by Tami Lund
Cupid’s Light
Lightbearer, Book 5
Tami Lund
Published: 2016
ISBN: 978-1-62210-383-6
Published by Liquid Silver Publishing. Copyright © 2016, Tami Lund.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.
This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogues in this book are of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.
Manufactured in the USA
Email [email protected] with questions, or inquiries about Liquid Silver Books, Liquid Silver Publishing, or Ten West Publishing.
Blurb
"You're a Cupid? Like toddlers with wings who go around shooting people with bows and arrows?"
"Not quite. We don't actually take on assignments until we're adults. And most of us have lousy aim, so we gave up the bow and arrow bit a long time ago."
Meet Adora Adone, a hapless Cupid with a lousy track record. She's been given one last chance: Find shifter Matt Tigre a mate or lose her wings. Should be easy enough. Shifters are some of the easiest species to mate with one another.
Except Matt doesn't want a mate. He's been burned in the past, and he's not interested in a future with another shifter. Now with the Cupid, on the other hand…When she said she was there to find him a mate, she should have been more specific.
Get ready to fall in love with Cupid's Light, the fifth installment in the Lightbearer series by Tami Lund.
Dedication
For everyone who ever believed in love. So yeah—you.
Acknowledgements
Thank you, LSB, for helping me introduce this series to the world. Thank you, JoAnne Soper-Cook, for your wonderful editing skills. Thank you to my street team, Tami’s Tarts, for loving those teasers, for ensuring Adona has wings on the cover, and especially for those who beta read my books and provide the excellent feedback that ultimately leads those books to publication. This writing gig wouldn’t be what it is without the help of so many.
Chapter 1
“I like my women with straight hair and kinky personalities.”
Adora blinked, but managed to keep her expression bland, her stature stiff. The man lying on the couch across from her turned his head and admired her legs.
“Long legs, too. I like long legs.”
Adora uncrossed her knees and tugged at the hem of her pale blue skirt. This entire setup felt like some sort of counseling session. She wasn’t a counselor; she was a Cupid.
“Yes, well, I will take those requirements into—”
“Type of being isn’t so important. I mean, look at me. I’m a classic mutt. I don’t have any right being choosy. But if I could, I’d definitely choose a faery. Now those are some seriously smokin’ females.”
Adora stared at the horns on his head, the warts on his face, the faint outline of undeveloped gills on his neck. He had never mastered the ability to breathe underwater because, according to his dossier, he had an unnatural fear of large bodies of water. Judging by the smell radiating off him, Adora doubted he came into much contact with water at all, not even to bathe.
There isn’t a faery in any world who would have you. Standing, Adora smoothed the front of her dress, rolled up the scroll she’d been pretending to write on, and with a flick of her wrist, caused the thing to disappear.
“Thank you for your time and your…insight,” she said tightly. “I am sure someone will be in touch.”
Her assignment clamored to his feet and lunged across the small space, capturing one of her hands between both of his own. “What about you?” he asked, staring down at her with a doleful look in his eye. “Maybe you are the one.” His gaze roved over her magenta, pixie-cut hair, her large, almond-shaped eyes, the small bit of cleavage visible over the neckline of her dress. Adora used her free hand to rake a lock of hair out of her eyes and tried not to wrinkle her nose against the scent of putrid eggs.
“Hair’s a bit short, and now that you’re standing, I can see your legs are, too. Still, I could make concessions.”
Wrenching her hand from his grasp, Adora took a step away. “I am not in the market for a mate.”
“Why not?” The man sounded genuinely perplexed.
“I am a Cupid. My task is to find true love for others, not for myself.”
“Well that’s just stupid,” he spat. “You’re the ones who profess true love to the rest of us. Hell, I’ve always thought I just wanted to get laid once in a while. Your kind are the ones who convinced me I should probably look for a mate, instead of just a good time.” He shook his head, well and truly disgusted. “Now, I suggest you might be the one, and you blow me off.”
“It isn’t that I’m blowing you off, it’s that I cannot find true love or a mate. That isn’t how it works. Cupids do not fall in love. We only help others seek it for themselves. Now if you’ll excuse me…” Without waiting for a response, Adora summoned her magic. Nearly translucent wings sprouted from her back and began beating madly, faster and faster, until her feet lifted from the ground.
The mutt-like creature watched with awe inscribed on his features as she drifted for a moment, her wings beating so fast they were a blur. An instant later, she shrank to nothing but a shimmering trail of white sparks. Then she flew from the room, slipping out the partially opened window, and up, up into the sky, until she was high enough and flying fast enough to slip from the Land of the Fae to Cupid’s Plain, without the use of the portals required by most other beings. The fae were not keen on other creatures entering their world without permission, but Cupids were a benign bunch, and long ago had been granted approval to do so as they deemed necessary.
Adora zipped through cobblestone streets, past brick and stone buildings and cheerful, colorful gardens, past a group of children taking a lesson from one of the members of Cupid’s Counsel. She slipped in through another open window and then morphed into the shape and size of a human once again.
The woman who occupied the room turned as Adora flew inside. She too had magenta hair, although hers was long, a smooth wave that hung nearly to her waist. She was taller than Adora, and carried herself with the regal bearing of a long-standing member of Cupid’s Counsel. Her white silken dress had a bodice designed in the shape of a heart, the Assigner’s one nod to human romanticizing of the concept of Cupids. Or maybe she simply liked the cut. It was hard to tell with the Assigners. They tended to be a fairly emotionless bunch.
Adora flicked her wrist and the scroll she’d made disappear a short time ago reappeared. She tossed it onto the table, a smooth, shiny glass surface around which the Counsel met to decide various aspects of the fates of their Cupids and the subjects the Cupids were assigned to.
“Another lost cause,” Adora announced. She sighed gustily and flopped into one of the high-backed, cushion-seated counsel chairs. Assigner material, she would never be. She could never be as regal, as elegant as the woman standing before her, so most of the time, she didn’t even bother to try.
The Assigner arched one thin magenta brow. “You were hardly there for half a day.”
“Trust me, I only needed half an hour for this one.”
“Adora, you haven’t made a match in over a year.”
“You keep giving me lousy assignments,” Adora muttered. “Not everyone is meant to find true love, you know.”
“By the very nature of our existence, I would tend to disagree with you. And not all of your assignments have been lousy. Some
have been quite straightforward, and still you have been unable to complete them. Most Cupids complete at least one assignment per month. Shaid has a habit of completing them in under a week.”
“My brother is an anomaly.” Adora picked at a nonexistent bit of lint on her skirt and did not look the Assigner in the eye.
“Where is this negative attitude coming from?”
“Maybe I’m burned out.”
“Are you suggesting you are ready for the procreation process?”
“Fates alive, no,” Adora said on a gasp. She surged out of the chair, her wings sprouting from her back, and she flitted across the room as if she were afraid the Assigner would snatch her and toss her into the Procreation Chamber that very instant.
The taller woman waved one hand in a soothing gesture. “Calm yourself, Adora. I am not sending you to perdition, you know.”
“It’s practically the same thing.”
“You aren’t usually this dramatic.”
Adora’s wings gradually stopped fluttering and she gently dropped to the ground, until her slipper-clad feet supported her slight weight. She flopped into the chair again.
“I’m trying. I swear, I’m trying. It’s just that—well, this last assignment—I mean, he lay on a couch and listed all his requirements,” she protested. “Like I was his therapist or something.”
The Assigner’s smile was gentle. “Sometimes we are therapists, of a sort.”
“His requirements included straight hair, long legs, and a kinky personality.”
Blinking rapidly while her thin, dainty hand fluttered to her throat, the Assigner said, “Well…Surely there must be someone for him.”
“He is a combination of a dwarf and a water nymph. What water nymph in her right mind would mate with a dwarf?”
“It isn’t necessary to become mates in order to produce offspring,” the Assigner pointed out.
“True enough. I read his dossier. He was deserted as a babe, left to be raised by gnomes.”
“You had a preconceived idea in your head before you ever met this assignment,” the Assigner accused softly.
Adora shrugged. “You tell us to be sure to read the dossiers on all our assignments. Although Shaid never does.” She could hear the jealousy in her own voice. As much as the Assigners dreaded assigning her to a task, her brother was their darling. They all clamored to give him assignments, because he never failed. If he weren’t so damn likable, Adora was certain she would hate him.
“Adora, you must complete an assignment, very soon.” The Assigner’s voice abruptly switched to sharp and business-like. She glanced over her shoulder, as if to ensure no one else was in the room.
“The other Assigners have begun to notice your lack of resolution. My protection only goes so far. Just recently there was a veiled hint that you might not qualify to be a Cupid and therefore you should give up your wings.”
That was more alarming than being herded off to the Procreation Chamber. “Give up my wings?” Adora’s eyes went wide. The wings in question twitched. “Without my wings, I would not be able to live here on Cupid’s Plain.”
“This is true.”
“I would not be able to visit, either.”
“Also true.”
“My friends, my family…I can’t leave Cupid’s Plain.”
“I would not want you to leave Cupid’s Plain either.” The Assigner’s voice was solemn. She waved her hand. Another scroll appeared, this one tightly wrapped and secured with a bright red waxy seal stamped with a heart.
“I have another assignment for you. I think this one should be easier than the last.”
Adora eyed the scroll. “What is it?”
“A shifter.”
“A shifter? You are assigning me to a shifter? Cupids aren’t usually assigned to shifters. With their inborn urge to mate, it isn’t necessary. Half the time they end up doing it by accident.”
“Which means you should have no difficulty completing this assignment.”
Adora bounced from the chair and stood over the glass table, staring at the scroll hovering in the air before her. She tried to appear calm, cool, and collected. It was always a challenge when she stood before one of the members of the Counsel. They made her so fidgety. Especially this one.
She contemplated the scroll and considered her options. She did not want to leave Cupid’s Plain. It was her home. Her entire life was here. She’d grown up here. Where would she go? The Land of the Fae? With the natural pheromones Cupids emitted, she would never get any peace. The fae were not known for their ability or desire to keep themselves in check when faced with something they craved.
What about the human world? A fair number of her assignments sent her to the human world. It was a pleasant enough locale, with plenty of places she could live and blend in with the crowd. No one would ever know she possessed magic. She could be just like the shifters who had settled there thousands of years ago because that world allowed them to feed their superiority complexes.
Pleasant or not, the human world was not someplace she would want to spend the rest of her days. She wanted to be able to travel freely from world to world, and especially to return to her home, Cupid’s Plain. The idea of never returning…
She eyed the scroll again, and then, with as much dignity as she could muster, Adora leaned forward and snatched it from where it hovered above the table. “I suppose it’s off to the human world this time?” she said with a deep sigh.
Chapter 2
“YOU want me to do what?” Matt Tigre glared at his cousin, Josh Tigre, who also happened to be his pack master and, most recently, a giant pain in Matt’s ass.
Josh pinched the bridge of his nose and leaned forward in his desk chair. “I want you to let the pack know all the positive aspects of having a human living amongst us.”
“I’m not a rumormonger. Contrary to what is normal for a pack of shifters, I do not go around spreading gossip.”
“I prefer to look at it as positive PR,” Josh replied.
“You want me to spread rumors.”
“I want you to help this pack come to terms with the fact that my mate is a human woman and frankly, she’s awfully damn nice and considerate and good for me and the pack,” Josh snapped irritably. “I thought you liked Rachel?”
“I do,” Matt said, taken aback by the insinuation in his cousin’s voice. He’d liked Rachel from the first moment he met her, this past summer. Sure, in the beginning, he’d been against the budding love affair, just like everybody else. Shifters and humans weren’t supposed to mate. Hell, Rachel wasn’t even supposed to know that shifters existed.
But Josh had gone against the grain, had fallen in love anyway, and then had mated with the human, pack laws be damned. Rachel, for her part, loved Josh as deeply as he cared for her, and Matt had no doubts whatsoever she would never, ever give up their secret to any other humans.
In his mind, even though she wasn’t a shifter, she was still part of this pack. He just didn’t want to be the one to try to convince the rest of them of her positive attributes.
“There are still plenty in this pack who give her the cold shoulder. Many have come around, but many more have not. No one has threatened her directly, but I don’t want to wait around and deal with it after it happens. I want to get ahead of it, hopefully ensure it doesn’t happen at all.”
Matt paced to a wall of bookshelves loaded with books, most of which he knew the pack master had read. After a cursory glance at the titles, he strode back across the room, eating up the short distance with his long, powerful legs, until he stood at a window, looking out over the lush green lawn, the lake beyond it, and the background of colorful trees beyond that. It was October, and the kids were all in school, the lake abandoned as the temperature dipped into freezing numbers. A fish broke the surface, leaped into the air and splashed back into the water, sending ripples of waves toward the shore.
He wanted to walk away from this conv
ersation. He wanted to leave the house, to shift into animal form and bound across that expanse of lawn, skirt the lake, and rush headlong into the trees. A tiger would be his first choice, in honor of the surname he and Josh shared. But a panther, a lion, a wolf, even a common housecat would be perfectly fine with him at the moment. Just so long as he could run free and leave all this human-shifter relations bullshit behind.
“I have almost no experience with humans,” he finally commented without turning around. It was a lie, of course. He had plenty of experience. Their pack was located in the middle of a suburb just north of Detroit, Michigan. They were surrounded by humans. Matt had gone to school with them, had played soccer with them, had even slept with a few human females. Unlike many in his pack, he had no strong preference for species when it came to choosing a bedmate. So long as there was an attraction and she had no expectations for the long term, he was game.
Despite his open mind, he did not believe himself to be qualified as the pack spokesperson for positive human/shifter relations. He wasn’t any sort of spokesperson. He preferred to help out from behind the scenes.
“I’m pretty sure most in this pack have the same level of experience with humans—yourself included,” Josh said. “Just convince them that humans aren’t something to fear. They love you. They’ll listen to you.”
Matt made a face. “We don’t fear humans,” he said, a sneer in his voice.
“That isn’t what I meant and you damn well know it.” He could hear Josh’s annoyance. “Our kind fears discovery by the humans. We fear the idea of something different, something that doesn’t quite fit into the very exclusive pack we’ve been for our entire existence.” Josh waved his hand impatiently. “Obviously, that fear is completely unfounded.”
“Are you suggesting all humans are like Rachel?” If that were the case, he would be more open to this new role. But he knew better. And so did the rest of the pack.
“I’m suggesting they aren’t much different from us. Some good, some bad. Some strong, some weak. Some who need our help to be successful in life. Just like us,” he repeated. “I want my mate to be able to walk amongst the pack and feel comfortable. And I want to be able to openly support a few human charitable causes, as well as shifter-based ones.”