My eyes slid right over the dead zone that contained the house on the corner.
That was a lie.
I looked because I knew the man who lived there would be leaving for work and I could get a glimpse of him.
From somewhere inside the prison my goddess had constructed—to keep my heart protected, she claimed—my soul fluttered like a butterfly in a jar.
The goddess’s gaze merely passed over my ex-boyfriend, Kin, without the barest hint of interest, even though I knew there was no way she could have misunderstood my reaction to his presence. If there wasn’t a flashing heart symbol hovering above someone’s head, they might as well have been invisible, as far as she was concerned.
She eased on the gas and prepared to drive away, and I was helpless to stop her. Wait, just let me look at him for five more seconds, I pleaded, but she didn’t listen, and there was nobody but myself to blame for the conundrum I now faced. After all, I had been the one who called Alexis forth and begged her to take the reins so I could bow out, wallow in heartbreak, and bathe in self-pity.
How could I admonish her for heeding my request? For putting me right where she’d been for our whole life—trapped inside a body she couldn’t control, none of her decisions truly her own. Except I did blame her. When your best friend doesn’t want to go outside after a bad breakup, you let her eat her weight in Ben and Jerry’s but then you drag her butt out to a club to help burn off the extra calories.
Except Alexis wasn’t my best friend—she was me, which made the whole thing that much more complicated. When I first found out Cupid was my father, and that I was not only Lexi Balefire of the legendary Balefire witches, Keeper of the Flame, but also a half goddess, it would be an understatement to say I was thrown for a loop.
Pieces of myself I’d never known existed began to churn inside me, coalescing into an entire being I created as a way to deal with the heebie-jeebies. When I pulled out my father’s bow and nocked a magical, heart-tipped arrow, I was the Goddess Alexis, in all her bleach-blond glory.
I don’t know if it was my witch mojo or simply the breadth and depth of my belief in her that made Alexis real and gave her power, but now that she had it—sans broken heart—I doubted she’d ever willingly give it back. Or, that I’d have the guts to stand up and take it.
But then there stood Kin, that delicious curl dangling further into his eyes than I’d ever seen it. Kin, with his guitar string-calloused fingers that used to send tingles down my spine whenever he touched me. Kin, who didn’t even remember I existed, or that we’d been a fated match bound together by True Love’s Kiss.
Except, for the first time since my nemesis, Diana Diamond’s, love spell had nearly sentenced him to a lifetime of unhappiness and then stolen away every last memory of me, I felt a surge of hope that maybe the final nail in the coffin of our love hadn’t been driven into place quite yet.
Hope: the harbinger of triumph, the eternal tease, and Achilles’ heel all rolled into one.
Kin’s eyes met mine and he smiled. The kind of smile not reserved for strangers, but rather for family and friends. He knew me.
Get a grip. The goddess running things forced my head around.
Mrs. Chatterly smiled back at Kin from across the street, and he looked right through me.
Hope is a wonderful thing for those who stand a chance. But for those of us who are doomed to walk the planet reliving the most painful moments of our lives without reprieve, it’s nothing but a cruel joke.
