Mona Lisa Darkening

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Of course I felt completely different when I came face-to-face with Gryphon. He was chained as promised in the lowest level of Halcyon's home. In the dungeon. I didn't know whether to be more frightened that Halcyon had such a place here, where he lived, or over the state Gryphon had worked himself into. He had more than gone demon on me. If he'd still been human, I would have said that he'd gone crazy. Using demon terminology, he had gone into a full demonic rage.

I'd never seen a demon that was totally out of control before. His lips were peeled back in a frenzied snarl, and his blood-stained teeth and fangs on full display as he screamed in a voice gone bone-achingly deep, "Unchain me! Release me!"

His eyes were lava red, and his forehead and temples bulged as if the fury within was shifting his very bones. Muscles swelled his body, thicker than normal, as he viciously strained at the overhead chains that held him suspended almost completely off the ground. His shirt was ripped, hanging in tatters on him. And the neat black pants and polished shoes he still had on, remnants of a more civilized man, seemed jarringly out of place in the frenzied animal state he'd fallen into.

"Let me go!" he howled with spewing hot rage. I was shocked speechless to see him in such a state. Kind and forgiving words, as Halcyon had said, were just not going to do the job here.

"He's shifting into his demon beast," I said numbly.

"He cannot complete it," Halcyon said. "The chains prevent that."

The chains holding Gryphon were purple, different from the black demon chains I was used to seeing. Of course, black chains wouldn't have been able to contain a demon, much less one in such full-blown fury. The chains rattled violently as Gryphon fought the restraints, both the ones around his wrists holding him up, and the ones binding his ankles, anchoring him down.

"My God, Gryphon," I whispered, completely intimidated by what I was facing.

"Stop it!" Halcyon growled at me. "Stop all the useless, mawkish sentiments, and just do something! Be the Queen he needs you to be."

"She is not my Queen!" Gryphon screamed, pain mixed in with the fury. "Not anymore."

"You're wrong. She will always be your Queen. Your Demon Queen now. as my mate," Halcyon said. "You must obey her as you obey me."

"I've never obeyed you, Halcyon," Gryphon growled, gnashing sharp teeth.

"Part of the trouble. I have been too lenient with you."

Halcyon's words snapped me out of my shock, and into the role I needed to play. A sneer twisted my lips that was part Mona Louisa, part Mona Sera, my mother. Most of it, though, was just me. "Look at you," I said with biting contempt. "Look at the state you've allowed yourself to fall into."

Gryphon was surprised enough to still his wild struggle for a moment.

I walked closer, inspecting him. "This is unacceptable, Gryphon," I snapped, the words coming out sharp as a whiplash.

"This is what I am," he snarled back.

"No, you are more than this." I said it with a calm certainty that enraged him again.

"I am nothing! Nothing but a danger to you now!"

"You are mine," I said with quiet tenderness, and stepped in close to him. So close that I could have brushed my lips across his fangs, stained with my own blood. Close enough that those dagger-sharp teeth could have cut into me. But they didn't. My first point.

I stepped back away from him. "I will not let you go, Gryphon. Never," I said in a hard, cruel voice. "No matter how you scream or plead for it." Sauntering behind him, I violently ripped off the remnants of his shirt. Gryphon's body jerked in surprise but he didn't snarl or say anything.

Halcyon watched us both in silence.

I dropped the torn fabric to the ground and circled around in front of him again. "You have been a bad boy," I noted coolly, and watched as the demon redness in his eyes receded, as his vivid blue irises swam back into focus, looking oddly beautiful on that half-morphed demon face.

"You should be punished for hurting me," I said, and my cold decree seemed to calm him even more. The bestial thickness of his face slowly slid away. His face thinned, his bones becoming slim and proportioned once more. But his fangs — they still remained.

I smelled blood wine nearby and spied a chalice set on a small table against the wall. Picking it up, I brought it to Gryphon. "Drink," I commanded, lifting the heavy rim to his lips.

His eyes fixed fiercely on mine, Gryphon drank.

"Good," I crooned as he drank it all down. Swallowed every last drop of it. His long fangs were ivory white now, my blood washed away. "Why are your fangs still prominent?" I asked.

"You are standing here, your heart beating, your blood so near. I can hear it rushing within you," he said, the rumbling deepness gone from his throat, leaving it sounding more like his normal voice. His words should have frightened me, but they didn't because he was back in control. His rage had receded, if not his fangs.

Returning the empty chalice to the table, I inspected the other objects laid out there, and raised a brow at Halcyon. "Your toys?"

"My sister's."

I wasn't sure if I was pleased or disappointed.

My hand reached down and selected a heavy crop. Hefting it, I put it back down and picked up the slender switch beside it. Gave it a few testing swipes. Heard a nice satisfactory whistle as it cut through the air. "This one, I think."

I sauntered back to Gryphon, switch in hand. The thin whipping rod did not feel as unfamiliar as I thought it would.

The two-inch heels on my slippers thrust my pelvis forward enough to put a nice sway into my walk. Gryphon's eyes were fastened quite nicely on me. On the soft, flowing undulation of my body, the promise of it. On the whisper-thin material of my dress as it molded and clung to my hips, my thighs. I felt sultry, powerful, and just mean enough to enjoy the wariness in his eyes as I swayed over to him.

I brought the switch up and whipped it lightly across his chest to test us both. It left a red mark against his lightly tanned skin. "Do you want this?" I asked.

Eyes narrowed, he slowly nodded.

I moved in close. Watched him grow still and tense. More tense even than when I had struck him. "Are you sure?" I whispered, so close to those threatening fangs.

His body gave an involuntary shudder at the tease of my blood so near him. "Yes," he said roughly. "Just… do not stand so close to me."

I threaded my hand through his hair, felt the thick, glossy locks slide beneath my fingers. Grasping those silky strands tight, I yanked his head back. "But I have to," I said, my soft breasts brushing his chest as I pressed myself tight against him. "It comes as part of your punishment."

Those unearthly eyes glittered at me. "Then I refuse it."

"Too late." I smiled coldly. "You already said yes." I eased myself away from him, my hand freeing his head to move, to strike. A long teasing moment before I stepped back out of striking range. For him. Not for me.

"You will take all that I dish out as your punishment, and more. Because I want you to. Because I command you to. Because you are mine and I am not giving you a choice." I circled around him, in the periphery of his vision. "But first, we have to get rid of your clothes. You'd hardly feel my little switch wearing these thick pants." I trailed my fingers down around to the front of his waist, and yanked open the top button.

"Why are you doing this?" Gryphon asked, his body tensing so still beneath my touch.

"Because you've been a bad boy, and you must be punished — my way."

The zipper rasped down and his pants fell open enough for me to see that he was semi-hard. Not aroused, but stirred a little. "Yes," I murmured, shoving his pants down to his feet with one swift pull. "Better. Much more skin now."

I walked to his right side, standing slightly behind him. Lightly applied the whistling switch to his thighs, his calves. His buttocks — those lovely round muscular globes — I first caressed with my hands then slapped. Whack! Whack! Hard enough to leave the red imprint of my hand on each cheek. I brushed the soft material of my gown against those red stinging marks and circled around to his left. Applied more blows with the switch. Then came around to the front of him.

"Is that your punishment?" Gryphon jeered, taunting me. "Just those light love taps?"

Something in his voice, his sneered expression, triggered something in me, unleashing an anger I hadn't even known was buried inside me. In a blur, the switch came lashing down across his chest in a hard, swift blow. With that first unthinking blow, it was as if a dam was released, spilling hurt and anger out in a roaring mindless gush. Another hard blow, and another! I beat him as I had not intended to — with anger, with real intent to inflict pain, the same pain welling up inside me.

"You bastard!" The words spilled out in a hot tide, mixing with my tears. Another hard blow. Another. "You left me! You died and you left me when you promised me that you would stay with me!"

I hit him over and over again, giving him the beating that he had asked for, the hard whistling sound of thin wood hitting flesh lost beneath my sobs. I hit him, struck him, until I could no longer see clearly, my vision blocked by tears.

Over the broken sounds of my weeping, I heard Halcyon say, "Enough. Enough, Mona Lisa."

His voice brought me back to myself. I wiped the tears from my eyes, and saw with terrible clarity the angry red welts I had left all over his body. Appalled, I dropped the switch and backed away.

"Oh, God," I whispered brokenly. I would have turned and fled up the stairs had Halcyon not done something so unexpectedly shocking that it froze me into stunned stillness.

He released Gryphon.

A swipe of Halcyon's demon nails sliced away the pants at Gryphon's feet; a quick removal of the pin, and the manacles were unlatched from Gryphon's ankles. Another quick release above and Gryphon's wrists were freed.

I stood there and watched Gryphon come toward me, the demon I had just angrily beaten, and made no effort to run away. A part of me feared retribution. A part of me wanted it, felt that I deserved punishment in turn.

The tears would not stop, pouring out of me like clear blood.

When Gryphon took me into his arms, offering comfort, cradling me against him, I wept even harder. "Gryphon." My arms crept around him. "Oh God, Gryphon, I'm so sorry."

"Don't cry."

"I beat you."

"I deserved it."

"I was so mad. You made me so mad, I lost control." A small hiccup. "You should… should beat me in turn."

"There are other things I'd rather do to your body. Far better things than beat it," he murmured, and his hands slid underneath the dress. Touched bare skin. Just that one touch and my emotions swung from sorrow, guilt, and grief to something hotter, darker, much more base. My hands tunneled into his hair, gripped the silky strands, and pulled him toward me. "Love me," I demanded.

"I do. I will." But he resisted the silent command of my hands, and kept his mouth, those sharp fangs, away from me. It reminded me sharply, vividly, of how much stronger he was than I with his new demon strength and my demon essence gone.

A thrill coursed through me, a sharp zing of lust, of added desire, driving through me with a keen spike of excitement. Nothing like a little bit of danger thrown in with the sex. A residue from Mona Louisa or maybe my own twisted desire, I didn't know and didn't care.

"You like it that I'm stronger than you," Gryphon said, dark knowledge glittering in his blue eyes as he pushed me down and moved over me. Gripping my wrists with a swift suddenness that made me draw in a breath and grow even wetter, he lifted my arms, pinning them above me. "Keep them here," he ordered.

"And if I don't?" I asked, testing him. Testing us both. Taunting him, I lowered my arms back down to my sides. "What will you do? Punish me?"

He moved so fast I didn't see him. Moved with demon speed.

My wrists were yanked above my head with easy brute force. Held there with one hand while his other hand tore the delicate material of the dress from me with one savage, ripping pull. Hot glittering eyes swept down and fixed like an arrow upon that shaven part of me. His hand, holding my wrists, tightened painfully at the sight. "What's this?" he growled.

My desire cooled, seeped away, as pinpricks of red began to fill his eyes. "They… they shaved me down in NetherHell."

"Did that gargoyle lord see you like this?"

Fear — not the safe, exciting fear, but the dangerous can-rip-you-apart type edged into my voice. "Gryphon, your eyes are turning red."

"Answer me!"

"Yes, he saw me. But he didn't take me, he didn't touch me." The words tumbled out of me.

His hand left mine, and in that frightening fast way he had of moving now, he sank his hands into the hard ground on either side of my head, burying his sharp nails there, up to his fingertips. His knees spread my legs wide apart.

"Gryphon?" My voice was high-pitched, uncertain.

"I need you," he said hoarsely.

His voice was lowering, I noted with panic.

"Take me," he demanded — a raw plea somehow — and plunged into me.

I gasped as he filled me. Sharp, burning fast, brutally strong. I felt overwhelmed by him… his greater strength, his jealous anger, his almost desperate passion.

I was wet. But not enough to take him so forcefully like this. Pain intruded, nudging aside the pleasure, and fear pushed it away even further — a woman's fear of being hurt by a man so much stronger than her when her body was unprepared.

How could he have prepared you more? Not Mona Louisa's thoughts but my own. He cannot touch you with his sharp nails. Cannot kiss your lips, your nipples, with fangs filling his mouth.

He drew out of me, and I opened my mouth to scream at him to stop, to tell him to wait, that I wasn't ready yet, when I felt the sensual brush of phantom hands glide over my breasts, brush my nipples, ruffle over my sensitive, bared nether lips. Stroke deftly over the even more sensitive pearl he searched out from my folds. An invisible touch that drew forth a hot wash of tingling wet pleasure.

As my eyes lifted to Halcyon, as my body reacted to his phantom strokes, his invisible caresses… as I remembered that he was still there, watching us… Gryphon speared himself back into me — hard, deep, filling. Sliding into my lubricated sheath with a tight, frictioned burn that passed just barely from the thin edge of pain into ecstasy. I screamed as a sharp, unexpected climax gripped my body, bowed it up. Moaned as Gryphon furiously rode me through my twitching jerks and spasms. As his own body shuddered violently as he heaved and groaned and emptied himself into me.

He rolled off me and my vision was filled with Halcyon as he stood above me, his dark chocolate eyes fierce, hot, wildly possessive as he opened his pants and freed himself. As he came down over me, his hands falling exactly where Gryphon's had been, braced on both sides of my head. As he sank into me with one smooth thrust.

"Come for me again," my Demon Prince, my demon mate, demanded. He drew back and thrust into me in a steady, pounding rhythm, strong enough to move us several inches up with each forceful drive of his hips.

A hand wrapped around my wrist, anchoring my body still, and my eyes were drawn to Gryphon. Each time Halcyon thrust and withdrew, thrust and withdrew, I caught a glimpse of Gryphon's face in a peek-a-boo fashion over Halcyon's shoulder. It was like seeing a slideshow of first one lover and then the other filling my vision. One lover holding my body as another one filled and stretched it. The duality heightened my pleasure, my excitement, bringing me to another swift peak as Gryphon watched — and helped — Halcyon fuck me.

"Again," Halcyon growled, his rhythm, that hard pistoning motion in and out of me, remaining steady and relentless through my writhing spasms.

"Make me," I said, my voice low and sultry.

His dark eyes blazed with heat at my challenge, and a hard-edged smile curled his lips. A smile that was confident enough, ruthless enough, to drive a new frisson of lustful anticipation through my quivering body.

Instead of quickening his rhythm, Halcyon slowed it down so that I felt every inch of his hot penetrating slide into me, his unhurried pull back out. He slid his cock back in, into a tight quivering sheath filled with another man's ejaculate, and the smell of our combined scent, the three of us, the sight of them both watching me, one of them holding me down while the other pumped into me, was both shocking and unbelievably arousing. And I wasn't the only one turned on by the situation.

I moaned at what I saw in Gryphon's eyes, glimpsed in that peek-a-boo fashion over Halcyon's rising and dipping shoulders. Groaned as Halcyon's cock filled me, stretched me full.

"Look at me," Halcyon commanded. When I did, he thrust himself deep. Holding himself still, rooted fully within, he used his power to stroke invisible hands over me. Not in front but behind. Like an invisible lover, he entered me there, not with phantom ringers but a slick phantom cock. I felt him slide through my anus as surely as if he were solid flesh, and I screamed my pleasure, came again as he had commanded.