“Are you all right?” Someone shook my shoulder. “Miss, are you all right?” The strange man’s garlic-and-onion breath made an effective substitute for smelling salts.

“What happened?” My head pounded to the beat of my heart, and when I sat up, the world spun once, then twice. My questing fingers probed the throbbing spot and settled on a lump near my temple.

“You slammed right into that trash bin. You were just walking right along and then bam! Next time, you should look where you’re going.”

But I like a good concussion, Captain Obvious. I summoned the retort but was too dazed to bother saying it out loud. His good deed done for the day, my Samaritan heaved himself to standing. He patted the sparse hairs of his up-and-over style back into place and left me to my misery.

If anyone had ever told me taking over for my father and playing Cupid would turn me into a glorified, full-time stalker, I’d have refused the job. Not that anyone asked me if I wanted it in the first place.

And now my target had fled.

As if I didn’t already know I’d missed the mark, the Bow of Destiny blatted a note of displeasure in my head, and I had to hold back a shriek of pain as the sound ricocheted off the inside of my sore skull.

“Give it a rest, will you?” I clutched my aching head.

Box after box of chocolates fly off the shelves every February with cute little angels plastered all over their shiny redness. Too bad the candy makers completely missed the mark when it came to decorating. My dad was no winged cherub holding an adorable little bow with heart-tipped arrows. Okay, the heart shape was right, but the cute part was all wrong. Nope, Cupid was a man. Or technically a god, but he looked like a man. One I’d never met, and who forged his bow—a serious weapon—from living gold.

Living. Gold. As in gold that lived. And where did it live? you might ask. Inside me, that’s where.

Moreover, the stupid thing had a brain of sorts, and an opinion on everything that had to do with my work. One it liked to share musically. At a high volume.

Fishing around in the messenger bag I’d been using for a purse, I pulled out a bottle containing the dregs of my faerie godmother’s restorative elixir, and downed the last few drops. Like magic—because it was magic—half the headache faded away, taking most of the fuzzy thoughts with it. I’d have to deal with the rest of the pain later, and it would be worse, but the stay of execution might allow me to finish my job. Magic always comes with a price.

“I’ll go find whoever it is. Are you happy now?” From the outside, talking to the bow looked a lot like talking to myself. The answer came in the form of a cheery tune that only made me wince at the much-reduced pain as I staggered out of the mouth of the alley and loped down the sidewalk.

A moment of concentration reactivated the weapon’s sight. Like something out of a superhero movie, a circle with a set of crosshairs hovered just ahead of my right eye. My imagination supplied robotic sound effects every time I blinked and the focus altered. All I needed now was a pink spandex suit with a symbol splashed across the chest. Lexi Balefire: Matchwoman. No, that didn’t sound right. Lovemaker? Ugh. Worse, and with a vaguely dirty undertone. Matchwitch was a little closer, but maybe I’d better leave the superhero name thing alone for the time being.

Armed and ready, I locked in on the place in my gut that always knew the right direction. Cars have GPS, I have LPS—an internal Love Positioning System.

The pull was strong this time. Anticipation stole my breath like I’d crested the hill on a roller coaster, caught in that moment of foreboding just before the awful plunge. This match felt epic and desperate to be made. Not normal, in other words.

Even without Terra’s magic healing juice lending me artificial strength, I would have hurried forward, the compulsion was so strong. My date with the dumpster had cost me valuable time and, according to the intensity of the pull, I had only seconds to make this work, so I kicked the pace up another notch.

Nerves jittered as I closed in on my quarry. My stomach lurched when the target symbol finally blinked red and split into two. One crossed circle oriented on a man walking away from me, the other on a woman walking toward. A complicated orchestral arrangement sounded in my head—at a volume that would have made my ears ring, but made my skull bones vibrate instead.

A simple ta-da would have worked, do you have to make a big deal out of everything? I thought at the bow.

It blew a musical raspberry at me in response.

In a cloud of glowing light, the bow-carrying inner Goddess—the part of me with the power to handle my father’s weapon—stepped forward, and with a practiced hand brought the Bow of Destiny to bear. She looked like me except for the hair. Mine, a nut-brown riot of curls shot through with strands of copper, hers a slanting wing of white tipped with neon pink. Oh, and the eyes were different, too. Pink and piercing, she fixed hers upon the two unsuspecting hearts, took aim, and fired.

A pair of arrows zinged toward their targets.

Now you’re just showing off. I actually felt her smirk on my face as she faded away, and I turned my attention back to the couple. This is what I love most about my job; the part where I get to watch two halves of one soul come together.

The impact of arrow to heart makes no sound, and I’m the only one who ever flinches, but that’s just because I can see the tip slice bloodlessly through flesh and bone. Then comes that delicious moment when eyes lock and fates begin to be sealed. Matches made by the Bow of Destiny are forever. They embody the ideals set out in traditional marriage vows: in sickness and in health, forsaking all others. One hundred percent fated, a done deal. Never to be put asunder. Odd word choice, but it fits.

Most of the couples I bring together using the tried-and-true methods employed at FootSwept, my matchmaking business, experience true love’s kiss. On the hundred point scale of longevity, these matches come in at a solid ninety. It’s rare for a TLK match to turn bad, but it happens. A fact I’d learned only recently.

This couple, though, hit the scale at ten times the going rate, their love mojo was so strong. Off the charts.

Why did they need me at all, then, you ask? Simple math; one hundred percent is better than ninety, and this couple’s union carried an air of heightened significance. My arrow would close the gap, leaving nothing to chance. Some soul mates are a drop in the bucket that rests on the scales of human emotion; others are a hurricane-level downpour. Both help keep the balance of good and evil in check, and none are inconsequential. Love really does make the world go around.

At least, that’s what I’d gathered during my time with the illustrious bow. To my everlasting annoyance, it had come without instructions or explanations. I was too lowly a peon in the hierarchy of my father’s world for anyone to bother cluing me in. About anything, really.

Maybe the force of their destiny would have eventually drawn the couple together without my interference, but the bow wanted them matched now, and so I fired the arrows and did the deed. Or the pink-eyed part of me I considered to be my inner goddess did, at any rate.

It would have been nice to know the new lover’s names at least.

The goddess part of me, my father’s true legacy, might have been a source of information, but she wasn’t talking. All pink and glowing, she popped out just long enough to do the shooting, then faded back into the recesses of my being like one part of a multiple personality. Her communication skills left a lot to be desired. Up to now, she’d done little more than a wag finger at me when I tried to override her will with my own intuition.

The other half of my genetic makeup is pure witch. I come from a long line of magically powerful women. In fact, that same power is exactly what attracted Cupid to my mother in the first place. Daddy had a reputation for spreading the love, and since him making babies with witches yielded Fate Weavers like me, it made sense he’d have been drawn to one with a lot of power.

Whatever my personal issues—and they abounded—my attention refocused on the couple when the pair of them locked eyes and turned the street into something right out of musical theater. Okay, maybe I was the only one with a romantic soundtrack playing in my head when the man and woman came together, but as an audience of one, I can tell you there wasn’t a dry eye in the house.

Drawn as if by a powerful, magnetic force, the lovers stopped with less than a foot of distance between them. Circling left, I sank down on a convenient bench where I could see and hear everything. Nosy? Me? Guilty as charged.

“Didn’t we meet at the…” He said.

She aimed a shy smile at him, “…Old Port Festival. You were selling…”

“…Blown glass ornaments and you…”

“…Bought one for my mother, and then came back and bought three more for…”

“…Your sisters, but I knew they were for you the whole time.”

Oh, how cute, they were already finishing each other’s sentences and little hearts and stars formed over their heads.

Actual hearts and stars, mind you. The glowing kind that are probably some kind of code telling me something about the match. Again, no instructions came with my abilities and if there was a pattern here, I couldn’t see it.

This was the moment that made romance novels fly off the shelves and sparked love songs about two hearts beating as one.

The wave of new love spread like rings of water around a stone thrown into a calm lake. Out from this place, through the city and beyond, it left everything in its path a little sweeter, slightly cleaner than before. Until, with a jarring shudder, the circle of power struck an opposing force.

Fury. Fury and pain rumbled back toward me, threatened to flood me with dark emotion meant to steal away my newfound joy. My head rang when the bow answered with a song of power and rival strength.

Something—or someone—out there wanted to test its darkness against my light, wanted to subvert hope, remove love from the world—and it didn’t care if it took me out in the process. My death would be a fine feather in its cap.

Oh goodie, Lexi Balefire, matchmaking witch has an enemy. It must be Tuesday.

“How do my legs look in these boots? Good enough to welcome Kin back home with a bang?” I asked Flix as he finished up a cut-and-color in the salon adjacent to the massive closet in the back of the FootSwept office.

“You’ve got the gams, girl. But the footwear is a little last season, don’t you think?”

“I haven’t had time to do any headhunting for Neimans in months.” I grouched, remembering the days when it was a job in itself to find room on the racks for one of their gratis shipments. Being a full-fledged Fate Weaver wasn’t just affecting my life, it was affecting my fashion sense.

My skills, while best at matching lovers, could easily have earned me a solid upper-level income as a corporate headhunter. Sometimes I wonder how my life would have turned out if I’d gone that route instead of opening what many consider one step above a dating service. Now I moonlight a little on the side and take my payment in free merchandise that gets passed on to those of my clients who need a little confidence boost.

We don’t make over every seeker of love that walks through the front doors; just the ones who need a little extra attention or some aggressive pampering. Nobody, and I mean nobody, can fail to feel sexy while wearing a pair of Manolo Blahniks. You’d be surprised at how many first kisses have been instigated by the stiletto heel.

I was not doodling Kin Clark, my boyfriend’s name, surrounded by hearts and arrows half an hour later when the phone rang. That would be undignified.

“Lexi? It’s Yvonne Hightower. I’m—this isn’t easy—I’ve been thinking, and I’ve decided I no longer require your services.”

She had my full attention.

“Are you sure?” I’d already found her perfect match, and it was a strong one. The kind that made the Bow of Destiny lilt a sprightly tune in my head. Perhaps not as loud or complex a tune as the one it played for the couple I’d matched the day before, but happy enough.

“I’m sorry, I really am, but I’m sure.”

“If it’s the fee, I’m happy to give you the friends and family discount.” Money wasn’t my main reason for mating lonely couples—or even in the top ten. Matchmaking was in my genes. With Cupid for a father, what else would I do? It’s the family business, and I’d been doing it since before I knew it literally ran in my blood.

Except lately, my business had been experiencing a series of mood swings. I was either swamped or listening to crickets with no happy medium to be found, and at the moment, the chirping was about to drive me nuts.

Okay, I’d admit to having been a little distracted the past few weeks. While fate weaving and the work I did at FootSwept were similar in nature, they don’t mesh quite as seamlessly as you’d think. In theory, I could just shoot everyone who comes in the door and BAM, match the entire city in a matter of days.

There’s a reason why the bow only targeted certain individuals; as wonderful as love is, you can’t force it down someone’s throat if they’re not ready. I don’t think Kin would have been identified as my soul mate if I’d met him five years earlier, and I’d be willing to bet the same applies to many of the couples I’ve matched. Sometimes, the little symbols that signify the bow’s need to be used show up over the heads of recent clients and sometimes they don’t. The dichotomy was another of the intricacies I hadn’t quite figured out yet.

Maybe the couple needed more time or maybe it was me who wasn’t ready. Weaving fates is a work in progress.

“Thank you, but no.” Yvonne sounded faintly embarrassed, and common sense urged me to just hang up before I made an even bigger fool out of myself. What does common sense know?

“Was it something I said?” Resorting to clichés—not proud of it.

“I’ve decided to go with Diana Diamond.” The soft click of the disconnected line ended the conversation.

Diana Diamond, the self-styled queen of hearts. With her face splashed all over billboards and buses and late-night TV, Diana pulled in the desperate and lonely with promises of matches that would make their hearts—and other things—go pitter-patter. People were lining up to see if she really could find their “diamond in the rough.”

During one of my glut periods, I’d been thankful she was taking up the slack. Now it seemed like she might be expanding a little too deeply into my customer base. Sour grapes make lousy wine—or is that whine? I didn’t want to be that person, but Yvonne was the fourth client in three weeks to call and politely take their business elsewhere.

One client didn’t worry me. People have different tastes; it made sense some would prefer her style over mine. Then a second and a third. Yvonne removed the last of my doubts. Diana was poaching my clients—picking them off one by one. Probably my own fault to some degree, considering how distracted I’d been since becoming a full-fledged witch.

Fortunately for her, I’m a good witch and not a wicked one because the temptation to hex all Diana’s clothes a size too small was strong. Or pimples. Pimples were good.

Being the bigger person was only half the reason I restrained myself. The other half had to do with knowing the spirit of whatever I sent out would come back to me times three. Yvonne getting her match was what counted, right? Not revenge against the client-poaching tramp who made it happen.

Still, it rankled.

“Who peed in your Cheerios?” Flix, my business partner and best friend, asked with a furrowed brow as he winked into the room. Faeries—even half-Fae—have the super cool ability to transport themselves through space instantly. We witches have to work a lot harder to achieve the same effect. My attempts at skimming distance had been pathetic failures. That rankled, too.

“Yvonne Hightower just fired me. Us. And I’ll give you two guesses whose services she intends to employ now.”

Flix settled onto one of the Chippendale chairs opposite my desk and crossed one perfectly-sculpted, designer jean-clad leg over the other. The epitome of manly perfection, today his platinum blond hair was cropped short and styled into intentionally mussed spikes. Toned and tanned biceps were not the product of curls and dead lifts in the gym, his Fae genetics negated the need to work out. His gym membership had, I suspected, until recently provided an excuse to troll for hot, equally-muscled men.

“What do you know about this woman? Is she like you? Another Fate Weaver, I mean.” Flix raised an eyebrow and voiced the question I’d been pondering for weeks.

“No idea. I’ve never laid eyes on her in person. Seen her ads on TV and didn’t get the tingle. Which means she’s probably no better than a dating app. I’d almost rather she was another half-sibling; at least then she’d have the aptitude, and I wouldn’t be worried that my more fickle clients were going to miss out on their true love.”

I sighed and threw myself an internal pity party while imagining Diana Diamond losing clients by the dozen. She’d go broke and slink away in misery to leave all the lovers in town for me. “Strikes me as a fake from roots to boots. Or maybe I’m being dramatic.”

“Well, that is your default setting, Lexi darling. But that doesn’t mean you’re wrong. Carl says we don’t trust our instincts enough anymore; we ignore physical cues and focus too much on society’s expectation of treating everyone as equals. It’s become politically incorrect to simply not like someone for no apparent reason, but really it’s nature’s way of letting us know when something isn’t right.”

“Sounds like a good enough justification for judgmental bitchiness. I’ll take it.” I laughed.

“See, having a professor of anthropology in the family has its benefits. Plus, Carl looks hot in those jackets with the suede elbow patches. Win-win.”

I rolled my eyes but couldn’t hold back a grin. Flix and I were still getting over our worst fight ever, and he’d finally come back to work after an extended vacation. Regular clients had been clamoring for one of his legendary hairstyles and had flocked to the salon in the back of the office since his return. I heard one harried woman offer him the diamond pendant she was wearing if he’d skip lunch to do her highlights. I’m pretty sure he declined.

“You like your elbow patches; I like my man with a guitar in his hand. Whatever floats your boat.”

“When is your rock star boyfriend coming back to town, anyway? Mona Katz keeps calling about setting up a double date.”

“He’s not a rock star. Yet. And I hope he never becomes one. He’s just filling in for Rain of Thirteen’s guitarist while they find a permanent replacement. He’ll be back in a few days, and I’ll call Mona then. Otherwise, I’ll never get her off the phone.”

I’d begun to wonder if Kin had caught the travel bug during his trip, which was originally slated to last four weeks but had dragged on for another two and was now threatening to eclipse the Thanksgiving holiday. There was no point setting up a dinner with Mona and her boyfriend if he got delayed again because it increased the chances of her forcing a heart-to-heart talk over my feelings. I didn’t want to talk about the tour. Or Kin. Or anything else, for that matter. Not yet, anyway.

Kin hadn’t seemed particularly enthused about the idea of extending our separation, but he’d been making good contacts on the tour, so I’d pasted a smile on my face and acted like I was happy for him. Flix knew better. Mona would have, too, and that’s precisely why I’d been avoiding her calls.

“You’re radiating fear, and I can smell the freakout oozing from your pores. I don’t know why you try to lie to a faerie—especially me, considering I know you better than anyone on the planet.” Extreme empathy was one of Flix’s gifts. Or maybe it was a curse, I hadn’t ever asked because, while a little too open about his romantic entanglements, he tended to clam up about certain personal details.

“Turn off your spidey senses or whatever you want to call them. We’re not having this conversation now. Everything will be fine.” Avoiding making eye contact for fear I might prove him right and burst into tears, I reiterated.

It might seem like I had more going for me than most people—I’m a witch, the demigod daughter of Cupid, Keeper of the sacred Balefire flame, and last but not least, a Fate Weaver. But damn it all, I still cared more about the one title that meant little in my supernaturally-enhanced world: girlfriend.

“Whatever you say, Lexi. Whatever you say.”