all the wards with the state I’m in. I don’t need to facepalm the floor. Not when I’m here for my woman.
A noise has me turning slightly toward the door.
Wavy brown hair hangs around a haggard, slim face. The male’s oversized sweatshirt sags off him like he’s a living clothes horse. An icepack pressed to the back of his head.
“Where’s Robin?” I demand.
“She was kidnapped by a blond dude in an eyepatch who has possibly given me concussion. Who the hell are you?”
“Cupid…fuck.”
He winces at the loudness of my tone. “You’re Cupid?”
Taking a breath, I finally straighten with only a small trace of vertigo. “No dumb arse that’s who took her.”
The air beside me shimmers, heralding the arrival of my pissed off uncle. “Morpheus, get your goddamn arse back to the island.”
“Who’s that, and what’s happening?” the male demands, then groans, pinching his eyes closed in pain.
“This ain’t your first rodeo with me at your side, Snatch. You know who I am. You’ve brushed past me enough times by now to know by instinct,” Thanatos announces, folding his length into a chair. The visage he wears undulates briefly showing the skeletal features that lurk beneath.
Robin’s flatmate turns a sickly white color, but he doesn’t scream like I expect when a mortal confronts death.
“Dang it, don’t go throwing up,” my uncle complains with a twist of his lips. “You’ve seen a mighty lot worse than me in your time.”
“Cupid took Robin,” I cut in losing what thread of patience I have left. “I need to find her now.”
“You we’re never supposed to get this involved.”
Going deathly still at the old man’s revelation, I meet his angry eyes squarely. “What the fuck does that mean?”
“You really believe it was that conceivable that the universe just happened to drop her on your doorstep at the right time?”
“You’re shitting me? You brought Robin to the island on purpose?”
“I used a little water from the river of forgetfulness to give her amnesia. She was only supposed to be a catalyst to get you out of your pity party. Nothing more,” he replies in a voice so deadly quiet my head rears back as if he’s physically struck me.
“How much more are you withholding from me?” I snarl, teeth clenched, while I wonder why I ever trusted him. Blood may be thicker than water, but that doesn’t stop betrayal.
“Cupid destroys love. That’s how he draws his power since he fell to the darkness. He twists those feelings into something dark, bitter, and when he’s done, he rips his quarry’s hearts from their chests.”
“I think I need a drink,” Snatch mumbles, gingerly adjusting the icepack and folding himself down onto the couch cushions. “Robin is in the hands of a maniac. The world has gone crazier than it usually is, and Death is sitting in my living room.”
“We need to work out where he’s taken her.”
“That could be anywhere,” he tells me flatly. “He wasn’t really in a talkative mood to tell us all his evil plans. Robin is tough, though, even for a rookie.”
Helplessness is an ocean of grey, threatening to drown me. “Fuck.”
A strained silence fills the room.
“Morpheus…You’re the Greek God of dreams, right?” Snatch breaks the silence, his brown eyes lightening up with sudden excitement. “Maybe you can find her when she’s asleep. If Cupid hasn’t killed her already.”
19
Robin
A nudge to my ribs has me jerking awake. Head sore from the lump that’s throbbing at the side of my temple, I crack my eyes open. A fluorescent light is stark above me. Stretched out, face down, the springs of the beaten-up mattress beneath me jabs into my skin. Goosebumps ripple over the exposed flesh of my body, making me fully aware of my naked state. I strain against the shackles that have my arms positioned and bound above my head. There’s no escape.
“You’ve got spirit, and I like that. It makes breaking you all the sweeter.” My abductor grins down at me sitting on the edge of the bed.
I note the open doorway behind him. The metal bars, three other grey concrete walls make up the narrow cell. My nose curls at the lingering smell of excrement, urine, sweat, and vomit.
“Who are you?” I ask trying to contain my panic.
“Cupid.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be a mischievous winged child with a bow and arrow causing people to fall in love?”
“And of course being a mortal, you fall for that bullshit,” he mutters in annoyance. “I can sense you holding onto that thin thread of hope.