Cupid's Arrow

Excerpt:
A Touch of Sin by Elisabeth Jason


My fingers tremble so hard, I can barely hold the cell phone as I dial. Two rings, three, four. I start to pray. Five. Maybe he won’t answer. Six.
“Hello?”
A curse almost slips past my lips, but I force it back. “Good evening,” I push out in my most courteous, pleasant tone, ignoring the droplet of sweat trickling down my temple. “This is Kaylene with Parcels Unlimited. I have a special delivery scheduled for Mr. Amon tonight, and I’m just down the street. Is he available so I can drop by real quick?”
It almost sounds like the line goes dead before the male voice answers and my worst fear comes true. “Aye, I’m home. I'll buzz you in when you get here.”
It’s not a butler talking to me as I'd hoped. It’s him. The truck's cab suddenly seems ten sizes too small. Fear squeezes my heart even as the soft, erotic lilt of his Scottish accent settles deep in my gut. I remind myself that I’m a professional and should leave my personal feelings at the time clock each morning, no matter who is on the client list…but how can I on a night like this?
Cyric Amon haunts my dreams, dreams so secret and ripe with sensation I blush just thinking about them. I confess them to my priest each week, say dozens of 'Hail Mary's' and 'Our Father's' in repentance, but nothing helps. Nothing exorcises Cyric from my mind. Instead, my fantasies grow stronger, more vivid. The harder I fight, the greater the temptation becomes, and I despair of ever sleeping in peace again. Since moving from my small home town in Michigan to this city of sin and glittering delights, I haven’t stopped thinking about him.
Here in Las Vegas, Cyric’s face is on every billboard. His image is inescapable. He is a magician, the most famous illusionist in the world, and where I come from, every Sunday sermon involves his name. Magic is evil. Magic is wrong.
The scores of women who huddle together and whisper about Cyric while their kind, sweet husbands barbeque, are all victims to the charms of the devil, and I am among them, willing to burn. Every wayward thought of shedding my clothes and surrendering to his skilled, slim fingers and full, promising mouth is another step closer to hell.

Eros Lost by Dawn Montgomery


"Look at yourself in the mirror." She felt his raw power roll over her body, igniting the fires of lust hotter than any mortal could have borne.
Psyche opened her eyes and looked at the delicately framed mirror. They'd placed it at the perfect angle for their interludes on the divan. Her cheeks were flushed to a soft red, her lids swollen in her lust filled haze. Soft brown hair curled around her face, the longer strands tumbling over her shoulder in loose waves. Her long slim fingernails dug into the dark blue velvet of the divan's arm.
Behind her Eros slipped into view, the hunger in his amber eyes making her shiver. He needed her lust like a drug. She'd give him anything, had given him everything in her mortal life. He rose behind her, his broad chest golden and glowing against her pale skin. His hair crackled with power and the glow in his amber eyes sizzled like lightning.
They'd waited so long to feed his lust that he couldn't maintain his mortal appearance. Every god fed on those around him, Aphrodite surrounded herself with those who loved her so she could feed on their emotion. Ares kept strife and political powerhouses in his circles; while they didn't have to be at war per se, they did have to constantly create discontent. Eros, unlike most, chose one follower to worship him. He had only Psyche to feed his lusts. He could feed from the lust of those he infused, but since it had been a while, she'd been his sole focus.
This meant she was in trouble.

A Haunted Love by J.M. Snyder

I wake with a start.
It’s freezing now. As I sit up and rub the feeling back into my arms, I stare into the thick fog and listen. The branches creak above me, the faint guttering of flame in the lights, that’s all I hear.
Greg is gone, already passed by I guess, and in the fog he didn’t even see me, he didn’t wake me up. How long I was out? Hours probably. I might have missed the bus.
I hope not. I’d hate to have to sleep somewhere on site. After six even the inn closes and the only place I have a key for is the stables. God, the last thing I want to do is lie down with the horses. I may be a re-enactor and I may take my history seriously, but I have to draw the line somewhere.
I stretch as I stand and when I walk, my shoes ring off the cobbled stones. The sound echoes through the square, off the buildings, surrounding me until I think the place is full of people but I don’t see anyone else through the fog.
I run a hand through my damp hair and realize the temperature is much too cold for the scant clothing I wear. I’m never going to fall asleep after work again. Next time I’m just going to get on the bus and go back to my tiny apartment and forget all about the colony until I’m paid to be here.
Sleeping on the grass, how stupid. Like I couldn’t get fired for that shit.
Around me, the street lamps glow like tiny suns, haloed by the fog. As I pass beneath one lamp, the next down the street suddenly materializes into sight, like a phantom trail leading the way. The bus runs right along the edge of the park, not more than twenty yards from here. Maybe I’m not too late. I wish I could see the moon—I’d at least be able to estimate the time. I wasn’t that tired. I couldn’t have slept too long.
Behind me I hear a faint step.
“Greg?” I whirl around, heart thudding with hope. If it’s Greg then it’s not too late at all, and even if the bus has already come and gone, I can ask him for a lift.
But I can’t see anything except the swirls of fog that roll through the square and I don’t hear the step again. I’m just imagining things. I should hurry to the stop, just in case the last bus hasn’t run yet, and I even manage to turn in that direction when I hear another step, a shoe on the cobbled stones and the snap of a twig beneath sudden weight.
“Greg?” This time I turn in mid-step and hurry back the way I came.
I know I heard someone, I’d swear it. If it’s not Greg maybe it’s someone else. Hasn’t Jeremy said he works late some nights? If he’s here then I know I can still catch the last bus. He lives in the same apartments I do.
The street lamps bob into view like buoys on a sea of fog. I don’t realize I’m running until I see a guy pass beneath one of the lamps. I stop. Another re-enactor, dressed like I am, wearing breeches that pull tight across his butt and a shirt that billows in the breeze scurries down the street. I don’t recognize him. He probably works at the plantation, or maybe he’s part of the tea party bunch, down on the wharf.
Wherever he’s from, he has to have a car, right? I mean, he’s here now. He has to be heading home. “Hey!” I shout.
He keeps walking and disappears from the lamp’s light as if he isn’t really there.
I chase after him. “Hey, wait!”
He walks through the next cone of light, his hands shoved into his pockets. A thin whistled tune carries from his lips through the dense fog. I sprint ahead and reach out, and for a brief instant my hand goes numb when we touch. I hadn’t realized it was so damn cold outside.
Then he turns and looks at me, pulling out of my grip. His eyes are so dark they’re just pools of shadow in the light cast down from the lamp. “Kind sir,” he starts, in that indignant manner all re-enactors have when they’re in character.
I laugh. “Jesus, am I glad to see you.”
I give him one of my brightest grins, the kind that makes the girls giggle and keeps the tourists coming through my stables. “You work here, right?”
When he nods, I hurry on. “I fell asleep…stupid me, I know…and I don’t know what time it is, the bus leaves at midnight, the last one into town. Do you know if it’s already gone? I really don’t want to stay in the stables tonight. God, Marie’ll kill me if I have to sleep on site and she finds out. Are you from this colony? I haven’t seen you before.”
He stares at me with wide eyes and I laugh again, take a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Did you catch any of that?”
For a moment, I think I’ve frightened him away. I’m just relieved to see someone else here. I’m not alone. Now that I’ve shut up I notice his dark red hair, pulled back from his face into a tight little ponytail at his nape, and his blue eyes so deep, they’re almost black. I’ve never met anyone with eyes like his before.