“Blood?”
“None.” His eyes dart to the door behind me. “It’s as if they walked away on their own.”
They didn’t. They were called. I know the stories.
I nod my thanks and leave before he can say more. The door creaks shut behind me, muffling the fearful murmur that follows. Outside, the wind howls through the trees, carrying whispers I can almost mistake for human voices.
The Cursed One isn’t a man. He’s not even an angel, not anymore. Once, centuries ago, he was a Cupid, an emissary of the divine, meant to bind souls in love. Until he defied his purpose. Until the gods cursed him. Now, he doesn’t inspire love. He consumes it. And whoever he touches loses their soul entirely.
He feeds on them. Body first, soul second. Enslaves, seduces, kills.
All to keep his wings.
Tonight, he hunts again.
Each hunt, his hunger grows. Four girls are merely the start.
I have to make them be the last.
The forest waits at the village’s edge, black as ink, branches clawing at the reddened sky. I draw my bow and nock an arrow tipped with silver ash. The Order forges them for one purpose only—to pierce the divine. I’ve used them before on the monsters I’ve hunted.
The forest is silent, but I feel him before I see him. A tremor in the air, like the shiver before a storm. Feathers drift down through the trees, swirling through the moonbeams.
My chest tightens.
He’s definitely here.
The temple rises from the overgrowth, forgotten by time. Its pillars are fractured, etched with celestial sigils now blackened and cracked. Feathers settle on broken steps and in shattered mosaics. The air smells faintly metallic, like blood left to rust in the sun.
I step inside.
He’s there, half-hidden among the shadows, and I freeze. My gaze falls on his wings, which are still charred and blackened, tattered things, but threaded in faint silver. Feathers drift from them like dying embers, and one wing drags along the floor; the other trembles, unable to lift itself fully upright.
So, he hasn’t stolen anyone’s soul yet. I’ve heard the stories of course, how his wings were destroyed. How with the consumption of a soul they fix themselves from their broken, twisted state.
Then the shadows peel back just enough for me to catch a glimpse of him.
He’s naked—completely and devastatingly naked—and for a moment all the air leaves my lungs.
Light glances off the cut of his shoulders, the corded strength in his thighs, the elegant lines of a body built for seduction long before ruin claimed him. His skin is warm bronze under the soot, every ridge of muscle defined, every scar a story I shouldn’t want to trace with my fingers. And lower—gods help me—he’s thick, heavy, and half-hard. Possibly the largest male piece I’ve ever seen.
Heat weaves through my insides, settling between my thighs.
I’ve seen men undressed before. I’ve trained beside warriors, walked through healing halls, stitched wounds on every part of the body. But none of that prepared me for him.
He stands like a fallen god who hasn’t decided whether to kill me or devour me. And I…I’m staring.
He shifts, and that beautiful, sinful part of him hangs with a heavy sway that steals my breath. His wings twitch, the ruined feathers rasping softly, and the movement draws my eyes back to his handsome face. Hiseyes are the deepest brown rimmed in gold, and his gaze stays firmly on my weapon, which I hold steady. He doesn’t look scared to be facing his death at all, and that pokes at me.
His eyes lock on me, and he sees into what feels like deep into my soul. It’s like he slammed an arrow into my chest.
“And what are you?” he asks, dark, hungry. Hard. “A sacrifice?”
I can see how the girls want to give all for his touch, to feed him their everything, no matter that they’ll wither and die.
I can more than see it.
And I can stop it.