me?” I implore. “I need to go...I need to get back...I need to...I don’t even know!”
“Don’t get all dafty on me now,” he tells me. “Take a breather, and let’s see if this helped, yeah? Lemme see some Lust again.”
I nod, though I feel like I’m nodding way too quickly. My neck feels weird. Also my head. My fingers are tingling. “Am I having an anxiety attack?”
He shrugs. “Fook if I know. Calm that shite down, get it? Blow some Lust at me.”
I force myself to relax by taking a deep breath and closing my mind. I also sit up straighter and try doing that power pose thing, because why not? I’m a kickass, powerful cupid, I tell myself. Everything is going to be fine. This probably totally fixed my powers.
Opening my eyes again, I let out a perfectly executed exhale of Lust.
Aaaannnnnd it’s gray. It even squeaks a little as it falls to the ground like it’s dead weight.
Correction, I am not a kickass, powerful cupid. I’m a pathetic powerless cupid-human who clearly sucks ass at power poses.
“Son of a chaos cunt,” I curse. “It’s even worse than before!”
“Bad luck, that.”
I sigh. “Fine. I guess I should go through processing again? Pick a new job?”
I hate the thought of it, but maybe the realm is trying to tell me to give up.
Sev runs a hand through his pink hair. “Yeah, about that. You’re right stuck here, luv.”
I blink at him as another wave of panic sends new tingles down my limbs. This can not be happening.
“Put me back in the Veil!” I say in alarm.
“I tried,” he says, giving me a commiserating pat on the shoulder. “I tried to suck you back to Cupidville right away, but it wouldn’t work.”
“So let me get this straight,” I say, mind spinning. “I’m stuck here, as a cupid-human, my powers still don’t work, and I have to make my quotas, or I’m definitely still gonna be popped?”
“That’s the gist, yeah.”
Well...fuck.
The cupid number DCCXX on his wrist starts glowing pink, and we both glance down at it. “Shite on a nipple ring. I gotta go.”
My eyes widen in panic, and I snatch at his arm. “You can’t just leave me here!”
He none-too-gently pries my death grip off him. “Duty calls and all that,” he tells me.
“What in the hell am I supposed to do?” I whisper-shriek.
He lifts a shoulder. “Try to make Matches while you’re here. Cupid shite up. With a bit o’ luck, the Veil will sense your cupidity and let you come back into the Veil without popping you into extinction first. That’s the best we can hope for. I got a team looking into it, but that’s all I know for now.”
I bury my face in my hands. “I should’ve become a demon. Demon’s never have to deal with shit like this.”
He tsks. “Where’s all that I’ve fooking got unfinished business and I’m a cupid through and through?” he teases.
I glare at him between my fingers before dropping my hands. “I’m stuck in the physical human realm with no powers or wings, and I have to somehow make my Lust and Love Matches in a month to meet my quota, or the Veil is gonna suck me down faster than a kid slurping an Icee to get a brain freeze, and I’m fricken naked!”
He sobers. “Look, Triple X,” he says, leveling me with a look. “You said it yourself, you’re a fooking cupid. It’s in your godsdamned core. Who the shite cares if you don’t got powers? You didn’t have ’em before, and you didn’t let that stop you,” he tells me, and my breath catches at the determined look on his face, because damn. He’s actually nailing this pep talk. “At least now you have a chance to make Love Matches the ol’ fashioned way. Be a fooking matchmaker love guru and handle your shite. No giving up, get it?”
I swallow hard and nod. “You’re right.”
“Damn right, I’m fooking right,” he says. “Now I gotta go. I already missed my orgy.”
“Sorry.”
“Eh, I’ll reschedule. In the meantime, I’ll keep an eye on you from the Veil, and you focus on doing your job, get it?”
“I will.”
He nods and then disappears in the blink of an eye, leaving a small puff of pink in his wake.
And I’m just left here. Alone. Partly humanized. Powerless. Naked.
Just fricken great.
Chapter 6
I take a second to compose myself.
I’m here, out of the Veil, mostly human.
It’s surreal and terrifying, but I can’t think that way. I