Annoyance pricks. “And why not?”
“Because you would be killing yourself as well.”
“You lie.”
“Am I? You shot me and yet you felt it, didn’t you?” he says.
“Not straight away.”
“Fate plays games but always hits true. Fate waited until you touched me.” He gazes at me. “Fate sent you to me.”
I pause, then straighten. I want to say he’s lying again, but inside me, I can feel the steadiness of his heartbeat, the certainty. This is all so confusing. So overwhelming that the next time he takes a step toward me, I don’t move away.
“No…”
“Yes…if one of us dies, the other dies too.” He runs a hand over the glowing pattern on his chest. The light seems to react to his touch, pulsing faster, brighter. “I’ve only heard stories, but I’m sure that is what this is. Why else can I feel you woven through every fiber of my being?”
“You…you can feel me?” I ask.
He leans forward. “I can feel you. Every pulse, every heartbeat, every thought, every trembling breath. Everything.”
“I still don’t understand. What can we do to reverse it?”
“Reverse?” he laughs. “I can try to explain… I was never meant to touch humans, and they weren’t ever meant to touch me. I was created as an angel—specifically a Cupid—to spread love to the mortal world?—”
“I know this,” I snap. “I know the legend of theCursed One.”
He scoffs. “The Cursed One. Did your Elders ever tell you how I came to be cursed? Why I was cast out of the heavens and lost my wings?”
At the mention of them, his broken and charred wings twitch at his back.
In my silence, he continues. “Of course not.” His gaze lifts skyward and his brows crease. His sorrow and anger flow into me suddenly. “As a Cupid, I was forbidden to interact withhumans directly. Centuries ago, I broke that rule. I fell in love. With a mortal woman.”
I stare at him in disbelief. “You…fell in love?”
“And that’s so hard to believe?” he asks, mocking.
I push out words. “Perhaps. Perhaps not. Or perhaps it’s a lie.”
“It’s not,” he says.
“Right…” I resist the urge to roll my eyes. “So you fell in love?”
“I did. I loved her with everything I am… But our love was forbidden. It didn’t stop me from asking the gods to let me be with her, to make an exception to their rules. They were furious—” More hot anger lashes at my insides, and the Cursed One grinds his teeth. “The gods punished me. They killed her. And for centuries, I’ve been cursed, forced to collect the soul of a woman each year to keep my wings—what’s left of them—and my soul away from total damnation.”
The ruins around us seem to echo with his words, to amplify them. Again, I want to lash out and say it’s all a lie, but the emotions flooding me keep my mouth clamped shut. My fear and confusion warps with something else. Tenderness. Empathy. Longing. But my chest still burns; the bond sears, telling me all that he says is the furthest from it.
It can’t be.
“You still don’t believe me,” he says, reading my thoughts.
“Keep out of my head!” I bite out. “It’s unnerving. All of this is.”
“I know you’re trying to rationalize what is happening, but…” He glances around and picks up a piece of stone that’s about the size of his palm and jagged around the edges. “Maybe this will be enough to convince you.”
He pushes the tip of the rock into his palm. Pain instantly flares to life in my hand, and I gasp, holding it up to my face. My skin splits before my eyes and blood bubbles up.
“Stop it!” I bark.