Before Midnight (2 page)

The other princes waited, but he didn’t offer anything else. The werewolf growled. “Well, what did the scroll say about the tree?”

The vampire tilted his head as if debating on how much to share. The demon reached up and grabbed a branch. The god raised an eyebrow as the incubus started doing pull-ups. The angel scowled and shifted his weight to lean a little farther away. The vampire stared at the incubus as if he’d grown a second head. He pointed at the branch the demon was using as exercise equipment. Eurydice clapped her hands. He was pointing with the hand that had been going for the dagger. It was official, her incubus could distract anyone.

“This tree is rumored to be the World Tree.”

The werewolf’s jaw dropped. “You mean that
this
is the tree that passes through worlds? The one that goes from the underworld to the heavens and all the places in between?”

“Yes.” The vampire furrowed his brows as the incubus continued his pull-ups, seemingly unaffected by the reputation of the tree.

The werewolf turned to the god. “You said you’re here because you were meant to be here. Why?”

Prince Saamal started to shrug, then glanced at the incubus. Prince Adonis grinned and looked up, pretending to search the sky. The corner of the god’s mouth quirked. “I do not know why. I do not see the future, I merely sense when forces are working toward a goal. I felt my place was here and so here I am.”

The werewolf shoved his hand through his hair, frustration clear in the clench of his jaw. “So you have no idea what brought us all here or what we’re supposed to do now?”

The god stepped toward the tree, drawing a small dagger as he did so. The blade gleamed black in the moonlight. A surge of energy raised the hairs on the arms of Eurydice’s ghostly spirit form. The blade was obsidian. And old.

“Not exactly,” the god murmured. “I don’t know who brought us here.” He lifted the blade to his palm and drew it over his flesh in one sharp, smooth motion. Blood welled up and filled his hand. “But I know what to do.”

The scent of copper filled the air and the vampire’s eyes dilated, his lips parting slightly. His fangs slid farther from their sheaths, gleaming white in the rays of the moon. A glow lit the werewolf’s eyes and his nose twitched. The angel rubbed his arms uncomfortably and looked away. The demon raised his eyebrows.

They all watched silently as the god placed his bloody palm to the tree. Eurydice held her breath. Waiting.

A ripple of electricity rolled through the clearing. Eurydice swirled around the heart of her tree. The rush of energy was thick and gloriously vibrant. She could feel her tree drinking in the blood, waking up, just barely, from its long slumber. Darting back to her knot, she refocused her attention on the princes. Prince Saamal closed his eyes. A look of peace came over his face and Eurydice smiled.

The vampire’s gaze sharpened. He drew a fang over his palm. He stepped forward and repeated the god’s motion, placing his hand against the tree. Without a word, the werewolf bit his own hand and followed suit.

Eurydice’s heart pounded. She’d known the god would know what to do, had known the vampire would feel the power rush and leap to be a part of it, and had been certain that the werewolf would follow the vampire out of spite. However, if the prophecy were to come true, she needed all five princes to touch the tree, all five of them to give that powerful blood to the thirsty bark. She clutched her hands to her chest.

“Looks like fun,” the demon said, dropping from the tree. He was being flippant, but Eurydice had seen his reaction when the god’s blood touched the tree while the demon still hung from its branches. Prince Adonis had felt the energy too. She could hear his heart beat faster. He held out his hand to the god, gesturing at the obsidian blade. “May I?”

The corner of the god’s mouth turned up in a smile. He offered the blade to the demon without taking his bloody palm from the tree. The demon glanced at the angel and sneered. “Need a little help, birdie?”

The angel wrinkled his nose as the demon cut his palm and added it to the tree. Prince Adonis waggled his eyebrows at Patricio, nodding to the tree. The winged prince ruffled his feathers and Eurydice held her breath as the angel’s fists clenched and unclenched. Her fallen angel had always been a bit sensitive.
Oh, please, Patricio. Please don’t fail me.

Price Patricio sneered at the offered blade. “If you think I’m going to drag that demon blood-tainted instrument of sacrifice across my flesh, you’re as insane as you are vulgar.”

He raised his hand and Eurydice’s eyes widened as blood pooled in his palm, untouched by any weapon or sharp point of any kind.
Stigmata.
The angel was farther gone than she’d thought.

“However, I have nothing to lose here.” Patricio glanced at the god and for a split second, time seemed to stand still. Then, without a word, the angel added his blood to the trunk.

The energy in the tree climbed higher and higher until she could barely breathe. Eurydice dropped her head back, her eyes rolling upward. She wanted to fill the tree with her spirit until she poured out of the trunk in her true hamadryad form, but she couldn’t risk it. It was too early for her Blood Princes to know the whole story. Witnessing the powerful magic of her human half emerging from within the tree would put all of them on the defensive. They didn’t know one another yet, didn’t trust one another. To tell them now would just lead to fighting and then the prophecy may never come true.

The tree sighed and shifted as Eurydice fought to breathe through the energy. Leaves rustled and branches waved, a steady power building inside it. Her leaves grew to a more vibrant green, the bark a richer brown. The scent of wood and earth thickened in the air like a natural perfume. Eurydice didn’t need to see the tree herself to know what changes were happening. It had been a long time, but she remembered.

After several long minutes, the demon shifted and stared up into the leaves. “That’s it?”

“There should be more,” the vampire muttered, mostly to himself.

The god backed away from the tree, a serene look on his face. “It isn’t time yet. There are things as yet unfinished and all the pieces have not yet moved into place.”

“What are you talking about?” the vampire demanded, his eyes flashing. “What do you know?”

The god stared into the vampire’s eyes. “Some of the pieces are missing,” he said calmly. “We will have to wait.” Without another word he turned and walked away, disappearing into the trees.

“What pieces?” the vampire snapped, glaring around him.

The demon shifted, suddenly looking uncomfortable. “I should be going too,” he mumbled. Without another word, he turned and darted back into the trees.

“I don’t know what we expected to happen.” The angel rubbed his hand on his robes, smearing a thin red line over the perfect white cloth.

“What’s the matter with you?” the vampire asked crossly.

The angel shrugged. “Nothing.” He turned and spread his wings. With a few wind-raising passes of the feathery limbs, he rose off the ground and disappeared over the canopy of trees.

“You don’t know anything about what’s going on do you?” the vampire growled at the werewolf.

Prince Etienne’s face looked pale. He refused to meet the vampire’s eyes. Without a word, he threw himself into the change, his human body suddenly enveloped in thick grey and white fur. He landed on all fours and took off into the trees.

The vampire glared at the tree and stepped back. With one last long look, he turned and plunged back into the forest, not even a rustle of leaves giving him away.

Eurydice rose through the layers of the tree to stare out at the vampire’s retreating back until he had completely disappeared into the woods. Safe, she raised her arms over her head, relishing the feel of the breeze on her smooth, pale flesh and running her hands down her body to where her lower half merged with the tree.

It had been too long since she’d come outside, taken her physical body instead of just existing in an incorporeal form inside the trunk. She felt more alive than she had in centuries. The trunk of her tree greedily absorbed the blood from the five princes and she sighed as the energy buzzed through her body. They were the ones. It was starting.

She stared through the trees in the direction the werewolf had gone. She could still see his face when the god had mentioned pieces missing, the pain that creased the skin around his eyes and the sorrow that made the grey orbs hazy. Her heart ached at the sadness she sensed from him.

“Worry not, Prince Etienne,” she whispered. “You will be whole again very soon.”

She glanced up into her boughs, eyeing the tiny creature peering at her from a leaf with a rapt expression on his face. “You have the wand?”

The tiny humanoid with the glittering dragonfly wings waved the white stick in the air.

“You know what to do.” Eurydice glanced toward the werewolf’s palace. “Do not fail him. He needs her.”

“Pixies never fail,” the little blue creature informed her imperiously. He turned and disappeared in a blue glowing streak into the woods.

“I hope not,” Eurydice said softly.

Chapter 1

“No, no, no, no,” Loupe murmured, slowly backing away with her gaze locked on the wolf carcass in front of her. “No, not again.”

The sleek grey and white animal in front of her lie still in death. Its gold eyes were glazed over, the jaw hung open, and its tail dangled from the back of the narrow table. Loupe stared at the body, her heart pounding as she waited for further movement, for some sign that the wolf wasn’t as dead as she’d thought.

“I know you moved,” she breathed, the sound barely audible even to her own ears. She leaned over, studying the wound in the wolf’s side. She must have been imagining things. Of course it was dead—it had to be.

Her stepmother’s arrow had been straight and true, buried so deep in the animal’s flank that Loupe had no doubt death had been instantaneous. She’d scrubbed the dried blood from the wound and now the clean hole from her stepmother’s arrow gaped at Loupe like a mouth screaming judgment upon her. Her stepmother may have killed it, but she was the one about to skin it. She put a hand on her stomach to ease the swell of nausea.

No movement came. The beast lie there as dead as the other four carcasses piled up in her room. There was nothing left to fear from this poor beast. And yet…

Icy fingers of terror slid up her spine, spreading through her body until they reached the scar on the palm of her right hand. Her attention darted from one end of the room to the other. Skins hung over drying racks, filling the room with the musky scent of wolf and the decaying stench of death. The heads had been preserved on the hides so that each one could have passed for a living wolf…

A memory rose up in her mind. She could see the carcass now, the one that hadn’t been as dead as her stepmother had claimed it was. In her mind’s eye, Loupe saw her hand reaching for the skin, the knife ready to make the first cut. Flashing yellow eyes flew open and lips pulled back in a snarl. Loupe screamed, dropping the knife as the animal lunged at her. Its teeth dragging over her palm as the creature used its last bit of life to mark her…change her.

Something thudded on the floor behind her, ripping Loupe out of the memory. She whirled around. Across the room, at the foot of the ladder that led up to the trapdoor entrance to her bedroom, there was a blur of movement followed by another thud. A scream tore its way from Loupe’s throat as a wolf dropped to all fours from the open trapdoor above her. From somewhere above her, a muffled curse followed her outburst. Loupe stared at the crumpled body of a wolf at the bottom of the ladder. Reality came to her in a rush as her stepmother’s skirts came into view above her.

“
Mon dieu
, you foolish girl, are you trying to bring the king’s guards down on us?” her stepmother snapped.

Loupe dragged her attention away from the carcass as her stepmother lowered herself through the trapdoor and climbed down the ladder. The older woman stepped over the carcass, straightening her skirts and staring down at her stepdaughter. Maude Tessier was a striking woman, the hand of time barely discernible in her face despite her fifty-odd years. The stiff corset of her deep plum dress was unnecessary—the woman had the posture of a stone statue.

“What are you screaming about?” she demanded, her icy blue eyes lit with annoyance.

“I—I’m sorry, stepmother,” Loupe whispered, her voice hushed by the fear that still gripped her. Her gaze flicked to the dead wolf then darted back to her stepmother’s face. “I was just…startled.”

“You were just startled,” Madame Tessier repeated, disdain dripping from her voice. “Well, that’s all right then. When the king’s guards burst into our home and drag us off to the dungeons, I’ll just console myself with the knowledge that you didn’t mean to betray us—you were just
startled.
”

Loupe flushed and dropped her gaze. The attack that had happened almost a year ago still hung like a particularly vivid ghost in her mind and she couldn’t quite bring herself to look at the dead wolf her stepmother had just dropped through the trapdoor. She searched her room for something else to focus on. Unfortunately, her underground room was filled with wolf carcasses—the fruit of her stepmother and two stepsisters’ illegal hunts.