Cupid's Bow Read online

  “No.” Her jaw tightens. “Even if he suspected, he would never let himself believe I would choose Hephaestus over him.”

  She’s right, there. Ares is far too arrogant to accept that his wife would willingly betray him with a monster, even if that monster is his own brother. “Does anyone else know?”

  “I don’t think so.” She shakes her head slowly, but I see the doubt in her eyes.

  “Who?” But I already know, don’t I?

  “I think, maybe . . . Apollo. You know how hard it is to hide a secret from your brother.” The moonlight and thin desert clouds lace her face in shadows. “It’s possible he saw something in his visions.”

  More like probable. That son of a bitch. I want to hate my brother, I really do. He deserves it, but I just . . . can’t.

  “Cue.”

  I hold up a hand. “I think I’m done for the day. I just want to be alone.”

  But that’s not completely true. There’s one person I want. One person I need.

  And less than five minutes after my mother takes her leave, Katie finds me on the steps. She sits down without a word. Takes my hand. We stay like that for a long time. It’s been a hell of a day, but this, her being here?

  Somehow it makes all the pain and bullshit worth it. When I lean over to bury my face in her hair, she cups the back of my head with her free hand and keeps it there. Stroking me with light cool fingers until my breathing slows and my heart stops aching so fiercely.

  “So, who was the guy on the bike, Cue?” she says after several moments filled with nothing more than desert air and the far-off yip of coyotes. “I mean, besides the obvious.”

  I sigh. “My uncle. Hephaestus.”

  “Ooooh.”

  “There’s a whole world of questions in that one syllable, isn’t there?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “It’s complicated. I call him my uncle, like Mercury, but they are more like step-uncles. My mom was adopted when she was a teenager by their father. Zeus.”

  Katie’s fingers tighten in my hair before falling away. “Zeus. Yeah. Okay.”

  I lift my head and give her a look, fighting a smile. “You sure you’re up to hearing this?”

  She smiles back. “I want to know who you are, Ace.”

  “Yeah,” I whisper, looking up at the stars swirling in the desert sky. “Me, too.”

  She tucks herself into my side. “So, what do you mean, sort of adopted?”

  “Zeus married my mom’s mother, my grandmother. Leto. But he was already married to Hera at the time.”

  The slender arm around my waist tightens. “Oh.”

  “Exactly. Hera killed Leto, eventually. But Zeus kept my mom in his household, under his protection and that of his sons.”

  “Mercury and Hephaestus,” she repeats in obviously bemused wonder.

  “And Ares. Who is Lo’s dad. And Artie’s.”

  When I look down, her eyes are wide. “And Hephaestus is your dad.”

  “Looks like.” I laugh softly. “I told you my family was twisted. Fucked up. Broken in places.”

  “I like that you’re broken,” she says softly. “It gives you character.”

  I study her freckled face and all I can think about is what I said to this woman about love, that very first night. I was right. Love fills the broken places, eases that pain. Which is why we crave it so. But despite what Katie has endured, she isn’t broken and I am. She’s never going to need me like I need her.

  “I know what you’re thinking and you need to stop it.”

  “Stop what?” I say thickly.

  “Cue, this isn’t a competition. Did you hear me say I love you?” she says with a huff of exasperation.

  “I heard it.” And I have an inkling of how hard it was for her to say those words, but…

  “But you still don’t believe it, do you? You’re afraid to. Just like you couldn’t quite believe it when you shot that arrow at me. You hoped, but you didn’t really believe. That’s why you let me walk away.”

  “No,” I shake my head, finding it hard to breathe, “I let you walk away because it broke my fucking heart seeing you forget me.”

  “Bullshit. You expect people to let you down. And you expect to let them down.”

  Huh. Maybe she’s right.

  But not anymore. I’ve learned a lot since I met Katie. More than in the last thousand years combined, probably. I cup her cheek, letting my thumb gaze her soft skin. “I guess it’s time I raised my expectations then.”

  “Damn straight.” There are tears in her eyes now, and her lips are trembling. “You have to understand, Cue. My head forgot you for a little while—but my heart never did. Do you know how many times I woke up these last few months shaking and looking around my room? And I would just ache. All over. And I didn’t know why. But I do now. That was my soul missing yours.”

  I swallow hard, but that knot of fear in my stomach, the cold weight I’ve been carrying for far too long, is loosening, slipping away. I reach into my pocket, my fingertips touching the soft wood of the box I’ve taken to carrying there.

  “So,” I say slowly. “Basically, you’re saying you were wrong.”

  She blinks up at me.

  “About falling in love.” I lean even closer, close enough I can almost taste her lips.

  “Hey, you were wrong, too,” she points out, her voice a little breathless now.

  Then we’re kissing, her lips parting under mine, soft and warm and sweet. It’s better than I remembered, better than the dreams that have been torturing me for the past six months. It’s light and fire and hope.

  Finally, I lean my forehead against hers to take a long, deep breath. “I think I’m going to like being wrong.”

  “We can be wrong together.” She grins.

  “Okay. Let’s make that official.” I open my hand and show her the box nestled there. The one my father made for the woman I love.

  She stares at it, then at my face, the grin sliding from hers. “Oh shit.”

  “I thought we agreed we were wrong about love.”

  “Yes, but . . . this . . .” Her face is so pale I can count every freckle. “I’m still scared, Ace.”

  Me, too. But . . . “You’re my forever, Katie,” I say quietly. “And haven’t we wasted enough time?”

  She takes a deep breath, then gives me that look, that fearless Katie look that says she’s up for anything. Maybe even something as terrifying as marriage. “That depends. How big is the diamond?”

  I laugh, but my fingers shake slightly when I open the box. “Um, actually, there isn’t one.”

  But her gasp tells me I got it right. Or that my dad got it right. Heph did exactly what I asked him to do, but it’s better than I could have imagined. The platinum dolphin leaps from the white gold ring, nosing at a perfect pearl just out of reach.

  “Wow.” Her eyes are wet, then over flowing. “Oh, wow.”

  “Big enough for you?”

  “It’s perfect,” she whispers as I slip it on her finger. “You’re perfect.”

  No. I’m really not. But that’s okay.

  Because for once in my life, I know where I fit in. Right here, with her. Katie doesn’t just make me whole, she makes me better.

  It hits me then, that maybe love is as simple and complex as that—finding that one person who makes us better. Who fills our broken pieces and makes us who we are supposed to be.

  “Can we have sex now?” Katie whispers, looking down at her ring in the moonlight. “Cause I really, really wanna.”

  I laugh out loud, the sound rolling out into the desert. “Me too, Pearl. Me fucking too.”

  Epilogue

  Katie insisted on the Mediterranean for our honeymoon. We had a five-minute Vegas chapel wedding, but for the honeymoon, we’re going all out.

  “After all,” she said, “the honeymoon is the important part.”

  I love her priorities.

  So here we are in Naples, staring up at the statue of Cupid in t
he Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli with fifty other tourists before we catch our ferry to Patras, then on to Santorini.

  “What do you think?”

  “It’s okay, but . . .” She bites her lip, looking from me to the statue and back again.

  “What?”

  “A certain appendage is totally not to scale,” she says in a stage whisper that carries to every corner of the gallery.

  Several people give her scandalized looks, but the middle-aged woman next to us titters in amusement. She leans in closer to Katie. “I thought the same thing,” she admits with a sheepish grin, giving the statue a sidelong look. “I mean, he’s supposed to be the god of desire. Shouldn’t he have a nice, big . . .” She holds her hands apart. “You know?”

  “I do.” Katie nods, then reaches over to pull the lady’s hands farther apart. “Now that’s more like it.” She winks at me. “Isn’t it, Ace?”

  The lady’s eyes go wide, staring from the space between her hands to me and back again. “Oh my god,” she whispers.

  “Exactly what I say every night,” my wife giggles.

  Rolling my eyes, I grab her hand and yank her away from the woman, who’s looking at me with stars in her eyes. “Was that necessary?”

  “Bragging about your cock is always necessary, trust me. Speaking of which,” Katie continues as we make our way outside under the bright Mediterranean sky, “it occurs to me we haven’t given proper attention to cock euphemisms.” She pushes her hair over one bare, freckled shoulder and gives me a look like a dare.

  “Fine. How about . . . Custard Cannon.”

  She winces. “Louisville Plugger.”

  “Everlasting Gob-Dropper.”

  She giggles as we make our way down to the dock. “Oh god, I’ll never look at Willy Wonka the same way again.”

  The day of my talk with Mom, I got a letter from Hephaestus. He invited me and Katie for a visit. It was short and to the point. Come home, Son. We need to talk.

  Calling me Son was enough to make my hands start shaking, but it was the two words at the bottom that really did me in.

  Love, Dad.

  “The Muff Marauder,” she whispers as the man takes our tickets, bringing me back to the here and now. To my amazing wife and the prospect of spending some bonding time with my father. Life is good.

  “You don’t have a muff,” I point out as we start walking up the ramp.

  “True.” Then she grins. “I guess that makes you a pearl diver.”

  I laugh. “You know it, sweetheart.”

  “Forever and ever,” she says softly, cupping my jaw. Then she kisses me, a featherlight brush of those silky lips over mine before she runs over to the rail, those long, reddish-gold curls dancing behind her. “Though we are about six months behind,” she tosses over her shoulder.

  “I agree.” I move behind her, wrapping my arms around her waist. “Which is why we should find our cabin and get on that. By my calculations we’re about 102 orgasms away from goal.”

  Katie giggles as I throw her over my shoulder. I grin and pat her ass, wondering how it’s possible to be so stupid happy, getting another sharp, but happy thrill at what I see out of the corner of my eye before we head below deck.

  Lightning flashing high above the sea.

  In an utterly cloudless blue sky.

  Love is a pain in the ass.

  Full of monsters and screaming and people crying alone in the dark.

  Because love is scary shit. Maybe the most scary shit.

  But it’s not bullshit.

  And believe me, it’s worth it.

  ~Cupid

  Author Notes

  I hope you enjoyed reading Cupid’s Bow. A lot of cold winter nights, warm Vegas memories and Bon Jovi on repeat went into this book! Thanks to my editor, Lizz, at Razor Sharp Editing. She chops my stories to bits and makes me lmao while doing it. (Dat ASS!!) Shout out to Veronica Del Rosa because you hear ALL the things before anyone else. To Carla for her killer insights. And my ARC team, Veronica and all my writer friends who are so freaking talented and amazing and all the people who write reviews and buy my books and send me notes and emails about things I wrote…!! It never gets old.

  NEVER.

  Love you all!

  If you’d like to read my ongoing serial from the Toil & Trouble series, Born & Bred, and keep up with all the latest updates and timelines for my releases AND get in on ARC lists and giveaways and read exclusive snippets of works in progress, subscribe to my newsletter, The Craic, and get all the above and more!!

  http://eepurl.com/bNW4LH

  You can also find me online at the usual suspects:

  Facebook

  Amazon

  Twitter

  Goodreads

  [email protected]

  Also by Heather R. Blair

  Toil & Trouble

  Sixpence & Whiskey

  Blackbirds & Bourbon

  Roses & Rye

  Threescore & Tequila

  Deja Vu & Gin

  Magpies & Moonshine

  Celtic Elementals

  Smoke In Moonlight

  Blood In Fire

  Lightning In Sea

  Phoenix Inc.

  Phoenix Rising

  Phoenix Fallen

  Phoenix Broken

  Stand Alones

  Cupid’s Bow

  Short Story Collections and Anthologies

  Shivers

  Embraced By Darkness