Mona Lisa Awakening

Chapter One

Sickness and death was in the air—women crying, men cursing, unwashed bodies. The stink of suffering and anguish. It was a dwelling I'd deliberately chosen and placed myself within. A dwelling of desperate need that lured me to its bosom with the stench of fear and pain.

I was an ER nurse on the lonely island of Manhattan. Sickness called to me. Darkness and light lay within me. I'd always known it, sensed it… a dormant force that lay quiescent along with the latent ability to heal, untapped as yet—to my relief, to my despair. Waiting. Until then, sickness called to me and lured me with its invisible tendrils of aches and pain.

Around me in the emergency room of St. Vincent's Hospital, in the heart of Greenwich Village, the hustle and bustle had already begun. In bed one, a young woman's face was covered with blood, lacerated from temple to chin—a dear price for a fragile whore to pay walking the dark alleys of the street. Strapped down in bed two was a disheveled man stinking of alcohol, thrashing in delirium and withdrawal. In bed three, a child screeched with pain, tugging the tender cords of my heart. It was a cry I could not ignore.

I rushed over to bed three, to find Dr. Peter Thompson there. He was one of the good interns just starting his ER rotation, humble and grateful for help, unlike those jerk know-it-alls. Even better, he had a girlfriend and was faithful, not one of the grabbers.

"Oh, good. You're here, Lisa," Peter said, flashing me a smile of relief. "You're great with kids. Can you help me with this?"

"What have we here?" I asked.

A young boy of about six with soft brown hair and lots of freckles was curled up into a tight ball, his thin arms holding his belly, tears wetting his face and shirt as he wailed with pain. His mother, a young brunette, gripped the stretcher rails with white knuckles and chewed her lower lip helplessly.

"Kurt was fine until an hour ago when he said his stomach hurt," the mother said, sizing me up, uncertainty in her brown eyes.

I knew that look. Why am I talking to you and not the doctor? it said.

It was entirely my fault. I've always looked younger than my age of twenty-one. No complaint here, but this was the medical profession. Credentials on the wall and silver in your hair went a long way with patients. But one thing I've learned: Don't judge their judgment. Just do what you have to do.

"Kurt," I said, stroking the child's damp forehead. "Is that your name, honey?"

At my touch, Kurt opened his eyes. His big, brown, trusting eyes studied mine, unknowingly opening the window of his soul to me. Our souls bonded and he was mine. Calmness came over the boy's face and his crying stopped.

"Now can you show me where it hurts, Kurt?"

His eyes fixed on me with wonderment and curiosity, Kurt uncurled his arms and pointed to a spot above his belly button. "It hurts here," he said in a clear, high voice.

I touched the spot.

Kurt tensed, but didn't resist. "It hurts when you touch it," he said, tears spiking his long lashes.

"I'll be very gentle," I promised, and placed the heart of my palm over his abdomen.

The power within me stirred, coming to the fore from the depths within, taking over me entirely as if I was merely a vehicle through which it channeled itself into the world. When the boy opened the window of his soul, it was really the eye of my power that gazed through my lenses and reached out to the child. It came forward at the call of pain, not at the urging of my will—a cycle of energy that stirred from its root within me but could only be completed by the beckoning of another.

My hand tingled with warmth as I sensed the radiation of heat rising from my core.

Kurt's eyes widened. "Awesome. It doesn't hurt anymore, Mommy!"

"I'm going to leave you to Dr. Peter. He's a very good doctor and he'll make sure your tummyache doesn't come back again." I winked at Kurt and he winked back.

I made my way to the staff bathroom and locked myself inside, resting on the toilet lid. That power of mine was a curse and a blessing all in one. One would think that to be equipped with such a thing would double, if not triple, my own energy. But no, it always left me feeling drained and exhausted afterward. And I used it to merely diagnose ailment. The power to heal hadn't come to me yet. I wondered if it ever would.

Minutes later, recovered, my composure regained, I shuffled back to the madhouse. Peter dropped down beside me as I made a pretense of charting down some notes. A fine tremor shook my hands. I set the pen down carefully.

"Thanks, Lisa," Peter said as he took off his glasses and cleaned them with a coat corner. "I couldn't have examined that kid without you. The mother was useless." He peered sharply at me. "What's with that touch of yours? That moment? I sensed something. Are you one of those?"

"Those what?" I gave him a look.

"Those secret healers?" he whispered.

"I wish. That moment that you sensed has a name."

"What is it?"

"It's called compassion, doctor."

Peter laughed. "Right. Well, I'm going to order a CBC, Chem-20, urinalysis, and a quick strep. What do you think?"

"Don't forget abdominal X ray, flat and upright." That would pick up the stuck quarter that was troubling little Kurt.

"You know, you have incredible instincts. You picked up that appendicitis last week that I almost missed and there was that other thing you…"

"That also has a name. Experience."

He snorted. "Yeah, eleven long months of experience, you old hag, you."

At this point, a grabber would have reached out his paw, going for one of the usual localities, but not this one. "You'd make a great doctor, I bet."

"Are you trying to get rid of me?"

"Do I sound like it? You should think about going to medical school. Really." He walked away, flagging the orders in the chart.

He did have a nice butt, now that I was looking at it. Too bad there wasn't any desire in me to do more than appreciate the view.

Medical school. Ha! Not for me, not in this life. Couldn't afford it. The two years of nursing school had been a miracle already, the full scholarship and living stipend a true blessing. It had brought to fruition my childhood dream, a calling almost, to be near the sick and infirmed, the pained, the suffering.

The money also freed me from the confinement of my foster home, memories that I'd rather leave behind, buried and untouched. I still remember those first heady days of independence, free like a young bird just untangled from its nest, testing its wings, breathing fresh air. An exhale after a long, long inhale.

My thoughts of the past were suddenly disturbed by a tangible force. A force ringing in the air, penetrating through the throngs crowding the wards, through the chatter, the shouts, the din. Dense in the space, filtering past the generic furnishings, the white partitioning curtains. Reaching for me like an invisible arrow seeking its targeted prey.

I looked up into the path of that oncoming force and saw the air ripple like an invisible tidal wave rolling over all obstacles, big or small, pushing forward and burying me in its deluge.

I stood, stunned and dazzled by the invasion, trembling as I was hit by the seeking force. It was as if I had been electrocuted, my whole body tingling. The fine hair all over my body stood on end. I shivered, feeling weakened and dizzy, and leaned on my desk.

God! What the hell was that?

The invisible grip suddenly softened and my body relaxed as if a burden had lifted from my chest. But before I could breathe once more, the force turned naughty. It explored me, touched me like a lover's invisible fingers, caressing me, stirring foreign urges and feelings within me that I had never felt before. My body softened, grew moist and heated. I shivered. Then I smelled him. Blood.

My nostrils flared. I turned my head, tracking the scent, and saw him, the source. Bed Eight.

He was sitting alone on the stretcher all the way across the room, his blue eyes gazing intently at me. His long hair, darker than midnight, fell in soft waves to brush his shoulders. He had skin the color of ivory, luminescent and pure like the full moon against the ink-black sky, and a face that had the power to make his maker weep with joy or jealousy. An angel fallen from the sky. No, I thought, looking into predatory eyes as dark and endless as the night. Not fallen… kicked out.

The sight of him left me breathless. I watched as his nostrils flared, as he deliberately filled his lungs with air, and knew as surely as I had smelled his blood that he was taking in my scent, smelling my arousal. His lashes dipped down then fanned back up like the graceful sweep of a butterfly's wings. The power and heat that had come from his eyes intensified the caressing effects on me, penetrating through my outer self, pulling tautly at my core, calling up my own force to the fore in response. Our energies met and meshed. My nipples hardened to stone, my inner sheath quivered, and I wanted to go to him. Go to him and pull him to me.

The air crackled with such vibrancy that I was sure others had to have seen. But the nurses were busy with their needles and notes, and the doctors were busily minding their patients.

The pull between us tightened like a rope. Desperately I fought that pull the only way I knew, wave against wave, tide against tide. I intensified my force, marshaling up my last ounce, countering it. The air between us practically sparked. Still, it took every ounce of my control to just sit there and not go to him. Perspiration sheened my skin and my trembling grew harsher.

I'd never felt anything like this before in my life. Was he like me? Was he one of my kind, whatever that may be? Or was he an enemy?

One thing, though, I knew for certain. He was a bastard. My eyes narrowed in anger. How dare he try to use his powers on me.

I stalked over to where he sat on the stretcher, his legs dangling over the side, and stopped inches away from him. "Stop it!" I snarled.

His eyes widened. "It is not I who is doing it." His deep, melodic voice was as beautiful as the rest of him. Unfair.

"Don't lie to me!" I hissed.

"I would not dare."

"Just… just stop it!"

He gave a Gaelic shrug, a fluid ripple of shoulder and chest, a simple movement that was not simple at all, for it touched something inside me like a literal caress, causing me to shudder and drop down my gaze to take note of the bulge that had risen between his legs. His eyes closed and still I felt the pull, undiminished. Confused, I suddenly noticed the careful stiffness with which he held himself, the whiteness of his knuckles as he clenched the metal frame of the stretcher, the dampness of his brow. He seemed to be fighting the attraction as much as I.

"You feel it, too," I said, frowning.

"Yes." His blue eyes snapped open and speared mine with sudden intensity. "Where are your guards? I sense no one here other than you and I."

"Guards?"

He frowned. "Surely you are…" Carefully, slowly, he reached out one hand, stopping just short of touching me, and stroked above the bare skin of my forearm. His force, though invisible and without contact, was palpable just above skin. I felt his stroke as surely as if he had caressed me.

"You feel like a Queen," he murmured.

I stepped back, wondering if he was one of those madmen who frequently found their way to St. Vincent's dehydrated, famished, and highly delirious. And yet there was something very different about him.

"What are you talking about?" I demanded sharply.

A plump tech bustled up, a bright smile creasing her matronly face. It was Sally, the ward clerk who took the vital signs of all the new patients, helping lighten the nurses' loads. "My, my, aren't you the pretty boy," Sally murmured, glancing down at his data sheet. "David Michaels. Just what I needed to brighten my night."

He smiled, a lethal combination of teeth and dimples.

She smiled back. "I'll have his vitals for you in a sec, Lisa." In so saying, she reached out to take his pulse.

It registered then—what should have registered immediately had I not been so stunned by his beauty and my body's reaction to him. His heartbeat. His very, very slow heartbeat. Not more than thirty beats per minute. Far below the normal human rate of sixty and above. My own heart sped up from its usual sluggish fifty, hitting the sixty mark when Sally frowned and looked up.

He captured her gaze with his eyes and I then felt the gentle flow of his power. Shit. He really hadn't been using it before now. What then was this peculiar, strong attraction between us?

Sally's frown lines smoothed away like unrippled water. "A pulse of sixty and a blood pressure of one hundred and twenty over seventy." She jotted down the numbers on his sheet, not seeming to notice the blood pressure cuff that lay unused beside her. She hadn't touched it.

I swallowed. "Thank you, Sally."

"No problem. He's all yours." She winked and bustled off to the next patient.

After Sally left, I turned to David Michaels, or whatever his name really was, with a stern look on my face. "You took control of her mind just now, didn't you? She didn't even measure your blood pressure."

He leaned back on his pillow, his eyes closed, looking even paler than before, if that was possible, and laughed feebly. "Goddess, I can't believe that so simple a task exhausted me…"

"What are you?" I whispered and pulled the privacy curtains tight around us.

His dark lashes fluttered up. "Never mind who I am, who are you?" he asked, shifting forward. The movement caused him to wince and his hand moved to cover his belly.

"You're injured." With only a slight tremor, I lifted his shirt. It was an inch-long gash. One drop of red blood gleamed like scarlet against the pearl white of his skin, alluring, irresistible. At the sight of his blood, something clicked open in me that I hadn't known existed. As if in a dream, I watched my finger dip down and scoop up that templing crimson pearl onto my fingertip. Watched him shudder as I touched him. Watched him shudder again as I licked the blood off my fingertip and tasted him.

It was sweet, so sweet, though tainted by an odd metallic tang.

What was he, this creature before me? And what had injured him?

Gently, I covered his wound with my palm. The center of my hand tingled and strummed. My senses seeped deep down below his skin, revealing to me clearly the torn passage through his tissues.

"You were stabbed. With a stiletto. And I sense something more. There is a… poison within you."

"Poison." One corner of his lush mouth lifted in bitter wryness. "An accurate labeling. A blade dipped in liquid silver. Now that the liquid poison is within me, it will spread slowly. Already it weakens me greatly."

"Who stabbed you?"

"My Queen, Mona Sera."

"Of course, your Queen," I said, wondering once again if he was mad. "Is she visiting from a foreign country? And why did she stab you?"

"I was leaving her," he said simply, "and this was her parting gift. Usually a wound like this would heal within several hours, but she punished me by using a silver blade."

"Why is silver bad?"

"Because the inherent quality of silver runs afoul with our bodies, causing us to then heal like humans. Slowly."

Like humans.

"Sure. So you're not human."

He flashed me a curious look. "Of course not."

"Then what are you?"

"Do you truly not know?"

"Why should I know?"

"Because you are as I am."

I swallowed. "Which is…"

"Monère. The children of the moon."

"Of course," I soothed. "Children of the moon." This guy was a total wacko.

"I am not mad, as you think." Frowning, he looked deep into me, probing with the dagger of his power so that I sensed again that arcing heat from before.

"Ah, that explains it," he breathed, wonder in his eyes. "You are a Mixed Blood."

"Mixed Blood?"

"Yes. A small part of you is human."

"A small part?"

"A quarter, I believe."

"I'm totally human as far as I'm concerned—a head, four limbs, two eyes…" I said, backing away.

"No." He reached his hand out to me. "Don't go. There is even more. You are a Queen."

"A Queen! That's a bunch of crock. I'm not even a Beauty Queen in Queens. I'm just a nurse."

"No, you don't understand. You have aphidy, the unique halo of fragrance inherent only in a Queen. All Monère men are drawn to you because of this."

"Talk about natural chemistry. And here I thought it was my dripping charm and striking beauty that attracted men to me," I said sarcastically.

"All things you may doubt, but you must believe you are in danger now. I am being hunted by Mona Sera's men. They are tracking me by my blood scent. And if they find me, they will find you. Are you protected?"

"What do mean, 'protected'? I protect myself."

"No guards?"

I shook my head.

A genuinely pained expression swept across his face and I found my heart yielding to his deep concern. Although what he claimed was impossible, a part of me responded to his words. They resorted with rightness somewhere deep within me. And there was no denying his unusual power, so like mine. I started to believe him.

"Do you have anybody else like…" he waved his hand, searching for words, "… like you?"

"No," I whispered. "You're the first I've ever met."

"Sweet Mother Light." His head sank down. His perfect shoulders slumped. He laughed without humor. "What am I going to do with you?" The last was whispered as if to himself. He sounded weak, defeated, and that bothered me. A lot.

"Will you recover with time?"

He shook his head. "Not without the antidote."

"What is the antidote?"

"I was hoping you could possibly tell me," he said with that bitter, wry smile. "But, of course, that would be too much to hope for. Some claim there is no antidote, but others whisper that only Queens have it. And so I am fleeing to the nearest Lady of Light, the nearest Queen, to beg mercy and seek aid."

"You have more than one Queen?"

"Each territory is ruled by a Queen," Gryphon answered. "And the land is divided into many territories."

He said that I was a Queen, but not a true one, or I would be able to help him.

"I'm sorry," I said, deep regret in my words. "I would give you the antidote if I had it."

"Would you really?" he asked with a little smile. "A rogue male, injured by his own Queen's hand? How curious. And yet I believe you really would."

"Why did your Queen poison you? Why did you leave?"

He sighed. "Mona Sera is among one of our worst Queens. Those of us she takes in, no other Queen would have. Twenty years with her and I was sick to my very soul. But though she is a bad Queen, she is wise in matters of business and has accumulated vast wealth and power in her dealings with humans. She forces us to sleep with humans in return for concessions she desires in business. Humans are drawn to us by our uncommon beauty, even to the least of us. But we derive no pleasure in return. We are two different species. Our skin does not fill with light when we are with one of them."

"Fill with light?" What was this light thing, I wondered.

"Our hearts are left with emptiness," he continued. "Mona Sera created a caste of comfort women and men for these outside duties."

"Were you one of them?" I asked quietly.

"Yes," he said, shame lacing his voice. "I was one of her comfort men. This last time she sent out my half sister, Sonia, our beloved midwife, as punishment for her recent rebelliousness against this practice. These matings, though joyless and loveless, do bear fruit at times."

"Like me."

"Yes," he nodded, "and it is Sonia's duty to deal with such consequences. She delivers them and abandons them to the humans to keep the purity of our line. She has done so dutifully until her daughter's recent miscarriage from one of these unfortunate unions with humans. Since then, Sonia could no longer look upon the practice of abandonment with detachment and petitioned the Queen to resign from such a task. As punishment, Mona Sera sent Sonia out to sleep with a human male notorious for his twisted enjoyment of sex. Sonia returned with bloody lashes, cuts, and bruises upon her. I hunted the bastard down and killed him. I couldn't stand for anyone to treat my sister so. The dead man was the son of a Louisiana billionaire senator, Mona Sera's man in the human capitol of Washington, D.C. Instead of punishing me, Mona Sera had Sonia raped before my eyes by one of our most ferocious warriors, Amber. That broke me," he said. "The tyranny, the cruelty, the malice. I denounced Mona Sera in front of our people and severed all my allegiance to her. It was something that had never been done before. Mona Sera became enraged. She had her guards bind me to the whipping post. But instead of killing me quickly, she wanted me to suffer a lingering, painful death, so she plunged her silver-poisoned dagger into my belly. Just before dawn, one of the comfort women cut me loose and I fled."

"What is your real name?"

"My true name is Gryphon. What is your name?"

"Mona Lisa," I heard myself say, and the name felt strange. Without conscious thought, I had given him my full name, the name etched on the back of the cross that I had worn as an infant when they found me—my most cherished possession, the only tangible tie to my mother.

"It is my honor and pleasure to meet you." Gryphon bowed with a flourish, the gesture natural and graceful, until he winced.

"Stop that. You'll aggravate your wound."

"As you wish, Mona Lisa." He said my name like a caress and the lilting utterance of my birth name from his beautiful lips touched a part of me, an empty part of me that I had not known existed until now.

"I must seal this wound with something not permeable to air," Gryphon said, "or they shall continue to track me easily through my blood-spore scent."

"A doctor should see…"

"I cannot wait for a doctor. I must leave quickly. Help me, please."

How I wished I could heal him. Never before had I felt the lack of my untapped ability more keenly. "I'll get the liquid bandage," I said.

A swipe of liquid, a gust of paraffin spray, and the wound was sealed. After it dried, I applied Steri-Strips. Over it, I applied a clear plastic adhesive dressing. The sharp smell of his blood dissipated. Disappeared.

"My thanks, Lady," Gryphon said. For the first time, I felt him hesitate. "I know not if you would be better served with me, or alone here, unprotected. I am injured, weak, and hunted, and can only offer you poor protection. In truth, my chances of survival are quite dismal."

"Will the Queen you are fleeing to help you?"

"I do not know." Again that graceful shrug. "She is not so terrible as Mona Sera. I do not believe any of her men have ever fled her." He looked at me, tired, weak, clearly torn over what to do about me, and it gratified some tiny part of me that he could worry so about my safety when his own condition was so clearly desperate.

After a long, contemplative moment, he finally stood. He was a tall man, six feet. Four inches taller than me. "It will be in your best interest if I leave you now. The men hunting me perhaps may not come into this place of healing. It is their habit to avoid public domains such as this. But if they should come upon you, now or some day in the future, do not fight them, no matter what they do. They are full-blooded warriors, stronger and faster than you. Fear not, you will be drawn to them in the same manner as you are drawn to me," he said gently. "Afterward, claim the High Council's right of protection and demand that they take you to Ericsburg, Minnesota, where the Council's Court resides. The men shall have no other choice then but to take you there if they desire to live."

"Why could I not go to Mona Sera?" I asked.

"That you wish to avoid above all else," Gryphon said adamantly. "If Mona Sera detects the intimate scent of her men upon you, she will slay you all. She will kill you because she will see you as attempting to take her territory, her men. She will destroy the men who dare touch you because she will view it as betrayal against herself, a rejection. And as you can see," he grimaced and gestured at himself, "the lady does not take rejection well. If, in the unlikely event the men manage to constrain themselves, do what you can to seduce one or two—all would be best—and make them yours. Do not, at any cost, allow them to take you to Mona Sera. Competition or challenge by another Queen she will not tolerate."

Gryphon bowed in farewell and swept open the privacy curtain.

He was going! In that short moment, I felt the room empty out, felt my heart sink with the rock of disappointment. My senses, my power, beyond my control, reached out for him. "Wait," I blurted out.

He stopped, obedience to a Queen deeply ingrained.

"It is imperative now for both our safety that I leave quickly," Gryphon said softly, regretfully.

It required no further thought. I was committed. A part of me that I could not deny knew what it wanted. I reached into my pocket and pressed my keys into his hand. "Go to my apartment. Wait for me there, I live two blocks away at 156 West Eleventh Street, apartment 7-B. I will be there in an hour when my shift ends."

He looked at me, uncomprehendingly, dazed by the all-too-brief, pleasurable touch of my hand against his.

"Do you know what you are offering me?" he asked.

"No. I do not know and I do not care. I only know I wish to help you."

"I cannot draw you into my plight. It is not safe…"

"It is my wish," I interrupted, my voice firm. "And it is my command."

He struggled against the need to obey. "It is not wise…"

"Please." I begged him with my eyes, with everything in me.

"Ah, little one." Gryphon sighed, his shoulders slumping in defeat, succumbing to my plea. He clutched the keys tightly in his fist. "You fight most unfairly with your eyes." He bowed in acquiescence, a wry smile tweaking those beautiful lips. "As my Queen commands."