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22
How far am I willing to go? How far is she?
EROS
Shaking with violent anger, I wrestle with my wife, my mindless, soulless, undead wife.
Her teeth catch my skin. They break, blood spilling from her mouth because her heart somehow beats despite her having no soul. This is the first time in a century that she has done more than an eyelash flutter.
What the ever fucking bloody valentines?!
My chest throbs from her attack—the supernatural strength of a deity. My pulse thrashes in my veins as all my muscles bulge and work overtime to secure her.
Her golden hair thwacks me like a whip. Her strident screams plague me, deafening and shrill and filled with grief and suffering. Torture.
She is no better than a zombified vessel.
Pain racks my throat, but I finally get her back in the casket and close the lid, locking it. She doesn’t stop crashing againstthe crystal, jerking and howling. I study her for a moment before returning to the bedroom suite.
Where the fuck is she?
I search everywhere.
I still smell my Butterfly. Her scent leads to the open door of the bedroom suite, and I follow it through the passages, through the gallery, and to the main castle doors. Crescendo stands there like a forlorn statue, playing a woeful tune.
“The fuck, Cres?” My voice borders on a growl.
He sniffs and wipes his face. “She’s gone.” He deadpans with me. I barely get a chance to blink before the jester launches for me, swinging his fists. “What the hell did you do?” he shouts as I dodge his blows. Not that they do much. Oh, wonderful, he’s playing his angry song, Skillet’sMonster.
Seconds later, I’ve got him pinned against the wall. “Where the fuck is she?”
“I told you, you good-for-nothing cunt of a Cupid! She’s gone. She left. I tried to stop her, but she shook her head and flew out the door. You know I can’t fly, Eros,” he snarls, struggling against me.
“Fucking flutes, I told her to get out, not get out of the damned castle!” My horns harden, and I shove him before scrubbing a hand down my stony face.
“You’re a fucking fiasco of a fumbling fool with a romantic wrecking ball.” He spits at me, but I flex my wings with a catastrophe of rage, possession, and need tearing through me, crumbling everything but the urge to get her back.
“Not arguing with you, Cres. Which way did she go?” I open the door, nearly ripping its hinges off.
“Across the courtyard, beyond the gates, to the east.”
I bolster my chest. She won’t make it far. Not with the tent cities.
“Please hurry, Eros. You know what they’ll do.” He narrows his eyes in a plea and a warning. “Please bring her back.”
A low growl rumbles from my chest. My veins throb. And my rock-hard body tenses. “Oh, I intend to.”
I follow her scent.
She’s made a beeline for the outer gates. With any luck, I’ll find her curled up against the outer walls, trying to hide in the shadows.
Damn me. Cres is right, I am a wrecking ball. My rage at her invasion, at her touching my wife, bled through my awareness of my strength.
Did she truly believe I wanted her gone?
No, she’s simply running. She’s been running for a long time, running from her demons, her ghosts. But she cannot run from her greatest ghost.
As I scan the outer walls, hunting for her, I wonder how one little mortal could awaken a soulless goddess. A mortal with no trace, no signature of my wife, a mortal who cannot even see butterflies.
