The King of Hearts - Jovee Winters Page 0,17

introductions, but was astonished to note that he was gone. Not even a trace of him remained. Even the dirt he’d been kneeling in looked as though it hadn’t been disturbed. “I…I…”

I clutched at my stomach. Had I gone mad?

“Antony, help my sister to her feet, will you?” Adelia finally chimed in, reaching us a few minutes later.

Antony looked at me. Just hours earlier he’d been stumbling over his feet to do anything and anything for me. But now he wore a grimace of distaste upon his face and his nose was curled up. “You help her up.”

Then he turned and walked over toward his brother, Erik. They both began to shake their heads and point.

I blinked. It worked. The potion had worked. Which meant I hadn’t imagined the peddler. I looked up and then down the trail, searching for any signs of him. But it was as though he’d never been.

The male had been no human. Who had I been speaking with?

My heart fluttered. Adelia reached out a hand to me. I took it, standing with her aid. Her face was confused and there was doubt glittering in his eyes. A worried frown creased her forehead as she and I both heard the words of the princes. They were repulsed by my appearance. And mocked me openly.

She shook her head. She did not seem to see me as they did and there was obvious confusion in her eyes. “What has been done to you this day, my baby sister?” she asked.

I shook my head. “I am not sure, Adelia.”

I looked down at my hand, the vial that I’d drunk from, was vanished. As though I’d dreamed the encounter with the peddler up. But the effects of the drink were undeniably evident by the treatment of the princes toward me.

“Come. Let’s go home,” Adelia urged, tugging me to follow behind them.

We all walked slowly home. The men avoided me completely. Still openly jeering me and now my sisters had begun to join in their laughter.

My heart sank and I wrapped my arms around myself, almost like a protective hug. Had I made a mistake? Had the peddler lied to me after all?

But then I thought about his warning, he’d told me what would happen. I hadn’t expected the reaction of the men to be so powerful. But maybe, it wasn’t? Maybe it was just the twins?

My hope that their reaction was more extreme than what others would be was quickly dashed the moment I got home and my father’s male servants all gave me looks of disdain and distrust.

But the worst was my own father.

Disappointment and disgust glittered in his usually warm eyes. “Go clean up,” he said, turning his face aside, dismissing me from his sight.

I turned on my heel, and ran the moment I was out of his sight.

Heat pooled in my eyes, and then I was crying. I’d never thought I’d had vanity, but the disgust on their faces… I felt bruised. Hurt.

What had I done?

What had I done…?

Eros

Mother had told me to keep a close eye on the female. So that I could be her eyes and ears. I should never have spoken those words to the female. Mother would hear, she would know I had a plan. Not what. But she was smart enough that she would recognize what I was not so slyly alluding to.

I’d hated myself for doing as my mother bid, for coming down to Earth to poison the young woman. But the moment I’d laid eyes on her all of mother’s carefully laid plans had been dashed. I’d forgotten everything, transfixed by her beauty. Her warm red hair with streaks of auburn running through it. Her pale flesh, so smooth and unmarred by a single blemish. Eyes the color of fall wheat had gazed back at me.

And in my heart, I knew my mother’s beauty was nothing to the female’s.

Mother’s was a façade, hiding terrible ugliness within. But Psyche’s was like a blast of fresh air. The way she’d touched me, without cringing back, how she’d looked genuinely concerned for my well-being when she’d believed I’d fallen. I wasn’t sure how her heart had managed to remain so pure when her own sisters’ hearts were the exact opposite. I’d taken one look at them and had seen the darkness within them both.

And in that moment, I’d wanted nothing more than to reveal my true self to Psyche. To show her that I was worth so much more than she could ever