*CUPID'S MATCH BOOK 2* FIRST DRAFT
Lila receives an ominous Valentine's Day card.
Cupid & Cal are keeping a dark secret.
Fate is being interfered with.
And a sadistic, and extremely powerful banished cupid is intent on stealing Lila's heart. Literal...
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Cupid and Cal rush to either side of me. I feel the tension radiating from their bodies as we gape, with horror, at the scene below. My eyes don't move from Valentine. He has moved his gaze from mine, now, and purposefully leads his ten, undead cupids, toward the doors of the glass building.
"Damnit," hisses Cal. "What is he doing here?! Do you think he's here for..."
He gives me a sideways look then holds Cupid's gaze.
"Me," I whisper.
Cupid's hands curl into fists at his sides as he looks down.
"I'm going to kill him," he says through gritted teeth.
My pulse races. I think of the feel of his shocking blue eyes on me, the strength of his hand around my neck back in the gym.
I need your heart for what I'm to do.
The faint sound of smashing glass, followed by a piercing alarm, breaks me out of the traumatic memory. He's here. I need to pull myself together.
"They're in..." says Cupid. He grabs my arm and looks down at me. His eyes are blazing with a mixture of anger and worry. "Lila..." his voice sounds choked.
For a moment the doubt, and distance between us seems to dissolve – there's just passion, and need, and urgency crackling in the air between our bodies.
"Arm yourselves," says Morta. We spin around. She strides toward her desk – combat boots stomping against the white linoleum - and unlocks a cupboard. From it she pulls out her silver shears. "Cassie will be defending the reception. She will hold them down there as long as she can. But she can't fight alone. Not when the shears are the only things that will kill them. We need to get down there. There are weapons through..."
"...the third door to the left," says Cupid – relaying what Cassie told us earlier.
He pulls me hurriedly forward. Cal is already half-way across the room.
"Your sisters?" says Cupid as Morta follows us out into the clinical corridor.
She shakes her head while Cal disappears through the door leading to the weapons.
"Not in. It's just us."
Cal strides out moments later with three bows and quivers full of arrows. He throws them our way and Cupid and I swipe them from the air. I hurl mine over my body, feeling the reassuring cool strength of the black bow with slightly trembling fingers.
Is Valentine here for me?
I think of how he threw Cupid across the gym as though he weighed nothing. Cupid still wears the pink bruise around his eye from where he was beaten. Even with Morta on side, can we really stop him?!
How can you stop someone who cannot be killed?
As I think it though, I wonder if that's true. Can he really not be killed? A thought lingers at the corner of my mind – fuzzy and unfocused. Someone has said something that makes me think otherwise, but the pounding of my heart is causing too much noise in my mind. I can't focus.
