Cupid’s Misfire (4 page)

“You know what this means, don’t you?” Zeus addressed Cupid this time.

“No...I don’t suppose I do.”

“If you choose to pursue this bond with this woman, you will descend to earth as a mortal and live out your days with her. You will never be granted access to Olympus again. You will, after a certain amount of time, die. Then Hades will have to deal with you. Both of you.” He rolled his eyes—apparently his godliness had had as much of these two as he could take.

Cupid straightened, his wings on the alert, his body taut. “I accept this judgment.”

“You understand that, even if you crazy kids can’t make it work, you’ll still face mortality?”

Cupid looked into Aja’s eyes. So deep and brown, velvety. He couldn’t imagine ever leaving this woman. “I understand.”

“Cupid...” Aja began, but Cupid broke her off with a kiss.

“It’s all right,” he said. Gently, he stroked her hair back from her face. “We’ll be all right.”

“That’s it, then.” There was a whoosh of air around them. Cupid felt his wings retract, the pain raging down his back. He drew Aja to him, holding her close as everything that had been Olympus disappeared around them. All went black, and then they were suddenly back in Aja’s bedroom.

Three feet above the bed.

They fell abruptly, and Cupid was certain he heard something crack. For a long moment he lay still, staring at the ceiling.

“Well,” Aja said finally. “That was interesting.”

Five years later

Cupid—he went by Eric now—stared down into the tiny, wrinkled face of the little creature in his arms. She was still wet and bloody, but wrapped in a blanket. On the hospital bed next to him, Aja let out one last, irritated snarl as she delivered the placenta into the hands of the obstetrician.

“You are never touching me again, Eric Petropolous,” she informed him.

“All right.” He turned to look at her. Sweating, mostly naked, sprawled across a mussed hospital bed, blood smearing her stomach where they’d laid her daughter for a moment while they’d cut the umbilical cord, she had never seemed more beautiful to him. He held the baby closer to her. “Look at her.”

She looked, and every bit of irritation on her face faded. “She’s gorgeous. She looks just like me.”

Cupid chuckled. “Yes, she does.” He handed the baby over to her mother, then leaned over to kiss Aja sweetly on the mouth. Her wedding ring—the one he’d placed there four years before—twinkled in the light of the birthing room. “I love you,” he murmured.

Aja kissed their child on the head and looked up at Cupid. The adoring look he was used to had returned to her features, though he wasn’t sure it was for him right now. But she smiled and leaned up to kiss him again. “I love you too, you crazy Greek fool.”

Cupid grinned. Yeah. Mortality was going to be just fine with him.