Mona Lisa Darkening

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

I awoke the next evening to find Amber, Dontaine, and surprisingly, Gordane seated in three chairs arrayed around the bed. I found them a most lovely sight.

I was alive and well, and spent the next ten minutes reassuring Dontaine and Amber of that. Someone, probably Dontaine, has dressed me in one of the comfortable T-shirts I usually wore to bed, for which I was immensely grateful. My modest tendencies were back in full force, it seemed.

The men were fine until I held out my hand to Gordane, who had been sitting quietly, watching us. He stood and walked to me, or tried to. Dontaine and Amber were suddenly in front of me, two solid barriers of flesh, barring his way. They both jumped when I slid out of the bed and pinched them. "Stop it, you guys. He won't hurt me. He saved my life, remember?"

They grudgingly moved aside and let Gordane through. Tensed when I reached out and grasped his hand. Relaxed when nothing bad happened.

"Why did you stay?" I asked.

"To make sure you were well," Gordane replied.

"I'm well." I waited expectantly, a slight smile on my face.

"And Mona Louisa?" he finally asked.

"She's well, too. You care about her."

"She was the only one who never truly feared my touch," he said sadly.

My fingers wrapped around his wrist, in a familiar-unfamiliar way. "You haven't lost her. Not completely. She's still here, inside me, a part of me." I'd come to peace with that. It was much better than being dead.

Gordane never did tell me how he'd bypassed the gate and made his way to this realm. Mona Louisa could not have come through that way; he had to have found mother way.

"It's a secret," he said, with a roguish gargoyle grin.

I told him not to be a stranger, to visit me, since he so obviously could. And to watch over Miles for us.

"Us?" Dontaine asked, after Amber escorted Gordane out of the room.

"Yes. Both Mona Louisa and I. We intermingled. Even after her demon essence was ripped out of me, there were still bits and pieces of our personality left in each other. She was softer, did you see?"

"And what did you gain from her?"

"You. When I was the most broken, the most weak, the most undeserving of you, my heart said I want you, and I reached out and grabbed you instead of pushing you away. I acted selfishly."

His hands reached out, cradled my face. "It's not selfish to reach out for love. It's more selfish to push it away because of fear of getting hurt again."

"You know me so well," I said in a soft whisper.

"As you do I. You're the only one who ever looked deeper, beyond the surface beauty. The only one who gave me a chance to show you who I truly am — not just a pretty face, or the possessor of a rare talent and fertile bloodline. You expected more of me, and because you did, you made me more." He suddenly faltered. "But perhaps you're right. Perhaps it was selfish… me wanting you, pursuing you like that. I almost killed you."

"Odd circumstances," I said dismissively. "We usually gain strength from sex, not lose it."

"It was never just sex for you," Dontaine murmured tenderly. "It was making love. Your heart was fully engaged."

"I love you," I said, feeling a thrilling, intimate connection with this dazzlingly handsome man. No longer did I feel undeserving of him, or fear the pain of his loss. No longer would I try to skim lightly on the surface of life, withholding my feelings, walled up by fear. Life and love were precious, to be grabbed by both hands and a glad heart.

"If you run from me now," I told him, "you won't get far. I'll chase after you."

"Would you?" Dontaine smiled.

"Count on it. I died three times, if you count life by the definition of a beating heart. Two of those times, you brought me back, you wouldn't let me go. You're stuck with me now."

He crushed me to him, and I held him just as tight. I had died three times — I was through running away from love.

I wrapped my mind around the idea of being more selfish, and thought, I can live with that.

Yes. I could most definitely live with that.