My eyes widen in panic, and I snatch at his arm. “You can’t just leave me here!”
He none-too-gently pries my death grip off him. “Duty calls and all that,” he tells me.
“What in the hell am I supposed to do?” I whisper-shriek.
He lifts a shoulder. “Try to make Matches while you’re here. Cupid shite up. With a bit o’ luck, the Veil will sense your cupidity and let you come back into the Veil without popping you into extinction first. That’s the best we can hope for. I got a team looking into it, but that’s all I know for now.”
I bury my face in my hands. “I should’ve become a demon. Demon’s never have to deal with shit like this.”
He tsks. “Where’s all that I’ve fooking got unfinished business and I’m a cupid through and through?” he teases.
I glare at him between my fingers before dropping my hands. “I’m stuck in the physical human realm with no powers or wings, and I have to somehow make my Lust and Love Matches in a month to meet my quota, or the Veil is gonna suck me down faster than a kid slurping an Icee to get a brain freeze, and I’m fricken naked!”
He sobers. “Look, Triple X,” he says, leveling me with a look. “You said it yourself, you’re a fooking cupid. It’s in your godsdamned core. Who the shite cares if you don’t got powers? You didn’t have ’em before, and you didn’t let that stop you,” he tells me, and my breath catches at the determined look on his face, because damn. He’s actually nailing this pep talk. “At least now you have a chance to make Love Matches the ol’ fashioned way. Be a fooking matchmaker love guru and handle your shite. No giving up, get it?”
I swallow hard and nod. “You’re right.”
“Damn right, I’m fooking right,” he says. “Now I gotta go. I already missed my orgy.”
“Sorry.”
“Eh, I’ll reschedule. In the meantime, I’ll keep an eye on you from the Veil, and you focus on doing your job, get it?”
“I will.”
He nods and then disappears in the blink of an eye, leaving a small puff of pink in his wake.
And I’m just left here. Alone. Partly humanized. Powerless. Naked.
Just fricken great.
Chapter 6
I take a second to compose myself.
I’m here, out of the Veil, mostly human.
It’s surreal and terrifying, but I can’t think that way. I can’t just dissolve into a puddle of panic and wait until I go pop.
I’m a glass half-full kinda girl, so it’s time I chug that shit down.
Despite the fact that I have a ticking clock, I’m actually alive again. So instead of shaking in a corner and freaking out, I’m going to make the most of this. I have to.
I straighten myself up, totally nailing the power pose this time.
Now that I’ve successfully tamped down my panic, I finally take a moment to look down.
The marble tile I’m sitting on is black with veins of white running through it. It looks expensive and vaguely familiar. But I get caught up in the reflection I now have, visible in the floor’s shiny surface. I can’t see that much of what I look like, but I can tell that my pink twirled hair still looks on point, so I’m gonna take that as a win. I need all of those I can get.
I run my fingers down my tanned legs, feeling the soft, smooth texture of my skin. It’s so strange—to have sensation on the pads of my fingertips, while also feeling my own touch along my legs. I like it so much that I start feeling myself all over. Toes, foot arches, belly, arms, boobs.
I find it particularly fascinating how my nipples pebble when I run my fingers over them. “Huh. They really just pop right out there, don’t they?” I mutter.
“Umm, why the fuck is some naked chick feeling herself up in your office?”
I scream in surprise and scramble back, my head whipping around at the sound of the man’s voice.
It takes about two seconds for my brain to register that I landed in Warren fricken Knight’s office. Buck ass naked. And he can see me.