Mona Lisa Craving

SEVENTEEN

WE PASSED A sign announcing we were leaving Mississippi and approaching the Arkansas state line. One moment we were driving sixty-five miles an hour, the maximum speed limit, the next moment we were suddenly backed up in traffic, ten cars in front of us. There was some sort of road block ahead, with police lights flashing.

“You’re heading north,” I said.

Dante didn’t bother answering.

In a few minutes, we would be entering another Queen’s territory. I wondered if that would be better for us or worse.

“They’re checking car registrations, making sure they are valid,” Dante informed me, apparently already having ascertained the reason for the checkpoint up ahead. He seemed unconcerned, which I took to mean that his registration was current and up-to-date. A pity. The thought flashed in my mind and my body tensed: Should I call out to the policeman for help?

“Don’t try it,” Dante warned without looking at me. “I won’t hesitate to hurt him.”

“Damn you, Dante.”

He smiled bleakly. “I have been damned for a long time now.”

“Don’t you dare try to make me feel sorry for you,” I said in a low, heated voice as we pulled up to the waiting patrolman.

“I would not dare, milady.” Rolling down the window, he gave an easy smile.

The patrolman didn’t smile back. “I’ll have to ask you to pull over onto the roadside.”

“What’s the matter, Officer?” Dante asked politely. “My registration is current, and I haven’t been drinking.”

“I just need to look over your driver’s license and proof of insurance,” the officer answered just as politely, but his tone was insistent. “It will only take a few minutes, sir.”

Nodding, Dante pulled off the road as instructed and parked the car. Instead of walking over to us, the patrolman returned to his car. With our acute senses, both of us heard him clearly as he called in a match on the stolen car that had just been reported. He recited the license plate and requested backup.

Dante cursed.

“You’re driving a stolen car?” I asked. Was he a common criminal as well as a kidnapper?

Those pale blue orbs turned and glared at me. “No, this is my car. Your people must have called it in.”

Dante’s door was flung suddenly open.

“Right on the first guess.” Chami shimmered into view, holding a silver dagger to Dante’s throat. He took possession of Dante’s knife and gun, and reached for the car ignition keys.

“Uh-uh-uh. Keep your hands on the steering wheel,” my chameleon chided in warning as Dante tensed. “I will not hesitate to cut off your head here in front of all these nice people,” he said in a low, deadly voice.

Dante must have believed Chami’s threat, I certainly did, because he kept his hands on the wheel as Chami removed the keys and pocketed them. When Chami eased back on the pressure of the blade, I saw a thin red line of blood trickle down Dante’s neck from where the knife had cut into his skin.

I choked back my instinctive cry—Don’t hurt him, Chami—swallowing back the words because I knew that if I tethered the violence on Chami’s end, it would explode out from Dante.

Oh Goddess, please don’t let them hurt each other.

Chami drew out a thin whistle and blew it, three short blasts. The frequency was too high pitched for humans to hear. But animals—and Monère—would be able to hear it clearly.

“Hey, what’s going on?” the patrolman demanded, striding quickly back to us. There was only surprise not alarm in his voice at seeing a third person suddenly with us. From his tone, I could tell that he hadn’t seen the knife yet.

“Milady, if you can kindly take care of the nice policeman,” Chami requested, keeping his eyes and knife on Dante.

“That’ll be a little hard for me to do, Chami. I’m handcuffed.”

“To the car? Or just behind your back?”

“Behind my back.”

“Hey you, in the black shirt. Step away from the car,” the officer ordered, wariness in his voice now. He released the safety strap from his gun holster.

“Can you open the door and scoot out?” Chami asked. “I cannot handle both of them.”

I had a moment to think, Well, duh. I should have thought of that. Then I was blindly groping for the door handle. My hands fell on the lever, pulled it, and I started to topple backward as the door swung open behind me.

“Careful,” Dante barked, grabbing my shoulder. That was the only thing that saved me from tumbling out of the car. He looked furious. There was no concern at all over the knife that was cutting deep into the side of his neck, trailing a small rivulet of blood down his shirt. He was focused entirely on me.

“Release her,” Chami snarled.

When he was assured that I had my balance once more, he did, and launched himself at Chami with sudden, swift violence, knocking Chami’s dagger aside with a swing of his arm, the warrior bracelet hidden beneath the jacket striking away the blade with jarring force.

They fell from my sight to the ground as I awkwardly wriggled out of the car, my heart pounding.

“Officer, help me,” I cried with unfeigned terror. “He kidnapped me. Tied up my wrists.”

“What the hell,” the policeman muttered, his attention diverted to me. He lifted the gun he had trained on the two wrestling men, and strode around the car to me.

The officer’s eyes locked with mine, and I had him. Power burned up from within me and spilled out in an invisible gush.

“You see only two men fighting. No weapons, no knife, no blood. A domestic matter that you do not wish to be concerned with,” I said in a voice that throbbed with the power I had called up, compelling him to my will. “You will go back to your car and report that you were mistaken about the vehicle. The license plate was Alpha-Bravo-George, not Charlie. Then you will wave the other cars by, and drive away, forgetting about us.”

The officer returned to his car, obediently radioed in the correction, and waved on the few cars that had slowed down to gawk at us. When he had cleared the road of traffic, when no other cars were in sight, he pulled away.

“Stop,” I cried, rushing to the two warriors fighting in deadly silence.

Without any human witnesses to hinder him now, Chami winked out of sight—chameleon. An unseen punch sent Dante’s head swinging back. He retaliated with a back-handed blow that caught Chami in the stomach, shimmering the chameleon back into view. Chami’s dagger came stabbing down.

“No!” I screamed.

Dante caught Chami’s wrist, the bloody dagger point an inch from his chest. His eyes locked on Chami, and I felt the roil of power spark the air. Saw those glacier blue eyes turn silver and take on that eerie glow.

“Cease,” Dante commanded, and Chami stopped fighting. “Give me your knife.”

Chami relinquished it to Dante, and Dante drew it back. To behead him!

“Don’t!” I threw myself between them, unable to do anything else but use myself as a shield, with my hands bound as they were behind me. Dante’s mesmerizing silver eyes glowed down at me, bloodlust filling them. “Don’t hurt him. Please,” I begged.

“He put you at risk. You almost fell.”

“He doesn’t know I’m pregnant.”

“He almost harmed the baby!”

The almost mindless rage burning behind those words washed over me and set my body trembling, with the knife poised just over my neck where Dante had stopped its swift descent.

“Please, Dante,” I whispered. “He didn’t know.”

But you did, the voice inside of me said. You would have harmed your child knowingly and deliberately.

For a moment, I wondered if he would kill us both.

Dante lowered the dagger, and I collapsed back against Chami with shuddering relief.

“Thank you,” I breathed.

I didn’t fight him when he drew me away from Chami.

Dante focused his will, those glowing eyes, back on the chameleon. “You will not move or speak for thirty minutes.” When he released him from his gaze, Chami fell to the ground and lay there unmoving.

I turned back to look at Chami lying there helpless as Dante led me back to the car.

“He’s in the sun,” I said.

“Only for thirty minutes. Not the four hours I could have commanded instead.”

His clipped words had me swallowing back my protest. Indeed, with but a few different words, the outcome could have been deadly instead of just a short discomfort.

I’d forgotten about battle lust, I realized, when he opened the car door and gently sat me back inside. All gentleness fled as he turned those pale, gleaming eyes on me. The color was blue once more. I gasped beneath their cold, burning light. Gasped again as he lunged forward and captured my mouth in a harsh, punishing kiss.

A whimper of fear escaped from my lips as the weight of his body pressed me back, and his warrior’s presence, fierce and battle sharp, sparked against my own energy, making me aware of the ferocity he had kept chained. All that aggression, tightly leashed, he channeled now into me, in that kiss. In the coarse movements of his hands as he shoved up my shirt. On my bra, which he tore away with one rough pull, exposing my breasts.

I wrenched my face away from him. “Dante, stop!” I cried, struggling to push him off me as he lowered my seat down. “We’re by the side of the road. Anyone can drive by and see us.”

“Don’t fight me!” His lips ran feverishly over my face in wild, nipping caresses, violence barely contained. Dangerous touches that both thrilled and scared the hell out of me. He was like a dangerous, roaring wildfire, threatening to consume all that it touched.

“You held my hand, stopped a kill. You left me no other way to channel my aggression. Yield to me.” His breath struck my face in heated gusts as he undid his pants. Then my pants and underwear were down by my ankles, my body nude and painfully exposed, my body, heart, and mind in terrible upheaval. Jesus Christ, we were by the fucking roadside.

His voice was gritty urgency, his eyes burning need. “Please,” he whispered roughly, and swooped down, capturing my mouth, stealing my breath. Stealing the will to fight him.

I yielded in the face of his need, and stopped fighting him.

My body’s soft acceptance of him eased some of that overwhelming urgency. And in that momentary lull, his need sparked my own.

Pulling my lips from him, I said, “No blood,” in a hard, uncompromising tone.

“No blood,” he promised and nipped my lower lip, three parts caress, one part punishment. Dominating male.

“Hurry,” I murmured, so terribly conscious of our exposure. Of my nudity.

“First you tell me to stop. Now you tell me to hurry up and take you.” Amusement mixed with the heated urgency of his movements, like fire and ice—how he made me feel.

He pressed between my legs, and I felt the bold rub of him naked and hard against my thigh. The utter outrageousness of our situation—by the open road! — the utter dangerousness of our situation—a powerful warrior still flying high from battle, and me, bound and helpless beneath him, with him poised over me, ready to take me…God help me, but it set a part of me on fire. Spiked my own desire.

His hand slid up my legs, cupped me. And with but that one touch, not even a caress, my core heated, grew moist and damp, wetting his palm.

“Oh God.” He groaned, and with no other preparation, he thrust into me with gentle, insistent force. He pushed in, groaned as he sank into my honeyed wetness. Tunneled in deeper with a swiveling gyration of his hips that had me gasping and bending my knees to arch up against him.

He withdrew, pumped back into me with restrained ferocity, his eyes wild, burning with lust. Another withdrawal, another gentle push back in as he watched me with those uncanny pale eyes, making me feel like a helpless butterfly he had captured and pinned. It was a devastating feeling, mixed in with the wet, thrilling pleasure he evoked with each stroke. Too much, those eyes, piercing down into me as if they could see into the very deepest part of my soul. And perhaps he could. As if knowing his gaze was more than I could bear, he dipped his head, and I felt his lips warm against my breast. Felt his mouth take in a tight, pouty nipple, bite down on it.

I cried out, bowed up into him, and he pressed me back down into the seat with a deep stroke into my body as he sucked on my nipple, tugging on it with less than gentle force. He sank into me again with another insistent thrust, another fierce tug—those two simultaneous movements—and pulled light from me, spilling it out onto my skin, running it down over my body, the moon’s captured glow within us. When the radiance spread to where his flesh joined inside mine, when my light touched him there, it set him ablaze. He lit up above me like a Christmas tree, beautiful to behold—his taut muscles, the driving urgency of his body, his male aggression tightly chained and channeled into me. A warrior, stark and powerful, bold and beautiful. Yet vulnerable in his need for my softness, for my light.

“Yes,” I sighed as he rose and fell above me, my body taking him in with soft, willing submission. He shifted, braced himself up on one arm, freeing the other hand to run down my body, palm my bottom. His finger whispered over my anal rim in the lightest caress.

“Come for me,” he said, his face harsh, tightly clenched above me. Another sweet deliberate press of his finger there, teasing my back hole while his thickness filled and drove tightly into my other entrance…that one added touch and I overflowed. My release spilled out, and I came for him as he had asked me to, helpless to do otherwise. I imploded beneath his stroking caresses, his inner one and deliberate outer one, and I shattered in a brilliant, shaking, shuddering climax.

He drank down my light, then gave into his own release. One more deep stroke, pushing through my spasming tightness, and I felt him grow still, jerk harshly inside as his wet ejaculation spewed into me.

Until that moment, I hadn’t realized just how restrained his passion had been. Only in his climax did he truly let himself go. Throwing back his head, Dante roared his release to the heavens with a primitive cry. So primal, so beautifully savage he was with his neck corded, with the agony and bliss of release carved harshly on his face. One fixed moment where every muscle, every tendon in his body seized tight…then came the sweet thrill of release. The jetting bliss of satisfaction as he relaxed down over me. I felt his weight blanket me for a brief, lovely moment—too short—then he was pulling his body from mine, lifting himself off. His eyes were heavy-lidded, slumberous, as he crouched down beside me, opened the glove compartment, and took out a packet of wipes.

“Did I hurt you?” he asked. Even his voice was more soothing in its resonance now, like melted honey.

“No.”

“Your hands?”

“Uncomfortable from the handcuffs. Can you release me?”

His eyes slid away as he pulled out a wipe. “You know I cannot.”

Without another word, he cleaned me and dressed me. Maybe there was a limit to how embarrassed you could get. I’d apparently reached mine. I sat there and did nothing as he finished caring for me. Then wiped himself down and zipped himself back up.

He turned suddenly to look up into the sky. An eagle circled high above us. So high I almost didn’t feel it—that faint, shimmering presence of another Monère.

It was Aquila shifted into his bird form. Drawn to our location by Chami’s whistle blasts.

“Maudrëa,” Dante said, muttering an imprecation in a language so old it had almost been forgotten by all. He shut my door and went around to the back, opening the trunk.

My eyes widened in alarm as he drew out a rifle. “No, don’t. You can’t! It’s Aquila,” I said, twisting around in my seat. “You might kill him.”

“That is my intention,” he said coldly. He slid two bullets in, chambering the rounds.

I looked at him with horror, then turned my head skyward. “Aquila,” I shouted. “Go away. Leave us!”

A shot rang out with a flat crack, and the eagle jerked, tilted. He fluttered in the sky for a moment, still airborne. Then he began to fall.

“No!” I moaned as I watched Aquila plummet from the sky, silent, graceful, so terribly still. Blood washed down his right wing, streaking his feathers like wine-red paint as he spiraled, until trees cut him from our sight, but not our sound. I heard the rustling of leaves, the snapping of twigs as he crashed through the foliage, a discordant cascade. Then that final, terrible thud as he hit the ground.

“Aquila.” His name was a mournful, teary sound slipping unconsciously from me. My mind, my body felt numb. I didn’t even register my own actions, my bound hands blindly seeking the door handle, lifting the lever. I wasn’t aware of what I was doing until I was hauled halfway back across the seat toward the driver’s side, with Dante’s hard furious face above me. He reached across, slammed shut the door I had just opened.

“Stop it,” Dante commanded. Shifting me back into my seat, he pulled out my seat belt strap. “Stop crying,” he said. Only then did I realize that I was making harsh, guttural sounds deep in my throat. Like an animal that was being beaten.

I leaned forward, preventing him from latching the seat belt, and slid back against my door, twisting against his hold almost hysterically. “No, I have to go to him!”

“He’s not dead,” he said, giving me a little shake when I continued to fight him. “Mona Lisa, look at me! He’s not dead.”

His words calmed me down enough that I stopped struggling for a second. As soon as I did, Dante snapped my seat belt in place, then gripped my arms. “I just shot his wing, not his heart. He will heal.”

“He fell so far. Was so still,” I whispered brokenly. “And there was so much blood.”

“He’s not human. Only taking out the head or heart will kill us, remember? Listen. Take a breath and listen, and you can hear his heartbeat.”

He slid his hand beneath his shirt, deactivating the privacy shield, and I heard it for an instant…a faint, rapid heartbeat out in the woods. The sound disappeared as he reactivated the charm. I sobbed then. Sobbed as if my heart would break as the car pulled onto the road, taking me away from my fallen men. Both of them injured because of me.

We drove for a time, not long, or at least it did not seem so, before he pulled off the road into a gas station, and parked in front of a minimarket. I sat there, staring straight ahead, not seeing anything. Numb. He glanced at me, then went inside, keeping an eye on me through the glass doors. No need. I was not running anywhere. I didn’t have the heart or energy to do so. Lethargy had gripped me, a cottony distance separating me from the rest of the world and its trifling concerns. He returned with a soft drink, some chips, a candy bar. Driving to the back of the parking lot, he parked there, away from prying eyes. He said something, opened his mouth and spoke, but I wasn’t aware of his actual words. Not until he lifted the can of soda and put a plastic straw to my lips, intruding into the soft bubble that surrounded me.

“Drink this,” he said.

Because it was easier to do that than fight him, I took two sips before turning my head away and losing myself once more in the emptiness of not thinking, not feeling.

The door shut as he got out of the car and came around to my side. Opening my door, he crouched in front of me, ripped open the candy bar, and held it to my mouth. I looked past it without interest.

“One bite,” he urged, nudging the chocolate against my lips.

I frowned. Felt a brief flare of irritation at the intrusion. What did he want, I wondered?

“One bite,” Dante repeated, “and I’ll leave you alone.”

Because that was what I desired most, I took a bite and swallowed. The peace I sought, however, did not come. Not because of his actions. But because of another’s.

Like the silent demon he was, Halcyon suddenly appeared. He was dressed in his usual shirt of white silk, with diamonds glinting at the cuffs. Only his attire was civilized. Not his actions.

His long, sharp nails sank with almost sickening ease into Dante’s flesh, his fingertips half-buried in Dante’s shoulder. Blood—and the demon’s presence—stirred my unholy hunger to life, and it roared past my numbness, shattering it with a desire to feed that overrode my emotional state. That did not care if my men were hurt or killed. The only thing it cared about was the crimson, shiny blood welling up from beneath the thin barrier of skin.

My fangs burst forth, eager to sink into the meal that was bleeding before me. But it was not to be. With one casual fling, Halcyon sent Dante flying back into the copse of trees lining the lot. One quick glance at me, then Halcyon was gone, moving almost too fast to see, gone after the prey he had casually flung away.

“No!” I screamed, and wanted to howl with thwarted hunger, with terrible need. I could not think, could not feel with that overwhelming, driving thirst for blood overtaking me.

The sound of a door opening drew my attention to other prey as the gas station attendant came running out.

“Hey, what’s going on out here?”

He was a bald, middle-aged man with a ponderous belly. But it was not his fat belly I was interested in, only his blood. I was on him in an instant, with no knowledge of moving, of snapping the seat belt, opening the door. His heartbeat surged faster, began to race like a thumping rabbit when he saw my fangs. How delectable, that fast rhythmic pounding, that stink of fear.

“What the—” He gurgled as I struck, fastening onto his neck. He was a big man, bigger than I, weighing almost twice as much, straining wildly, pushing against me with his hands to no avail. Such a delicate creature. So easily broken, was my impression before the richness of his blood filled my mouth and ran down my throat like the sweetest and most intoxicating wine. Yes! I mentally cried as I sucked and pulled with long, succulent swallows, drinking down that potent elixir of life. This is what I need.

My body sang with the richness pouring into it, and a moan slipped out, mixing with the juicy, slurping sounds I made as I feasted on him. A moan that came not from me as I first thought, but from the thing I was drinking from. Instead of pushing me away now, his arms wrapped around me. It was that protruding belly nudging against me, the odd, alien feel of it, that broke me from my thralling hunger. That made me realize, suddenly, what I was doing.

I pulled away.

If you feed your hunger instead of fighting it, you will be able to control it better. It does not take much blood.

Halcyon’s words haunted me now as my eyes fixed upon the red blood trickling down the attendant’s neck. He seemed completely unaware of the fact that he was bleeding, or perhaps uncaring of it as he reached out to me. I let his beefy arms wrap around me, draw me to him, and bent my head back to the man. Not to drink, but to lick the puncture wounds closed.

Stop bleeding, I thought, picturing it in my mind, and felt the blood grow sluggish, clotting beneath my tongue.

Something in me—something still so terribly hungry that had barely begun to have its need met—some demon part of me wept at the sight of that closing wound.

No! it cried. More!

But I denied it.

“Look at me,” I said, my voice trembling, not with horror, but with the effort of restraint. When the man turned to me, I captured him with my eyes. “You cut your neck against the edge of a shelf. You will have no memory of anything that occurred out here. Nor will any further disturbance outside draw your attention for the next hour. Go back inside and cover your neck with some Band-Aids.”

His arms dropped away, and he walked obediently back inside the store. My control stretched only so far. Only when he was completely gone from my sight—like a box of chocolates covered up once more, hidden from view—was I able to turn my attention away from him and toward the woods.

Halcyon. That one thought of him and a vision of those demon nails ripping open Dante’s arm flashed to me like a waking dream. In it I saw Halcyon turn and look at me. In that brief moment of distraction, Dante struck him with his dagger, burying it to the hilt in Halcyon’s side.

I saw, felt the pain of it. And felt the anger, the rage over the spilling of his demon blood. It spewed up like bubbling lava from within Halcyon, making his eyes glow red.

Leave us, he commanded, and cut the mental bond between us.

I staggered at the sudden severing.

“No,” I whispered. Casting my senses wide, I let them guide me, following the pull of the Monère warrior and my demon sire. It guided me to where they fought, and as I came upon them, I saw with my eyes what I had seen in that vision: demon blood dripping sluggishly from Halcyon’s side, his eyes red and enraged, the very air trembling with his fury.

His skin rippled as if a pebble had been skipped across its surface, breaking the calm, stirring the demon beast that lurked beneath. Dante circled him, knife in hand, his lower abdomen torn into ribbons of flesh where Halcyon had sliced him with his nails. His eyes glowed silver with his own power and an aura of danger clung to him like a second skin. But Halcyon, it seemed, was immune to this mesmerizing power.

“No!” I said louder, drawing their attention.

Their forces hit me separately. Dante’s luminescent silver eyes pinned me in place as he whispered, “Stop.” And the silent mental command Halcyon flung at me. Stay.

I froze in place, unable to move, mentally cursing them both as they rushed each other, coming together in a flash of tanned skin—one lighter brown, the other darker gold. Both of them armed. But it was ten demon nails against one silver blade.

Foolish Dante was the aggressor, with Halcyon welcoming his attack with a cruel, taunting smile. They struck at each other savagely, moving with lethal beauty, a dance of fast movement, strikes and countering blows that was almost beautiful to watch were it not so frighteningly deadly.

Dante rushed Halcyon again and again with almost reckless daring, the silver blade flashing in his hand, his metal bracelets glinting darkly at his wrists. Were it not for the wrist guards, he would have been completely torn apart by Halcyon’s nails, which were not even claws yet, just his normal inch-long nails as the Demon Prince wrestled back his beast’s change, retaining his man form.

They came together again in a stunning flurry of strikes and blurring movement, and broke apart with new injuries scored along Dante’s thighs, his arms. Halcyon had only the one knife wound, terrible enough—it had almost caused Halcyon’s demon beast to emerge.

All I could do was watch, frozen by both their wills. And inwardly scream. I found I didn’t have to wait for Hell. It had found and captured me, here and now.

“Do you know who I am?” Halcyon asked, his voice crooning, silky menace. Even in his human form he was a fearsome sight, his red eyes burning with Hell’s fury, his long nails coated with blood, a cold smile twisting his lips.

“You are the Prince of Hell,” Dante said, and lunged at him with the knife. Halcyon danced gracefully away, swiping downward as he did. His razor-sharp nails came up against Dante’s blocking metal bracelet, scraped over it with a discordant screech.

“You know who I am,” Halcyon said, “yet you do not fear me.”

“Why should I fear someone who will never have any dominion over me?” Dante growled, his silver eyes glowing brightly. He attacked again, pressing forward, uncaring of the new wounds he incurred, focused only on driving that knife again into the Demon Prince.

They sprang apart.

“How did you find us?” Dante demanded.

A fast, almost careless swipe of those nails, and the top of Dante’s shirt was sliced open, spilling his amulet into view.

“Did you think your stone’s small magic could keep me from finding my mate? My own blood?” Halcyon’s smile turned mockingly cruel. I’d never seen him like this before.

As if he knew my thoughts, those burning eyes turned to me for a second. “I am not always nice, Mona Lisa.”

Dante chose that moment to strike again. But this time it seemed Halcyon’s inattention had been deliberate. The Demon Prince moved again, so fast I didn’t see him stir, and Dante was suddenly pinned on the ground, the silver dagger now in Halcyon’s hand.

“What’s to stop me from killing you now?” Halcyon taunted as his fangs lengthened to sharp, cutting points.

“Nothing,” Dante answered, his face impassive.

“You still have no fear.”

“I do not fear death,” Dante said. “It’s not staying dead that torments me.”

“I shall do my best to see that you stay dead.” With that silky promise, Halcyon raised the dagger he had seized.

Dante’s smile was brief, bitter. “Not even you can grant me that ease, Demon Prince.”

Power surged, thrummed the air as the demon part of me came to the fore, shattering the separate spells that had been placed on me.

“No, Halcyon!” I screamed. “Don’t. I carry his child.”

I swayed, freed of the mental bonds, but had no power to move. All my energy had been used up.

“Don’t,” I whispered as I sank to the ground. Into dark swirling oblivion.

I WOKE UP to find two concerned faces peering down at me. To see pale blue eyes no longer glowing, and dark chocolate ones no longer demon red. Nothing like announcing you’re pregnant and then fainting to get some attention.

I started to sit up, but was pressed back down by two pairs of hands. My handcuffs, I noticed, had been removed.

“Easy, ena,” Halcyon murmured.

“Lie back down, dulcaeta.”

Tender words—wife, beloved. Old words spoken in a tongue that I remembered from another lifetime. Tears sprang to my eyes. Those blasted, stupid tears. But fury was the cause of them this time.

“Get your bloody hands off of me,” I snarled. “Both of you!”

Surprised, alarmed, they did and I sat up slowly. When all seemed fine, no tilting of the ground, no dots of whiteness, I snatched Dante by the two torn edges of his shirtfront. Yanked him to me.

“Don’t you ever freeze me like that again.” I bared my teeth at him and pushed him away.

Snatching Halcyon next, I caught him by the edge of his shirt and shook him. “And don’t you ever command me to stay. Like I am your dog!”

I shoved him away, sick with them both, and slowly got to my feet, batting away the helping hands that reached out to steady me. “Don’t touch me!”

The sight of me screaming and crying seemed to befuddle both demon and Monère warrior alike.

“Don’t cry,” Dante murmured, his hands opening and closing helplessly by his side.

“It’s the hormones surging in you,” Halcyon soothed. His words had the complete opposite effect of what he intended.

I exploded. Literally saw red for a moment. “It’s not the fucking hormones! It’s you stupid men.” Then I was sobbing.

I angrily wiped the tears away and saw that they were tinged red. I was crying tears of blood.

“Calm yourself, sweetheart,” Dante murmured. “It can’t be good for the baby.”

I literally shook with my fury. “And you two trying to kill each other in front of me after freezing me with your commands so that I can’t even speak or move…that’s good for the baby?”

The two men looked at me, then at each other as if seeking guidance on how to handle the pregnant, hysterical, part-demon Monère Queen.

The air trembled with another wash of fury. Then, like a cleansing wave, or perhaps because I could no longer sustain the energy for such wrath, the anger died away, leaving bitter dregs of its ash in my mouth.

“Are you going to kill each other?” I asked in a dull, flat voice, like soda that had lost its pop and fizzle.

They shook their heads.

“No,” Halcyon said. “Dante explained…” He paused. “No.”

“And you?” I asked Dante.

He looked at me with sadness, with weariness. “The Demon Prince and I have come to an understanding. We will no longer try to hurt each other. But you…What will you do?”

What will you do with my child?

I suddenly felt old and brittle and so tired of it all. The worry, the fighting, the hurting of so many people.

“You win,” I said. I was going to leave it to a power, a wisdom greater than mine. “I will do nothing to harm the child.”

He bowed his head. “Thank you,” he whispered.

“And what of your promise to let me go,” I asked, “now that you have secured my promise?”

His head lifted so that I saw the flash of his pale blue irises. “Will you grant me these next few days until the Service Fair? After that, you have my word that I will be gone from your life.”

“Will you?” I asked.

“Yes.”

I nodded. “These next few days,” I agreed. Turning, I walked back to the car.

We backtracked to where we had left Chami, and found a familiar green Suburban parked by the roadside. Chami sat in the shade of the big vehicle, moving once more, freed of the compulsion. Faint redness colored his face, neck, and hands, but that seemed to be the extent of his injuries. Aquila on the other hand, sitting next to him, was more severely damaged, but not as badly as I had feared. Dontaine and two of his men, Marcus and Jayden, who I recognized from the practice session, were field dressing Aquila’s wound. Their surprise when they saw me accompanied by my kidnapper and my Demon Prince was enough to drop the men’s jaws.

I brushed past them to kneel at Aquila’s side. “You shifted back into your human form.” Someone had loaned Aquila a shirt. His legs gleamed pale and naked beneath the cloth. “Were your injuries that grave?”

“No, milady,” Aquila was quick to assure me. “Just bruises, some flesh gone from where the bullet struck me in the arm. Nothing broken, though. I shifted back into this form so I could report to Dontaine.”

“Are you hurt?” Chami asked. His quick glance down at my belly, and his wary gaze past me to Dante, told me that he had heard us. That he had been a silent, frozen witness when Dante had taken me in his post-battle frenzy. He knew that I was pregnant, and that Dante was likely the father.

“No, I’m fine. The only one, in fact, who is not hurt.” I stood, said to the others, “It’s over. Halcyon and Dante will explain everything to you later. Or maybe just confirm what you all already know. I’m too tired for that now. I just want to go home.” The last sentence came out plaintively.

When Dante moved to take my arm—I think I swayed again—my men drew their daggers against him.

Explanations, I realized, could not wait.

“Put your weapons away,” I commanded harshly.

Dontaine and his men reluctantly sheathed their daggers.

Maybe it was the steel in my voice. Or perhaps it was just that they were used to obeying the orders of their Queen, unlike my other men. Whatever the reason, I was grateful to be obeyed.

“Dante is likely the father of the child I carry,” I stated. “He is a guest, not a prisoner, for the next several days, until our next Council meeting, at which time he will be departing. I want no one else hurt in this matter. Do you understand?”

There was a chorus of “Yes, milady.”

“Good. Let’s go home.”