Geneva Johnson peered hopefully at the handsome bartender from Lights. He was tall and broad with ears that stuck out just a little bit. His eyes were striking blue and when he smiled at her, Geneva could see one perfect dimple. Oh, he was definitely Mr. Right. 

        "Another drink?" His voice was a low rumble and Geneva found herself leaning forward, becoming entranced by his easy charm. Bartenders were always trouble for her. They had almost limitless opportunity to tangle themselves with a multitude of lovers. Dangerous. She looked down at her drink and thankfully saw that it was still mostly full so she shook her head with a polite smile. His flirtations were harmless, a quirk of his job.

        It wasn't against the rules to actually talk to her clients, or be seen by them, but most Cupids could do their work without the interaction. Geneva enjoyed being in the field, talking to people, and getting them to meet organically. Also, she had really shitty aim and was pretty hopeless with the various magic tricks that Aphrodite imbued her Cupids. One of which, importantly enough, was invisibility. 

        "Do I have something on my face?" The bartender, Brian, leaned in and ran a hand over his angular jaw in a way that Geneva knew was blatant flirting. She must have been staring him down again. Okay, so he was more flirtatious than Lizzy liked. But his extroversion might be a good balance for Lizzy's aching shyness when she was out of her element.

        It had taken more than a month to convince Lizzy to go out with her. She'd scoped out several bars and picked this one because Brian worked here consistently. The stud was bartending his way through graduate school, studying engineering. Lizzy was a super organized personal assistant to the vice president of an app building company. But secretly, she was learning how to program and was planning on quitting her hellish job. 

        The intended couple's common ground was diligence in education, a love for dogs, Italian food, and —strangely enough, BDSM. 

        But the reality of Geneva's power was that she could see their love, like a glowing red string connecting them. It had been a tediously long knotted string, but she'd moved through the tangles patiently. Only when it was free of knots did the Cupid feel comfortable having the two meet. Untangled string wasn't a frequent occurrence because people had their own will and moved and interacted with others often, causing the strings to overlap and knot. But tonight was supposed to be perfect.

        She gave Brian the benefit of a giggle but dropped her appraising gaze to her Cosmo. She couldn't draw his attention too much, no matter how ridiculously cute she thought he was. She'd picked him for Lizzy and come Hell or high water, Lizzy was going to love him. And of course Lizzy would love Brian, it was meant to be. Ever since Geneva began doing the matchmaking the hard and tedious way, her success rate was one hundred percent PERFECT.

        Geneva checked her phone and saw that she'd been here for the last hour without a word from Lizzy. It was unusual that the girl would be so uncommunicative. The Cupid was half expecting to get stood up again; Lizzy was infamous for this. 

        The last time Geneva tried to convince Lizzy to go out, she'd said that her mother was sick. The time before that, she had to take care of flight arrangements and transportation for her boss. So, by now, Geneva had a heavy dose of skepticism and worry. Lizzy always gave her an excuse. She never just...Ignored the request to come out. 

        "Hey, why the long face?" Brian asked her. Geneva looked up at him, startled. 

        "Uh..." She replied stupidly.

        Was he still flirting with her? This was the issue with being a Cupid. She had the glow of love on her and it attracted people. Every now and then, even Lizzy felt the pull. But aside from the mystical powers of love, Geneva was also attractive. She was cinnamon-skinned with a feline quality to her features. Her cheek bones, her chocolate brown eyes, her black eyebrows all subtly angling upward. Even her lips, full and shapely, curved up at the corners naturally as though she were on the brink of smiling. She'd dressed drably to show off Lizzy more, but her body beneath the ridiculous sweater was feminine and curvaceous. Her hair was pulled back tightly with a hairband but poofed into a perfectly styled puff of tiny black curls at the crown of her head. 

        She didn't blame Brian for being attracted to her. But she hated repeatedly brushing people off. 

        "...I have to go." Geneva watched his charming smile fade at the sudden departure but she didn't give him time to respond. Instead, she grabbed her bag and slid off the bar stool and headed for the door. 

        There was still a chance to save the night. If Lizzy was ignoring her, Geneva would drag her pert little butt all the way back to Lights and force her to interact with Brian. 

        The best way to find her was to follow the glowing red string. It was easy to do because each connection was a little different from another, like fingerprints. Geneva was so familiar with Brian and Lizzy's string that it was like picking out a familiar face from a crowd of strangers. 

        It was the smell of the hospital that shook Geneva out of her intense focus. She'd followed the string though the emergency entrance and stood there, shocked. At her feet was a river of red strings, but every few moments, a string would fade.

        An urgency shook her to her core and Geneva ran through the building, following that familiar glow. In the eight months that she'd been Lizzy's Cupid, she'd grown attached to the girl. They were more than Cupid and Client, they were friends. The thought of Lizzy's string fading made her heart ache with worry.

        She found the right room and pushed herself in. Beside Lizzy's bed, hovering over her prone form, was the most beautiful man Geneva had ever seen. But his distraction was short lived as she turned her attention to Lizzy. The poor blond was still and hooked up to a monitor. Her head was bandaged and her foot was in a cast and elevated. 

        The beautiful man beside Lizzy's bed returned his attention to Lizzy and reached for her face. 

        "Stop! Don't touch her!" Geneva demanded with a force that surprised the both of them. She rushed over to Lizzy, coming between her unconscious friend and the stranger. Intuition told her to be worried. Despite how much Geneva loved his aristocratic features and the startling appeal of his gray eyes, she could sense danger from him. Not the danger she equated with flirting with bartenders, but real, finite danger.

        "You can see me?" The man asked, a lilt of surprise in his timbre. His voice was like hot chocolate syrup pouring on chocolate cake and it made Geneva think of overindulging. The Cupid banished the irritating tingle of attraction and filled herself up with primal protectiveness for Lizzy. 

        "Yes." And then she knew exactly what he was. Not who. What. "Death."

        "Yes," he echoed her. "Death." He looked at her curiously for a moment, then added, "And you?" Apparently, Cupids were harder to figure out.

        "Cupid," she found herself replying. It was hard to resist his persistent stare. It was as if he was leafing through her and reading all the secret parts of her. 

        "Sorry, Cupid. She's on my list," he said nonchalantly and without even a tiny hint of sincerity, and reached around her to take Lizzy's life with a stroke of his elegant hand.

        "No!" She got in the way again to cover Lizzy's bandaged head with her arms and upper body and watched in horror as Death's hand came close to caressing her cheek. He snatched his hand back but not before he touched a part of her hair and a lock of inky tight curls turned white from end to her temple. He looked angry as he hid his hand behind his back and glared at her. 

        "She's on my list too," Geneva declared stubbornly.

        They were at a stand still and the air sizzled with the intensity of their locked gaze.

___________________________________

Author's Note:

Hello readers! My name is Alexandria and I'm super excited about introducing you to Geneva, Adrian, Lizzy, and Brian. Thank you so much for reading and for commenting on my work. If you loved it (or like-liked it) please vote or add it to your reading list so that your followers can enjoy it too!

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