Mona Lisa Eclipsing

TWO

“COZUMEL?” I DON’T know why, but when I’d imagined Dante alone and suffering somewhere, I hadn’t pictured him in a tropical island paradise. “Are you sure?”

“It makes sense,” Nolan said, “if he took a boat from New Orleans.”

Leaving on a boat, and not just any boat but a cruise ship? I hadn’t imagined that either. After killing Mona Teresa’s warriors, had he traveled back to my territory, watched us and made sure we were doing well before going off into exile?

“Who saw him?” I asked.

“A group of tourists on horseback came upon him in the jungle,” Hannah said.

“Tourists?” I felt my eyebrows climb up my forehead. “Not a Monère Queen or one of her men?”

“No, milady.”

“Then how do you know it was Dante they saw?”

“They saw a saber-toothed tiger; that is his other form. It’s creating quite a stir since more than one witness saw him.”

“A saber-toothed tiger? For real? Aren’t they supposed to be extinct?”

“They became extinct over eleven thousand years ago,” Nolan answered quietly. “When they died out, so did the animal form in Monère shifters.”

Which meant that Dante had lived and died and been reborn for at least that long. Over eleven thousand years . . . Sweet Goddess! I’d laid one whammy of a curse of him. One whose painful depths I hadn’t fully comprehended until now. The wonder was that Dante hadn’t torn me apart, murdered me painfully and slowly the moment he had seen my Goddess’s Tears, the pearly trademark moles embedded in my palms, and realized who I was: that I was Mona Lyra reincarnated. It was a wonder he was capable of having feelings other than sheer loathing hatred for me after what I had done to him.

When I’d asked him once if he remembered his previous lives, his answer had been, My memories are most clear of my last incarnation and of my first life. That, I never forget. I get random flashes of other lives, occasionally. I think it’s my mind’s natural defense, that selective memory. Remembering everything would probably be too much for one single mind to handle.

The last sentence had been a vast understatement.

“I’m going after him,” Nolan said.

“Good,” I said, nodding. “I’m coming with you.” But leaving wasn’t quite as easy as that.

My men threw a hissy fit. It might not be the best words to apply to a collection of fierce Monère warriors and former rogues, but that’s essentially what they did. They didn’t want me to go, too dangerous. Not just where I was going but who I was going after. When that didn’t dissuade me, then they all wanted to come along to guard me. I had no problem with that.

“Whoever can be ready to leave in an hour can come with us,” I said agreeably. “Be sure to bring your passports. We’re catching a six forty a.m. commercial flight that leaves in”—I glanced at my watch—“four hours.”

The relief on my men’s faces turned back into fierce scowls.

“I do not have a passport,” said Tomas, one of my guards, his usual smooth-as-butter Southern drawl completely absent from his voice.

“Neither do the rest of us,” said Chami. All of my inner-circle guards were old, but Chami was probably the oldest among them. His full name was Chameleo, for his chameleon’s gift of blending in with his surroundings. He could virtually disappear in front of your eyes. “But that won’t be a problem for me,” he said, smiling.

“And I can fly,” Aquila said, stroking his neat Vandyke beard. “It’ll just take me a little bit longer to get there.” A former rogue, he now served as my steward, handling all of my territory’s vast business concerns. He was the only one among my guards with wings; the other form he shifted into was that of an eagle.

“Wait.” I held up a hand. “None of you have passports?”

“I do,” Nolan said. “But that is because my family and I lived so long among humans.” They had had to flee from an evil Queen.

Hearing Nolan had a passport didn’t surprise me. I had expected him to have one since he was the one who had suggested taking a commercial flight in the first place, and had called and booked our reservations using his credit card; I had promised to pay him back. It was just easier to let Nolan handle things. Good thing, because Aquila, who handled all my financial matters, likely wouldn’t have done it so quickly or easily, not without a great deal of argument and compromise first. Among my people, Nolan and his family were the only ones financially independent. The rest lived the traditional, old-fashioned—and backward, in my eyes—Monère way. They relied on their Queen to supply everything for them, which was a great way for Queens to control their people: keep them needy and dependent on you and make it hard for them to venture out and survive on their own.

I’d grown up thinking myself human and had only recently discovered that I was part Monère, part of a race of supernatural beings descended from the moon. I thought I was making great progress in learning about my new territory and people—then I was smacked in the face with something like this and realized how very little I still knew.

“None of you have a passport?” I repeated, unable to get over that fact.

“Few of us have any form of human identification,” Dontaine said, entering the room. Someone must have called him, in the hopes of talking some reason into me, being my lover and all. “A false human identity is very hard and expensive to come by,” he said, seating himself near me. “I’m one of the few here who have a driver’s license, and that is because I was trusted by my former Queen to oversee her New Orleans businesses.”

Well, that answered why so few Monères here knew how to drive. Wow, I had far more work cut out for me than I knew, but that was for another time.

“What is this I hear about you flying out of the country?” Dontaine asked. He had the most beautiful eyes, a riveting pure shade of green, as if his maker had decided he had not graced the physical form enough and had to give him this added touch of splendor.

I had to deliberately shake myself loose from his gaze and focus on his words. “What? Oh, um, Dante’s been seen down in Mexico, on the island of Cozumel. Nolan and I are catching a flight leaving in four hours. When everyone raised a hue and cry about me going off alone, I invited others to come along. No one, however, seems to have a passport. Do you?”

“No,” said Dontaine. His frown didn’t detract at all from his stunning good looks, which I found quite unfair. “I have never had to leave the country before. Why not take the private jet?”

Being Queen of my own territory had some nice perks. One of them was access to a private jet authorized for my use by the High Queen’s Council.

I shook my head. “High Court doesn’t know anything about this, nor does anyone else, and his family and I want to keep it that way. The plan is to go in quietly, find Dante, and bring him back home.”

“With only Nolan, one guard, accompanying you, a valuable and vulnerable Monère Queen?” Dontaine inquired with false calm. His emerald eyes had darkened to jade, a sure sign to those who knew him that he was upset.

“I shall also accompany them,” said Chami, my chameleon guard. “Getting on the plane unseen won’t be a problem for me.”

“But my brother—” I started to protest. Chami’s main duty was to watch over my brother Thaddeus.

“Tomas will watch over him while I’m gone,” Chami said, looking over at the other guard.

Tomas nodded his silent agreement.

“And I can fly there in my eagle form,” said Aquila.

“Across the ocean?” I asked.

Aquila nodded and said, “That is the shortest route, milady.”

“No, not that way,” I said. “There’s nothing but water, no place to land if a storm comes up or you need to rest. How many miles is that anyway? Never mind—no way can you fly all that distance in one stretch.”

“But—”

“Absolutely not,” I said, cutting off his protest. “I’ll have Nolan and Chami with me. There’s no need to risk yourself like that.”

“Actually,” Dontaine said, inserting a calm voice of reason, “if you insist on going, it would be safer if Aquila went as well.” He turned to Aquila. “How long would it take to reach Cozumel if you flew along the Gulf Coast, skirting along land?”

“I would need to see a map,” Aquila said.

We all trooped into the study that Aquila had officially turned into his office, and looked at the world map he rolled out over the top of the desk.

“I estimate it would take a little over twenty-four hours, flying that route,” he said after doing some calculations.

“By then, we might be on a flight back home with Dante already,” I grumbled.

“Or you might not yet have found Dante and would be quite happy to have Aquila’s eagle eyes and wings to help you search,” countered Dontaine. As my master at arms, he was responsible for my safety. He continued with quiet authority, “I would prefer that you take as many men with you as possible. Two guards, no matter how strong or skilled, are not enough to guard a Queen. Three is barely acceptable and only so because of how powerful these warriors are. The most ideal would be if you allowed Nolan to go alone to fetch his son.”

“Are you speaking as my lover or as my captain?” I asked. Dontaine was my newest lover and the least secure in my affections. Was he saying this out of jealousy of another rival?

“I speak as your captain, purely in terms of your safety,” he said, returning my gaze calmly. “Cozumel, as an island, should be neutral ground, but Mexico is quite different—it has very few Queens or established territories, and most of the country is roamed freely by rogues.”

“I can’t,” I said, biting my lip. “I have to go look for him, speak to him myself. Dante might not come back otherwise, no matter what his father tells him.”

Dontaine nodded and said, “Then I would ask that you allow Aquila to fly out to join you in this safer, more roundabout route.”

“All right.” I nodded agreement.

“Thank you,” he said, gratified by my willingness to compromise, his manner growing warmer, more relaxed. Making him even more irresistible.

“You’re welcome.” Giving in to temptation, I lifted a hand to that altogether too-attractive face, shifting our interaction to a more intimate level. We had a lot of hats to juggle in our relationship, but so far, things seemed to be working.