Before Midnight (12 page)

“Yes,” Madame Tessier ground out finally. “Invitation. The prince is throwing a ball tonight and we have been invited.”

“I’m not going,” Loupe said immediately.

Her stepmother’s eyebrows shot up, her lips parting slightly. She stared at Loupe as if she’d grown a second head. “I don’t recall telling you that you could go,” she said slowly. She tilted her head. “Still, I am curious. What do you mean you’re not going?”

A thousand horrible thoughts flew through Loupe’s head. When had her brain so deserted her? If her stepmother were to suspect that Loupe had even seen the prince let alone talked to him, kissed him… They would find Loupe buried in a shallow grave alongside the
loup garou.

Loupe tried to keep the emotion out of her voice as she finally gathered her wits enough to answer. “I have far too much work to do, Stepmother. I’m sure the prince will understand that I cannot abandon my duties for a night of frivolity.”

In seconds her stepmother had closed the short distance between them and grabbed her arm. She jerked her until Loupe had to meet her stare. Loupe’s throat constricted with fear at the intensity flickering in the older woman’s eyes. Her pale white hair was off her neck in a complicated hairdo that gave her an even more strict and imposing appearance. Despite her advanced years, a touch of blonde remained in the delicate strands, a hint at the pale yellow they’d once been. Oddly enough, Loupe looked a great deal like her stepmother. Except for the fact that her stepmother’s eyes were blue and Loupe’s were green, they could easily have passed as true mother and daughter.

If not for the hatred that is. Loupe had never known her mother, the poor woman having died during childbirth, but she could not imagine any woman looking at her child with the ice that was always in her stepmother’s visage.

“You will stay here,” Madame Tessier said quietly. “And you will clean and scrub until every inch of our home shines like crystal in the sunlight.” She glanced around at the spotless house and curled her lip in disgust. “This place is a pigsty. Clean it up!”

With a violent shove that sent Loupe sprawling to the floor in a heap, Madame Tessier turned and swept up the stairs. Loupe gathered herself as quickly as she could and fled to the kitchen. She practically fell through the trap door in her rush to get to her bed before the tears came. She threw herself on her blankets and sobbed.

A ball! Was fate truly so cruel? Tonight was the night of the full moon, the one night she couldn’t possibly go out. Even if she dared to disobey her stepmother, she couldn’t risk it. Not even for a chance to see Etienne, to dance with him…

A cacophony of noise exploded upstairs followed by the slam of the front door. Her stepfamily had left. Off to the ball. Tears burned her eyes.

“Argh!” Loupe cried out and punched her bed. What was wrong with her? Hadn’t she just minutes ago been thinking about how things could never work between her and Etienne? Hadn’t she been scolding herself that marriage would never be in the cards for her? What did it matter that there was a ball tonight? A ball the prince himself was throwing? A ball that would be romantic and beautiful and…perfect.

With one more growl of self-loathing anger, Loupe pulled herself together and sat up, angrily swiping the tears from her eyes. It was silly to allow herself to be so upset. She couldn’t change her life, not now.

For just a second, she let her traitorous thoughts carry her along a dreamlike path. She imagined what her life could become if she went to the ball, met with Etienne dressed like a respectable woman, instead of in a muddy peasant dress. He may have fallen madly in love with her, as she had with him the first moment she’d laid eyes on him.

A sigh escaped her lips as she thought of Etienne and his muscular shoulders tapering down to a lean waist. His grey eyes were like the clouds before a soft summer rain, his brown hair like warm chocolate. How she had loved wrapping her arms around his neck while those soft, perfect lips caressed her own…

A rustle caught her attention, tearing her out of her fantasy. She froze, her gaze darting over to a pile of furs. One of them moved.

A scream lodged in her throat. For the second time that month she was certain her nightmare was about to repeat itself. The wolf wasn’t dead.

“Merde!”

The sound of the tiny voice cursing echoed in the room. Loupe paused, her fear momentarily receding. The sleek pale grey hide remained still. Now that she looked at it, it wasn’t even a complete carcass. It was a finished skin, just lying out waiting to be packaged. There was no way it could have moved on its own.

“Hello?” she called tentatively, feeling somewhat silly. There was no one there.

A tiny blue face peeked at her from over one of the furs. She squeaked in surprise.

“You! Come over here and help me, will you?”

Loupe stared, dumbfounded. It was a pixie. She slowly rose from the bed, peering over the packaging and fur. Sitting on the table was an honest-to-goodness pixie. He looked to be about 8 inches high with a blue face and green hair. He’d tugged the pelt over his lap. Other than that and a belt, it appeared he was naked.

“I…” She scratched her head. “I’m sorry, who are you?”

“Always with the pleasantries, why can’t you humans just hop to it like the rest of the world?” the pixie muttered. He rolled his eyes at her. “My name is Loeg, now get over here and help me.”

Loupe stepped closer, her sorrow temporarily forgotten in her confusion. “How can I help you?” she ventured carefully. She didn’t know much about pixies, but everyone knew it was never wise to cross a fey. Of course, that had all been hypothetical knowledge until now. A few minutes ago she’d never seen an actual fey.

The little blue pixie fluttered his wings as he struggled to lift the edge of the fur he’d been toying with. Loupe blushed. He was most definitely naked. “I need a good piece of this material to make a new loincloth.” He waved a tiny blade in the air. “I can’t cut properly with this thing. It was designed for war, not tailoring, you know.”

Understanding dawned on Loupe. “You’re the one who was in here a few weeks ago! You were poking at the carcass of that fur you’re pulling on now!”

Loeg rolled his eyes. “Yes, yes, that was me.” He frowned. “Not sure why you screamed about it. I was only trying to see if the coloring was right for me.”

Now it was Loupe’s turn to glower. “You scared me half to death! I thought it was alive. I was certain there was a predator in the room with me.”

The pixie titled his head. “You thought one of these dead animals was going to leap up and attack you?”

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Loupe muttered.

“I don’t know what you mean and I don’t care,” the pixie announced. “I want a wolfskin tunic and now that I don’t have to worry about hiding, I can measure this properly.”

Loupe furrowed her brow in puzzlement as the little pixie began to lay a string out along the fur, muttering numbers under his breath.

“What do you mean, now that you don’t have to worry about hiding?”

The pixie spared her a withering glance then turned his attention back to his measuring. “Well, you could hardly begrudge me a little piece of wolfskin after all I’ve done for you, now could you? You must have some gratitude.”

No matter how hard she tried, Loupe could not recall anything the pixie had done that would warrant her gratitude. Her brain flipped through old wives’ tales, struggling to remember what random kindnesses were attributed to the fey. She drew a blank.

“I’m sorry, what did you do for me?” she asked finally, as politely as she could.

Loeg threw down the rope and shot to his feet. “I helped you go to the ball!”

“I’m not going to the ball!” Loupe snapped, her patience finally at an end. In a slightly quieter voice, she added, “I can’t.”

“Don’t be stupid, of course you can,” Loeg argued.

Loupe shook her head. “No, you don’t understand. I’m cursed.”

“Yes, yes, yes, a werewolf bit you and now you have the lunacy.” The pixie waved a hand as if it was of no consequence. “That doesn’t mean you can’t go to the ball.”

“It’s tonight! The night of the full moon!” Loupe protested, pushing away her surprise at the pixie’s knowledge of her situation. For all she knew he had magical powers that let him tell such things just by looking at her.

“Yes, so you’d better get out of there before the clock strikes midnight,” the pixie agreed. “The ointment I gave you won’t keep you human once the moon reaches its peak.”

Thoroughly confused, Loupe threw her hands up in the air. “What ointment?”

Loeg flew at her face, pulling a small bottle from a pouch tied to his belt. “This ointment!” he shouted. With a sigh of exasperation, he dropped it in the general direction of her hand.

Loupe caught it. She stared down at the little vial. It was clear glass with a plain cork stopper. The substance inside moved like thick molasses when she tilted it. Tiny sparkles dazzled her eyes as the light caught them. She didn’t know who Loeg was, or what he was talking about, but she couldn’t deny the small part of her that had latched on to his words. She wasn’t going to the ball, she told herself firmly. Still…it couldn’t hurt to take the offering.

“You are certain that this ointment will keep me human at the ball,” she asked, trying to keep the hope from being too obvious in her voice. “I mean, would keep me human. If I were going. Which I’m not.”

“Quite sure. But don’t forget to be out of there by midnight. Not even that ointment will hold the beast inside under the full power of the moon.”

Loupe fell to the floor, sitting there and staring at her body. She could stay human until midnight. Her mind drifted back to Etienne and her heart beat harder. Perhaps he would kiss her again. Suddenly her shoulders sagged. The kisses had been wonderful, both of them. But they couldn’t go anywhere. It wasn’t fair to Etienne to offer something she couldn’t give him.

The little pixie’s face softened and he flew over to land on her shoulder. He patted her head. “I’m going to help you. Here.”

He pulled out a wand. Loupe tilted her head. It was just a little white stick, nothing particularly magic-looking about it. And yet, it vibrated with…promise. Loeg tapped her head and a shiver ran down her spine. Her skin tingled and she looked down at herself to find she was glowing.

Well, not her precisely, but the air around her. It was lit with a beautiful pale blue phosphorescence. Her brain tried to make sense of what was going on, but her eyes couldn’t properly report what was happening. It seemed as if the clothes on her body were melting, shifting, changing into something new. Her hair took on a life of its own, lifting as if in an unseen breeze that twirled each silky strand as it wound around on top of her head.

Loeg flew into the air. “Follow me.”

Dazed and befuddled, Loupe silently did as he’d asked. She climbed the ladder, her clothes still shimmering and shifting around her. When she reached the top of the ladder, her clothes suddenly grew heavier. She stared down at her body, her mouth falling open.

Never in her life had she seen a more beautiful dress. A blue so pale it was almost silver, the material sparkled like a spider’s web in the morning sunlight. The full skirt swayed with her movements and Loupe couldn’t help but smile. She ran her hands over the snug bodice, trailing them up to brush her fingers over the off-the-shoulder sleeves. She caught a glimpse of herself in a mirror as she followed Loeg through the house and her breath caught in her throat

Her hair was twisted into an intricate pattern on top of her head, with small ringlets falling around her ears. The strands that had always been a dull straw-like yellow suddenly looked like golden waves of sunlight. Her face had been powdered, her eyes outlined with black kohl, and her lips shaded to the pink of a fresh rose. Never had she seen herself look so…magical. Her stepfamily would never recognize her.

She walked out of the kitchen door into the garden. A few yards away, a pumpkin rose out of the pumpkin patch and floated in the air to land on the other side of the fence. Loupe’s breath caught in her throat as the vines and leaves curled into large circles, turning white as they spun. The pumpkin itself lightened until it was the palest orange she’d ever seen. It grew and grew until it was as large as the royal carriage. Small windows appeared in either side so Loupe could look right through it to the other side.

“Oh, Loeg,” she said softly. “It’s beautiful.”

“It is, isn’t it?”

She turned to see Loeg eyeing the wand like he’d never used it before. She opened her mouth to ask him why he was looking at it like that, but he jerked his head up and the question died on her tongue.

“Oh! One more thing.”

He whistled and a second later a tiny horse flew up from the leaves of the raspberry bush in the corner of the garden. Loupe gasped. It looked like a floating star in the shape of a horse and its whinny brought a smile to her face.

“He’ll pull your new carriage. You don’t need to harness him, the pumpkin will hold on by itself.”

Loupe raised her eyebrows at the tiny horse, then glanced over at the large carriage. “He must be much stronger than he looks.”

She tentatively reached out a hand to pet the small creature and squealed as it abruptly grew in size. It continued to grow until it stood before her—a full man-sized horse.