Beneath Midnight's Moon
Chap. 3
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Glad
he wasn’t holding anything, else he would have dropped it, Eclipse surged to
his feet, “What?!”
“Your
wife,” Harmony repeated firmly, “you are of age now.”
“But
whatever happened to going out into the world and finding your own Mate?!
she’ll just run from this one, too!”
“I
stand firm in my decision, as will her pack.
Do you have any idea how glad her parents were that a well-known and
well-respected family like the Rouvel even inquired
about her marital status? She’s a rogue,
Eclipse, but she has great power and is very important to her family.
hers likes to admit. Find her and bring
her here. No doubt she’ll need time to
rest. I’ll speak with her then.”
“Granted
she feels like listening and not clawing your face to shreds,” Midnight chimed
in, “she’s wild, Lady Harmony. It would
not be wise to bring her here. Wood is
easily ripped asunder.”
Harmony
looked from Midnight to the mantelpiece, “My sister’s basement
is cement, and the door can be easily warded shut...”
“Whoa, nuh-uh, no way!
rogue loup garou
with who knows what kind of individual power granted to her plus
the usual loup garou
abilities!”
“Ah
well, see, the thing is that it’s my sister’s
you agree to share the same living space with her, I’ll reconsider your
marriage.”
“What
about the agreement between you and her pack?”
She
shrugged, “I’ll tell them that you left to find your father.
you.”
“Gee,
thanks,” he said, thinking it over for another moment, “deal,
then. Where can I find this Balder?”
“A little ways from here.
I’ll call Melody to let her know to expect a new arrival some time soon.
day. The light bothers her just as day
bothers you. Find Balder during the
day.”
“He’ll
want to test you somehow before telling you anything of his niece.
will be more difficult.”
“But
you’ll reconsider the marriage thing, right?”
Eclipse asked his mother.
She
smiled, “Of course. Go on, now.
He
nodded and left the cabin, leaving Midnight behind, “Reconsider the marriage
between Sun and Moon’s daughter and your son?”
“Of course not. It is vital that
they marry in order to go against the Falcon.
Is that not what you told me?”
Harmony asked as Midnight nodded.
“It
is said that, ‘The Children of Celestial Origins must form a Bond as old as
Time and use it to throw the Falcon from the Sky’.”
a smile in his puppy-blue eyes as well as a myriad of plans, schemes, and
tricks that made their circuit in his mind.
*~*~*~* *~*~*~*
Entering
his Aunt Melody’s house through the back door, Eclipse wiped his bare feet on
the mat just inside the door out of habit.
The back door faced the basement door, and he walked past it quickly, not
wanting to think that soon there may be a rogue she-wolf behind such a
flimsy-looking wooden door with only a ward on a piece of paper between
them. Walking into the kitchen, he saw
that it was past one o’clock. The first
scents that hit him were frosting, cake, cookies, pecan pie, and bitch.
foods...
Bitch?
open, and the scent was drifting from...
“What
the...?” Eclipse muttered as he looked
out the window.
The
most beautiful bitch he’d ever seen sat on the front lawn, her onyx coat
shining in the half moon’s light. Before
he knew what was happening, his bare feet were touching grass again, and he was
being the quietest he’d ever been. The
grass was silent because he wished it, and it was only when the wind shifted
that she knew he was there, for it had taken his scent right past her nose.
She
turned the most beautiful eyes to look at him.
They were so dark blue as to almost be black.
moonlight, and it took him a moment to realize what he was seeing.
Earrings. Four in each ear, a
barbell above her right eye, and he thought he could see another where her
belly button would be.
“...She
burned her clothes, buried her jewels, and pierced her body...”
like words echoing about a canyon.
He
shook his head in an effort to clear it.
There was no way the rogue wolf he’d been talking about with his mother
not even an hour ago could just appear on his front lawn.
and though he was a werewolf and he knew a vampire three miles away in the
city, did not mean that dragons were sleeping under volcanoes or
flowerpots. Looking at her, he didn’t
even sense loup garou
blood in her. Then again, Midnight had
said that she’d cast away her human half.
Completely rejected it.
The
point of being loup garou
was accepting both the human and wolf parts of oneself.
theory she should only be a wolf. If
she’d kept part of the human mind, however, then he had a problem.
Midnight and his mother had been talking about.
He
chose to say nothing, just in case the bitch he sat just five feet away from
really was his future bride. She made no
move to step away from him, so he sat cross-legged to show her he was all right
with her being on his territory. She
watched him with the same intensity as she would an upcoming meal, and he
couldn’t even being to think what her thoughts might be.
him, and he thought she was trying to catch his scent, but he could very easily
be mistaken.
Unable
to remain silent, a light wind ruffled his hair, “You’re welcome here
anytime. My aunt, uncle, and cousin hold
no fear of the loups garous.
where the roses bloom. There’s a step
there that’ll take you level with the basement window.
so Aunt Melody always has a fresh bed made with food and water, too.
is full.”
He’d
been babbling and he knew it, but he had the strange urge to talk to her.
marry. Glad that his monologue hadn’t
frightened her away, he smiled, mouth shut so that the gesture wasn’t mistaken
as baring his teeth.
“I
mean it, though. Stop by anytime.
though,” he said, checking his watch, “almost dawn.
agree with me too well, but I can’t sleep all day.
here by nightfall, okay?”
It
was a dismissal and there was no way she could take it as anything else.
staring at him. After what seemed like
hours, she got up and turned back to the woods that surrounded the house, as
though telling him that he wasn’t the one who decided when she left.
through the window, closed aforementioned window, and then headed
upstairs. Going past his aunt and
uncle’s room — his cousin’s was downstairs — Eclipse shut his door and opened
his own window, a lone wolf’s howl piercing the quiet night and even silencing
the crickets. He froze.
The
message in the howl was all-too clear: “Free me.”