Page 3 of Incurably Cupid

I nodded. “Thanks for your help. Just out of curiosity, how high up in the hierarchy am I?” I mean, a cupid had the right to know, right?

Lyrica chuckled. It began as a soft laugh, but as she reached the door leading from the dreamers' break room, it grew into a full-bodied guffaw that had her leaning against the hallway wall to avoid faceplanting into the pearlescent marble floors.

I stared after her in confusion, a puzzled frown pulling at my brow.

Chapter 2

Indie

“Love gives, but it also receives.”

Cupid Inc. New Recruit Training Manual

Iwoke to my tablet, Leo, whooing like a siren. I groaned and pulled a pillow over my head.

“Shut it off,” I complained.

“You’re going to be late for class,” my perky tablet said.

I uncovered one eye and glared at him. “I don’t have class on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I get to sleep in.”

“You have a class now, remember? You agreed to fill in for Professor Ziesta’s Love 101 class while she’s out on maternity leave.”

I groaned. “That class is sickeningly sweet. They don’t delve into the nitty-gritty of real love until Love 102, in their sophomore year.”

Leo chuckled. “Well, lucky you; you get to teach both of them."

I sighed and yanked the pillow off my head again. “How did I get talked into this?” At least Professor Ziesta had allowedme to teach Love 102 coursework as well so my students didn’t walk away from this class expecting love to be easy and viewed through rose-colored glasses.

“Because you have a heart as big as the Sahara Desert and twice as dusty. All Adriana had to do was bat her big eyes at you while resting a hand on her very pregnant belly, and you caved.”

I sat up and scowled at the sunshine streaming into my bedroom through the windows. “Note to self: Pregnant cupids are the enemy. Treat them like live grenades.”

Leo flashed the time in big, blue numerals in front of my face, and I yelped and scrambled out of bed. “Why didn’t you tell me it was that late!” I yelled as I hurriedly picked out some clothes for the day and jumped in the shower.

“I did, you ungrateful cupid! I risked circuits and sensors to wake you on time, and this is the thanks I get?” Leo growled.

I laughed as I quickly washed my chin-length cotton candy pink hair and my body, skipping shaving since I’d long since stripped any unwanted hair from my body with my bonding magic. Bonding magic. It had a ton of uses. I toweled off, dressed, and was ready within five minutes.

I reflected on my feelings after yesterday and my conversation with Lyrica, and I could honestly say I felt a bit better. I had a little more hope that I would find Mesmer’s mate, at least. If King Micah had ensured I was assigned to him, there had to be a reason.

I checked my reflection in the mirror and saw a cupid of average beauty. She looked twenty-five but was actually just over three hundred. Pink hair, fair skin, blue eyes—not much different from any other cupid. And yet, Leo called me beautiful all the time. That glorified toaster had called me beautiful yesterday, too. I wrinkled my nose at my reflection. Maybe I was just beautiful to sentient tech? Wouldn’t that just be my luck?

“Indie?”

“Yes?”

“What are you going to do about Mesmer?” Leo’s voice was quiet. We had often discussed Mesmer and my difficulty finding someone for him. Leo assisted with my job at Cupid U, but he also helped me narrow down the search parameters to find matches for my assignments—a job for which he was invaluable.

I sighed and turned off the bathroom light as I gathered Leo, my teaching bag, and my house keys, allowing him to electronically lock the front door behind me. “I’m not sure. I’m contemplating. I’ll need to spend more time silently observing him to get a sense of what his soulmate will be like.” Even though I'd already had a year.

I joined the throngs of people walking to Cupid Inc. and its sister campus, Cupid University, right next door. Dozens of cupids were ahead of me and behind me, with more on the opposite side of the street. We didn’t have cars in Devotion. We didn’t need them. Most residents were either students, teachers, or employees of Cupid Inc. In my case, I was both a teacher and an employee.

“He is a challenging assignment. He’s so quiet,” Leo said.

I nodded. “Until he isn’t.”

Leo laughed. “He does have that commander’s yell thing he does.”

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