Mona Lisa Blossoming

Chapter Thirteen

The door creaked open as the sun dropped over the horizon and I knew that the time for fun and games was about to begin. For them. Not for us. All we'd do, unfortunately, was bleed and try very, very hard not to die. I just didn't know if we'd succeed.

Mona Louisa, the bitch, was looking pretty good. I'd labeled her the Ice Queen not only because of her stunning, icy beauty, but because ice ran in her veins and encased her heart. She'd given up one of her own men to the High Council without a qualm. He'd lied for her and then died for her. Miles had been his name, a nasty fellow who'd tried to rape me. Yeah, he'd deserved to go. But no more than she. She'd given the orders, after all. He'd just obeyed. But Queens were the tent poles around which the Monère gathered. They were too precious to kill. Of course, another Queen could kill a Queen in self-defense. But that law wasn't exactly to my benefit just this moment, chained and helpless as I was.

Mona Louisa's hair was a gleaming yellow cascade and her pale skin was as lovely as ever. Only a thin, pink-silver scar above her right breast, where my blade had sank into her, marred her perfection.

She was the vulture who had attacked us. Too bad my knife had been steel instead of silver. Her wound looked as if it'd had five days to heal instead of just five hours. Apparently she had acquired the ability to withstand the sun from Gryphon and had passed it on to at least one of her own men. Reason enough to keep me alive—the potential of passing it on to more of her men. But not if she killed Halcyon. Then she'd most certainly have to kill me. Couldn't risk leaving a witness alive if you murdered the High Prince of Hell.

Not wanting to, but having to, I assessed my own injury. My ripped shoulder was not nearly as neat and clean as Mona Louisa's nice little scar. I'd been sliced wide open: two long, gashing tears slashing through my bicep, curving behind to the back of my shoulder. With my arms stretched tight by the chains, the wound had stayed open. And had started to heal that way. So instead of knitting two pieces of pressed-together flesh back together, it had to fill in the gaping wound like a pit, from the bottom up. The deeper muscle and tendon damage had repaired enough while I'd been out so that I could move my arm now. But it was still a raw, ugly, healing mess. One quick glance was enough to churn my stomach and lighten my head. I looked away before I fainted. Wouldn't want to do that. Mona Louisa would no doubt find a painfully creative way to wake me back up.

Other bodies entered the room, a substantial number of them with healing slices and knitting wounds courtesy of Halcyon's nails. Even weak, they had not taken him easily, I noted with satisfaction. Many of them were faces that I recognized from High Court, her guards. Among those faces peering at me were Gilford, Rupert, and Demetrius, partners in crime to the late unlamented Miles. They'd been part of the original four loaned to me as my personal guards. But instead of protecting me, they had betrayed me. Their expectant gazes and Mona Louisa's glittering eyes shifted the feel of the place. As if it was about to become less dungeon and more torture chamber.

I caught sight of one other familiar face. This one made me catch my breath. "Dontaine?" I whispered as I stared at the arrogantly handsome face of the man I had nursed, the man I had appointed my Master of Arms. His lovely dark green eyes stared impassively back at me. I'd had my suspicions all along, but deep down in my heart, I must not have really believed them or wanted to believe them because the shock of his betrayal was like an unexpected punch in the gut, knocking the wind from me.

"Oh, good. You are awake," Mona Louisa purred. "Wouldn't want you to miss out on the fun."

Yup, still a bitch. But not quite the same. Something about her was different. Instead of icy aloofness, she was practically vibrating with emotion. A flux of eagerness and anger spun across her face, and a hot current of deep passion—hatred—burned in her dark pupils. Her diamond blue eyes gleamed with vicious satisfaction as she gazed at the Demon Prince.

She swished up to him, her long full skirt swirling about her feet in graceful peek-a-boo flutters. Coming to a stop before him, she lifted one perfectly manicured fingernail. She pressed the sharp sliver of her nail to his chest and, with eyes avidly fixed upon him, ran it lightly downward. His taut skin broke easily beneath the soft, cutting stroke, spilling blood and more of that clear viscous fluid.

"Cooked to perfection," she crooned. "How does it feel, Prince, to be the one suffering? To be the one being sliced open. Let us see how you hold up, shall we, when you are the one questioned." Once upon a time Halcyon had questioned her in private for the High Council regarding her role in her loaned men's lax protection of me. The Four Colors, as I'd called them, had handed me over to a band of rogues.

Mona Louisa, it seems, had not enjoyed being questioned by him. Made me wonder what Halcyon had done to her. Not enough, apparently. Nope, she definitely hadn't liked the experience. And she didn't look at all willing to forgive and forget, to let bygones be bygones, and all that other good stuff.

"They're wrong when they say revenge is sweet," Mona Louisa said, raising her perfect oval nail once more, pressing it to another spot one inch over on Halcyon's chest. "Revenge isn't sweet. It's bloody," she whispered and ripped another slice down him. Her hot gleaming eyes watched Halcyon eagerly, disappointed when he didn't even flinch. Blood flowed out sullenly, as if his body were greedy to contain what little it had left.

It was hard to just stand and watch her literally slicing Halcyon's chest to ribbons. Delay. Wait for help. That just wasn't my forte. Depending on others could get you killed. Only now, I had no other choice.

Watching and waiting got a little harder when Mona Louisa uttered a name: "Dontaine."

The men parted, letting him step forward, and I got a glimpse of what was in Dontaine's hands. Whips. Two of them. One was a simple black bullwhip. The other had spiky silver barbs lodged in the long leather strips that flowed out like a horse's tail from the thick stock handle. It was a cat-o'-nine-tails, like what they'd used centuries ago to flog mutinous crew on the high seas.

"The bullwhip first, I think." Mona Louisa curled her soft white hand around the thick phallic-shaped handle and let the curled tail unfurl like a living, writhing leather snake. She caressed the butt against Halcyon's cheek. "Where is the nearest portal to Hell?"

Halcyon remained silent.

"Wrong answer." She stepped back. A flick of a wrist and the bullwhip hissed through the air like an angry serpent and bit into Halcyon. The fingernail had been bad enough. This slicing leather whip with full Monère strength behind it was much, much worse. The leather coil parted Halcyon's flesh like a hot knife cutting through soft butter. His chest was sliced diagonally open from left to right with a gush of soft weeping fluid. The white of his ribs was briefly visible before blood washed them darkly red.

Halcyon didn't make a sound. It was I who cried out. "Mona Louisa, you don't want to do this!"

"Oh, but I do," she said with almost wild gaiety.

"Do you want to call his father's wrath down upon you?"

"It is not I who his father will be seeking," Mona Louisa said with an unpleasant smile. "It will be you, your people, who his son was last seen with."

Shit. She was right.

"The nearest portal, my dear prince."

No answer again seemed the wrong answer.

Another whistle as leather cut through air, and then no sound as leather cut through flesh. This slice was in the opposite direction, from right to left.

"X marks the spot, they say." Mona Louisa threw back her head and laughed, a gay, vicious burble.

"Milady, perhaps the Demon Prince will be more inclined to talk if Mona Lisa is the one suffering," Dontaine suggested.

Something flickered in Halcyon's gaze as he turned his dark eyes to look upon Dontaine. Something that made the tall, fair Judas take half a step back.

"Why, Dontaine, darling. I think you are right," Mona Louisa said. "Although whipping her will not be nearly as much fun."

"Mona Lisa is a proud bitch. I was thinking of something much worse than the gentle kiss of leather." Dontaine glanced at me assessingly, and his handsome smile chilled me. "She reacts most unusually when I touch her in my Half Change form. It calls her beast forth against her will."

"What fun is calling her beast?" Mona Louisa demanded, pouting.

"Calling Mona Lisa's beast only partway, my Queen. Not all the way. Did not your steward report to you what occurred in the forest? She mates quite enthusiastically then, like the mongrel bitch she is."

"Does she?" Mona Louisa gazed at me with frightening consideration.

"I could make her willing, like a cat in heat, against her conscious choice," Dontaine suggested slyly, like a cunning devil. "And then I and all the other men here could take her, one after the other, in front of the Demon Prince while he watches, helpless and bound."

I tried to keep my face blank, but the tension in my body must have betrayed me.

"She hates the idea," Mona Louisa said delightedly.

I more than hated it. I wanted to kill Dontaine. Kill them all. I wanted to call forth my beast, rip out of these chains, and rip into them. I wanted to take my chances rather than submit to what he suggested. But however willing I was to gamble my life, I would not chance Halcyon's. Delay and survive. It was like a goddamn mantra looping around in my mind. Letting all the men here fuck me would certainly be a good delaying tactic. I just didn't know if I'd want to survive afterward. And the look on my face must have told her that.

Mona Louisa laughed like a gleeful child who'd just been told she was getting a present. "Yes, yes. Do it, Dontaine."

"Wait," Halcyon rasped, speaking up for the first time. "I will tell you what you wish to know."

"Too late, Demon Prince. Do it, Dontaine." Mona Louisa smiled wickedly at me. "Do her."

Dontaine tossed the cat-o'-nines into a corner, stripped off his shirt, and stepped out of his shoes.

"No!" Halcyon said, jerking violently against his chains, rattling the heavy metal. But they held fast and he collapsed, drained by the brief outburst.

"Dontaine, please," I choked out. "Don't do this."

The look on his beautiful betraying face was calm and peaceful. "I have to."

That odd electric energy began to ripple and pulse, and Dontaine began his transformation. He stretched, morphed, changed. Grew taller, broader. Muscles stretched, bones distorted, his jaw elongated into a muzzle, tendons popped, and dark gray fur rippled like a magical wash over his skin, covering it. He shifted and then arrested the change part way, taking on that monstrous form, choking the room with his power. He lifted his head and howled, a chilling primal cry of freedom as his wolf beast merged with his human form, a monster, a legend. Werewolf.

I shrunk back against the wall. I would have merged into the stones themselves had I been able to. But I couldn't. I could only stand there, cowering, trembling, shaking my head, as that terrible beast with Dontaine's eyes walked toward me with lurching, jerky strides on his partially bent hind legs. His gruesome claws reached for me and I screamed with horror, with fear, with helplessness.

But instead of touching me, he tore the demon chains free.

"Dontaine, what are you doing?" Mona Louisa shrieked.

"Freeing my Queen," came his deep, growling response. His claws slid inside my wrist shackles so that only his nails touched me, not his flesh. With a simple twist and pull, the silver metal broke and dropped from my wrists. He tore the chains from my legs, leaving the manacles dangling about my ankles.

A guard standing in front suddenly crumpled to the floor, his neck twisted oddly, his blood staining the floor. Another guard screamed in pain, jerked, gurgled, and fell to the floor with his neck broken, stabbed from behind. His blood sprayed outward, the tail of the crimson arch stopped short by something right next to it.

Something invisible that became visible briefly upon the touch of blood. Chami suddenly appeared, two silver stilettos held in his hands, the long thin blades dripping with his victim's blood. The guards standing beside him cried out and leaped toward him. Chami winked out of sight—chameleon—and they caught nothing but air. One of them screamed and bent over, clutching his sliced belly.

"Dontaine, get Halcyon!" I cried and stretched out my freed hands. The Goddess's Tears buried deep in the heart of my right palm gave one deep throbbing pulse and a sword sprang free from a surprised guard's grasp.

Uttering a battle cry, I let it fly. The sword swung through the air, singing a song of death as the blade came down on the neck of one of the guards who had dived for Chami. It severed the man's head with almost sighing ease. The decapitated head flew from its body. Light shimmered out, and with a bright burst, scattered ashes rained down to the ground, and the man no longer was. His clothes fell to the floor, an empty shell, no longer supported by form.

"Off with their heads!" I shouted with savage glee, blocking a sudden vicious lunge with my sword. The sharp bite of metal striking against metal clanged like a clarion. But it was my right hand, my injured arm. I was barely able to hold my sword against the pressing force of my attacker's blade. He was overpowering me, and he smiled at my weakness.

It was Rupert, I realized, of the carrot-top hair. One of the betraying four who had delivered me into the hands of the outlaw rogues. The man who had spilled half a bottle of aphrodisiac on me and nearly killed me.

It was that smug smile of Rupert's that did it. That, along with the remembered agony of the aphrodisiac's hellish burning upon my body, and the ache of my right shoulder wound now. It triggered almost a berserker's rage in me. My left hand pulsed once, almost painfully hard, and a silver dagger flew from a bewildered guard's hand into mine. With dizzying speed and an almost wild strength, I plunged the knife into my attacker. I sank the dagger deep, deep, all the way to the hilt, just under Rupert's sternum, and angled it up into his chest cavity, just like Chami had taught us.

Rupert looked at me with shock and surprise widening his eyes. One clean swipe left severed his aorta, and Rupert's eyes glazed and lost focus and his sword eased against mine. With an almost gentle push from me, his sword fell from his hand and clattered to the floor. Slowly he fell to his knees.

I took a step back and my entire torso turned as I lifted my sword up and back and then let it fly forward in a graceful downward swing with the full strength of my hips and back behind it. It passed through flesh and bone with slicing ease. And then flesh and bone was no more. Bright light scattered free, ashes fell, and clothes floated to the ground, empty.

I glanced around me. Half a dozen bodies lined the floor, Chami's work. Neck and high belly wounds. Spinal cords severed, aortas cut. They were still alive, would eventually recover, given time. Not as final as my ashes and light method. But it was an efficient way of putting down a lot of men quickly. Unfortunately, there were plenty more men still left standing, and some had shifted into their animal forms.

I caught sight of another bright flash of light. Ashes hazed the air and drifted down, coating Dontaine's furry feet. A huge spotted leopard screamed and pounced on Dontaine from behind, crashing them both to the floor. They rolled on the ground, a blurring mass of gray and orange fur, biting fangs and striking claws.

Halcyon gave out a sharp cry, jerking my attention to him. Dontaine hadn't managed to free him yet. The Demon Prince's back was arched, his neck tautly stretched. A look of horror masked his face and I felt a reflection of it grip my own. Mona Louisa was behind Halcyon, twined about him like a lover, embracing him, pressed tight against his back, her lips two crimson slashes pressed against the curve of his neck. Blood so darkly red that it was maroon trickled down Halcyon's golden throat as Mona Louisa's slender, strong neck worked obscenely. And I realized she wasn't kissing him, she was drinking his blood!

I gathered myself and leaped, soaring through the air to land beside them. They were too closely entwined to risk using blades so I dropped them. One of my hands twisted roughly in Mona Louisa's shiny bright hair. With my other hand gripping her neck, I ripped her from him, and flung her away. Only one bite mark on his neck. Almost innocuous looking. But Halcyon looked as stunned, as dazed, as frightened as if she had ripped his throat out. He collapsed forward weakly, held upright only by his shackles.

I couldn't break the damn chains. "Dontaine!"

With a heaving snarl, the leopard went sailing across the room to hit the far wall with a cry, and Dontaine was beside me. He snapped Halcyon's chains with four sharp pulls, freeing his arms then his legs.

"Get us out of here," I gasped, lifting Halcyon into my arms.

Dontaine did so with the simple expediency of turning and crashing through the very same wall where the chains where embedded. Stone burst outward, and I stepped through the jagged hole my wolfman had made with his body. I felt Chami, a shimmering presence behind us as we fled into the night. There were sounds of pursuit, startled cries, gasping gurgles, snarling animal growls as Chami danced with his invisible cutting blades and Dontaine ripped and slashed with his long deadly claws, both men guarding my rear.

My right arm burned like a howling banshee and I felt blood flowing down my forearm. My partly healed wound had broken open. But my arm was holding Halcyon's dead weight. I didn't drop him, and that was all I asked of my injured arm for now. I ran, breath coming hard from pain and exertion, and then cursed and stumbled to a halt as I felt the presence of others before me, blocking my path.

"Mona Lisa." It was Gryphon.

Amber, Tomas, and Miguel, Mona Carlisse's man, emerged from the darkness like pale shadows, flowing around Gryphon, passing us, rushing into the fray behind me. I almost dropped Halcyon from sheer relief. Gryphon carefully took the Demon Prince from me. A car screeched to a stop and Aquila leaned over and threw the passenger door open from inside. "Hurry!"

We tumbled into the car and the white Suburban pulled away, bumping roughly over the grassy lawn. It was terrain like this where four-wheel drives showed their superiority. The SUV navigated the grassy ground with the heft of a tank and an angry rumble, its tires throwing up clumps of grass behind it.

"What about the others?" I gasped.

"Gerald has them," Aquila said.

I looked back, turning in the front seat, and saw the green Suburban pulling away with the others inside. Amber was crouched outside, up on the roof, like a giant gargoyle of death, his great sword slashing away, cutting hands and limbs, discouraging pursuit, keeping them off the fleeing car. Other guards spilled outside, running to the front of the house.

We lurched onto smooth road and Aquila floored it.

"They're heading for their own cars," I gasped.

"Don't worry." Aquila smiled like the bandit he once was. "They can't come after us. Not with flat tires."

I felt like kissing him, then leaned over and did so, smacking him on the cheek. "You're brilliant."

Aquila's teeth flashed in a pleased grin, lifting his neat mustache. "I know."

"Thaddeus?" I asked.

"Safe back home with the others. He told us what happened. Dontaine led us here."

I watched with fear squeezing my heart as Amber swung himself feet-first through an open window into the SUV. They hit the smooth pavement of the road and sped after us.

We'd lost all our pursuers. But relief was short-lived, triumph fleeting. Turning in my seat, I looked down at Halcyon. He had fallen into a shocklike stupor, lying limply on the second row where Gryphon had laid him out, his chest looking like raw meat slashed open, the flesh parted, not healing. His skin at both ankles and wrists had also split open when he had struggled against the manacles. A final insult, Mona Louisa's bite mark lay like a hideous kiss upon his neck.

"What did they do to him?" Gryphon asked.

"They put him in the sun," I answered. "He was weak but not like this, not until Mona Louisa bit him."

"I did not know that the sun weakens the Demon Prince as it does us," Gryphon murmured. "He needs blood."

I caught Gryphon's gaze. Held it with demand. "I know that now, but not before. Why did you not tell me?"

A glimmer of guilt, of remorse passed through Gryphon's eyes. "Who would you have had me ask to donate blood?"

It reminded me of when he had asked me which woman he should have asked to care for an injured, dangerous Dontaine.

"You would have chosen yourself again," Gryphon said, answering his own question, "and I could not bear the thought of him touching you."

Inwardly I sighed. I was merely mad when I should have been furious. This was even worse than Gryphon putting my hand on another man's groin, on keeping Wiley's chained captivity from me. This time we had nearly died. But it was hard to work my emotions up to furious when I understood Gryphon. He had been consistent in this all along, his fear and want of distance between Halcyon and me. Guilt and remorse shone in Gryphon's eyes as he gazed down at the insensate Demon Prince.

"Forgive me," Gryphon said softly.

"It's hard to keep forgiving you, yet again."

Gryphon bowed his head, frozen in that odd stillness that he was capable of achieving, as if he were inanimate, not breathing. As if his heart did not beat, so how could it break? Then he broke the stillness. A quick movement and he slashed his wrist with a blade, blood welling to the surface as I gasped with surprise. He pressed his opened wrist to Halcyon's mouth, his face once more serene, unreadable, blank.

At the touch of blood, the Demon Prince stirred. His mouth parted and his lips sealed around Gryphon's wrist, creating suction. Both of Halcyon's hands came up blindly to grasp Gryphon's arm and to hold it secure though his eyes remained closed. Like a baby, Halcyon sucked and nursed, greedily milking the cut flesh with firm lips for more of its red nectar.

Apparently it was not enough.

Halcyon's fangs lengthened and grew, a simple morphing that didn't even use a shimmer of power. It just occurred naturally, like breathing, lips drawing back. One sharp sinking bite and Halcyon pierced even deeper into Gryphon's flesh, drank down even richer blood, his larynx bobbing up and down as if it were a lever that could pump the blood faster into his mouth.

I wondered how much blood Halcyon was drinking down. How much blood could Gryphon continue to give? Gryphon looked pale, but I couldn't go by that: Pale was his baseline. But I could hear Gryphon's heart. It had kicked up its rhythm, a sign of his heart having to pump faster to meet its needs with a lesser volume of blood.

"Halcyon." I reached over the seat and touched the Demon Prince's hands. His skin was less sallow than before, not quite as sickly ashen beneath the tan. Those hands were wrapped tightly around Gryphon's wrist, holding him a willing prisoner.

"Halcyon, wake up."

Halcyon's eyes remained closed. He did not stop in his single-minded gulping of blood.

I slid over my seat into the middle row, crouching down in the floorboard space, a little alarmed at the strength I sensed in those golden hands. They were clamped down like cold steel. I couldn't pry them off Gryphon. Couldn't move a single finger, not even his pinky. When I tried, those slim, elegant hands only tightened even more, clearly unwilling to give up his food source.

Gryphon was definitely pale now. Sheet white versus lunar white. There's a subtle difference. Gryphon's eyes were closed as if lost to the giving, numb to his pain.

"Aquila, how do we get Halcyon off Gryphon?"

Aquila's concerned eyes met mine in the mirror. He shook his head. "I do not know, milady. Do you wish me to stop the car?"

"No, keep driving. Gryphon, can you get him to release you?"

"Not until he is ready to" was Gryphon's weak reply.

Well, shit. The Demon Prince didn't look anywhere near ready to do that. He looked like an innocent babe suckling, abandoned in his pursuit of more and more. Only he was gulping down blood, not milk. And babies didn't drain their mothers dry, usually.

Force hadn't worked, so I tried something different. I ran a gentle hand through Halcyon's hair, pushing it back away from his face. That gold-kissed skin was less puffy now. The blood was helping. He was healing a little.

"Halcyon," I whispered. He had to hear me at some level. "Halcyon, it's Mona Lisa, your hellcat." That's what he called me, even before he'd known what my other form was. I reached out with that other power within me—my aphidy, that inner allure that drew men to me. Deliberately I called it out and wrapped it gently around Halcyon, even though I wasn't sure it would work with the demon dead. I used it like an invisible embrace, an inviting stroke. Come to me.

I bent down, breathed against the shell of his ear. "Halcyon, I need you. Come to me." I pressed my lips to his tan cheek and kissed him for the very first time. "Open your eyes for me," I begged. "Please, Halcyon."

His long, gold-tipped lashes fluttered once, twice, and then opened. Confusion, comprehension drifted in and out of those chocolate brown eyes.

"Mona Lisa," he murmured and reached for me, releasing Gryphon's arm.

As if the strings that had been holding him up had suddenly been cut, Gryphon toppled soundlessly over, his body wedged back in the crack of the seat, curled around the Demon Prince's head, his heart stuttering, his breath shallow, his body still within biting range.

But it was not Gryphon the Demon Prince reached for. Halcyon wrapped those golden arms around me—still so strong even when he was weak—and hauled me up so that I was half draped over him, so that my breasts were crushed against his chest, so that blood from his open chest wounds wet my shirt, seeping through the fabric to dampen my skin like a liquid caress. With a sigh, a soundless murmur, Halcyon sank his long, sharp fangs gently into my neck.

And with that one bite, he took me over completely.

I was floating in a blue, blue sea. I was naked, and I was with my lover. Halcyon. His golden skin glowed in the waters, and his eyes shone like brilliant dark stars, his need, his want glinting hard like black diamonds in their depths. And I wanted him. Oh, how I wanted him.

He was as wonderfully free as I, skin whole, sleekly muscled, no cloth marring the natural grace and beauty of his body, his quiet strength, his rising passion. The ocean buoyed us in her comforting arms, safe. It was like a primordial time, when nothing else existed but the first man made, the first woman created from his bone. No need to breathe. Just feel. The touch of my lover's hand gentle upon the back of my neck as he drew me into his embrace. The brush of his soft, red lips against mine, tasting even better than the nectar of life. He let me sip from his cherry sweetness, drink down joy, swallow the seeds of passion. And as they slid down into my belly, I suddenly burned with need. Such need to feel that exquisite body pressed tight against me, in me. To feel that dark hard length of risen passion nuzzle between my thighs and bury deep inside me.

My bare breasts flattened against him, my nipples hard, stabbing into his chest, the twin peaks kissing his own flat brown areolas, their pointy aggression bringing a growl to his throat, turning sweet tenderness into something rougher, darker, more forceful, aggressive. Like stirring a hidden beast. His arms tightened around me, and with a shudder that racked that slender body, his arousal nudged against my notch, a lovely fit but not quite perfect yet. I swayed against him, swirling my hips enticingly, coating him with my honeyed juice, riding, sliding against that lovely jutting length. Sweet, but not enough.

"Come into me," I whispered.

"Soon," he promised and took my mouth with lips so luscious, so red, so smooth that they tasted even better than Eve's first apple, bursting with the bittersweet taste of something dark and tantalizing. A luring promise of more… more. And I was so hungry.

He delved into my mouth with an exploring tongue, sliding in like a sinuous snake, sweeping over my teeth, caressing the inner wetness of my mouth, slipping back out to lap and tease and nibble my full lower lip, catching it between his teeth and pulling it out, taut. A gentle press, a promise of teeth. The pull of pressure, the release. Sliding back in, sweeping his tongue against mine, tangling them together, stroke against stroke, twining, rubbing, and then sliding in that most intimate dance of push and retreat, promising a deeper joining yet to come.

My hands flew over him, touching, caressing, stroking that lovely smooth flesh. Feeling the resilient texture of soft skin, hard muscles, taut tendons. Seeing the beautiful contrast of white skin against dark, like the warm sun against the cool moon. His shoulders were broad ledges to explore. His back, hills to conquer, plains to venture over. His luscious bottom, small tight mounds of muscle to squeeze and pull against me. I slid my hands lower, trailing down the mysterious crack between his bottom cheeks, making him mutter, making him squirm, until I found him hanging low and vulnerable. I squeezed his balls gently, appreciating their thick pouchy outer surface, their softer, looser inner roll. Their tightening, tensing, drawing up. So sweetly responsive, so wonderfully tight.

Halcyon gazed down into my laughing eyes and growled. His red, wicked mouth swooped down to plunder my vulnerable flesh and take their revenge. My nipple was engulfed in the dark wet cavern of his mouth and proved as equally responsive as his balls. They tightened, but instead of drawing up and inward, they speared out. He sucked and pulled and swirled a naughty tongue, tasting, laving me. A gentle swish, a rough pull, making me cry out. My other nipple was pulled and squeezed with agile fingers in rhythm to his sucking mouth. The twin assaults made me widen my legs and wrap them around his waist, squeezing down on his buttocks, pulling him tightly, grindingly against me. He swiveled against me in a graceful, wicked dance, rubbing his hardness against my softness. Then his hands caught my hips, angled them up so that my little pearl of hardness was caught against the base of his poling length and ground against it again and again as his hips swiveled and danced, a delicious bump and retreat.

And then all I felt was a hard, hard pressing as he bit down on my nipple, no longer gentle, squeezing my other nipple with his fingers to the point of pain, to the point of pleasure. And I exploded outward, imploded inward. Shot into hard, shuddering ecstasy that shook my frame, within and without. His mouth covered me, swallowing down my cries, stealing my breath, emptying me until I was nothing, and then breathing life back into me, exhaling so that his air filled my lungs, so that his breath sustained me, brought me back. And as I revived, stirred, he slipped sweetly into me, a quiet, peaceful joining.

A moment of stillness. A moment to savor the fullness, the delicious stretching invasion. Then another breath into me, a gentle push into me, a fluid pulling back out. And all I could do was float in his arms, totally relaxed, utterly drained in the sated aftermath, wonderfully limp, held secure by him. All his. Unable to do anything but take whatever he wished to give.

My golden prince moved to the gentle rhythmic sway of the ocean. Ebbing, rising. Gentle, oh, so gentle movement. As natural as breathing, as necessary as life, as steady as the beating of one's own heart. He flowed in and out of me for a languid, unceasing time, kissing me, drinking from my mouth until my senses roused once more, lured by the gentle dance of his hips, his body brushing mine, inside mine. A stroking of hard flesh against soft. A giving, a taking, a receiving. An endless cycle of life.

He pulled back, stilled his motion, and looked down upon me, his eyes so hot, so glittery, so bright. So urgent with need, want, held back passion. And it was as if his eyes, his needs, sparked my own fervor so that the gentle passive pleasure was suddenly no longer enough. Not nearly enough. And I clenched around him hard and tight, making him cry out my name, "Mona Lisa!"

A stroke of my hand and I reversed Halcyon in the water, laying him flat, the water a firm cushion beneath him. I reared up and then back down, taking him.

"Halcyon," I sighed as he filled me. "You have the most beautiful eyes, like chocolate. I love chocolate."

I licked my lips, then leaned down and licked his. "You taste like it, too," I crooned with lust, with greed, and delved into the dark bitter sweetness of him, lapping him up with my tongue as I rose and fell upon him, stroking him as he stroked within me.

"Don't hold back," I murmured, "don't hold back." And it was as if my urgent whisper released him from some invisible bond of restraint.

"Hellcat," he gasped. His hands clamped down hard upon my hips and he plunged within me, bucking beneath me like a wild bronco released from its stall, driving the very breath from me. God, he was strong.

He rolled up, twisting, and slammed me back against an immovable wall of water, pinning me there as he pulled back and surged into me again and again and then again, driving me up that liquid wall with each forceful, thrusting drive of his hips. His hands were on me, squeezing my breasts, thumbing my nipples. His mental constraint crashed and loosened, flooding me with a spill of sensation. I felt a tingling brush over my lips though he touched me there with nothing but his burning gaze. A stroking down my legs, a twining around my calves, a touch upon the balls of my feet. A greedy, total body caress down my arms, a meshing of my fingers with invisible ones to anchor me against that soft, firm liquid wall. Dark, stinging nips down my back, an edge of teeth against my round bottom. An arrowing, singing presence delving between my legs, tunneling deep to where we were joined, like invisible fingers thrusting alongside his heavy staff, all thrusting into me, and then going even deeper, burrowing deep, deep like a seed of pleasure, stretching my womb like a growing baby as he stretched and filled my tunnel, shooting sparks of growing sensation with each hard, thrusting rub, each sliding glide. Swivel, push. A different angle. An even deeper joining. Jolting penetration within me, shocking me with sizzling strength, igniting my senses as I felt him all around me, in me, touching every part of me. And most sharply of all, I felt that tingling pressure-pleasure stretching inside my womb, maturing, growing. When it ripened almost to the point of bursting, Halcyon lowered his mouth to my throat. I felt his hot breath against me, felt his teeth grow longer, sharper. Felt the tender, tantalizing brush of those teeth against my soft white skin and arched my neck farther, invitingly, wanting him, waiting for him to sink his teeth into me, whimpering with my need for him to join us even more in that one small way.

One long moment of stillness. And then he pierced me with his fangs. Deep down he sank into my flesh with his teeth. Deep down he sank into me with his long hot length, driving all the way home, tapping my womb, drinking my rich blood, tasting me with his mouth, with his male organ, with his invisible senses. Drinking me up, drinking me down, and delivering me into blinding rapture, into knowing bliss. Into a shaking, shuddering, jerking convulsion of sharp, painful pleasure.

My porous skin, my spasming sheath, my clenching womb—all drank him greedily down, and with a small cry he shot his sweet release into me.

My body was still quivering when I opened my eyes. My neck stung and I felt a thick droplet of blood trickle down to cradle low in the hollow of my throat. My breasts tingled and I felt soreness and wetness between my legs. But it wasn't the cool, cuddling ocean I saw. I was in the middle row of the Suburban, sitting on the floor, woozy and light-headed. I looked up into the startling awareness of Halcyon's chocolate brown eyes. He was still lying prone on the seat. Behind him, laid out in the opposite direction was Gryphon, his head resting on Halcyon's shoulder. Both of them stared at me, both sets of eyes punched black, pupils wide.

I transferred my gaze back to Halcyon. "Are you feeling better?"

"Oh, yes." His dark, richly satisfied voice whispered over me like a tactile caress, washing more tremors through me, setting off small, quaking explosions within me. Making me close my eyes until they passed like a hot, rippling rush, and released my body once more back into my control. My clothes were still on, but the wetness sopping my pants seemed more excessive than just my arousal alone could account for.

"Was that… real?" I asked.

"As real as you wish it to be."

I licked my lips. "You took me over."

"Not entirely. I was too weak for compulsion. I did not shade your desire. Your emotions were your own."

Great. I didn't even have "you made me do it" to fall back upon. Just my own horny little self.

I stared into Gryphon's pleasure punched eyes and wondered how much he had sensed or shared, pressed as he'd been against Halcyon. Then decided I might be better off not knowing.

Halcyon was better but still not well. His color more natural, his skin more taut, no longer swollen. The bruises on his wrist had disappeared. The deep wounds on his chest no longer gaped open like dead flesh, but had drawn together. Still, they remained deep, furrowing gashes, far from healed, and the bite mark on his neck was still there, Mona Louisa's violating brand.

"Do you need more blood?" My voice sounded hoarse, weaker than what I would have liked. I didn't know whether it was from the pleasure I had received—real or imagined—or the donation of my blood. Probably both.

"No," Halcyon replied. "More blood will not aid me further. Nothing will, other than returning home quickly."

"What's the quickest route home?" I asked.

"New Orleans."

Of course. "Aquila?"

"On my way," Aquila replied, and floored the gas pedal. The car shot into the night.