We turned toward him, but did not let go of each other. It wasn’t the best defensive position to take in front of a god who could snap a person into and out of existence, but we’d been too many heartbeats apart.
A soft jingle of metal reminded me there was one more person on the road with us: Lorde.
“Stay, Lorde, stay,” I said, but she limped over to Lu and I and wagged her tail at us, black tongue sticking out as if nothing was unusual about being in the presence of a god.
As if we weren’t in danger.
Interesting.
“Well, who’s this?” the god asked. “What’s your name, pretty?” He crouched down and held his fingers out toward Lorde and wiggled them at her.
Lorde tipped her head one way, then the other, then limped over to him.
“Lorde,” Lu said quietly, though whether a warning to the dog or answering the god’s question, I didn’t know.
“Just call me Bo.” He produced a piece of bacon out of thin air, and Lorde immediately sat in anticipation of the treat.
“No. Lorde is my shepherd,” Lu finished, dazed.
Bo snickered. “Even without the joke, that’s a good name. Aren’t you a sweetheart? Here you go girl.” He offered the bacon. She took it daintily out of his hand and dropped it on the ground before eating it in small bites.
“Healing isn’t my main power,” he said, still crouched down and petting the softest part of Lorde’s head right between her ears. “But if you’d let me, I could mend her leg.”
Lu shook her head, but she clenched my shirt tighter, nails digging into my side. She was shaking, wound up so tight, I was afraid she’d fly to bits.
This was all too much. Too confusing to be facing a god who was offering us these moments and what appeared to be kindness to our dog.
We both knew it had to come at a cost too high for us to pay.
“No.” I shifted my hold on Lu, wrapping an arm across her back and standing side-by-side with her against the god.
Together. Always.
The god stopped petting Lorde and stood, those endless eyes weighing our worth. “You want to know why. Why I’m stepping in. Why now. What I’m offering. What you’ll owe.”
“That’d be a good start,” I said.
He leaned back on his bike. It settled under his weight. Lorde watched him intently, wagging her tail. Then she sat, waiting for more bacon.
He slipped her another piece.
“I knew of you, both of you,” he said. “How could I not? The way your souls are broken and mended, your lives connected and destroyed. Those are things I know.”
“You were there when that monster jumped us?” I asked.
“No. Nowhere near you. I was in a little town near the ocean. Stepped away from the world for some time. But when I returned, I knew something terrible had happened to you. Just as many terrible things had happened to many, many people. Connection and destruction are powerful states of being, powerful events. It leaves a mark. And I feel them all.”
“Rule them all,” Lu said. “You rule them all. Make those connections and destructions happen.”
Cupid tipped his head just a bit, considering her words. He nodded. “I make, allow, endure bindings and breakings. True. But I did not send your attackers. I was not a part of that event, that mark. Allowing this bond you carry, a soul for a soul,” he pointed a blunt, inked finger between us, “I was a part of that. Made, and allowed to endure. If not for my grace, neither of you would be alive.”
Lu tensed even more.
“If not for my grace,” Bo went on, “you wouldn’t have found that watch that gives you relief, moments when you can hear, see, feel each other.”
“A woman named Rose gave us the watch,” Lu said.
He smiled fondly. “Yes, she did. Insisted on it, until I agreed.”
