I frowned. Looking down at the vial. “Will it kill me to drink this?”
“No.” He was quick to say. “No.” His larger hand encircled my wrist gently. Tenderly. “But it will make mortal men not want you.”
“But you said—”
He nodded. “Yes. And I did not lie. You will find a love like no other. But it will not be from among the realm of man.”
I blinked, thinking of stories of the sons and daughters of the gods. Great monstrosities. The mammoth cyclops, or the bull-headed Minotaur. They were called monsters, but some…some were not so hideous. There were the gallant centaurs and the seductive merpeople who lived deep in the ocean trenches.
“I only have one question, peddler. Will he love me?”
He shook his head, but his beautiful lips turned up in a gorgeous, crooked smile. “With all his heart.”
“And you can see this? You know this with a certainty?”
He nodded. “Absolutely, divine Psyche. His heart will be completely yours.”
“Then…” I snatched my hand back, uncorking the vial. I did not stop to think for another moment. I did not want the life my parents had chosen for me. I did not want Arganon. I wanted peace. I wanted love.
I drank.
The elixir was sweet. Sticky. It was hard to swallow, but once I did, I felt heat course through me in a rush. I sucked in a sharp breath and then I looked at the male.
His eyes were still soft. And full of wonder.
“You chose love,” he said it like he could not actually believe it.
“I chose peace. I chose, peddler. Not my parents. No one else, but me. Whether true love exists for me or not, I now know I am safe from the clutches of Arganon. And I am thankful for it.”
“Sister,” Adelia’s voice suddenly pierced through our conversation.
I turned. “Adelia?”
She laughed uncertainly. “What are you doing kneeling in the dirt like a common street rat? You know how angry father will be when he sees your hem dusty.”
“I was speaking to the ped—” I turned, ready to make introductions, but was astonished to note that he was gone. Not even a trace of him remained. Even the dirt he’d been kneeling in looked as though it hadn’t been disturbed. “I…I…”
I clutched at my stomach. Had I gone mad?
“Antony, help my sister to her feet, will you?” Adelia finally chimed in, reaching us a few minutes later.
Antony looked at me. Just hours earlier he’d been stumbling over his feet to do anything and anything for me. But now he wore a grimace of distaste upon his face and his nose was curled up. “You help her up.”
Then he turned and walked over toward his brother, Erik. They both began to shake their heads and point.
I blinked. It worked. The potion had worked. Which meant I hadn’t imagined the peddler. I looked up and then down the trail, searching for any signs of him. But it was as though he’d never been.
The male had been no human. Who had I been speaking with?
My heart fluttered. Adelia reached out a hand to me. I took it, standing with her aid. Her face was confused and there was doubt glittering in his eyes. A worried frown creased her forehead as she and I both heard the words of the princes. They were repulsed by my appearance. And mocked me openly.
She shook her head. She did not seem to see me as they did and there was obvious confusion in her eyes. “What has been done to you this day, my baby sister?” she asked.
I shook my head. “I am not sure, Adelia.”
I looked down at my hand, the vial that I’d drunk from, was vanished. As though I’d dreamed the encounter with the peddler up. But the effects of the drink were undeniably evident by the treatment of the princes toward me.
“Come. Let’s go home,” Adelia urged, tugging me to follow behind them.
We all walked slowly home. The men avoided me completely. Still openly jeering me and now my sisters had begun to join in their laughter.
My heart sank and I wrapped my arms around myself, almost like a protective hug. Had I made a mistake? Had the peddler lied to me after all?
But then I thought about his warning, he’d told me what would happen. I hadn’t expected the reaction of the men to be so powerful. But maybe, it wasn’t? Maybe it was just the twins?
My hope that their reaction was more extreme than what others would be was quickly dashed the moment I got home and my father’s male servants all gave me looks of disdain and distrust.
But the worst was my own father.
Disappointment and disgust glittered in his usually warm eyes. “Go clean up,” he said, turning his face aside, dismissing me from his sight.
I turned on my heel, and ran the moment I was out of his sight.
Heat pooled in my eyes, and then I was crying. I’d never thought I’d had vanity, but the disgust on their faces… I felt bruised. Hurt.
What had I done?
What had I done…?
Eros
Mother had told me to keep a close eye on the female. So that I could be her eyes and ears. I should never have spoken those words to the female. Mother would hear, she would know I had a plan. Not what. But she was smart enough that she would recognize what I was not so slyly alluding to.
I’d hated myself for doing as my mother bid, for coming down to Earth to poison the young woman. But the moment I’d laid eyes on her all of mother’s carefully laid plans had been dashed. I’d forgotten everything, transfixed by her beauty. Her warm red hair with streaks of auburn running through it. Her pale flesh, so smooth and unmarred by a single blemish. Eyes the color of fall wheat had gazed back at me.
And in my heart, I knew my mother’s beauty was nothing to the female’s.
Mother’s was a façade, hiding terrible ugliness within. But Psyche’s was like a blast of fresh air. The way she’d touched me, without cringing back, how she’d looked genuinely concerned for my well-being when she’d believed I’d fallen. I wasn’t sure how her heart had managed to remain so pure when her own sisters’ hearts were the exact opposite. I’d taken one look at them and had seen the darkness within them both.
And in that moment, I’d wanted nothing more than to reveal my true self to Psyche. To show her that I was worth so much more than she could ever imagine. That I was her peer. Her equal in beauty. That she could be proud to be seen with me.
But then she’d spoken of the mortal, Arganon, to whom she was betrothed and in a moment of great epiphany I realized it was not the flesh that seemed to pull Psyche in, but rather the measure of a man’s heart.
My palm tingled, turning it over I stared at the spot where her fingers had traced my flesh. As the god of hearts, I had felt what she’d felt in that moment. Surprise. Curiosity. Intrigue.
It went against everything I understood but somehow, someway, she’d seemed to find me as interesting as I’d found her.
Just what kind of woman was she?
I felt my lips tip into a smile and then I startled, realizing what I was doing. I shook my head. Mother could never know the truth of Psyche. She could never be allowed to hear what I was thinking, sense what I was feeling… if she learned of this, she would utterly destroy the girl.
I watched Psyche walk away, watched as the men derided and ridiculed her. And hatred toward the men began to boil in my heart. Not that they wanted nothing to do with her, it was cruel what’d been done to Psyche, but it hurt worse knowing how much it was hurting her. I could practically see her curling into herself. See her self-worth dropping by the second. She had nothing to be ashamed of, but already her mind was becoming crippled by their censure.