Page 2 of Incurably Cupid

Lyrica sighed. “I have some theories, but they’re just that: theories. All I can tell you is that our queen personally requested you to oversee this match.”

My hand trembled as I moved my bangs out of my eyes. “Did King Micah suggest it to our queen?”

Lyrica nodded.

King Micah was an oracle. Oracles were paranormals gifted with a strong ability to see, though they didn’t always understand what they saw, as they usually received information in fragments. Our king’s gift was unusually powerful and respected, even reluctantly, by me. It also wasn’t something I could argue against, though I wanted to try. How do you argue with a seer? Better yet, why in the world would I be assigned to someone so important that the orders were handed down by a seer? By my king? It made zero sense.

Hearts and stars, this was a mess. I’d thought Mesmer was just a random assignment. I believed that if I failed, it would be fine—someone else would take over and match him up, and I’d move on to the next unfortunate person assigned to me. But that wouldn’t happen because special cases were assigned to specific cupids—usually those higher up in the cupid hierarchy than I was.

As twilight deepened in the room, the space around Lyrica glowed pink, red, and gold, little flecks of color sparkling around her like glowing fairy dust.

My soup had gone cold. Restlessly, I stood up and dumped it in the food recycler, abruptly deciding I needed a hotter hot chocolate. I approached the food replicator, scrolling through the flavor options: caramel, eggnog, Irish, pumpkin spice, mocha, candy cane, and my usual go-to, vanilla. Feeling desperate, I punched in the pumpkin spice option.

“Is this the correct choice?” a sexy male voice asked from the speaker above my head, displaying my selections on a screen.

“Give me my chocolate or I will take an icepick to your innards,” I said through clenched teeth. Obviously, it was the correct choice! I'd just chosen it!

“No need to be hostile, beautiful.” The hot chocolate shimmered into existence in the clear, sanitized compartment. “Have a lovely day!”

“Go eat a virus,” I muttered as I grabbed a heat sleeve for my disposable cup. I carried it back to the table I shared with Lyrica while the food replicator emitted a throaty laugh behind me.

It was frustrating when what was essentially a glorified toaster achieved sentience. All of our cupid tech was sentient. Our tech specialists had explained that it had something to do with extensive exposure to thousands of cupids with bonding magic. My Cupid Inc. tablet, Leo—a name he'd chosen himself—and I rarely saw eye to eye. He annoyed me to no end. He wasalso my best friend, which was really sad and kind of pathetic. Why was it easier to get along with snarky sentient tech than with people?

I glared at my tablet on the table and took a sip of my cocoa. Hmm, there was obviously something to the fervor and clamor for pumpkin spice because this wasdelicious.I suddenly remembered that I had neglected to ask if Lyrica wanted anything from the food replicator, but instead of offering, I hunched my shoulders and took another sip.

“Has it never occurred to you why you’re always given top matches, Indie?” Lyrica asked. “After all these years?”

I peered at her through the steam rising from my cocoa.“HaveI been given top matches?”

She snorted inelegantly, and I wanted to smile. Lyrica being undignified was new. I approved. “Yes, Indie, yes! Of course! How long have you been a cupid for Cupid Inc.?”

I hummed in thought. “Hmm, maybe two hundred years or so?” Give or take a decade. And I didn’t look a day over twenty-five. Huh, I’d been at this longer than I thought. Was I just getting burned out?

“And did it not occur to you that your lack of success in your matches is due to the difficulty level of the person being matched and not any shortcomings on your part?”

I hid my face behind my cup. No, sadly that had never occurred to me.

Lyrica sighed. “Oh, Indie. Surely you didn’t think it’s been you all this time?”

I hunched my shoulders, refusing to meet her golden gaze. My eyes burned. My tablet, Leo, gave a little commiserating chirp that I found strangely comforting instead of annoying.

Lyrica stood and moved her chair closer to mine. When she sat down, she was practically shoulder to shoulder with me,leaning into my space as though she were trying to offer support and comfort without me snapping at her.

I … appreciated it.

All this time, I’d thought it was me—that I was terrible at my job, that I’d been given the worst assignments, that I was hopeless, too angry and jaded. It turned out I was likely higher up in the Cupid Inc. hierarchy than I wanted to admit, and I’d been assigned special cases over the years—people statistically very difficult to match. It could take an excellent cupid years to find a special assignment’s match. Their soulmate. Not everyone had one. In fact, soulmates, even among paranormals, were rare. Only vampires, shifters, and a few others had soulmates. Most paranormals and humans did not.

I pushed my cocoa away and buried my face in my hands. I’d been going about this all wrong. This meant that Mesmer had a mate! Gargoyles were extremely rare, and even though I’d asked around, no one knew if they had a specific soulmate or not, so I’d just been trying to match him with anyone I thought would be a good fit.

I groaned, feeling nauseous. Leo beeped again, and I patted him absently in gratitude for trying to be supportive. For some reason, being around Lyrica made him silent. With anyone else, he’d be talking up a storm. In fact, I often couldn’t get him to be quiet.

“How do I find Mesmer’s soulmate?” I asked Lyrica.

She shook her head, reaching to pat mine but reconsidering at the last moment. “That’s the thing. You can’t. You bring him matches that resonate for you using your bonding power, and he’ll know when you’ve found the right one.”

“I might have to break a few rules.”

“I expect nothing less from you,” Lyrica said, chuckling as she stood. “Come by my office if you want to talk about it or if you need assistance.”

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