Page 63 of Love's Ace

“I might have shot you, but you’re the one who ran us both through. I guess we’re both to blame.” Wren’s fingers snaked beneath the blanket and he took my hand. I let the last of the tension in my body fade away with a few more breaths, with the fact that Wren was saying what he’d said last night.

We were to blame—both of us.

We were in this together.

By the time Gethin came back with three coffees in a cardboard tray, I’d flung the blanket over Wren’s legs and hooked our ankles together, and I was reading again. If he could handle this, I could too. We just had to find the answers…

And when we did, I had to believe that things weren’t going to fall apart.

It was hours later when I felt Wren tense beside me. I didn’t realize my head had drifted to lie on his shoulder until I lifted it to look at him.

“What?”

He spread his fingers out over the page he was reading and frowned. “I might have found something, but I don’t think anyone is going to like it.”

“What?” Gethin echoed my question behind me and walked around—when his eyes landed on the book, his mouth set in a hard line. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Think about it. If thereissome source to our power, to their power… it makes sense they could stop it, right?”

“Wren, you’re pretty much saying you want to talk to the things mortals would callGod.”

“Except weknowour powers came from somewhere. Cupids arecreated. We can—”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” I was tired of them both speaking like I wasn’t in the room, and I didn’t like the worry I could see slowly spreading across Gethin’s features. It didn’t help when he turned and glared at me, his eyes dropping to my chest.

“Wren wants to find the source of what makes an Enmity and ask them topretty please, take it back.”

“That’s not what—”

“Even more, Iknowwhere I got that fucking book from, and I know you know too. Go on, Wren. Why don’t you tell your monster boyfriendwhereyou want to get more information about this.”

Wren fell silent, dropping his eyes back to the book in front of him.

“What are you talking about?”

Gethin didn’t seem to have the same qualms as Wren, because he stalked around the couch and snatched the book from him. When he flipped the page open, I saw a sketch of two figures, perfectly symmetrical. One light. One dark. Perfect mirrors ofone another. The looping, scrawled handwriting said words likepowerandbeginning.Essenceandcreation.

“We came from somewhere. The cupids are created at birth. We’re plucked from our mother’s arms and our powers are awakened.” Gethin’s expression wavered. “Usually.”

“Okay?” I didn’t understand… Maybe I was too tired, or maybe I didn’twantto understand, because Wren was still tense beside me.

“So if we’re fed power from this.” Gethin’s finger thumped against the page on the figure in white. “That means you were fed power fromthis.” He slapped the image shrouded in darkness and slammed the book shut. “The problem is, that’s all there is about it in this book. That’s all I’veeverread about it, because every book that matches this one is back at Love’s Ace. In Aiden’s office.”

“It’ll befine.” Wren finally spoke. “Aiden isn’t going to do anything to me.”

In a burst of motion, Gethin ripped his shirt over his head and turned—the sight of his bare back stole my breath, made something in my stomach twist. What I’d seen before wasnothing.

Scars… all along his spine, all along the places where Wren’s tattoos were… all replaced with mottled, ruined skin. And along the space where the base of Wren’s wings were, that spot I’d touched so many times, were deep gouges.

“Aiden is the one who didthis. Do you think if you show up there with him, you won’t get the same, just because you’re his favorite?” Gethin turned and threw the book at Wren’s chest. “It won’t befine.”

I felt numb. I knew Gethin had lost his wings, but knowing it and seeing it were two different things.

It was…

Fuck.

It was horrible.

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