Cupid E-Book

Lucy Felthouse

• Herausgeber: Lucy Felthouse
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

What if Santa's reindeer were shifters?

As a postman by day, and one of Santa's reindeer on a single very special night, Cassius Cupid eats, sleeps, and breathes deliveries. He doesn't mind, but sometimes wishes that someone would send him something more exciting than bills and junk mail.

One cold January morning, Cassius gets his wish. A young woman arrives with a parcel. Turns out it's for his housemate – but Cassius doesn't care. All he's interested in is Carina, the beautiful female courier.

Has Cupid finally met his match?

Please note: This book has been previously published and has been re-edited.

Leseprobe

Cupid

By Lucy Felthouse

Text Copyright 2020 © Lucy Felthouse.

All Rights Reserved.

With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the aforementioned author.This book was created without the use of AI. Scanning by AI for training purposes or derivative works is strictly prohibited.

Warning: The unauthorised reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the author’s written permission.

This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Epilogue

About the Author

If You Enjoyed Cupid

Chapter One

Cassius Cupid woke with a start, then sat bolt upright in his bed. Shit, I’m going to be late!

Milliseconds later, his brain switched on, and he remembered. He was on holiday. Flopping back onto the warm mattress and pillows with a contented sigh, he smiled. No work for fourteen whole days—it was going to be utter bliss. He stretched, relishing the feeling it created in his sleep-befuddled muscles. Ahhh... this is the life.

He knew he wouldn’t go back to sleep—hell, it was eight o’clock, which was practically the middle of the day for someone in his profession—so Cassius fell to thinking about how he was going to spend his day. Not to mention the several others in front of him. God knows he deserved to relax and have some fun. He’d just emerged from the busiest part of his year, and he was more than ready to do some chilling out.

He enjoyed his job as a postman—he really did—but the Christmas period was a total killer. He idly wondered how many cards and presents he’d delivered over the past few weeks. It didn’t bear thinking about. Once you factored in the festive period itself, the weird few days between Christmas and New Year, and then the flurry of mail that got sent when everyone went back to work properly at the beginning of January, he’d racked up some serious deliveries. And that was before you even thought about his other job—which was for just one day a year, but was arguably more important than the other 364 put together.

Cassius—or Cupid, as he was known to his boss and colleagues in his second, but most important job—was not only a regular postman for the UK’s Royal Mail, but also a reindeer. For a single day of the year, Cassius had the supernatural power to transform into one of Santa’s faithful steeds and help pull that famous magical sleigh, delivering presents to excited children the world over.

Therefore, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that Cassius really did eat, sleep and breathe deliveries. But not for the next fourteen days. All he planned to do was watch some TV, read some books, maybe go out hiking, meet some friends... basically anything that wasn’t delivering something to someone. Hey, he might even receive something through the post himself—preferably not the usual crap; bills and junk mail. He didn’t hold out much hope.

He lounged in bed for another ten minutes before realising he was lying there for the sake of it. Being on holiday didn’t have to equal staying in bed all day—and certainly not for someone as active as him. He reached over to his bedside table, grabbed his glasses and put them on. After throwing off his thick duvet, he walked to his bedroom window and peeked through the curtains, immediately glad of the effective central heating he and his housemate had forked out to have installed the previous year.

The outside world was covered in a thick layer of snow. Cassius was mighty glad he wasn’t out delivering letters and parcels. The stuff was treacherous enough without having to carry a heavy bag up and down driveways, paths and pavements, most of which either hadn’t been cleared, or had been cleared badly, leaving incredibly slippery patches of ground for an unsuspecting postie to come across. God knows he’d gone down enough times, but much to his relief, nobody had ever seen him do it. He’d always been relatively unharmed—except for his pride, of course—and had been able to scramble back to his feet and carry on.

The eerie silence outside was broken by the rumble of an engine. Cassius turned his head to look up the street—he lived in a cul-de-sac, so he knew that’s where the vehicle would come from—and watched as a delivery van made its way slowly and carefully down the road. He hoped the driver was sensible enough to try to steer over the thickest parts of the snow—the more people went over and over the same patches, packing it down, the more the road surface resembled an ice rink. And since the cul-de-sac was on a slight hill, it was easy enough to get stuck. He’d seen it so many times—even going outside one time last winter to suggest the driver go down to the bottom of the road, turn around and try reversing up the hill—an almost foolproof plan for vans with rear-wheel drive. He’d gotten a big thumbs-up for that suggestion as the driver finally got to the junction where it became flat, and went on his merry way.

As the delivery van drew closer to his house, he saw that the driver was a woman. That would explain her cautious driving—he’d never admit it to one of his drinking buddies, but women were far superior when it came to driving in adverse weather conditions. He even thought he’d seen some survey containing statistics which proved it.

He frowned as the van stopped at the end of his driveway. Watching as she reached over to the passenger seat and retrieved a clipboard, he wondered if she’d got the wrong address. Apparently not. She glanced up at the house—leaving Cassius wondering if she’d seen him standing there, staring out of the upstairs window like some kind of nosey parker. Then she hopped out of the van and made her way to the rear doors, opened them and climbed in. The van bounced ever so slightly on its suspension as she walked around in the back of it, then she reappeared on the road, parcel in hand.

Realising she’d be knocking on his front door any minute, Cassius retreated from the window and scrambled to make himself decent. He wore pyjama bottoms for bed, but he had no intention of answering the door with no shirt on—especially in this weather—so he grabbed last night’s T-shirt from the top of his wash basket and yanked it on as he headed out of his room and down the stairs.

He paused in the hallway opposite the front door, waiting for the knock. He wondered what it was she was delivering—he hadn’t ordered anything in a while, other than books and DVDs, and they came by regular post. The parcel he’d seen the courier get out of the back of the van was much bigger than books and DVDs.

After wracking his brain for a little longer, he came to the conclusion the parcel wasn’t for him at all, but for Simon, his housemate. Bloody typical. He was just mentally bemoaning the fact nobody ever sent him anything interesting, when he realised there had still been no knock on the door. Frowning, he wondered if perhaps the woman had got the wrong address, after all, and was already back in her van and on the road once more. He hadn’t heard the engine again, but to be fair, he hadn’t been listening for it, and they did have double glazing.

Cassius walked into the living room next door and looked out of the front window to see if the van was gone. It wasn’t. His frown deepened. Where the hell had she gone then? Surely not far, because she was blocking his drive. If he wanted to go out in his car, he was screwed. He leaned into the bow window, affording him a better view. It was then he saw her. Sprawled across the driveway, clutching her ankle.

Cassius’s instincts kicked in. Without a thought for his bare feet, he dashed back into the hallway, flung open the front door and rushed out to her. She looked up as he approached her, a wry grin on her face, tears threatening to spill.

“I won’t ask if you’re all right. It’s a silly question,” he said gently, crouching down beside her. “Will you let me help you?”

She nodded. “Thank you. If you could just get me back to the van, I can call someone to come and relieve me.”

“Don’t be so silly. I’m not leaving you out in the cold. I’ll take you inside, get a hot drink inside you and we’ll see how you are from there.”