Joy In Love (Daughters of Cupid Book 1) Page 4

  “No.” Inside the large room, heat radiated from all the bodies. Damen removed the cloak from me, handing it to Jace. Soon the healer disappeared in the crowd.

  Floors made of marble graced our feet, and large tapestries and gold-framed paintings covered the walls to distract the eyes. This was why I’d come to Venice. For several days, I could put on my mask, blend in, and just be Joy.

  A man hung from between two pillars in a metal ring like a bird. His white leotards adorned with feathers around his ankles and wrists. His face painted white, more like a tiger, with the gold underbrush at his cheeks. His hat a crown of gold like a Roman gladiator and a mane of white feathers. I wanted to meet him, my heart soaring with elated happiness, when Damen stepped in front of me. “He’s not for you.”

  And I looked at him, waiting for more of an explanation, which he never gave. He led me past the group of women in the tapestry gowns with white wigs and long lace hanging at their elbows.

  A man with a sailor’s hat and checkered black-and-white mask brushed past me. A second more and I would have detected what he searched for. My senses had never been this prominent and with so many people.

  Cherish warned that, as I got closer to age, my ability to sense a person’s heart’s desire would become stronger.

  Damen took my hand, entwining our fingers. Heat seeped from his palm into mine as he pulled me in the direction of the far corner. Several bars with wine and other drinks awaited, but in the crowd's midst, Damen pulled me close. “Look at me.”

  My eyes locked with his.

  “Smile and pretend you love me.” Butterflies fluttered around inside me. I stared at him, bringing our entwined fingers between us. I placed my other hand over his and smiled. It wasn’t hard, and I poured all my desire into the look.

  His lips twitched. His free hand brushed back one of the curls against my cheek. “Ahead. The woman with blonde hair in the red cape.”

  “Marisol.” I told him I would make her jealous, to test the potency of my father’s arrow, but as I gazed at the woman in her lovely white and gold gown, holding the stick to keep her mask close to her face, a stab of resentment made me quake.

  “She’s beautiful, isn’t she?” Damen lifted my hands closer to his lips. Turning sideways, he waited until she glanced our way before brushing his lips across my knuckles. I sucked in my breath. Another hairline cracked, bruising my heart.

  She wasn’t at all how I pictured her. She appeared older than Damen, not a day over forty, and the man beside her—his eyes said more than any words could express from the greatest love poets of all time. He loved her. Truly loved her. With. All. His. Heart.

  Whatever pang of judgment I may have held against this woman evaporated in the crowd. They made their way toward us. Marisol let down her mask. Her face mixed with pleasure and sorrow at the sight of Damen. His fingers squeezed mine, and I bit my lip from making a sound at the discomfort.

  “Damen. What are you doing here?” she said, her voice shrill over the buzzing of the crowd. She seemed totally surprised.

  “Was your invitation not sincere?” Damen’s voice grew rough. I leaned into him, placing my hand against his heart.

  “Of course,” she stammered, the man behind her oblivious to the tension seeping into the ballroom. Couples dancing close to us migrated away.

  “I didn’t think you’d come.” She waved her mask, and a man dressed in royal attire sidestepped to avoid getting hit.

  The man placed his arm around Marisol. “Have we made an acquaintance?”

  I laid my head against Damen’s shoulder, turning my face to press a kiss against his skin. The cords of his neck tightened as I willed my love into his heart through the dark barriers he kept around it. In return, I throbbed with the ache of his sorrow.

  Damen pulled his shoulder out of contact. I turned my face away to peer back at the couple. By the glow of her face and the gleam in the man’s eyes, my father’s arrow had found the right mark.

  I should have been happy for this couple; finding true love was one of life’s greatest joys. If only this one didn’t come with the steep price of eternal darkness.

  Inside me, the thin thread of my fate expanded.

  “Arthur Beaumont, this is…” Marisol blinked, and her lips twisted as she took a moment to pull in the swirl of emotions dancing inside her. They were beautiful and sad. I never saw such an aura of one's emotions as I saw in her.

  At that very moment, I didn’t like who I was. Part of identifying one’s heart’s desire also opened me to receiving their heart’s greatest pain.

  I so badly wanted to reach out to her, give her a spark of happiness to chase away the guilt and sorrow dimming her light. To do so would mean pulling away from Damen, and I couldn’t do that.

  “Count Damen De Santis.”

  “Count.” Arthur offered his hand. “I’ve heard much about you.”

  I managed to lean my cheek on him again, and once more, Damen rolled his shoulder to push me off, taking Arthur’s hand. I felt the cold sweep of something exchange in the shake. Damen’s eyes, onyx pits of black, threatened to swallow Marisol whole. “I’ve missed you.”

  Marisol’s face paled, almost white, to match her mask.

  Slowly, Arthur pulled his hand away, a deep frown marring his face below the reach of his mask.

  “We had many good years together, but Arthur makes me happy. I want you to be happy.” Then she glanced at me. “Make him happy, please.”

  Her eyes, more than her voice, pleaded with me. No amount of flirting or being seen on Damen’s arm would inflict second thoughts in a heart filled with true love.

  Why hadn’t I thought of a backup plan? Something? Damen still believed my father could reverse this. I had that to hold on to, even for one night.

  The last thing I would ever admit to the man who held my life by a thread was that this wouldn’t end the way he wanted, that not even my sister Hope had the ability to change the fate of what was coming.

  8

  Arthur and Marisol migrated through the ballroom. My gaze roamed around to the gaudy costumes and the couples. Twice, I spotted Marisol, her gaze coming back to seek Damen’s. Not in the longing of missing one’s other half, but in genuine regret.

  I couldn’t help the tears while standing in this room, around these people; their emotions became too intense. Whatever Jace drugged me with might have kept my wings cloaked, but it stripped my shield from others’ emotions. It made me vulnerable.

  Damen grabbed my arm. “Stop it. Why are you crying?”

  “I can’t.” I sobbed. “Too much. Too many.” I gulped, but the emotions gripped me. I had to let them out.

  Swearing under his breath, he yanked me toward him. My head on his shoulder, Damen wrapped his arms around me. I clung to him, squeezing my eyes shut, trying to block it all out. The wants. The yearnings. The deceptions. Maybe spending eternity in Tartarus’s abyss would be a blessing. In the darkness, there would be no broken hearts, no grieving, or lonely searching people.

  I didn’t have enough control over the tide of demands on my senses to push out enough happiness or harmony to make these emotions go away. Damen’s lips moved near my ear, and he whispered, “Don’t cry for me, baby Cherub.”

  “I’m not.”

  And he tensed. I turned my face into his neck. “I need…” I didn’t know what I needed. I pressed my hands against my heart. “Hurts.”

  Damen’s hand came over my head. He spoke, not to me, but there were others showing concern as they walked past me. They murmured, and their empathy reached me.

  He rocked me, drawing me away to a corner. His arms gave me strength, and his words directed me away from drowning in the pool of human emotions.

  “How are we to make Marisol jealous if you’re crying over someone else?”

  I laughed. It was stupid, which was what Damen intended to happen. He chuckled along with me, his thumb pressing into the small of my back. His fingers massaged into my hair.

&n
bsp; “Listen to me, Cherub. Focus. Block everything out but me. Listen to my voice. Listen to the beat of my heart. What is it telling you?”

  I moved my head closer to his heart. His chin lifted, and his fingers rubbed tiny circles in my back. Slowly, I listened. I concentrated on him. His dark and mysterious scent and the electricity building in my veins, along with the motion of his fingers, erected a barrier to my senses. I could hear the beat of his heart, felt it against the tempo of my own, slowing, skipping, beating in perfect rhythm with his. I could only think of the man this very near to me. Soon, all the desires, the yearnings, the disappointments reduced to one single heartbeat pumping in unison with mine.

  “Better?”

  How could I tell him that what happened—his heartbeat matching mine—made it worse? My heart would never beat out of time from his again. Could he feel it?

  Taking me by the upper arms, he pulled me back. “My poor baby.” He smoothed back the hair sticking to my soaked cheeks. “How precious you are. I’m almost tempted to keep you for myself than send you to Tartarus.”

  “You are?” I wiped my face, a smudge of black on my hand. I must have appeared a mess.

  “If I were a patient man”—Damen brushed his thumb over my lips—“I’d enjoy watching you blossom, but patience isn’t a virtue of Chaos. Go clean up. Jace will escort you to the ladies' room.”

  Drawing back my shoulders, I stepped away from him. “You didn’t deserve her when you had her. You don’t deserve her now.” A surge of negativity swelled and released in a tide of words that I couldn’t take back. There was power in words, and I’d hit a sensitive area. Damen’s expression closed, and his eyes turn blacker.

  Shocked, I marched past him, working my way through the bog of bodies in the ballroom before another swell of something bitter escaped my tongue. A blur of a man's chest and golden locks of hair caught the corner of my vision. Pausing to glance around, Jace’s hand pushed against my back. “Water closet is this way.”

  Back when they built palaces, bathrooms weren’t high on the priority list. With modernization over the centuries, it came as no surprise to find a line for the ladies’ room. Many of the women with their ballooned skirts had to turn sideways and smash in the hoop to get through the doorway. Jace leaned against the opposite wall. His hands in his black trousers and his black-and-white striped shirt, he looked like a gondolier, not at all original for winning awards for best costume.

  “Pardon?” A woman with a black and gold scrolled mask tapped me on the shoulder. I was third in line away from entering the water closet. When I turned, she held out the golden feather to me. “You dropped this.”

  Instinctively, my hand went up to my face. Of course, the feather. I smiled, taking it back and murmuring my thanks. I couldn’t see the woman’s face behind the mask, but the woman’s heart’s desire sang to me strong and true.

  Clutching the feather, I glanced at Jace. He watched me, his face blank, and his heart closed off. But I knew. And I waited. I fidgeted to the point where the woman ahead of me offered for me to skip the line. Bless her, but I insisted she still go ahead. I ran my fingers up and down the golden feather until my time came. Glancing between the women behind Jace lounging against the wall and me, I paused.

  And I blew him a kiss.

  Taken aback, Jace scowled, but I had less than a second. I blew a kiss at the woman. “Grazie. Grazie.” I clutched the feather. Jace shoved away from the wall, and I hurried into the empty stall. I waited a moment to see if he’d followed me, relieved as the feather shimmered in my hand. I brought it to my lips and whispered. “I love you.”

  The feather floated from my hands and disappeared. Taking another few minutes to calm my nerves, I stepped out. I could have scared the stripes off a zebra with all the black running down my cheeks. My mask sat on top of my head like a lace tiara.

  I washed my face, sad I didn’t have anything with me to repair Sierra’s hard work.

  “I love your shoes. Did you get them at one of the shops here?” I glanced down at my shoes. Yeah, they were pretty sweet. Then I glanced at my admirer. She had one of those big dresses with the puffy sleeves and rib-neck collars. Her mask was black, with silver and gold on the lips and around the eyes. Deep crimson feathers and a fake ruby adorned her headpiece.

  “Thank you. Grazie, but no. They came with the costume.”

  From behind the mask, the woman sighed. “You’re the smart one. These heels are a killer. I couldn’t fit another pair in my suitcase. I’ve been wearing this same costume all week. Let me tell you”—she wagged her finger—“if I get to come back next year, I’m bringing at least two costumes and suitcase just for shoes.”

  I ran my hand down over the front of my dress. It was hard to tell the woman’s true size with the inflated skirt, but with Jace waiting for me outside, I offered, “Do you want to trade?”

  “Trade?”

  I untangled my mask from my hair. “I’ve been wearing this same costume, too. We could switch. I’ll give you the shoes.”

  The woman tipped up her mask, her eyes on my feet. Sometimes reading someone’s heart’s desire can be an advantage. I wiggled my foot, dangling the sandal in front of her.

  “Yes!” I deduced a British accent. Her enthusiasm became mine. The shoes turned out to be a close fit. She wasn’t at all shy about stripping down in the far corner of the three-stall water closet. I shimmied into the dress, a little big in the bust, but I fixed it with some paper towels. With a new mask in place, I squished my way out of the door while the other woman admired her new goddess-of-love look in the mirror.

  I walked right back toward the ballroom, not giving Jace a second look. He appeared busy, making cow eyes at the woman who gave back my feather. It wasn’t a match that would last very long, as the woman yearned for companionship, and Jace had a weakness for women, especially ones that fawned over him. Most satyrs did.

  Which led me back into the ballroom. I scanned the bodies searching for Damen. I spotted Marisol and Arthur first. No surprise Damen lurked in the crowd close to the happy couple. I tried to stay in a group of ladies dressed in similar gowns to blend in.

  I had almost made it out of the ballroom when I noticed a bare-chested man with horns curling out of his golden hair and a leather pauldron covering his left shoulder. A half dozen females flocked him. With no other choice, I joined the flock. They headed close to the white-feathered man dangling on the swing like a bird.

  I hadn’t realized I paused until something cold slithered against my ribs. Glancing across the ballroom, I spied Damen, and his gaze swept over me. I moved, willing my feet to keep my gait reasonable. Twice, my ankle twisted in those dreadful heeled boots as I tried to catch up with the cluster of women again. They stopped in the hall. Golden Boy stood poised, his arm up and his chin tilted, posing as a statue of the gods.

  I shoved through the women. They could drool over him later. I needed to get out of here. Any minute Damen would find Jace, and they’d know I’d escaped them.

  Several of the women squeezed his muscles, and when he offered his bulging biceps toward me, it took all my power not to roll my eyes. I flipped up my mask and stared at him.

  “Joy!” Giles dropped the pose. “Where have you been? I’ve been looking for you.”

  “I can see that.” I flipped my mask back in place.

  My half-brother grinned and winked at one of the ladies reaching for him. I grabbed his arm. “There will be plenty of time for your admirers later, Giles. You have to get me out of here. NOW.”

  His brown eyes widened. Quick to recover, he flipped back his long golden hair and said, “Sorry, ladies, I must go, but I will find you all at the next ball.”

  I grabbed him and tugged. Giles took the lead, my hand clasped in his. “What are we running from?”

  “Damen De Santis and his lackey, Jace. They kidnapped me the other night. He thinks he can use me as leverage with Eros to turn an arrow the other way.”

  “What?” Giles s
hook his big beautiful horns. “Hold on. It’s too loud in here.”

  Giles yanked me into an alcove, and from the stench I had a good idea what had been taking place in this neck of the palace. “You have to help me get out of here. We don’t have much time. They’re probably searching for me right now.”

  “I’ve got a mer-friend, she can get you in a taxi out of the city tonight and to the airport in Milan in the morning. You have a ticket back to your sister's, right? Man, Cherish will be livid I lost you.”

  “Lost me?” The mask blocked my vision from either side of me.

  “Ah, no. I mean…” He scratched alongside one of his horns.

  “Giles,” I hissed, unsure if I could make it out in this disguise alone.

  “Eros sent me. Sort of.”

  “Eros? Is he here?” I leaned against the wall, slipping off the shoes, relieved from having them pinching my toes.

  “Rome. He’s paying tribute to the twins before heading here to meet you on the big day.”

  “Eros is coming here?” And he was coming to see me? I never met my father. I had no memories of his appearance. I knew things because my sisters shared them with me. Eros, my big day. Damen knew. He chose me because he knew Eros would come on the day of my twenty-first birthday.

  I grabbed Giles. “I have to get out of here. You have to warn Eros. You have to tell him.”

  “Tell him what, Cherub?”

  That voice, silky smooth, and confident, made my heart warm and blood chill at the same time.

  9

  Giles’s eyes narrowed, and he tilted his head, aiming his curled ram horns in Damen’s direction. With my back toward him, I waited, my breath panting under the mask.

  “I see you found a friend. Care to introduce us?”

  Giles’s nostrils flared. I blinked, annoyed with the full coverage of the mask. More annoyed Damen found me. How did he know it was me?

  “The lady here and I were having a private moment, if you don’t mind,” Giles said.

  “I do. This one is mine. You should have no trouble replacing her with the ones you left behind down the hall, Satyr.”