Page 16 of Torn

Merry is right. Malice does have a sadistic grin.

Even at this level, Anger still hears the carousel tinkling beyond the library. It skips through his ears, along with the wry tilt of Malice’s voice. The demon archer finds something amusing, even ironic about his own statement.

Perhaps Anger has been asking the wrong questions. Perhaps he should have made an alternate inquiry first. Perhaps he needs to rectify that.

He has an inkling. Merry had confided that she was a dud. A failed star.

She’d never said what kind.

Anger steels himself. “Before she was exiled, who was she? Who was Merry?”

Malice has anticipated that, because he smirks. “She was Love.”

5

Anger

Anger’s heart rams into his torso. If he were holding a second cup in his grip, he would shatter that one as well. He would pulverize it, the fragments slicing him open, his fist bleeding.

Since he doesn’t have another vessel to vanquish, he settles for an arrow and a different target. The weapon is already nocked, the iron tip pointing at Malice’s sternum. It won’t kill the delinquent, but it will hurt.

There’s no way.

There’s just no way.

There’s no way Anger could have heard the deity correctly.

The nefarious misfit reclines in his seat and steeples his fingers. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you don’t like surprises.”

“You’re lying about this,” Anger growls. “Another option is that you’re as delusional as you are demonic.”

“No, to the first accusation. I saw the way Merry ogled you in the carnival. Why do you suppose I backed down? You’re the perfect candidate to break her.” Malice’s corrosive voice deepens. “I gave you time to get acquainted. Am I to believe that cupcake didn’t strike you as a tad affectionate?”

“Even if she did, it means nothing.”

“I’m sorry to traumatize you, but not really sorry. She was originally born as Love. Sugar glaze and all.”

“That’s impossible!”

“You’re right. Cupcakes don’t have sugar glaze.”

“On the count of three. One, two—”

“Think harder, mate,” Malice says. “It’s not impossible. There’s a distinction between creation and attempt.”

Anger stays his weapon. This scoundrel is right.

Love had been the first of her kind. She’d been first goddess in history with the power to wield love. As the most complex of all emotions, it had taken the Fates millennia to conjure her.

But that doesn’t mean there haven’t been endeavors. And defeats.

Usually, failures of conception don’t survive birth, fading within seconds like snuffed-out stars. Yet in rare cases, some do survive.

That’s why Merry had called herself a dud. She’s a prior attempt to create a love goddess. Certainly, she’s the only candidate who has lived to tell that tale.

She won’t be the last mock-up. Now that Love is a human, ages will pass before the Fates manage to reproduce her, even if they’ve learned the method. Such pursuits take endurance.

On that score, Anger suspects that he hasn’t been replaced yet, either.

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