My Date From Hell (The Blooming Goddess Trilogy, #2)

Shafted but good (Part 1)

Bethany may not have been able to see the arrows but she most definitely saw Kai. "You're back!" she trilled, happily.

Theo swore. Pierce looked horrified.

I wanted to do something. Yell at Kai, shove him under a bus, anything so he wouldn't see Bethany first and fall in love with her. He was mine. But I couldn't react fast enough. I stood there like a big idiot.

"What happened?" Hannah asked.

"Arrow," I bleated. In a fraction of a second, his head would jerk up from staring at where the arrow had gone into him and he'd be looking directly at Bethany, who even now was one step away from being in his line of vision.

"Oh crap," Hannah moaned, understanding.

I tensed. At least I wouldn't have to see Kai's face, looking like a lifetime of Hanukahs, Christmases, and birthdays as he fell madly in love with Bethany. Small mercy, she'd be between Kai and me, blocking my view of him.

And Bethany wouldn't need to be shot to fall for Kai in return. She was already there.

I held my breath, then released it as something black caught Bethany around the ankle and sent her sprawling, leaving Kai's stare to land directly on me.

"Let's get this party started, shall we?" I dimly heard Festos cry cheerfully.

A part of my brain registered Theo's shock at Festos' arrival but the rest was pre-occupied with staring back at Kai.

Here it was. The moment when Kai looked upon me with unadulterated love and devotion, courtesy of Pierce's love arrow. My head throbbed. "Careful what you wish for" had never been so true.

He hadn't needed an arrow with Persephone, a insidious little voice whispered in my head. I punched it in the gut to shut it up.

Apparently Kai needed multiple arrows for me because that love-struck gaze didn't come. Instead, he took one look at me, creased his forehead in confusion and began lumbering all choppy and mechanical toward me.

Was he kidding me? Flushing hotly, I stomped over to him, my insecurity and corresponding angry defensiveness floored in high gear.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Pierce notch up another arrow.

"Hannah," he urged, motioning at Jackson who now headed back to the school with the other students, "go snatch him back."

A loud buzzing noise filled the area.

Pierce's body started to shake. He closed his eyes. "I'm royally screwed now."

And with that, he disappeared.

Hannah gave a small cry at his disappearance, which thankfully no other members of the student body noticed since the only ones left outside were her, me, Theo, Festos, Bethany, and Kai. This was fortunate since I'm not sure how we could have explained a cute boy suddenly disappearing from our midst.

Just ahead of me, Bethany pushed to her feet with a evil glare at Festos. "Watch it, gimp," she sneered.

"You're much thinner in your photos," he said, giving her the once over. "Reality is a harsh mistress."

This earned a smothered laugh from Theo and would have gotten one from me under normal circumstances as I shoved past her, except all my attention stayed on Kai, moving jerkily toward me.

We met and he threw his arms around me, like the earth wouldn't keep spinning if he didn't hug me.

"You're not in love with me," I said, struggling to get out of his ironclad grip.

"Nope," he said, his voice oddly grim.

"It's an excellent boa constrictor impression though," Hannah piped up.

Bethany couldn't stand Kai touching me. Despite the fact he had me in a death hold, she tried to worm her way in between us.

Literally.

"I was so worried about you," she purred at him, elbowing me in the face as she tried to come between Kai's arms and me. "After Sophie drove you away like that."

Vines of moss green light shot out of my palms. "Don't even think of pushing that whopper, you psycho."

I tried to wrap my hands around her in order to spin her until she crumbled to dust, but just ended up flailing them around spastically because my arms were still trapped by Kai.

"Let go." I heaved at Kai but he didn't budge.

"I. Can't." Boy, did he sound mad.

Bethany snorted in frustration and stomped off the other way. "You're all so Z-list anyway."

Trying to ignore the sensation of Kai now stroking my hair, I angled my right palm at his ankle, shot out a vine and flung him away from me. Okay, well, budged him three inches so I could wriggle loose. But in my head, I flung him across the field.

I wanted to kill him. "You were the one who said we had to choose to fall in love. But apparently, you actually hate the idea so much that you willfully blocked the effects of one of Cupid's arrows."

Theo was so mad at Kai that he didn't even bother correcting my "Cupid" use. He inserted himself between us and turned to face Kai. "One time, could you not screw up the plan?"

"Being shot wasn't the plan," Kai retorted, once again taking hold of me.

"Yeah, actually, it was. Finally, Sophie was thinking straight around you."

Kai froze. "You wanted Pierce to shoot us? After everything I told you, how I was willing to risk it and how important this was, you wanted to use arrows?"

O-kay. Given the thundercloud look on his face, I may have been wrong about him liking that idea.

I felt guilty, which led to me feeling defensive, which progressed to anger and resulted in me shooting my mouth off. "Newsflash. No girl wants to fall in love as part of a job description. Just because I agreed we had to doesn't mean I didn't want to do it with the least emotional damage."

Kai's hands tightened on my arm. "What damage? I'm not going to hurt you. Stop making me the bad guy."

He'd already hurt me. Not his fault, but the best case scenario was me always being his runner-up. Not that I'd tell him that.