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  Awakened Love

  Operation Cupid #3

  Skyler Andra

  Mila Young

  Awakened Love (Operation Cupid#3) © Copyright 2019 Skyler Andra & Mila Young

  Cover art by Eerilyfair Design

  All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher/author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Thanks

  About the Authors

  Chapter 1

  Locke

  When I was a kid, there was this old man who sat in the rear corner of the diner where my mom worked. Back then, there was no such thing as daycare, so I used to sit in a booth on my own, coloring away on whatever picture I was certain would win my mom’s love that day. The old man would sit across the aisle from me, muttering and cursing and occasionally yelling until my mom or one of the other waitresses had to kick him out. I just thought he was always mad at things.

  One day he turned to me, with such sadness in his eyes. “Some day, little girl,” he said to me with a voice that made my heart break. “You’ll see for sure that the dead are dead a long, long time.”

  Those words hung in my mind, and a month ago, when I had finally descended into the land of the dead, I realized that he was right. Something had died inside me, even if my body remained warm, my heart beating, my lungs pumping oxygen through my veins.

  I leaned down on the marble balustrade of my balcony, admiring the beautiful fields full of flowers below Hades’ palace, where it always smelled like the first day of spring. Believe it or not, there were actually night and day in the land of the dead, though I’d be damned if I knew where the light came from. It cast a beautiful violet shade across the land.

  To be honest, Hades’ kingdom wasn’t what I’d imagined at all. Picture the elysian fields, full of lakes, flowered fields and trees, gardens and more. Literally, the place looked like an epic painting. Besides the hellfire pit to the north. It was the perfect place for dead souls to retire in the afterlife. Although Hades couldn’t take all the credit. His lost love Persephone’s touch was evident in the springtime bloom everywhere.

  All around me I heard voices, men and women laughing and playing. It’s like there was a picnic going on just beyond my field of vision, and a lonely hollowness crept into my chest, even if I’d never thought much of loneliness until I’d arrived in the underworld.

  The land of the dead wasn’t a bad place. I’d learned early on to stay away from the worst areas, where they punished people who ate babies or committed atrocities.

  Sometimes, when I looked into the water, I saw other faces reflected next to mine, distorted by the ripples, faint and odd. I guessed that they were the shades that lived in this antique afterlife. Hades had told me that they might be a little shy of me and avoid me.

  “After all,” he’d said with some grim humor, “it was only ever the living who hurt them. The dead do no harm.”

  He was that kind of guy.

  During the painful, long days of the underworld, when Hades was busy judging the dead or whatever, I roamed the fields and the waters. I had never been much for the outdoors before, but there was something beautiful and lonely about the land of the dead that called to me. I was too restless to stay indoors, and so I walked, trying not to think about the ones always on my mind.

  “More sashimi, mistress Locke?” one of the palace servants asked me, interrupting my thoughts.

  She was dressed in a Grecian robe identical to mine tied with a golden rope around her waist. A silver headband rested across her head. Overall, she was plain, but sweet, and she always doted on me.

  “Sure, Melody,” I said, scanning the platter she offered me and picking at it. It’s not like I had to pay for it. Anything I wanted was free. Part and parcel of being Hades’ prisoner.

  “Let me know if you need anything else,” she said before bowing and retreating.

  I wanted to say three words, but they lodged in my throat like sawdust. This was the place where literally all things ended, and it might be pointless hoping, but I didn’t think it was.

  I glanced down at my chest at the three golden cords leading up towards the land of the living. An invisible sword slashed at my heart just thinking about them. These cords were the threads of love, life, family, passion, creativity, and even the darker elements of emotions, which connected people to each other. No one but me could see them, but they ran from person to person, connecting us all in this giant web. Most people had red cords, some few had blue cords, and as for me, I realized I had three gold cords floating out of my body and connecting me to…

  No. I couldn’t think of them. What they looked like. What their voices sounded like. What they felt like to hold in my arms. It hurt too much knowing they’re up there and I was trapped underground in the land of the dead as Hades’ prisoner. All because I’d made a bargain with him to save the three men waiting for me above.

  I continued my moping and chewed my sashimi, which tasted like cardboard. Don’t get me wrong, the food here was spectacular, but with each passing day it lost its smell, its taste, its texture, mirroring my dying heart.

  Again I leaned on the balustrade, my chin resting on my fist. I was bored as hell of course during the day. Sometimes I wandered the fields. Others I wandered the vast halls in the palace. But it’s not like there’s Wi-Fi or cable here to take my mind off what I was missing.

  Okay, I was being flippant. Most of the time, I was in a constant state of shock. This place wasn’t really meant to have living people here, and I thought there was something in my body that registered it. Or maybe the old man was right. I really was dead. Had been all along.

  My mind drifted back to where this strange adventure had all started. To make a long story short, I had been just an average, over-educated and restless twenty-something, working on a phone sex line to make ends meet and fund my way through a Master of Creative Writing. In truth, I’d been bored a lot and uncertain and, in general, I’d had no idea what I was doing or where I was going. Sure, I’d scribbled down notes, compiling my story ideas, and I had been in the middle of writing about five different books. But did I ever finish one?

  Then one evening after I’d hung up my phone for the night, I’d gotten the creepiest call to end all creepy calls followed by a bright light in the sky, and bang, I got the powers of Cupid, the god who ruled over love. It had taken a kidnapping attempt and a stay in a desert resort-cum-interrogation center before I’d discovere
d the terrifying scope of my powers.

  Through this escapade, I’d discovered the existence of avatars, people on earth chosen by the gods to do their will in the world. Yet again, I was the odd one out. The avatars had direct lines to their gods, huge and towering elemental presences that seemed to blot out the world. While I might have had the powers of Eros, I had no connection at all to the god. As a matter of fact, Eros had gone missing, driving the other gods mad.

  A month earlier, I’d met the pantheon of avatars in an attempt to figure out where Eros had gone and why I was different. They wanted my help to stop the world descending into chaos should their gods destroy the Earth. I had almost been ready to say it wasn’t my problem—I mean, the avatars of Zeus and Poseidon were kind of dicks, and the avatar of Hera did not like me—when some men in black had shown up, blown up the mansion we were staying in, and kidnapped half of the avatars.

  After that, I might have said “screw this, I’m out,” but one of the people kidnapped, the avatar of Athena, was someone very important to me. Byron was one of my best friends from college, and though we’d drifted apart, he’d been the one person I ran to when dark suits pursued me for all of this god stuff. I’d repaid him in the worst way by bringing him trouble.

  So I’d teamed up with Rane, the avatar of Ares—another dark and troubled, yet good-looking guy I tried not to think about too much—and Mads, the avatar of the god Hermes, to find Byron and the others that had been taken. God, there was also a bit of a story there with Mads, who was this fun-loving troublemaker, elusive, and who’s good in bed and made me feel alive. But I digress.

  When we’d found the avatars who had been taken, deep within the Paris catacombs, they were all in some kind of weird sleep. We couldn’t wake them up, and the people who had kidnapped them were baying for our blood. I did what I’d felt necessary at the time; I had started praying to Hades. Mads should never have told me that the catacombs were Hades’ territory. For the lord of the underworld answered me. We bargained for everyone to get back up to the surface safely. Except for me. I was to be the sacrifice. No one sings for free, especially not the lord of the dead.

  A bell tolled within the palace, signaling the close of what passed for day in the underworld. That was my signal to return to the palace if I ventured out to explore.

  Then the underworld sank into night. The fields dimmed as the source of light receded, and the worst offending members of the dead got to take a break from their eternal tortures.

  I retreated into my chambers where spirits like Melody, with surprisingly warm hands, redressed me in sheer silks pinned at my shoulders and belted with satin ribbons right under my breasts. It should have looked silly, more like a costume than anything else, but in this palace, it made sense. Made me look as if I belonged here. Belonged to Hades. I guessed I did. I was his prisoner after all.

  “Come, Locke,” Hades voice summoned me from my room. “Dine with me.”

  I never turned down the lord of the underworld. After all, he’d saved me, saved my men, and I owed him for that. It was the least I could do.

  “Of course,” I said, turning to him.

  Hades was a tall and muscular man, pale with inky dark hair and eyes, and a smile as sharp as a shark’s. Like me, he wore robes, pure white trimmed with black, accentuating every magnificent bulge on his body.

  Despite being his captor, I liked him, maybe in a weird Stockholm Syndrome bonding kind of way. In a way, he reminded me a little of Byron, with a kind of intellectual charm, a restrained humor, mixed with an inch of kindness, even if it was remote and strange to get at. It was pretty hard to be that mad at him when I was the stupid one who’d made the bargain.

  Hades walked around me, his bare feet silent, and I stayed still, even when he was standing right behind me.

  “So beautiful, Locke,” he murmured, his breath moving my hair. “I am so very grateful that it was you who called me.”

  Don’t worry. It wasn’t meant to be creepy or anything. Deep down I knew he liked my company. Together we enjoyed each other’s. I sure as hell didn’t want to be alone in this dark and lonely place, and neither did he. Dining with him, and the few off chances I received to spend time with him, reminded me that I was alive. He was, in his own way, kind. Slapping him back in the Paris catacombs had reminded him that he wasn’t dead either.

  Like me, he ached for another. There was no golden cord between us. I’d checked pretty early on in my time in the underworld. His thread, a strange and twisting green one, more like a vine than anything else, spiraled up to the land above. While he reminded me of Byron, I reminded him of his lost love Persephone.

  He caught me looking at the thread, as I had many a time. This time he put a hand on mine and shook his head.

  “She’s gone, and is not coming back,” he said, and the dead tone of his voice told me not to ask anymore.

  We both loved other people, and that was fine. We didn’t talk about it. We didn’t talk about a lot of things because it was less painful that way. But it left me wondering if I should play with her cord. Return her to him. But she’d been fooled once into loving him, and that was why she left. His heart would never heal without her.

  Silently, he departed the room, beckoning for me to follow along the black marbled halls. We walked to his expansive dining hall that probably fit hundreds, where a grand table extended with spaces for at least twenty guests. All sorts of platters displayed roasted meats, vegetables, cakes, fruit, rolls and pastries.

  My position in the palace was a weird one, to say the least. I wasn’t dead. I wasn’t really alive, either, because the living didn’t live in the underworld. I wasn’t Hades’ slave. I was his guest in a strange way. But inside I felt empty and dead, at least my heart did, while I was separated from the ones making it beat.

  Every night I placed a small amount of food on my plate, mostly picking at it, because I wasn’t hungry. The smell of it all tormented me. My starving stomach demanded to be nourished, while my mind balked at the idea of it touching my mouth.

  “Not eating again?” Hades asked, slicing his roast beef and picking it up with a pronged fork with a visibly shaking hand. Was he angry? I could not tell from the stony expression on his face.

  “Don’t get me wrong,” I said. “It’s delicious. But I’m not that hungry.”

  “You’ve lost weight.” He pointed his fork at me, and when I stared at his growing tremor, he put his arm down, hiding his hand with his other. “The other gods might think me a terrible host.”

  That didn’t matter anymore. It wasn’t like I had anyone to impress with my slimmed down frame. The ones who loved my curves were above. Hopefully just as miserable as me, missing me like I missed them, aching for them with every part of my soul.

  Hades wiped his face with his napkin. “I hate to see you like this.”

  His eyes resonated with a deep concern, which seemed foreign to someone often cold and hard like him.

  I didn’t know what to say. What could I? This was where I’d live out the rest of my days. Forever alone. Forever in misery. Forever in debt.

  “Please eat,” he said, his voice forceful. “Your despair, your pain, it reminds me of her, when the spell wore off.”

  His pain crashed in my chest, and I felt it, raw and scarring, as if it had happened just yesterday. If I knew one thing about my Cupid powers, it was that sadness of any kind burned me deep, and I couldn’t stand it. For Hades’ sake, I ate my entire dinner, forcing every bite and swallow. But for the rest of the meal, a divide split open between us. His eyes darkened with alarm, his face tightening. At one stage, he rubbed his forehead as if a headache had set in.

  “Thank you,” I said, my voice hoarse against the food lodging in my throat. “For not throwing me in the hell pits.”

  Hades gave me a grim smile. “Thank you for amusing me.”

  Once I’d finished my meal, he stood up and approached me. He was so tall it was intimidating. But he bent down, grabbing my face in his h
uge palms.

  “Thank you, Locke,” he said, his eyes cold and dark. “For this gift tonight.”

  Gift? If eating made him happy, I’d do it every night. I nodded to the extent possible in his grasp.

  “Tomorrow I will put asides my duties,” he said, “and take you on a tour of the kingdom. Would you like that?”

  Of course I would. Anything to get my mind off things! Besides the avatars of Persephone and Hermes, I was probably one of only a few mortals who’d visited the underworld. It was time to take full advantage of it. Maybe even explore those darker areas that Hades had warned me to stay away from. I should be safe with the lord of the underworld by my side.

  “Would you like some ambrosia wine to fall asleep?” he asked.

  The wine was almost like a sleeping pill. Most nights I had a glass just so I could get some rest. Every night their faces haunted me when I closed my eyes. Rane’s and Mads’ desperate expressions, begging me not to go to the underworld. Byron’s tense, angry sleeping face, fighting foes in his dreams. The wine was the only thing capable of banishing them.

  “No,” I said. “Thank you.”

  Tonight I wanted to see them again.

  Hades suddenly grabbed his stomach as if he’d eaten a rotten meal. “Very well,” he replied, waving his hand and dismissing me from the table.

  But I didn’t want to leave him. Something felt off. Sweat pooled at his forehead. Tension pulled at his expression.

  “Are you not well?” I asked, dabbing at his face with his napkin.

  His next words were unrecognizable. Some form of ancient language. He cradled his stomach, rocking back and forth.