Curse of the Witching Hour Read online

  Lucifer’s heart soared with joy seeing her face once again. He had seen her in this in-between state before. His hope rose, and he felt more reassured she would recover now.

  Abigail swayed on her feet, looking like she might topple over at any moment. Lucifer stepped forward to catch her in case she fell.

  Vega smacked him in the chest with the unicorn horn. “I said to stay back.”

  A low growl sounded in the back of his throat. That feral part of himself that was still used to being a cat didn’t like taking orders from humans. His fingers curled, and if he’d had claws, he would have used them.

  Vega waved him away. “If you want to do something useful, get her some clothes.”

  Lucifer wasn’t about to let Abigail out of his sight, not even for a moment. He removed his borrowed cloak.

  Vega touched the horn to Abigail’s temples, heart, and arms, expediting the growth of human skin and limbs. Twisting branches loosened and changed in hue. Twigs turned to the vivid auburn of her hair. Many of the budding acorns and leaves receded, but not all. Flowers and yellow-green shoots remained nestled in her hair. The roots grounding her into the earth shrank away, becoming toes once again.

  The first time he’d seen her change from a tree into a person she’d been fourteen and he had been sixteen. He’d only met her shortly before. He had thought she was cute, and her sassiness had made him like her, but it was the rapture in her face as she’d transitioned from a tree into a girl again that had caught his attention. In that vulnerable state as she’d shifted, he’d thought he caught a glimpse of her soul. Green flurries of magic had twinkled around her. She’d projected such calm and peace it had filled him with a quiet serenity of his own.

  There were no flurries of magic now. Her face was expressionless, and if she felt peace, he couldn’t sense it.

  Abigail toppled sideways, but Lucifer lunged and caught her. He wrapped his cape around her and hugged her to his chest as he kneeled in the moss. She was young and perfect, younger than when he’d seen her last while he’d been stuck as a cat. Whenever she’d shifted into a tree in the past, as partial and incomplete as the change had been, she’d always healed herself in that state. Perhaps this more complete transformation had healed the lines of age around her eyes and mouth. Or perhaps it was part of Vega’s magic with the unicorn horn.

  Abigail’s eyes remained closed.

  Clarissa leaned closer, sweeping the hair out of Abigail’s face. “Mom?”

  “Abby?” Lucifer whispered.

  She didn’t stir. He felt for a pulse. Her heart beat, though it was faint.

  Vega planted the unicorn horn into a tree stump like it was a staff and leaned against it, her expression thoughtful. “Try massaging her.”

  Lucifer had never learned much of his touch-magic affinity while apprenticing with Baba Nata, but he had witnessed Clarissa using hers. Keeping Abigail cradled against him, he caressed a hand up and down her arm. Clarissa rubbed Abigail’s face and her scalp.

  Abigail remained motionless. He only knew she was breathing because he felt the tickle of her breath against his neck.

  There was only one thing left to be done. Lucifer touched his lips to hers, hoping he might be the prince in this fairy tale who could revive her. He drew away, waiting for her to open her eyes and smile.

  She didn’t.

  Clarissa sniffled. Lucifer’s heart felt as though it were breaking at the sight of the woman he loved, alive, but not with him. Tears blurred his eyes, and he dropped his face into her silky hair to inhale her scent of springtime. He clutched her to his chest, determination rising in him. He was the son of a succubus. Touch magic was supposed to be his strength. Surely he had the correct powers for this, even if he lacked training and skill.

  He kissed her again, an urgency in his lips as he tried to awaken her. She didn’t respond. He kissed her face, willing his magic into her, but nothing happened.

  A high sweet note rose, the melody familiar. He knew the blessing song Abigail had sung to her children as a lullaby. For a moment he thought it was Abigail singing, but when he looked up, he was disappointed to see it was Clarissa.

  Abigail’s parents had taught her the song, using it as a kind of protective ward when they’d slept. Abigail had sung it when her brother had been ill, when Coinneach, one of her admirers had died, and to Lucifer when he’d been a cat. The melody was sadder on Clarissa’s lips than it had been on Abigail’s. It felt like Clarissa wasn’t using it so much to protect her mother with a blessing, but to say goodbye.

  Annoyance prickled through Lucifer, simmering into fury. Abigail wasn’t dead. She just needed to be revived. If he had been a cat, he would have hissed and bitten her. The longer Clarissa sang, the more he wanted to draw away and take Abigail with him. Clarissa might have been ready to give up, but he wasn’t ready.

  Clarissa buried her face against Abigail’s shoulder and sobbed. Felix Thatch, her husband and Lucifer’s brother, emerged from the crowd of spectators. Felix placed a hand on her shoulder.

  Clarissa turned into his embrace. “I should have left her as a tree,” Clarissa said.

  “No,” Felix said, his eyes full of kindness. “Don’t blame yourself. We tried.”

  They both were giving up? Just like that? Lucifer growled. “It was the wrong kind of magic.” They needed to find something else. Something stronger. Someone stronger.

  “I told you it might not work,” Vega said behind them.

  Lucifer eyed the bottle of potion in Vega’s hand. “Use more of your witch’s brew.”

  “More potion isn’t going to help. It’s the wrong kind of magic for what you want.” Vega tilted the bottle, gazing at the single drop that remained.

  Still holding Abigail, Lucifer lunged for the bottle and snatched it away from Vega.

  Vega dove for the bottle. “Excuse me. Don’t even think about—”

  Vega began to curse as Lucifer emptied the last drop onto Abigail’s lips. He kissed her again, massaging it into her mouth with his. He felt magic working, but it was different from the spell Vega had created. It was feral magic, untrained and full of the Red affinity. His affinity opened inside him, and he pushed it through his lips and into hers.

  He thought about all the years he’d remained with Abigail as a cat, serving as her familiar. For thirty years he’d pined for her. It wasn’t being a cat that had made him ornery. It was not being able to speak with her, to tell her he still loved her. He could have gone to Baba Nata, and she would have broken the curse she’d placed on him, but that meant leaving Abigail behind in the Morty Realm, something he wasn’t willing to do.

  All he needed was to fix Abigail. He wanted his happy ending, dammit.

  Vega cleared her throat. “I am a trained professional. You have completely wasted my magic. Do you know how much work that took to brew? I can’t just whip up another batch.” Vega shoved him, jostling him as he attempted to use his affinity.

  His sorrow flared into anger. Lucifer lifted his head from Abigail’s, glaring at Vega. “Your magic is inferior.”

  “I told you it might not work.”

  His voice came out a snarl. “Use magic that does work.”

  Surely the great Vega Bloodmire, a witch so powerful she had been able to defeat the Raven Queen, a witch able to transform Abigail from a tree back into her true form as a woman, could awaken Abigail from her sleep.

  Vega lifted her chin, her expression as haughty as ever. “Maybe you should learn some magic of your own and see how hard it is.”

  “I will.” He stood, still cradling Abigail against his chest. “I will find a way to bring her back, even if it costs me my fingers and toes. Even if I must become a wild animal again, I will make that sacrifice for her.” He raised his chin.

  Vega stepped out of his way as he passed. “Knock yourself out.”

  Lucifer stomped through the brush, careful to keep Abigail wrapped and warm in the cloak.

 
Now that he was alone with Abigail, he found a place in the brush clear of blackberry brambles and nettles. He laid her down on a bed of moss and touched his lips to hers. He had tried this before, but there had been a crowd of spectators watching.

  Lucifer cradled her in his arms, gazing at the peaceful expression on her face. He could have believed she’d just gone to sleep. Her auburn hair was long and silky against his arm, softer than a newborn babe’s. She resembled the girl he’d grown up with more than the woman she’d been before she’d been cursed into the form of a tree for the last year and a half. Looking upon the beauty of her face was torment, but he couldn’t stop torturing himself. He kept on looking.

  A twig snapped behind Lucifer. His brother Felix stood there. In his gray suit he looked like a shadow against the lush green of the ferns.

  Lucifer’s voice came out a guttural growl. “Leave us be.”

  “I have no intention of stopping you.” The other man’s face remained expressionless, giving no hint he might have been offended by the dismissal—nor that he intended to heed Lucifer’s command. “I thought I might confide a secret in you; I haven’t yet told anyone how we restored Clarissa after she was in a coma.”

  Lucifer studied his brother’s eyes, so similar to his own it was like looking into a mirror. “I didn’t know Clarissa was ever in a coma,” Lucifer said. He hadn’t seen her and had simply thought she was sick.

  Felix tugged at the bottom of his tweed jacket. “We used touch magic. It might not work for Abigail. Her affinity isn’t touch or pleasure.”

  “No, but it’s mine.”

  A flicker of a gentle smile flashed over Felix’s lips before disappearing. “Indeed.”

  Lucifer had overheard gossip while he’d been in the form of a cat, no one suspecting he was capable of intelligent thought. He knew touch magic could be used to heal. Felix had done so himself.

  “I will be able to awaken her. I’ll use touch magic,” Lucifer said.

  Felix inclined his head in affirmation. “You might be able to awaken Abigail with your affinity. But the true problem isn’t her slumber. It’s her lack of soul.”

  Lucifer stared at his brother dumbfounded. His brother couldn’t be serious. “Why would you think she doesn’t have a soul?”

  “I have practiced projecting my awareness. I can sense this body is an empty shell. Clarissa confirmed it. This is not the Abigail Lawrence you once knew.” He ran a hand through his shoulder-length hair, so immaculate compared to Lucifer’s own wild mane. “Clarissa’s soul was still attached to her body when I revived her. Have a care to think about the consequences of awakening a body without a soul. It will be like a zombie unless you find the soul, and if you do, there are repercussions for removing a soul from its new home after it has been separated this long.”

  Lucifer was aware of how lacking his education in magic had been for the last thirty years, but he suspected the physics of souls was something most Witchkin didn’t study. “What do you mean by ‘home’? The body?”

  “Indeed. Should you manage to find Abigail Lawrence’s soul, and persuade her back into her original home, you must consider where you are stealing it from. A soul that has purged itself from the host has moved on to a new location, and it will not take kindly to being moved.”

  “Do you mean she’s in heaven?” Lucifer didn’t believe in heaven, but perhaps that was his stubbornness and reticence after being named after a fallen angel.

  “I cannot fathom the nuances of the afterlife, nor the levels of ascendance, though Clarissa and Vega have both caught glimpses of another dimension while using the Ruby of Divine Wisdom. I do not know whether Abigail’s soul has dissolved into a kind of soul collective or she has been born into another body. If you should manage to appropriate her soul after pieces of her have passed into other bodies, you will be depriving others of their souls. It will be . . . painful for those children to grow with a piece of them missing. If too much is removed, such children might become sociopaths. Or it might result in death. Necromancy is dark magic, and much can go wrong.”

  Even powerful Fae didn’t meddle with necromancy and the business of souls. The only person Lucifer knew of who had successfully raised the dead was Vega Bloodmire, and her magic hadn’t helped Abigail.

  Lucifer had never attempted black magic like necromancy, nor had he wanted to after he had seen the madness it had caused in his mother after his father died. The closest Lucifer had come to forbidden magic was that of his affinity for touch, but he’d never mastered it. Had he finished his training as Baba Nata’s apprentice, he might have.

  A great weight burdened his resolve. Lucifer didn’t like his brother here, trying to convince him of the folly of his ways. From the first moment he’d met his brother as an adult, he hadn’t liked him. He was too proper and superior. Too cold and unreadable. He was opposite from Lucifer in every way.

  “I suppose you’re going to try to stop me, then.” Lucifer arched an eyebrow, ready to pounce if Felix offered up a challenge.

  “No. I simply came to warn you. Should you use your affinity, or another means to bring Abigail’s soul back, you don’t know whether she wants to return. Furthermore, when I awakened Clarissa, she was conscious long enough to give her consent to use touch magic. Abigail is not.”

  Irritation needled under Lucifer’s resolve to behave civilly around his brother. Felix spoke as if he thought Lucifer was a degenerate deviant who intended to take advantage of Abigail while she was unconscious.

  “Are you done?” Lucifer asked. “If so, go. I have nothing more to say to you.”

  Felix nodded once. The slight downward curve of his lips belied his dissatisfaction, though he said nothing. He silently slipped away, leaving Lucifer in peace.

  Lucifer turned his attention back to Abigail. He hated the way his brother managed to chip at his resolve with logic. Abigail had told him she loved him many times while he’d been a cat. She had confided all her secrets in him, though he hadn’t been able to answer her with more than gestures or occasionally spelling out words using her alphabet board. For years she had protected him and hidden him from Baba Nata.

  Lucifer had sacrificed his humanity to be with her. He would do anything to restore her—even if she detested him later. So long as she existed in the world, he would be happy.

  This time as he kissed her, he allowed the cape to fall back. He massaged her arms, trying to send feeling into her limbs. He kissed his way down her neck to her breasts. She inhaled and sighed. He thought the touch magic must be working.

  “Abby? Are you returning to me?” he asked.

  Her eyes remained closed. He kissed her more deeply and pressed her to his body, keeping her warm. She tasted like dewdrops and nectar. Her skin was soft as a newly born baby’s.

  He remembered the one time they’d been together intimately. She had told him how much she had loved him. The memory of her arms wrapped around him stoked the fires of his passion.

  After several more minutes of caressing her, he noticed the change. She smelled of roses and damp wood after rainfall. The air tasted more strongly of spring and the forest. Leaves tickled along his neck, and he found shoots had crept out of her hair and wrapped around him. This had happened once before—when they were both teenagers—but the growth had frightened them at the time. His magic caused hers to react more strongly than usual.

  He’d had to prune her after she’d rooted into the earth and been unable to free herself. His affinity had been able to feel every sting of pain as he’d cut her free, and he hated knowing his magic had done that to her.

  His magic was drawing out hers again, but it wasn’t reviving her. It was making her body transform back into a plant. He considered what it would be like to be wrapped in the embrace of her vines, smothered in springtime as he willingly gave his life so that he would be able to be with her forever, body and soul. The despair in him was almost deep enough he was willing to succumb to it.

 
But not yet. There was still one other option.

  Carefully, he uncoiled the vines that had wrapped around him and peeled them away.

  Clarissa Lawrence, Abigail’s daughter, had brought souls back into their bodies in the past through accidental necromancy—though temporarily. Vega Bloodmire had anchored souls back inside permanently—though the souls had to be close by and still tethered to the body they had just vacated. Yet neither witch’s magic had brought Abigail back, even temporarily. Neither were willing to use true black magic to reach the results they wanted.

  END OF EXCERPT

  For the rest of the novel, go to Sarina Dorie’s website for information about the next book in the series:

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