matt blew out a frustrated sigh and backed off. “Don’t puke, Adora. Come on. Work through it.”
And there he was, being considerate for her stupid propensity for becoming nauseous whenever there was the slightest potential for violence.
She took several deep breaths and then finally said, “Okay, I’m fine now.”
Matt ran his hand through his hair, sending it into disarray. Bed head. She tried to force the image out of her head.
“You okay, Olivia?” he asked, glancing at the Lightbearer standing with them.
“Yes, I’m fine,” she replied, and then Tanner was there, towering over the women and glaring at Matt.
“What happened to my mate?” he snapped, irritated already, even though he didn’t have the faintest idea what just transpired.
“I’m fine, Tanner,” Olivia said, and she melted into his arms, wrapping her arm around his waist and holding on too tightly to prove her words true.
“You were frightened. I could feel it.”
“I know. But Matt was there and everything is fine now.”
Adora could tell that Olivia did not want to bring the situation to her mate’s attention, but Matt was either oblivious or didn’t really care what Olivia wanted.
“She was just threatened. By one of my pack.”
Tanner’s overprotective stance went into overdrive, as he wrapped his arm around Olivia and pulled her over to his other side, so that she was tucked between he and Matt. He scanned the room, searching for signs of danger.
“She was drunk,” Matt explained. “And I’m pretty sure she thought she was being funny. Obviously it wasn’t.”
“No, not by a long shot. And especially not right now.”
Matt gave him an inquisitive look and Tanner blew out a frustrated breath.
“I wasn’t going to say anything…” Tanner continued to scan the room as he let his words trail away for a moment.
“The reason Finn didn’t come with us is because I wanted someone to stay behind and watch over the coterie while we’re here. Olivia’s father agreed with me.”
“Have there been threats?” Matt’s arm automatically slid up Adora’s back and cupped her neck. Curiously, that small connection helped keep the nausea at bay.
“No, not yet. But Finn and his brother Reid have noticed a lot of shifter scents near the coterie lately. Scents that don’t belong to any of the shifters currently living in the coterie. Given our history with Lightbearers, we’re all a little on edge.”
“There’s a small pack over on that side of the state. South of the coterie, but it’s not unreasonable that they would wander up that way on occasion,” Matt said.
“I’m aware of that pack. They tend to keep to themselves, have never sniffed around the area before, and Sander says they’ve been there almost as long as the Lightbearers have. The problem now is that we’ve had to change the wards around the coterie. They used to repel shifters. But now that there are shifters living inside, that’s not exactly conducive to us coming and going as we please.”
“My father says the faery queen will likely be able to create a new ward that will somehow allow the residents of the coterie to enter and exit without issue, but still keep it hidden from humans and all other shifters,” Olivia added.
“That sounds like a plan,” Matt said.
Olivia glanced at Tanner. “Except the faery queen has been tied up with some sort of upheaval in the Land of the Fae, and hasn’t given my father the time of day when he’s called on her.”
