HAPTER ONE
“Time to wake up, miss! Time to rise and shine, rise and shine with the morning.”
“Mmm. No thank you. I think I’d rather sleep.”
“Oh, come now, don’t you talk that way. Don’t you wanna spend these hours well? These hours are a gift, girl! No use in wasting ‘em, that’s what I think. That’s what my daddy always told me. No use in wasting a beautiful day, or an ugly one, either. On account of the fact that we never know just exactly how many we’ll get.”
“Ugh, I know that, Em, but right now I’m so tired!”
“The whole world’s tired, girly! Ain’t no excuse for being lazy. No kind of excuse at all.”
“Lazy? Are you honestly calling me lazy?”
“You damn right I am, Miss Eloise. Lazy’s the thing that allows us to just lounge around the way you’re doing right now. If you’re looking for me to say something different, you’ll be looking for a good while.”
“But what time is it? I can tell by the light coming through the windows that it can’t possibly be noon yet.”
“Noon?! Of course, it ain’t noon! It’s half past nine in the morning, and that’s late enough.”
As if to accentuate her point, Emily Cormier, or Em to Eloise Wright, whom she was in the process of torturing, took the last set of heavy brocade curtains in her aging hands and pulled them apart with a flourish. The way she did that made Eloise think she was actually enjoying this, this process of waking up someone who was entirely unwilling, which only made her more determined to stay put.
There they were, the two of them playing their parts perfectly, acting as though they hadn’t played out some version of this exact same fight a million and one times, dating all the way back to when Eloise was only a child.
“Ah! You’re terrible, Em, absolutely terrible! Not even ten in the morning? Why would you want to do a thing like this? It’s just...mean! That’s what it is, it’s mean and hateful!”
Em turned to look at her, hands on her hips, and the look on her face was enough to shut Eloise up immediately. More than that, it convinced her to pull herself up into a sitting position, her back resting against the headboard and her rather small body surrounded by a sea of pillows and blankets. To be honest, the picture it painted was ever so slightly ridiculous. The number of pillows, sheets, blankets, and throws Eloise was surrounded by were enough to provide bedding for at least four people.
Not only that, but the bed itself looked like it could operate as a small ship. It was honestly that big, and that ornate as well. In fact, everything in her room was ornate and over the top, the kind of over the top one only found in the living spaces of people who had been wealthy for a long, long time. Sitting in the dead center of such a monstrosity, Eloise looked very much like a child, despite the fact that she had recently turned twenty-two years old.
“You wanna run that by me again, Miss Eloise? You say I’m being hateful now?”
Eloise immediately regretted having said such a thing to a woman she loved almost as much as her own parents. In some ways, she loved Em Cormier more than her parents, or at least in a more tender way. Her parents were lofty and formidable, sometimes giving off the impression, even to their daughter, of being untouchable.
More than that, they sometimes gave off the impression of not wanting to be touched, of doing their damnedest to hold themselves high above the rest. Em was a whole different story. Em was soft and loud and so motherly that Eloise felt that she must have always been that way, even when she was young. Her hair was thick and curly, and although it had been red at one time, it was now almost exclusively gray.
Although Eloise had never actually learned the specifics of the woman’s history, she got the impression that Em Cormier hadn’t had the easiest of lives. She was a Cajun woman, through and through, and lived somewhere on the outskirts of New Orleans. Eloise and her family lived on the outskirts of the city as well, but Eloise had a feeling it was in a very different sort of place.
All Eloise knew of Em Cormier’s past was that at one point in time she had a family, and that the family was now gone. Her life basically revolved around the Wright family, or at least that was so as far as Eloise could tell, which only made her feel worse than she already did about calling her any name that wasn’t full of praise.
“No, I’m sorry, Em. I didn’t mean it, really. I don’t know why I said it in the first place.”
“I do. I know exactly why you said it.”
“You do? Well then tell me, how come?”
“Because, you’re too used to getting your own way, that’s how come. You’re a pretty girl, a beautiful girl, really, and just about as sweet as they come, but you got a stubborn streak in you that makes you hold onto a thing for dear life just because you thought it up. Add to that the fact that me and everyone else you know has always given you exactly what you want, and my guess is you’re getting a little bit spoilt on top of everything else.”
“Oh! Em, really? That’s awful. I had no idea you felt that way.”
“It’s not your fault, child. It’s just the way things go with people in your position.”
“What kind of position is that?”
“Positions of affluence. Positions of status.”
Frowning, Eloise considered what her maid was telling her. It would probably have sounded utterly ridiculous to most of the people on the planet, but what Em had just told her was something she’d never even considered before. It had never occurred to her that her family’s extreme wealth might have shaped the kind of person she became.
She’d never even wondered whether or not she got her way more often than most and, if so, whether or not it was something that made her into...well, into a brat. It was something she didn’t like thinking about, but something she knew she wouldn’t be able to get out of her head now that it had been said.
Quite the contrary, actually. Although she did not yet know it, Em Cormier’s words would stick with Eloise in ways she never would have imagined. For her, it was the catalyst to a whole new way of thinking about the world. It was like a gateway drug, one of those things her parents would probably have preferred she never heard. For the moment, however, it was just the seed of a thought planted inside of her brain and not yet sprouted. Instead, Em spoke again and pulled her out of her own head, bringing her back to the day and to the task at hand.
“Stop your fretting. I don’t mean nothing by it. I only want you to get out of bed and ready for the day. You think you can do that?”
“Of course, I can,” Eloise replied quickly, eager to prove the picture Em had painted of her wrong. “I’ll be down in no time flat.”
“Good! That’s what I like to hear. I’ll have your breakfast ready for you by the time you’re down. What do you feel like this morning?”
“No!”
Em cocked her head to one side, giving Eloise a look of mildly surprised suspicion, which caused Eloise to blush profusely. She hadn’t meant to shout at the woman, and the fact that she’d done so only proved how desperate she was not to be the thing Em had just described. Feeling far more flustered than she was accustomed to, Eloise jumped out of bed and went about the business of trying to make it back up again, something with which she had literally zero experience.
“No? What do you mean, no? You telling me you ain’t hungry?”
“That’s not what I meant. I only meant that you don’t need to prepare my meal for me. I can fix my own breakfast.”
“Can you now?”
“Of course, I can! Why couldn’t I?”
“No reason. It’s only that I’ve never seen you do a thing like that, that’s all.”
“That doesn’t mean I can’t. It doesn’t even mean that I haven’t. Honestly, it’ll be no problem. I’m sure you have loads of other things to do worth more than fixing my breakfast.”
“Ha! That I do, Miss Eloise. Next thing I know you’ll be offering to do my chores for me while I put my feet up and read a book.”
“I wouldn’t go that far. Although you never know, I might.”
“Might you, now? You wanna know what I think?”
“Sure, Em, I always want to know what you think.”
“I think the day you decide to do all of my work for me is the same day that hell’s gonna freeze over.”
Cackling like she thought it was the funniest thing she’d ever heard in her life, Em gave a rather stunned looking Eloise a loving pat on the shoulder and headed out of her room. Eloise could hear her whistling as she made her way down one of the massive plantation home’s hallways and off to who knew where.
Eloise was torn between a desire to be annoyed at the woman and an intense love that would never leave her. And now, on top of everything else, she was going to have to make her own breakfast, which was something she had little to no experience with and really not one iota of interest in doing.
“Too late now,” she sighed to herself, fully aware that her own stubbornness would keep her from backing down now that she’d asserted that she was going to take care of herself. Instead of running after Em and telling her she didn’t feel like making the bed or breakfast after all, she set to the task of getting her room in some kind of reasonable order, and she turned out to be atrocious at that.
Her bed almost looked worse after her attempt at making it than it had before, and she wasn’t completely sure what Em typically did with her nightclothes, so just tossed her nightie in a corner where it would be a little less obvious.
After that was done, she sat down in front of her vanity, prepared to get herself ready for the day. This, at least, was something she felt reasonably adept at accomplishing. It was something she had never required any help for, something that took very little time at all.
Although she would never have thought it to herself, being stubborn and a little spoiled but not vain in the least, Eloise was a girl of extraordinary beauty. Her height was nothing special at five foot five, and probably the only part of her someone might describe as nothing to write home about.
But everything else? Everything else was the kind of thing that made people stop in the middle of the street, heedless of where they were and what they were doing as they strained to get a better look. She had a long mane of loose blonde curls the color of the sun right before it starts its descent, with shocking highlights of bright red threaded through it so perfectly that sometimes a person wouldn’t even know what he was looking at.
She had a golden hue to her skin as well, giving off the impression of being a girl not only kissed by the sun, but instead a girl half made of the sun. Her face was peppered with a light collection of freckles, making her look youthful no matter how elegantly she was dressed. Her eyes were a striking green color, the kind of green one rarely saw in nature, and were wide and full of life from the moment she woke up to the moment she went to bed.
As if those things weren’t enough, on top of everything else, Eloise had been blessed with a body that was equal parts voluptuous and athletic, the kind of body most girls could only dream about. At the end of the day, Eloise had pretty much everything. She had looks, money, intelligence, and a kind heart most people never gave her credit for having.
Oh, and secrets. She had plenty of secrets, too, and not the kind you could slip up and tell your best friend, just for the hell of it. Thinking about that was the only thing liable to pass a shadow across her face, although she never let it stay there long. As far as Eloise was concerned, secrets were only fun for people who didn’t have any. Having a secret that could easily be life and death, a secret only shared with her parents, ate at her like a sickness. It was the only blight on her otherwise sunny, if boring, life.
“Stop it,” she admonished herself in the mirror, expertly setting her hair and swiping on the smallest amount of blush, “you’re being morbid.”
She nodded at herself, putting the physical explanation point on her words, and rose to quickly dress herself in her favorite blue sundress, the one that made her eyes look even greener than they were (if that was even possible). Finally, ready for the day, she padded out of her massive set of rooms and down the same hallway Em had recently used.
She walked down one of three stairwells in the Wright home (that’s right, three), her hand running lightly along the mahogany banister, and through a massive foyer composed of more of that beautiful rich wood, with a chandelier so regal it looked like it belonged in a museum. After passing by a series of sitting rooms lined with unbelievably expensive paintings and an honest to god ballroom, Eloise was finally in the family kitchen.
Because she’d never lived in any other home, she had no idea that just the kitchen alone was bigger than most people’s whole apartments, and when she sat down at the table she admired the room the same way she always did; as just another piece of home. In fact, on this particular morning, she was more concerned with what she might scrounge up to eat than she was mindful of how lucky she was.
She finally decided on toast, the safest thing she could think of, and although she burned it more than a little bit, she found that a healthy dose of peanut butter could cover a multitude of sins.
Once this task was completed, she looked at the day’s paper, where she saw the thing that would change the rest of her life. She let out a little squeal of delight, then took off running through the house until she discovered which room her parents currently occupied. They were in her father’s study, of course, which was the place her father spent most of his time when he was at home and thus the place her mother usually went when she wanted to visit with him.
“Mom! Mom, you have to see this!”
“Dear lord, so then it was you.”
“What do you mean?”
“That terrible racket, that’s what I mean. We heard you coming from a mile away, dear. It sounded like a herd of elephants coming right towards us.”
“Oh,” Eloise answered quietly, feeling deflated in the way that only a mother could accomplish, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make so much noise. I was just excited, that’s all.”
Her mother, who looked very much like her except older and a good deal colder of spirit, looked her up and down with an expression of mild distaste. Not that it made a massive impression on Eloise, who had been on the receiving end of those looks for all the life she remembered.
Her father, on the other hand, laughed in his large, boisterous way and shook his head. He had played witness to the silent battle between his wife and daughter for years, but instead of allowing it to get to him he seemed to find it funny. If Eloise were a different kind of person she might have wondered what was funny about a dynamic like that, but she hadn’t ever been the type to question her father. Basically, she loved him. She loved him fiercely, loved him the way that any daddy’s girl would.
“Don’t mind her, sugarplum, she’s just cranky, that’s all. You know your mother. She’s always cranky. You certainly didn’t get your sunny disposition from her.”
“Really, Edward, do you have to encourage her?”
Eloise’s mother looked even more displeased, her face the perfect picture of someone who had just bitten into a lemon. She wouldn’t say anything else, though, not to her husband. At the end of the day, in the Wright household Edward’s word was law. All it took was one look of warning and her mother shut right up, which was usually how Edward Wright liked it. Once that was accomplished, he turned his attention back to Eloise.
“Now, tell us what you were so excited about, sugar. You really did seem like you thought you’d just hit on the eighth wonder of the world.”
“No, nothing that big, but something I want to do.”
“And what’s that?”
“There’s a carnival coming! Look, it’s right here in the paper.”
Eloise’s father’s face changed instantly, and she knew she had her work cut out for her. Edward Wright had very specific rules about where she could go and when. He was stricter than most, but because he had their little secret to use as a reason, Eloise was usually pretty compliant.
There was something about this carnival, though, something she couldn’t let go of. In that moment, Eloise wasn’t in the mood to be compliant. If her father wanted her to fight for permission to go, that was exactly what she was going to do.
“Eloise, come on. You know you aren’t allowed to go into New Orleans on your own. And before you even suggest it, neither your mother nor I are going anywhere near a carnival.”
“But you won’t have to! It isn’t in New Orleans! I could actually walk there from the house if I wanted to. It’s practically in our backyard.”
“And what if you lose control? Have you thought about that? What if you lose control and shift right there in front of everyone? You’ve had very little experience out there in the world, and certainly not in crowds. Perhaps we’ve sheltered you too greatly, but there you have it.”
And there it was. Eloise was a lion shifter, and that fact had been the central force that had directed her life. For as long as she could remember, the nature of what she was had gotten between her and the things she wanted to do. Because she had been instilled with a healthy fear of losing control, she had rarely fought with her parents when they brought the possibility up. This time, though, it was different. This time, she was ready to go to battle because one way or another, she was going to that carnival.