by Schulte, Liz
“What’s back there?” I asked.
The bouncer folded his arms in front of him and leaned against the wall. “Nothing to concern a nice girl like you.”
The door opened again, but this time it was Phoenix. “I told you I’d be upstairs.” He brushed his lips against my cheek, making my heart speed up just a little.
“I couldn’t find the stairs. What’s back here?”
“Let’s find out,” he said with a wink.
Didn’t have to ask me twice. I started down the hallway. His hand rested on my lower back as we went. “You know your people make a lot of assumptions based on the way someone looks.”
“Oh?” he said blandly.
“Yes. So far tonight I’ve been told I look like a cute baker and that I was a nice girl.”
Phoenix shook his head. “I can’t imagine. How insulting. How dare they speak the truth? I’ll fire them at once.”
I laughed. “Whether it’s the truth or not is beside the point. I could be just as devious as that demon in the red dress. For all they know, I’m here to kill you. We both know I could.”
We stepped into a much quieter room. The music was lower and I couldn’t even hear the deafening roar from the other room.
“I have no doubt,” he said, leading toward a table with a reserved sign.
I slid into the booth, trying not to gawk at the other patrons filling the surrounding tables. “They’re all paranormals.”
He leaned forward. “I know,” he said in a mock whisper. “The demons actually gave me the idea. It was a market we hadn’t tried to capitalize on. So I did a little remodeling and built this.”
I nodded. It was nice. Not overwhelming and appeared to be popular, if quiet. Every other table or so was taken. “You have a good crowd.”
Phoenix frowned. “Not at the moment, which brings me to why you’re here.”
I crossed my legs. “I can hardly wait.”
“You see the man sitting behind me, second seat from the end of the bar?”
I tilted my head to the right to see better. The man in question had small white and gold wings sticking out of his back. That was new to me. His auburn locks fell in soft curls all the way to his wide muscular shoulders. His gaze was fixed on the counter. “What is he?”
“Cupid,” Phoenix said without a hint of irony. “He’s been in here drinking every day for the past three weeks. I can’t get rid of him and he’s driving away all of my customers. He’s also averaging about fifteen breakups a night. Xavier’s is becoming known as the place to head to dump someone. He’s gotta go.”
“Have you told him that?”
“Do you think I would have recruited you to help if all it took was me to say, ‘Hey guy, get outta here.’ He’s a god. We have to tread lightly or he’ll bring my whole establishment down on top of us.”
I nodded. “So you want me to talk to him?”
Phoenix’s eyes smiled even if his face didn’t. “Sure, let’s start with that.”
I could do this. I was good at talking to people. So what if he was a god? Talking was talking and most people loved to tell you about themselves. “As soon as a seat opens up, I’ll talk to him.”
Phoenix looked over his shoulder, caught the bartender’s attention, then nodded toward Cupid. Within minutes, both people on either side of him were gone, leaving two chairs open. “I’ll wait here,” he said.
“Gotcha.” I scooted out of the booth and headed to the seat on Cupid’s right.
“What can I get you?” the bartender asked as I sat down.
Since Phoenix was buying, I was tempted to order the most expensive drink in the house, but it was a waste with my ruined taste buds. “Just a water.”
He nodded and went away.
“Hi, I’m Maggie,” I said.
Cupid looked much younger than I anticipated. Maybe eighteen or nineteen, but extremely handsome. His eyes were sky blue and endless. He shot back the rest of his drink. “Hello, Maggie. What brings you here tonight?”
A man brushed against me from behind as he passed, reigniting my hunger. I squeezed my hand into a fist. I had to focus. “You, actually.”
He motioned to the bartender for another drink. “Then aren’t you the lucky one?” His eyes filled with tears and his nostrils flared. “So lucky,” he choked out.
I glanced back at Phoenix and he nodded encouragingly. Obviously he couldn’t see what was happening. “You seem a little upset. Do you want to talk about it?”
The bartender slid a drink in front of Cupid, then got out while he could.
“No,” he said. “She’s gone. My beautiful, darling Psyche. Gone.” He collapsed against me, burying his head in my shoulder. Full blown sobs bobbed his body up and down.
I patted his back gently. “I’m sure it isn’t as bad as it seems.”
Across the bar two people started shouting at each other. Phoenix threw his hands up in the air.
Damn it. It wasn’t like I had any control over the weepy god. “It will be okay.” I was distracted, but I couldn’t help it. The room was filled with plenty of dinner options.
“No, it won’t.”
“If you just calm down a little. I can help you.”
Nope, that made his pity party worse. The bar suddenly went dead silent. The sound of a glass breaking grabbed my attention. I looked up just in time to see the redheaded demon slap the bulldog man. Phoenix was headed toward us. I was about to be fired and I needed that license.
Gentle obviously wasn’t working. “Stop crying,” I snapped at Cupid. “How is anyone supposed to help you if you keep blubbering?”
He pulled back from me, eyes wide. He ran his hand underneath his nose. “What did you say to me?”
“I said, stop crying. You’re annoying everyone. We all have problems. Either man up and talk to me or leave. Don’t you have a mountain you can sit on or something?” Phoenix came to a stop next to me. If looks could kill, I’d be a goner. “He’s unreasonable.”
Cupid looked at Phoenix, then back at me. “Unreasonable,” he said slowly.
“That’s not what she meant,” Phoenix said.
I started to agree with Phoenix, perfectly ready to backpedal when Cupid snapped his fingers. Next thing I knew I was nodding and everything I felt came spilling out. “Yes, I meant it. He is completely unreasonable. We all get tough breaks. People we think we love leave or die or cheat. That doesn’t mean you get to make everyone else’s life miserable. You just have to deal with it. Maybe Psyche got tired of your clingy bullshit. Did you ever think about that? Maybe—” Phoenix’s hand clamped down over my mouth and he dragged me from my stool.
“Ignore her. She’s drunk. I don’t even know how a human made it back here.”
My first instinct was to bite him, but I didn’t because I was afraid of what else I would say if he released me.
“Let her go,” Cupid said. Hey, at least he had stopped crying.
Phoenix slowly removed his hand from my mouth, but kept his arm banded around my waist.
“How do you propose to help me?” Cupid asked.
Both men stared at me, and I flinched. “You haven’t even told me what happened.”
“Psyche left. I want her back. That’s all you need to know. I don’t care what it takes. You find her for me and talk her into returning to me, or I will break every heart in this world and create chaos like you have never known. Oh—and I’ll destroy this club first.” His eyes narrowed, but he flashed a megawatt smile. “And just to show how reasonable I am, you have until the fourteenth.”
Before I could say anything, Phoenix answered for me.
“She’ll do it.”
“Good. I’ll send you the address where she can be found.” Cupid stood and left the room with as much dignity as a man with feathery white and gold wings who had just been crying his eyes out could muster.
“Have you lost your mind?” Phoenix snapped, the second he was gone. “You were supposed to get him out of here, not get involved.
You were the light touch. If I wanted to yell at him, I would have done it myself.”
Chapter 3
“Hangry?” Phoenix asked slowly. He was sitting on the couch in his office, his fingertips pressed together in front of him.
“Hanger—anger caused by low sugar is a real thing, so yes, I was hangry.” I paced the room, unable to sit still and Phoenix wouldn’t let me leave. “It’s not an excuse—I know this is all my fault. But it was like a walking buffet in there and he just kept crying. So what if his girlfriend left him? I haven’t eaten in weeks.” My appetite honestly hadn’t been that bad before I saw Phoenix and he reminded me how good it felt to indulge. The last demon had really stuck with me—or had until I walked through Xavier’s doors tonight and the hunger sprang to life, gnawing at me. Maybe it was the concentration of darkness within these walls.
Phoenix pulled out his phone and typed with his thumbs, not looking at me. “Now we have a much larger problem. Do you have a plan for Psyche?”
I grimaced. “What do we know about her? She was pretty. Venus hated her. Cupid married her, but Psyche didn’t know it was him. They were in love because they both stabbed themselves accidentally with Cupid’s arrows…what else?”
Phoenix shook his head. “Venus put her through some trials. She was whipped by worry and sadness. She had to sort a pile of grains and a bunch of bugs helped her. She had to get wool and something else—I can’t remember who told her to collect it from the briers. And her last challenge was to get water from the River Styx. Eagles fetched it for her.”
I snorted. “So she didn’t actually complete any of the tasks. Someone else did them all for her. Maybe it won’t be that hard to convince her to come back.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Psyche managed to not only finish her tasks, but to also get everything she wanted. As a human, she bested Venus. Her last task was to go into the Underworld and get some of Proserpina’s beauty for Venus. She managed to make it through and get it, but then opened the box and fell into a coma. Cupid found her and saved her, stabbing her with an arrow again. He gave his mother the box and made a deal with some of the gods in return for them supporting him and Psyche, basically making Venus back off. Psyche was made immortal and they were supposed to live happily ever after.”
I sighed. “Knowing what split them up would help—but I’m not the girl for this job. I don’t want to talk her into going back if she doesn’t want to go back.”
He nodded. “That’s really bad news for us—and worse news for the world. Luckily, you don’t have a choice. You started this and you’re going to finish it.”
I stalked toward Phoenix’s massive desk and back again. Why would someone break up with the god of love, other than the fact he was a whiny, crier? He was handsome and probably romantic—but maybe too romantic. Was that a thing? “Maybe Cupid’s arrow wore off. I mean she scratched herself the first time, then he did it again. If she already loved him, why did he have to pierce her again? And those are just the two times we know about. He could have been doing it again and again over the years, right? What if the arrows only work for so long?”
“Okay. We just need to snag one of his arrows, get her around him, and stab her.”
I shook my head, my hands already gesturing as the thought began to take hold. “If that was all it took, he would have done it himself. Cupid knows why she left. That’s why he’s upset. What if, after thousands and thousands of years he stopped using the arrows because she should’ve been in love with him, but she isn’t? Do you know what that means?”
“I imagine you are going to tell me.”
Damn right I was going to tell him. “He’s been keeping her prisoner for pretty much ever. If we bring her back, we’re helping him.”
“And here I thought helping him was the point.”
“Not at her expense. I won’t do it.” Part of me acknowledged that I had no proof to back up my suspicions, but as I spoke the words they made sense to me.
There was a knock on the door. “Come in,” Phoenix said.
A woman about my height with perfectly tussled bedhead and bee-stung lips entered. “You summoned me. I wasn’t sure I’d see you again.”
Ugh. It took everything I had to stop pacing. I sized her up. She wore an aquamarine dress with a deeply scooped neckline and an antique lace overlay. It was beautiful. She was beautiful and sultry and oh…so evil. Energy buzzed beneath my skin. I no longer cared about pacing; the hunger was struggling for control again.
“I saw you downstairs,” he said. “Proximity and all that. I’ll only take a moment of your time.”
She walked right past me and stuck her tongue down Phoenix’s throat. Obviously she knew him well. “I think we could do better than a moment.” Her hands were already heading toward his waist.
I had to get out of this room before I drained her energy and created another enemy tonight. “I’ll just go work on this problem by myself,” I said.
Phoenix pulled back slightly, moving the woman away from him. “Maggie, this is Harmony. Harmony, Maggie.”
“Nice to meet you,” I said, flipping on my customer service switch because it was the only defense I had left. “Have a good day.” I darted for the door, just wanting to leave. I had to figure out what to do about Psyche, dream up a signature dessert soufflé, and I really needed to eat. I didn’t need whatever this was.
“Don’t you want to shake her hand?” Phoenix asked.
I let my head fall back. Hadn’t he tortured me enough for one night? I turned back and took a couple steps into the room, holding out my trembling hand to the woman. She gave an indifferent shrug and took it. I couldn’t stop it. The moment her skin touched mine, the floodgates opened. She staggered and I ripped my hand away, feeling much better and in control. I opened my mouth to apologize, but Phoenix shook his head, catching her arm.
“I’m not feeling well,” she said. “I’m really dizzy.”
He walked her toward the door. “Anderson will take you home.” He handed her to Anderson—I presumed. The door closed softly behind him. “Feel better?”
My mouth fell open. “You set up all of this? I could have…”
“I need your whole mind in this, Maggie. Harmony will be fine and none the wiser. If you’d left like you were, there’s no telling who you would’ve targeted or if you could have stopped.” His direct, unwavering gaze forced me to see the truth in his words. It also said “See, I can help you more than you know,” but I ignored that part of the silent conversation.
“Back to Psyche. Let’s say your arrow theory is right. What do we do? How can we make her fall in love with Cupid, sans supernatural intervention?”
“I have no idea.” I sat on the edge of his desk. I couldn’t manage my own love life, let alone someone else’s. “It’s not like I’m an expert on love. Do you see people lined up at my door for dates?”
He gave me an impatient look. “I think you do okay. How’s the carpenter?”
Boone. He’d be the much better person to ask about something like this, but we only had until Valentine’s Day. I didn’t think Boone—or, more accurately, his girlfriend—would appreciate me contacting him so close to the most romantic day of the year.
Phoenix approached with long graceful strides, seeming to read my mind. “Never mind … I don’t really care how he is. we’re on a tight deadline. If you were going to plan the perfect seduction, what would happen?”
Phoenix was worse than I was. “Seducing someone isn’t the same as love. He’s been doing that for centuries and she still doesn’t love him. He needs to win her heart. There’s a difference.”
He shrugged. “Agree to disagree. How does he win her? How would I win you?”
My eyebrows shot up. “Those are two different questions.”
“I don’t think they are.”
“Well, you winning my heart would be damn near impossible,” I lied between my teeth. Phoenix was so dangerous and frightening to me for the exact opposite reason. I could
too easily fall for him, and he would destroy my heart because he wasn’t the type to ever allow himself to feel the same way.
“Exactly,” Phoenix said. “We need to operate on the assumption that Psyche feels the same way about Cupid. How do we get around that?”
I chewed on my thumbnail. Phoenix stood in front of me in boots, black leather pants that looked soft and supple, and a black sweater. Did he have any non-leather pants? I had doubts. It wasn’t as hard as it should have been to imagine us together. “Do you always wear leather?” I asked, avoiding the question.
“Pretty much. Does it bother you?”
I shook my head. It looked good on him. “I guess the first step would be getting me to trust you.”
His dark eyes searched mine. “It’s that easy?”
“Says the compulsive liar and manipulator. Building trust, especially once it has been broken time and time again, is possibly the hardest thing to do.” I glanced at my watch. Holy crap. Time had really gotten away from me. I shot to my feet. “I have to go. We’ll talk later.”
“You’re abandoning me? You piss off a god and leave. Really?”
I waved over my shoulder. “I’ll call you if I think of anything.”
The apartment above the bakery was dark, which meant Izzy was asleep. Not that baking was an illicit activity, but explaining why I never needed to rest was hard. I unlocked the alley door and slipped inside, breathing a sigh of relief. Being here was like coming home. Actually the bakery often felt more like my home than my house did, but I pent more time here, so I guessed it made sense. I replaced the apron on the hook by the door with my coat, then switched on the light.
Phoenix sat on a stool, waiting for me. “So predictable.”
I tied the apron around my waist. “Why are you harassing me again, already? Do you have Psyche’s address?”
“Not yet.”
“Great, then I have time to do what I need to do.” Phoenix mentally exhausted me. “I promise I’ll think about ways to get her to fall in love with him, but I can’t think about anything if you are here.”