Crimes of Cupidity (Heart Hassle Book 3)

Those two words are a jolt to my system. They echo in my head over and over again. My beloved, my beloved, my beloved.

I thought I’d never hear those words again.

I suddenly explode into movement. I turn my head, shoving my pink hair aside, and blink up to see Okot looking back down at me. His eyes aren’t pure black and full of hate anymore. Now, I can see the bright red rims pulsing with life once again, and it makes my own eyes fill.

“Okot!”

I wrap my arms around him and pull him down against me, my heart breaking and bursting all at once. I feel every kind of emotion there is to feel. His lips come against mine, soft but resolute in his desire for me. When he cradles his hand around my neck and runs his thumb against my collarbone, I nearly swoon. There he is, I think to myself. My mate is back.

I think we both realize I’m crying at the same time, because he pulls back and holds my face in his huge palms. “I…was…dreaming of you,” he says slowly, his black brow slightly furrowed with confusion as he studies every inch of my face. “But the dream felt just out of reach, and trying to wake up felt even further.”

“The king and prince have been poisoning you with mind-control tea,” I quickly explain, and his expression darkens.

“I…remember. Bits and pieces. Did I…hurt you?”

My mouth opens but then quickly shuts. “Umm…”

His hands immediately drop from touching me, and he gets to his feet. I scramble up after him, but when I reach for him, he takes a step back. “I hurt you.”

The look on his face and the way he says it sends a dagger straight through my heart. “Okot, no. Don’t do this. Don’t. It wasn’t your fault.”

His red, pulsing eyes drop down to my neck. It’s like he can see his hands wrapped around it again from when he was choking me. “I laid hands on you. Hurt you. Made you cry.”

I shake my head adamantly and try to move toward him again, but for every step I move forward, he takes one step back. “It wasn’t you. You were being controlled.”

“Your genfins should have killed me. I have brought shame upon our mate-bond. I do not deserve to be in your covey.”

I can see it. I can see the tortured look in his face. I can see that he wants to leave. He totally believes that he’s unworthy of me. He’s so disgusted with himself that he can barely look at me.

Now, maybe if this were happening in a different time, maybe if there wasn’t a raging battle going on around us, or maybe if I didn’t have some demonesque traits running through my body, I would react differently. But right now? I get freaking pissed. I even start to smoke a little.

I march forward and jab a steaming finger into his chest. “Now you listen here you big-headed bull. You are not leaving my covey. You are my mate. So you choked me a bit. So what? Some people like that kind of thing,” I point out. “I’m fine. You are going to stay right here, sniff me, and call me your beloved until the end of time, or so help me, Okot, I will go full on demonesque on your ass and trap you in a ring of fire until you see reason.”

His clothes singe a bit from where my finger is jabbing him, and when I notice him grimace slightly, I quickly drop my hand. “Sorry. Demon powers have a crazy kick to them. Now, pull on your big girl panties and ovary-it up. We’re mates, and we have a war to win.”

He blinks at me and runs a hand through his gorgeous bright red mohawk. “I…have no idea what that means.”

“It means kiss me right now because I missed the freaking heck out of you.”

He stares at me. There are only inches between us, but it feels like so much more. I hold my breath, waiting to see what he’ll do. If he rejects me right now, it might kill me a little. I meant what I said about not letting him go, but I so badly want him to choose to forgive himself and stay. I just want things to go back to the way they were before the prince messed everything up.

I see the hesitation in his face. Okot may look huge and mean, but he’s actually incredibly kind and loyal and honorable. So I know the fact that he laid hands on me is despicable to him. I see him warring with himself about whether or not he deserves to stay with me. His fists clench at his sides, like he wants to touch me but is denying himself.

A huge booming noise sounds, causing me to fall into him. He catches me easily, keeping me steady on my feet, and we look at the huge blast of power that exploded into a contingent of genfins.

He keeps a protective hold around my waist. “I must get you out of here.”

I shake my head. “We can’t leave.”

Before he can argue, I call to Lex. She appears, looking somewhat bedraggled. “They’re heading your way,” she says breathlessly. “Belren was able to get the chains off himself and then broke out the others.”

Another boom sounds, and a group of genfins and the prince’s soldiers land nearly on top of us as they drop from the sky. Okot pulls Lex and I out of the way just in time, and a dead genfin lands at my feet.

But just when the soldiers are about to kill more of them, Jerkahf drops down and cuts off the prince’s soldiers with a huge wall of fire. One of them tries to extinguish it with water magic, but it barely makes a spit of protest. I guess hellfire is strong stuff.

The fae soldiers pull up short, and then Jerkahf knocks them out one by one, his entire body is smoking and sparking, his eyes are glowing with the fires of underworld. He looks freaking scary.

When the last one is out cold on the hard, dirty ground, I arch a brow at him. “A little much, don’t you think?”

“I told you I get to hit them hard,” he says with an unapologetic shrug, before taking off into the sky again.

I can see from my vantage point that the battle is all but over. The angels and demons are rounding the last of the mind-controlled soldiers up, the genfins are counting their dead, and I see Prince Elphar himself being restrained by two angels. The sight makes me smile in victory.

Ronak, Evert, Sylred, and Belren come walking up to us, and I breathe out a sigh of relief.

But it’s too soon.

Because the prince suddenly blasts out a massive ball of raw, vicious power. It’s so powerful, that a sonic boom comes with it, blasting away the angels at his side, and making everyone else in a twenty-foot radius go flying back.

“Cupid!”

The prince’s furious voice cuts through the distance and makes the hair rise on the back of my neck. He doesn’t even sound like a person. The fury in his tone and in his icy eyes is so strong that he’s glowing with it. The world shakes with his wrath, and he has eyes only for me.

The blast sends me and Lex stumbling to the ground, and her hands clutch my arms. We struggle to get up, our limbs and wings and hair tangled. Lex finally manages to stand, and I untangle my legs as my face is smashed against the dirt ground. Lex dusts herself off, her wings out and her hair torn loose from her ponytail. She moves to offer a hand down to help me up, but I spot the prince behind her. I see him focus on Lex’s pink hair and red wings with narrowed eyes. Power collects in his palm, and then he throws.

Time slows.

I see the power hurtling toward Lex, her back still facing the prince. I try to get up and reach for her to pull her away, but I know I won’t get to her in time. I open my mouth to send her back to the Veil, but all I get out is her name, and then it hits.

The raw power hits with a blinding light and heat so intense that for a moment, I’m sure it must be scorching us all alive. I feel her body fall on top of mine, and the ringing in my ears makes me dizzy with disorientation.

With rising horror, I push at her until I can sit up, but when I’m able to see, my heart stops.

Lex is…alive.

She’s sitting up, looking back, and I follow her horrified gaze to see the prone form lying on the ground.

“Oh my gods. Belren.”