Crimes of Cupidity (Heart Hassle Book 3)

We land on the prince’s secret island.

I know this because of Lex’s descriptions of the crops. I spot them immediately off to the left, and she was right, they are obviously very well kept up. There are also still a few hundred soldiers on this island from what I can see, which just shows how much of a force he really has. He didn’t even have to send all of his soldiers to completely devastate our forces.

The prince’s soldiers are standing in formation, perfectly lined up and staring straight ahead. Not one head turns toward us when we appear, and I don’t see a single fae fidget or hear a noise coming from them. They even seem to breathe at the same time. My brow furrows as I watch them.

Something is very, very wrong.

Movement catches my eye, and I turn to see King Beluar walking back from the crops. He’s being helped by two fae on either side of him, his weight leaning against them. Further down, there’s a line of soldiers waiting for a drink. I think it’s water at first, and watch as the soldiers come up one by one to drink a ladle full of liquid. But when I see a wheelbarrow of leaves and steaming water being brought over and dumped into the huge barrel for a refill, I realize that it’s not water—it’s tea. And it’s the same tea leaves from the crops.

“Go on, lamassu,” I hear, and my attention moves over to see Okot being herded away by Gammon.

When Gammon touches him, Okot growls, and it’s the first expression I’ve seen on his face today. Okot slams a fist into Gammon’s face, making the guard go flying back. Chaucel erects a barrier between them before Okot can charge again, and he slams his fist against it, furious and wanting to get at him.

“Enough,” the prince says. “Lamassu, stand down.”

Immediately, Okot’s body jerks and his fists drop to his sides. The anger bleeds out of his face, and he’s left impassive once again.

I look from Okot, to the Beluar Blade he’s clutching, to the blank-faced soldiers, to the king, to the crops, to the tea, and it all clicks into place. I cover my mouth with my hand, my eyes widening in shock. “Oh my gods.”

I know what the king and the prince have done. And with the numbing realization, my head spins until it lands on one thought. Okot.

Before I can voice my realization, the portal, still open, suddenly flashes. The next thing I know, my guys and Belren are being escorted through. They’re all in iron chains, and Ronak’s body is flung over the back of a horse, unmoving.

“Ronak!” I try to get to them, but my own guards have a firm hold on me.

“He’s fine!” Sylred calls back to me. “Just knocked out.”

Sylred’s face is puffy and bloody, and Evert is sporting similar injuries. “Scratch. Disappear,” Evert orders, but the prince just laughs.

“You disappear, and they’re dead. Why do you think I brought them with us?” Prince Elphar says, his icy-blue eyes trained on me. “They’re here to give you proper incentive.”

“Don’t hurt them,” I say, my voice somewhere between a warning and a plea.

“That will be entirely up to you.”

Gods I hate him.

“Elphar!”

Everyone turns to look at the princess’s voice as she comes storming out of the portal. She still has bloodstains beneath her nose and dripped onto the bodice of her dress.

“Ah. My wife,” the prince says with a smirk as he saunters toward her.

My brows crinkle in confusion as he walks up to her and places a kiss on her cheek. He pulls back and pats her head like one might pat a dog. “Very well done, wife. Your acting skills are remarkable.” He taps the dried blood above her lip. “Terribly sorry about the barrier. It had to be done, you know.”

She curls her purple hands into fists. “You attacked my home island. That was not agreed upon. You put my family in danger! You said you wouldn’t kill unless necessary!”

Prince Elphar just shrugs, her anger not phasing him at all. “It was the move I wanted to make on the board. You know I love a good surprise. It’s good to keep the other players on their toes.”

She shakes her head, furious tears apparent on her face.

Belren looks between them, shaking his head in disbelief. “No…This… It’s not possible. You can’t have…Soora?”

She glances at him, her face immediately filling with guilt. “He has Benicia,” she replies, as if that will make up for her betrayal.

Belren’s face goes hard. “How long since you’ve double-crossed us?”

“Belren—”

His entire body tenses with fury. “How. Long?” he grits out between clenched teeth.

“Four weeks. The night he captured me, he gave me a choice. Tell him the rebellion’s plans, or he’d kill Benecia,” she confesses, and I watch as a single tear falls down her lavender cheek.

“You deceived us all,” he says, his voice belying the shock he’s feeling. “You’ve signed our death warrant.”

“I had to!” she argues, looking up at him for the first time. “I couldn’t let him kill her.”

I crush the heel of my palms against my eyes. This can’t be happening.

“My sister would hate you for making that choice,” Belren bites back. “She lived and bled and breathed for this rebellion—to fight this monster who just uses fae, playing with us like game pieces and tossing us away when he’s bored.”

“You’d rather I have let her die?” she challenges. “Your own sister?”

“I’d rather you have acted with honor!” he yells back at her, straining against the guards. “I’d rather you have told me. I could have helped, Soora. I’ve always helped you, even when you left my sister so you could marry the fucking prince.”

Soora flinches. “I did that to help the rebellion.”

“That’s what you told yourself. But I think you wanted the status. You broke her heart when you left her. No wonder she ran away.”

Prince Elphar grins. “Yes. And I caught her. I’ve had her ever since. She’s terribly entertaining company.”

Belren practically smolders with rage. “I will kill you if you’ve hurt her.”

The prince’s grin never wavers. “I’d love to see the attempt.”

I’m pretty sure he’s serious. He’s that much of a psycho.

Prince Elphar watches Belren with a smug expression on his face. “The great Horned Hook,” he says in a mocking tone. “The one who can find and take anything in the realm.” He lets out a barking laugh. “Isn’t that what they say about you? People will believe anything these days. You couldn’t even find your own sister. That must really wound your ego.”

Belren seethes and moves his hands, but whatever telekinesis powers he’s trying to use don’t work under the chains of iron shackled to him.

Prince Elphar runs a finger down Soora’s cheek. “I see your imprisonment was successful in luring in the cupid. It seems you were more useful than I believed.”

Gods, I really wish I hadn’t bragged so much about rescuing her now.

The prince claps his hands, making me flinch at the noise. “I think it’s time for tea,” he says enthusiastically. Yep. He really is a psychopath.

A dead-eyed servant brings over a tea tray and stands in front of the prince.

“Let’s bring Benicia out, shall we?” the prince says jovially.

Gammon nods and walks away, only to come back seconds later with a female fae I’ve never seen before, but whom looks familiar. She has silver-toned skin and delicate wings at her back. Her hair is white and short in a pixie-cut style, and she has large, gray eyes. And as if those weren’t enough similarities, then the two horns coming out at her hairline and curving back behind her ears would be revelation enough.

“Benicia!” Belren tries to lunge forward, but the soldier behind him holds him back by the chains.

The female glides up and takes up the space beside the prince, never once looking in Belren’s direction, no matter how many times he calls her name.

“You said you wouldn’t do that to her,” Soora says quietly to the prince, her lavender eyes locked onto Benicia.

Prince Elphar shrugs. “She was being unreasonable.”

“Benicia,” Belren says again, but his sister still doesn’t look at him.

The prince toys with her short hair. “She doesn’t answer to you. She only answers to me.”

“What did you do to her?”

Ignoring her, he turns to the servant. He looks her figure up and down, noting her beautiful face, and grips the female’s chin, forcing her to look at him. Her head turns and she looks up at him vacantly. “Mmm. I don’t think I’ve had a taste of you, yet,” he says, giving her another lascivious look. She doesn’t react at all. When he hooks a finger into the top of her dress and pulls it down so that he can steal a look at her cleavage and cop a feel, fury takes over my mouth.

“Stop!”

Prince Elphar looks over at me, his icy eyes gleaming. “What did you say?” He voices it as a question, but I can hear the threat.

“Leave her alone,” I tell him.

While keeping his eyes locked on me, he reaches up, grips her dress with both hands, and rips. The fabric falls to the ground in a heap, and then she’s left there, completely exposed.

Still watching me, he starts fondling her breasts. The sight makes me shake with rage.

“Stop it!” I scream.

He just grins cruelly. “You don’t give the orders, Cupid. I do.” Leaning into the servant’s still-vacant face, he speaks directly into her ear after giving it a lecherous lick. “The cupid needs her tea. Serve her.”

“No!” I blurt out. “I won’t drink it.”

The prince’s eyes flash. “Now, now, cupid. Don’t be rude.”

Ignoring him, I look to the others to explain what I’ve figured out. “The crops that they’re growing here are tea leaves. The king is using his power to infuse his will into the crops and then the prince forces the fae to drink it. That’s why everyone seems so robotic. They’re not themselves. Their minds are being controlled.”

Shocked faces look back at me, and I meet their eyes, desperate to make them understand. “Nobody drink it,” I warn them.

The prince sighs. “There’s nothing I hate more than when a player tries to ruin the game.”

“You can’t control an entire realm,” I tell him.

He motions to the soldiers at our backs. “I can, and I will.”

“But the king is sick. I’ve seen it. He won’t last much longer.”

Instead of getting angry, the prince simply nods his head in agreement. “Which is why you’re here.”

My brow furrows. “What?”

He sighs at me like I’m a simpleton. “You’re right. My father has just about reached the end of his usefulness. His life was a sacrifice I was willing to make. But that’s where you come in. You’re a cupid, yes? So you will make all of my subjects love me. Every single one, or I’ll kill them all,” he says simply, like he’s mentioning that it might rain.

I stare at him, completely bewildered. I can’t possibly have heard him right. When he doesn’t say anything else, I shake my head. “It doesn’t work that way. I can’t make anyone love you. There has to be an inclination already there.”

“Then I suggest you’d better get to work on making sure they’re properly inclined. Because once my father dries up and dies off, my people had better be ready to bow down to me with reverence in all things, or I will purge them all.”

I shake my head, at a loss. What a narcissistic sociopath. Surely this can’t be happening? His ego can’t possibly be that big that he expects me to make everyone in the entire realm love him? But I can see by the look on his face that he’s perfectly serious, and I’m in trouble.

“I’ll even help you, cupid. You’d do better if you didn’t think so much. It’s not one of your skills,” he taunts. “But don’t worry. You’ll be the only one partaking in my mind-control tea, as you called it. I prefer for your mates to watch.”

He looks behind me, and before I can react, I feel the soldier at my back step up to me, clamping my arms tight against the wings at my back. The servant strides forward and forces the cup against my lips while the guard wrenches grabs my jaw. I shake my head left and right to try prevent what’s about to happen, but the soldier keeps his punishing grip, holding my head still, and squeezes until I open my mouth in a cry of pain. I hear Evert and Sylred yelling and fighting as I continue to struggle, but it’s no use. The servant places the cup against my lips and dumps the mind-controlling liquid down my throat.