Stolen by You (Fated To Love You)

“Just tell me,” I grind out. “Tell me how bad it is unless…unless…I don’t know. Just tell me.”

“It’s the curse of soulmates,” Kirian grinds out. “The object is supposed to help us find our soulmates.”

“Tsk! Why were you getting your cousins to see if the necklace would glow then?”

Kirian rolls his eyes. “It wasn’t by process of elimination. I just wanted to see if the glowing effect could happen for anyone or if it meant something.”

“Like it only glows when it finds the soulmate?”

“Something like that.”

“AAAARRRGGGH!” I leap up from the table at the same time Kirian screams. His high-pitched, very feminine scream makes me freeze. Why is he screaming? He knew what the curse meant the whole time, and I doubt I startled him.

I’m stunned to see him frozen in his chair. That is, frozen except for the amount of wild breathing he’s doing. His chest is pumping up and down like he’s running to escape the curse—haha, but it seems most appropriate—his eyes are wild, and he might as well be frothing at the mouth.

“What?” I think I’m missing something here. Maybe the grim freaking reaper is standing behind me, or it’s his ninja granny because I don’t doubt she has some special skills. I whirl around, but there’s nothing behind me but air. Okay, so the grim reaper might not be visible to all, but I doubt Kirian could see him then. “What is it?”

He doesn’t answer. He just shakes his head and lets out another yelp somewhere around eight octaves higher than anything I could ever achieve. And then I see it on the sticky toffee pudding—a yellow jacket wasp, which must have been attracted to the burnt sugar. It’s on the table with its no good behind pumping up and down as it struts its no good self across my dessert. I’m obscenely angry that the wasp is trying to ruin what I wasn’t going to eat. Frig. I could still have had it boxed up to go. I’ve heard that yellow jackets are just straight-up assholes as far as anything that stings goes. They are just plain evil with zero cause for it.

Before Kirian can make another sound, I remove my ankle boot. They’re my favorite pair too. I’m going to ruin a good boot and dessert on this bloody asshole of a wasp.

“Are you allergic?” I ask because it strikes me that maybe I shouldn’t hit and miss. Kirian shakes his head. I think it’s a no, but I have to be sure. Messing around with wasp stings, allergies, and him possibly not having an insulin pen to stab into his leg if he gets stung is not cool. I’m not watching someone fizzle out on my watch, not even if they’re supposed to be my soulmate because of some curse or something.

What? Wait just a darn minute here. I’m not seriously considering that. That the necklace glowed for him and me, so it means something. I’m not buying into the whole curse thing, which is probably just an elaborate joke being played by a very strange and rich family who probably gets their rocks off this way because what else are they supposed to do to enjoy life when they’re uber-rich?

“Don’t. Move.”

Kirian makes another panicked sound again and starts flapping his hands in the general direction of the table, which is just bad news. The wasp is getting angry now. It turns around and fixes Kirian with a wasp stare of death as he yelps one more time. This is getting out of hand because people are starting to watch us now. They might think I’m assaulting him or something. There’s a lot of panicking on his end, none from me, and I’m the one with the raised boot above my head, so no, it doesn’t look good.

If I’m going to act, it should be now.

I bring the boot down with a hard whomp, squishing both the dessert and wasp. Then, I lift my boot up to check to make sure the wasp is flattened. Whatever it is, it’s definitely not on the right side of the living world any longer.

Kirian yelps one more time for good measure.

I roll my eyes and let out a scoff. All of a sudden, I have an idea.

I extend my hand in a no-nonsense manner, but Kirian’s so rattled that all he does is stare at it. “We’re going to put this glowing necklace theory to the test. A real test. If I can get one hundred women to handle the necklace, and it doesn’t glow for any of them, then…”

Kirian’s aqua gaze hits me full force. “Then?”

“Then, I…I don’t know. But I guess we’ll figure it out then.”

What do you know? Now I’m cursing the day I perhaps got cursed, which is today. And that’s assuming I believe in curses and not elaborate hoaxes.