The King of Hearts - Jovee Winters Page 0,54
girl. Fate rests in the balance. Come.”
The way he said it. How he said it. I could do nothing but obey.
My feet moved as though with a will all their own. He took my free hand, cupping it and blowing a bit of the god flame into it. I hissed, waiting for it to burn me up. But maybe the god of drunks had spared me that fate, because it did not hurt.
He beamed broadly. “Wait until they all meet you, little one. You will be more powerful than even you know. It will drive them all mad.” He laughed.
His words made no sense to me. I blinked, and then suddenly I was turned toward the bed. And I saw him. The beast. My beast. For the first time.
I gasped, and brought the hand up that’d been clutching the dagger to my face. But that cry alerted him and when he sat up, I knew who it was staring sleepily back at me.
Golden hair that spilled across his sun-kissed forehead. Eyes so blue they looked like the clouds he loved to fly in.
And his body…
“Oh, my gods,” I breathed, realizing that I stared not at a monster but the most beautiful male in all of the cosmos.
“I know who you are. You are, Eros. God of love.”
He sucked in a sharp breath, alert where he’d not been just a second ago. He looked at the blue flame in my hand. Then his gaze jumped to the blade in my other hand. And a look I knew would haunt me all the rest of my days flooded his beautiful eyes.
“Psyche. Why?”
I was blinded by my tears and I wanted to tell him it was not what he thought. That I was merely taking the knife with me as protection against…well, him. Against the monster my sisters had told me he was.
My body trembled. Ached. Because I sensed the hand of fate then. “I… I… it is not. I did not. You must believe—”
“You did not believe me,” he said quietly, and maybe because he did not roar, he did not rage, his words wounded me even worse. “Why would you ever imagine I would now believe you? You tried to murder me?” Tears swam in his eyes.
I gasped, dropping the blade with a clatter to the marble floor beneath. “No. No! You don’t understand.”
“God flame?” His face contorted and I knew I was literally seeing a man’s heart shatter before me.
“My…my love, you don’t understand.”
“You’ve betrayed me. I…I tried to shield you from her. I tried to keep you safe. I…loved.” He sniffed and shook his head. “Mother’s right, love is a disease. It’s poison. You’re poison. I will never forgive you.”
And then snow white wings tore out from his back and he looked like a sylph, a beautiful devil with pain and fury burning in his blue eyes. Golden light radiated from within his flesh and I gasped. Hating that in that moment I felt myself becoming even more besotted with him because of his looks. Which made me shallow and vile. I’d loved him before I’d seen him, but now…
“Please, don’t go!” I begged. “You don’t understand. My sisters they told me horrors. They said you wanted to fatten me up. To use me for your dark and twisted spells. That you wanted to kill—”
“And yet it was never I that held a blade to you. Was it?”
I gasped, covering my mouth with my free hand. “It’s not like that.”
His brows furrowed. “Goodbye, mortal.”
“NO!” I screamed, rushing to him, holding my arms out, trying to pin him to that bed. It was love. It had been. I’d been seduced by doubt, but it had been only a moment of weakness. “Forgive me, Eros, please!”
But my angel, was gone.
And all I could do was scream my pain to the heavens.
Eros
I’d betrayed all I was and the only woman who’d ever truly loved me for another who’d planned to murder me. The feeling of guilt and disgust twisted me up inside.
Broken to my very soul I decided it was time to reveal myself to my mother. To bare my soul and accept whatever punishment she handed out.
I knelt before her throne.
She stared down upon me, and I keenly felt the full weight of her displeasure.
“Look at me,” she said, voice deep and full of disapproval.
Taking a deep breath, I did look at her.
She studied me for several long, tense, and silent moments. I wanted to fidget. I wanted to stir. I