Page 5 of Captured By the Cupid

ARADIA

If I am dead, I sure got heaven wrong.

Unless…

“Oh, come on!” I throw my hands up with a high-pitched shriek of frustration. “I cannotbe in the bad place!”

Okay, I’m not a saint by any means, but seriously? I rescue spiders and foster stray cats, and I talk to all the houseplants I’ve adopted. I crochet scarves for my badass biker friends so their necks don’t get cold in winter. I go to nursing homes and decorate all the wheelchairs with twinkle lights and garland. I’ve saved earthworms from the rain because they’re an underappreciated species. And I started a cupcake bakery for bees because, lord knows, they need all the help they can get.

And the ghost thing, for all spirit’s sake! I have tea parties with ghosts and listen to their stories. I even managed a daycare for little child ghosts once.

There is no way in he—just no way I am in the bad place.

More trees may hem me in on all sides, but the route to my left clears to a field about a hundred yards away. Countless silhouettes drift along those trees, but I just need to make it to that opening.

Pursing my lips, I suck in a deep breath, prepared for anything. When another bone-cold hand reaches for the back of my neck, I lurch, tearing into a run, cursing my boots. They’re strong, sturdy ankle boots—meant for exploring, not for running.

Branches claw into my coat, ripping it off my body, along with my infinity scarf. My pulse spikes as I get closer, my heartbeat thundering blood into my ears.

I’m still in those woods when a great dark shadow descends, and the ground thunders beneath me. The wind lashes my face as I rush for that field.

“Pretty little flower…” a dark voice, deep and silky as a velvet sea, echoes from that fog.

I freeze in my tracks. Terror grips me. I search the gray fog, shouting at an unseen foe. “Oh, you think I’m a flower? You should see my Venus fly trap.” My frenzied words are desperate, and dark humor is my coping mechanism. “It’s in my cunt, and it likes to eat cock for breakfast.”

A dark laugh echoes from the fog. I let out a string of curses under my breath.

When I turn to that opening and come face to face with the figure looming over me, doom paralyzes every nerve ending in my body. Violent shivers rush through my body. The air thins, and I struggle for breath in the wake of the figure whose wings cast a shadow everywhere.

Black and nightmarish but elegant and majestic, those wings are a wonder of dark stone, bone, and sinew, resonating with ancient power.

His body is twice the size of mine, if not more. Ancient power defines him—muscles that would shame the fiercest warrior, real or fantastical. His skin is not simply dark, it’s the black and lustrous hue of polished obsidian, real obsidian. Every inch of his form, from those muscles to his skin, has been chiseled with godly precision.

Words like predator or monster seem tame. Though he evokes the familiarity of gargoyles on Gothic castles, he’s unlike anything I’ve ever witnessed, read about, or imagined. Well…except for the fact that he’s draining any sense of confidence or rationality right out of me.

Supernatural grace and raw power don’t just embody him. He embodies them. Every infinitesimal part of him testifies to the primal, divine…and mythical.

Like some ancient beast’s, sharp horns cast deeper shadows over his face, but they can’t possibly draw attention from his face. It’s the epitome of grotesque beauty with blade-sharp cheekbones. If exquisiteness and horror can exist in the same place, it would be his face.

He tilts his head, black pools of radiant darkness studying me. I tremble, knowing I’m gazing at the Abyss in those eyes for far too long. Everything blurs at the edges as if he’s absorbing the world around us—spinning my vision until I swear he must be sucking my very soul into those eyes.

How is this possible? He has no aura. Not one flicker of light, not one shimmering strip of color, not one glowing hint. He justis. He transcends auras, perhaps all auras.

Despite my heart ricocheting in my chest, and by what reason I can’t imagine, heat smolders through every cell, blood molecule, nerve, bone, muscle, organ, and piece of flesh inside me until it feels like a phoenix itself is waking up inside me.

And something…molten drips from my center.

His nostrils flare, those black eyes descend to my lower regions, and a dark growl rumbles from his chest. Oh, no…

I unearth one ounce of common sense from the inferno burning inside me.

I run.

4

This little Butterfly wishes to play with the God of Love?

EROS

Source: www.allfreenovel.com