Over The Moon

My thanks to my editor, Cindy Hwang,

for including me among her fortunate few.

To Roberta Brown, a truly amazing agent.

And to Publishers Weekly and Susan White

of Coffee Time Romance

for giving me such boffo reviews!

Chapter One

It was the beginning of December in Manhattan, smack, dab in the Christmas season, and we were shopping. But not for presents. Oh, no. For something far more practicalclothing. In a couple days' time, we were heading to Louisiana, my new territory.

The men had insisted that I meet my new constituents dressed like the Monère Queen that I was. Well, three-quarters Monère, at least. That last quarter was comprised of human blood, making me the first Mixed Blood Queen ever; I'd just been officially recognized by the Court. But given that most Monère considered Mixed Bloods to be mutts, mongrels, and the like, I could see my men's point that I dress like a Queen. T-shirt, jeans, and sneakers wasn't quite the image of authority they were used to. Oh well.

The Monère, my guys included, were quite backward in their tastes, actually. Long dresses and loose hair for their women. The plan was to break them in slowly, gently. If I had to wear a long black dress, I could do that. For now.

But since they'd insisted on torturing me, I decided it was only fair to torture them right back. I made them get new clothes as well. For Gryphon, well, the torture was more on my part. He was a vision of masculine beauty with ebony-black hair falling to his shoulders. His long, lean, and delicious build. The white alabaster purity of his skin. The red, red brightness of his cupid-bow lips. So beautiful that you wanted to reach out and touch him, prove that he was real.

He was the first Monère I'd ever encountered, the first man I'd ever loved. He'd come to me a few weeks ago, injured, alone, fleeing his Queen. In saving him, I had really saved myself.

He was my heart. And that vital organ that he claimed pitter-pattered within me as he stepped out of the fitting room dressed in the black Prada slacks I had chosen for him. The vibrant blue shirt he wore brought out the stunning cerulean richness of his eyes. Devastatingly lovely.

Another fitting room door swung open and Amber emerged, the other man who held my heart, roughly handsome in a mahogany brown dress shirt. His straight chestnut locks looked tousled as if he had run a hand carelessly through them, and his deep sea-blue eyes were narrowed in a fierce frown.

Huge was the word that best described Amber. Big and brawny, bounded with muscles, he was toweringly tall, majestic like a mountain. A mass of bulges and moundsbulging biceps that strained the cloth, a mounded, muscular chest, a hard flat belly, powerful haunches, and thick-muscled calves. With his harsh features bold and craggy, Amber was beautiful in his own unique way—in his great warrior strength, in his unexpected tender care of me. He'd saved me. Brought me back from the brink of death.

My two Warrior Lords. My two lovers. It was hard to believe that I wouldn't have to give up one or the other. That I could keep them both. That they would share me, as they put it, alternating in my bed and in my body.

Other sighs, not only mine, were heard around the store. Looking at the two of them, one with the grace and beauty of a fallen angel, the other menacingly big and brawny, with the strength of a towering oak… who would not sigh, given this vision?

"The pants are too tight," Amber muttered, redness darkening his broad cheeks.

Actually, he filled out the tan-colored slacks quite nicely—impressively. I circled him slowly, front to back, appreciating the snug fit that showed off the leanness of his hips, the powerful heft of his thighs, and the tightness of his lovely muscular butt, among other things.

"I have to disagree. I think they're perfect," I murmured, unable to resist stroking a discreet hand down the enticing curve of his bottom. Beneath my light touch, his buttocks tensed to rock hardness, making my heart skip a beat. Oh, my.

"What do you think, Chami?" I asked, turning to the third man with us. Chami was one of the three other men recently sworn to my service. The deadliest among them. My assassin.

He was tall like Gryphon, almost six feet, but with whipcord leanness, slender like a greyhound. Sprawled on the couch in limber disarray, dressed in the light green cashmere sweater and olive pants I had chosen for him, with his soft curly brown hair waving across his smiling blue eyes, I was sharply reminded of how deceiving appearances could be. He looked nothing like the deadly killer that he was.

"I agree with Mona Lisa," Chami said, a smile tugging the corner of his mouth. "The clothes show off all your… masculine attributes to nice advantage."

Amber growled and Chami laughed outright.

"What do you think, Gryphon?" Chami asked, mischievously turning to the other man to share in the blame.

"If it pleases our Queen," Gryphon replied softly, "that is all that matters."

"You're outvoted, Amber." Reaching up, I wrapped my arms around his thick, brawny neck and pulled the big man down for a kiss.

"Does it please you?" Amber whispered when our faces were only a caress away.

"Yes," I breathed against his mouth.

"Then I shall wear them." A soft press of lips, chaste in action but oh so vibrant in emotion, and he released me. From that one light touch between us, I watched as his blue eyes slowly changed to that extraordinary golden clarity for which he was namedAmber. The eyes of his beast. The color of his eyes whenever he was moved with passion or power. They swirled now with love and devotion, feelings he didn't bother to hide, looking so different from his normal stony fagade.

"Does my clothing meet with your approval?" Gryphon asked, pulling my attention back to him.

I ran my appreciative gaze down his lovely form. "Yes," was my husky reply. "Very, very much so."

Pleased, Gryphon smiled with a quick flash of dimples, here then gone like a tender flickering tease that made one want to entice them out again. "Good," he said, "then it is your turn now."

I groaned. Amber perked up. They changed back into their regular clothes and we made our way to the women's section of Bloomingdale's. The formal wear.

"This one," Gryphon said, holding up a long gown. Black lace overlying black silk.

"This dress," said Amber, holding up another glittering, sweeping black confection.

"And this," said Chami with his choice. Sleek, narrow, long and, of course, black.

I tried on all of them, to the men's vast appreciation. At five foot eight, I was tall for a woman, with a lean athletic build and a modest bosom, far from lush. My eyes were my best feature, dark like my hair, tilted up exotically at the sides. Other than that, I was average. But beneath my men's heated, approving eyes, I felt beautiful, desirable… cherished. A novel sensation.

I ended up buying all three gowns. There. Torture, I mean, shopping all done. Now it was back to work, packing and closing down my apartment.

Under a black-velvet star-studded sky, with the first quarter moon lending its slender slice of light to the night, we walked back with our purchases to my Lower West Side residence down in the Village.

The other members of our group were at the Pierre Hotel. And I was suddenly very, very glad we had decided to stay there, notwithstanding the hefty expense, when I opened the door and found a demon in my apartment.

Chapter Two

Demon dead was perhaps a more accurate description. They were not creatures from hell as we think of them, although they did live there—in Hell, that is. Demon dead are Monère who died, yet retained enough psychic energy to sustain their existence in another realm—a forever twilight where no life, no colors, existed. They were dead but not gone. And not really dead, although not really alive, either, as we knew it. Their hearts did not beat, they did not breathe. But they felt, they yearned, they bled. And they could kill.

They were incredibly strong and dangerous. Something that even the Monère feared.

My encounter with Kadeen, another demon dead, had almost killed me and my men. Of course, he'd ended up being the one killed, but not by my hand. By his prince'sthe High Prince of Hell, Halcyon, who was sweet on me and courting me in his own way. Who said he loved me. I'd asked Halcyon to find another to love. Because the attention his interest in me engendered was hard wear-and-tear on my body.

This was the third demon dead I had ever encountered. A lot, if you consider the fact that most Monère went their entire long lives without encountering a single one. So far, they'd been either friend or foe. I wasn't sure which one this was. I didn't know at all how to react.

My men must have sensed something wrong in the utter stillness I'd frozen into, in the sudden speeding of my heart. Strong arms wrapped around me and pulled me back from the doorway—Gryphon, I knew his touch—as Amber and Chami surged into the apartment.

"No, let me go, Gryphon," I said, mouth dry.

Reluctantly, he released me when a few long moments passed by and there were no sounds of fighting within.

I stepped into my small apartment and found Amber and Chami standing near the door as frozen as I had been. They were having as much difficulty deciding how to react as I had because the demon dead facing us was a she.

She sat perched on my tiny love seat, fitting comfortably because she was tiny herself. But she was a small thing in height only. The rest of her was… well, lush. No other word for it, with her full generous breasts and hips, and hourglass waist. Even the golden-hued skin and long nails, sharp as knives, distinctive to all demon dead… even those merely added to her attraction. She was all shades of brown, from her large dark eyes to her full pouty lips, more mauve than red. Her hair was a color I had never seen beforegold. Bright and glistening, almost metallic in sheen. She was stunning in a soft kittenish way, sensuality oozing from her very pores. Every man's dream. Hopefully not my nightmare. Because to cross the portal from Hell into this realm, you had to be strong. Really, really strong.

No matter how delicate, how lush, how sex-kittenish she appeared, she was powerful. The good news was that she wasn't screaming and chasing after me in her demon beast form, trying to kill me. The bad news was that she was here. What did she want? For that matter, how had she found me? Did the demon dead know enough about the human world to flip through the Yellow Pages?

"So, you are Mona Lisa," she purred. Her voice was as luscious as the rest of her, full-bodied, rich and throaty, satiny smooth. It literally licked across your skin in a tactile caress. The men shivered lightly, almost imperceptibly, but enough for me to know that they felt it, too. My nipples tightened involuntarily. Shit. I'd almost rather that she was trying to kill me. A touch homophobic? You betcha.

I licked my dry lips. "Yes, I'm Mona Lisa. Who are you?" Not quite rude, but not my most polite, either.

"I am Lucinda." She said it like it should mean something to me, but it didn't. Her eyes narrowed slightly. "Halcyon's sister."

His sister? Halcyon had a sister?

Well, crap. Now we really didn't know how to handle her.

"All of Hell is abuzz with your name. A woman important enough to the High Prince that he killed another demon in challenge over you. Halcyon has not executed someone like that for… oh, what is it now… a hundred years?"

I flinched because I knew who he'd executed a hundred years ago. Kadeen's father. And the son had been trying to challenge Halcyon ever since. The High Prince of Hell had ignored him up till now… until Kadeen had snatched me, mauled me, ripped into my throat, and drank down my blood. Then Halcyon had accepted his challenge and had killed him.

Unfortunately, the demon dead do not die—or would that be, die again—easily. Inside, the deepest part of me, I still trembled with the battle, the horror, so fresh in my memory.

"Well, as you can see," I said, my voice dry and raspy, "I am not much."

Lucinda threw back her head and laughed. A light, melodious, tinkling sound that shivered down your spine in a delighted caress, stroking things inside you that she had no business stroking. I shifted uncomfortably and decided that her laughing was a bad, bad thing. I'd try not to make her do it again.

"How modest. Is that your attraction?" She stood up suddenly and all of us tensed.

But even though my heart raced, my feet remained planted because I'd already decided how to handle her. She was curious about me. Hopefully, once she satisfied that curiosity, she would leave. It was a game plan of sorts. So I stood there as she walked closer. Although walk was not quite the word for how she moved. Swayed. Swayed would be a much better word.

Standing, her lush shape was displayed even more obviously. She wore a silk shirt like her brother, only it was the color of deep burgundy, the color of blood, instead of the white that Halcyon usually favored. And it molded to Lucinda's shape in quite a different way than it did to him. Her black leather pants looked as if they had been painted on her. Now here was tight. Amber's pants, in contrast, had merely fit him well.

She brushed against Amber, who was standing protectively before me. And even though she reached only halfway up his massive chest, he almost jumped when she touched him. His fists clenched, unsure of what to do.

"How big and tall you are," Lucinda purred, looking up at him, a smile curving her full lips. Her gaze trailed down his face until her glance fell like a loving caress upon his neck, on the slow pulse that beat there strongly at the base of his throat. She looked at that bounding pulse like a woman looked at chocolate, as if imagining how it would taste, how it would melt in your mouth. Only it wasn't chocolate she was craving.

"It's okay, Amber," I murmured. "Let her through."

At my soft command, Amber stepped away and let her approach me. She seemed blissfully unconcerned with the fact that Chami and Amber flanked her on either side now. Either she knew they posed no threat to her unless she tried to harm me, and she was not planning on harming me. Or she was arrogantly sure of her own power and ability to protect herself. She stopped directly in front of me, her head reaching only to my chin, and then did something that no human would have done. She smelled me.

"You smell like the night," Lucinda said, her nostrils flaring delicately as she took in my scent.

"We were walking outside," I said a bit breathlessly, my heart pounding at having her this close to me. Close enough to touch. Close enough to rip out my heart or slice off my head with those lethally sharp nails—two of the ways to kill a Monère. Of course, I wasn't a full-blooded Monère, so I was probably even easier to kill.

She examined me from head to toe in a thorough scrutiny, a thorough scenting. "You smell of power. And the smell of two others cling to your skin."

She turned, a dainty demon, and stepped up to Gryphon. He'd frozen into that unnatural stillness that they were all capable of holding themselves in, as if they were carved from stone. Only his eyes moved, following her as she leaned in close, took in his scent.

"You, Warrior Lord," Lucinda said softly, her eyes running appreciatively over his stunning loveliness before moving on to Amber. "And you," she said, looking up once more at the giant. Slowly, she reached out and stroked her hand just above Amber's arm, as if caressing something solid but unseen. "Two powerful Warrior Lords."

She flowed with sinister grace to the last of my men, Chami. Laughter was not in his eyes now, nor was the boyish charm he usually sported evident upon his lean face. That boyishness was as deceiving as the rest of his appearance. It had been a long time since he had been a boy, over a hundred years at least. Monère lived up to three hundred years of age. They were considered mature at a hundred, seasoned at two. There was a coolness to Chami's eyes now, a seriousness much more in keeping with his deadly nature as he let her smell him.

"Ah, but this one…" Lucinda turned her unsettling gaze back to me. "This one you have not claimed. His scent is not upon your skin. Nor yours upon his." Her eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "I smell Halcyon's scent upon your neck, but nowhere else on your body."

Gee, all that from one sniff. My hand lifted to my neck, the skin tingling where Halcyon had bit and tasted me. The wound had healed, was no longer there, but the remembered feel of where he had pierced my skin lingered still like a phantom memory. And the memory was not one of fear.

"Halcyon has not even taken you to his bed," Lucinda murmured with surprise, shaking her head. "And yet you hold him as if in thrall. Is that your allure for him? The tease, the chase? The anticipation?"

"I am not teasing Halcyon," I said. "I do not wish to be his lover. As you can already tell by smelling me, my bed is full."

"Ah, yes. Your two lovers." Lucinda smiled, sauntered over to Gryphon, and brushed the back of her fingers down the side of his face in a light caress as he stared impassively down at her.

An unfamiliar feeling swept over me—hot, sharp, like taloned claws. Jealousy.

Slowly, carefully, I pulled Gryphon away from her touch. "Mine," I said, baring my teeth at her. "Don't touch."

She laughed again with wicked delight. "Oh. Now I glimpse your attraction to my brother. A little cat showing her claws." She swayed seductively back to Chami. "What about this one? Can I touch this one?"

I looked at Chami but could read nothing in his carefully blank eyes. "Only if he wishes you to," I finally said.

Lucinda leaned forward and pressed her soft full curves along Chami's long slender length. One hand ran down his chest in an almost touch, brushing again just above his skin. "Such lovely thrumming power," she murmured, looking up into Chami's eyes. "So, my delicious one. Do you want me to touch you?"

"What do you want?" Chami asked bluntly.

"A drink of your blood," Lucinda replied, an eerie echo of Halcyon's words to me when we first met.

Chami's blue eyes glinted like hard diamonds, but his face paled even more than its usual whiteness. "Will you leave us then?"

Her lips curved slowly, lusciously. "Yes, I've seen what I've come to see." And the almost touch became true touch as her hand moved that one last inch of distance and stroked his chest.

"Then take your drink and kindly depart."

"Chami, no," I protested. "You do not know what it is like."

"On the contrary," Chami said. "I know exactly what it is like."

I shook my head. "It will not be like what you experienced with Kadeen."

"That can only be considered good, milady."

Kadeen had ripped into him and almost drained him dry. It was incredibly brave of Chami to willingly allow another demon to touch him after that savage experience. And he was doing so to protect me. To get rid of her. But he didn't know what she could do to him with a simple taste. Nothing like what he was expecting. And I didn't know how to tell him that.

"It is my wish," Chami said to me softly and glanced back at Lucinda. "I only ask that you be gentle when you take the drink you desire. A drink, not a draining."

"Agreed. Gentle…" Lucinda laughed huskily and the sound was like the soft tickling brush of fur stroking over your naked skin, chasing a shiver through us all. "Yes, I can do gentle."

With an almost tender gesture, she drew his head down to her. And he came to her, trembling.

"So sweet," she murmured against his lips.

"I am far from sweet," he whispered harshly.

"Sweet and gallant. You fear me and yet you yield to me… for your Queen."

My hand clenched Gryphon's hand tightly as Lucinda turned her mouth slowly into Chami's throat. One tiny hand held Chami secure behind the neck, the other lightly gripped his shoulder. Lifting up on her toes, with her small luxuriant body pressed against the slender bend of his, they looked like lovers embracing. Until her lips drew back, and her teeth lengthened and sharpened.

Gently, she ran the tip of her long, sharp fangs once, twice, across the pulse bounding slowly, powerfully along his neck. He shuddered, shook in her arms but did not fight her. Gently, almost tenderly, she sank those fangs down into his flesh until those mauve lips pressed tight against his skin and the strong column of her throat worked, swallowing.

I watched as Chami's eyes glazed over and then widened in surprise. As the tension that sang in him relaxed beneath her thrall. As she took him over, drank him into her body. And gave him back pleasure instead of pain. Pleasure like nothing else in this world.

And I wondered. Did his groin tingle, ache, throb as sensual tendrils raced like invisible caressing hands over him, inside him? Was almost agonizing pleasure swelling up within him, then bursting from him as he cried out, held her tight? As he jerked and shuddered helplessly against her. As light shone free from his body, called forth by his pleasure, liming him in harsh brilliant beauty—a true child of the moon. What he was. What we all were. Monère. Supernatural creatures descended from the moon, faster and stronger than humans. Descendants of another race from another planet long dead.

The blinding brilliance of the moon's rays slowly faded back into Chami. Now it was Lucinda who held him. Who laid him down gently on the ground, the scarlet red of his blood brilliant upon her lips like lipstick. And I wondered… did Chami wish even now, sated, almost insensate, for more of that sharp, painful ecstasy?

Lucinda licked his blood from her lips slowly, savoringly, her eyes heavy-lidded and languorous.

"A small taste of me," she whispered. And I shuddered and shivered in remembrance of Halcyon's words to me. A small taste of me, as I taste you.

Lucinda straightened and her gaze lifted to regard me once more. "Let Halcyon fuck you. Maybe then his fascination with you will fade. That fascination endangers you both." With those words, she walked out the door, closing it softly behind her.

I rushed over to Chami and knelt beside him. "Chami, Chami. Are you all right?"

His eyes, when he rolled them up toward me, were still dazzled, his pupils darkly dilated. He was still floating in the glowing aftermath. My eyes lowered to the wetness staining the front of his pants. Tears of his pleasure. Evidence of his orgasmic release.

"You knew," Chami said, his voice languid, dreamy.

I met his pleasure-punched eyes and nodded. "Yes."

"Merciful Mother." His voice rolled out slowly, stretched softly. "How can you resist that?"

And though his whisper had been but the barest sound, his question echoed long and loud and haunting in the sudden silence of the apartment.

Chapter Three

It was quiet after Chami left. To change, he said, though a part of me wondered if he was hurrying after Lucinda to give them both another taste. Another drink of his blood for another drink of her pleasure. But even as I wondered, I didn't try to stop him. The real danger to us had passed, from her and from our other enemies who we had either killed or banished. We were safe enough for now. And Chami, especially, could look after himself.

We all had special gifts. Chami's unique power could be discerned from his full name, Chameleo. A name given to him for his chameleon ability to blend with his surroundings so that he became invisible.

Guilt kept me silent because Chami had no one in his bed. Nor did Aquila or Tomas, the two other guards sworn to my service. And even though I had made it clear before I had taken them on that I would not be sleeping with them, still I felt guilty. Because Monère men gained power from sleeping with a Queen. Gryphon and Amber had gained enough power from mating with me to become Warrior Lords, able to sustain their own life without a Queen. Able to rule their own territories should they so choose. But they had chosen, instead, to be with me.

The question haunted me—had I been less human in my morality and more willing to take many into my bed as other Queens did, would Chami, Tomas, or Aquila gain enough power to become Warrior Lords as well?

But I could not be less human. My humanity was stretched thinly enough as it were, taking both Amber and Gryphon as lovers, although not at the same time. No, not that. Alternating weeks. Stunned with relief that they were not leaving me, I'd only just promised to try it.

How could you resist that? Chami had asked. And the answer, truthfully, was not easily. Had I met Halcyon first, my elegant Demon Prince, I could have loved him. He was gentle, extraordinary, and so lonely. It was his loneliness that called most strongly to me, because before I met Gryphon and he brought me fully into this new world, I was lonely and alone in a sea of humans. Raised among them, but different, always apart like Halcyon was among the Monère. I resisted Halcyon only because Gryphon feared him. While Gryphon shared me generously with Amber, he was insanely jealous of Halcyon.

Halcyon does not belong to you, Gryphon had told me. He is not one of us. And being with him does not strengthen but endangers you.

I resisted Halcyon's lonely sensual allure because I could not bear the thought of losing either Gryphon or Amber. I could not bear to be alone again after just having found their love and knowing what it was like to be loved by themdeeply, passionately, intensely, with body and soul. The same way I loved them.

A finger ran down my neck, startling me from my thoughts, stroking over where Halcyon's neat puncture marks had branded my skin not long ago. And though they were gone from sight, they lingered still: invisible marks. I turned to gaze into Gryphon's eyes, blue and rich like the summer sky.

"Was it like that for you?" Gryphon asked me softly, silkily.

My throat went suddenly dry at his question, at the way he had asked it.

"It was the price for bringing me back, a sip of my blood," I said with only the slightest quaver. "He could have kept me in Hell." Almost had.

"Did you enjoy it like Chami?" Gryphon asked. His voice deepened, lowered, grew more softly menacing. "Or did you enjoy it even more?"

I'd never been afraid of Gryphon before. Never. But looking into those blue swirling eyes, hard and hot and laced with an indefinable emotion… something like fear—a thrilling touch of it—chased down my spine and raised goose bumps on my skin.

I backed up as he advanced until I was stopped by something solid, something tall, something unmovable. I rolled my eyes up. "Amber," I whispered. He was a solid blocking wall behind me, Gryphon a silky threat in front.

"It is said that a demon dead can give great pleasure," Amber said quietly, his deep voice rumbling through my back, "so that one would do almost anything to experience it again and again."

Always before, Amber's bigness had been a comfort, never a threat. But now, with Amber behind me, Gryphon before me, jealousy and insecurity singing in their voices both… now his bigness was far from comforting.

"I-I chose to return to you," I said, stuttering. "To you both."

"But did you consider, for one brief tempting moment, staying with him?" Amber asked, his voice deep and dangerous as his broad hands came up to grip my shoulders lightly, imprisoningly.

I could not answer Amber, dared not, because for one brief mad heartbeat of time I had. If Amber and Gryphon had not been waiting for me above, I would have stayed in that other realm with Halcyon, surrounded by his love, returning it.

"We can please you as well as he can," Gryphon murmured, bending down to place a kiss upon my neck in the spot where he had touched me before—Halcyon's invisible brand. "Differently. But just as much."

I shivered beneath the light press of Gryphon's lips, scared by the dark promise in his words. Scared even more by my reaction to them, because—God forgive me—the sensual threat dangerously lacing his words chased deliciously through a hidden, murky part of me. The thought of sex not totally safe, not totally sweet, with a hint of danger… A part of me—that frighteningly dark, cruel part of me that was slowly emerging—thrilled to the potential violence. Within me, secret parts softened, warmed, heated, and clenched with a deep, pulling throb. The pungent fragrance of my growing arousal perfumed the air, filled my nostrils. Made me close my eyes in shame, in want, in need. I was torn, both wanting to fight that dark side of me and embrace it.

"There is nothing to prove," I said, my voice tremulous. "You… you do please me. Both of you."

"Then let us please you again," Amber said. "Let us please you together."

I gasped as he pressed his teeth to the other side of my neck, as he laved my tender skin with his hot, rough tongue. Amber's teeth and tongue on one side. Gryphon's cool, soft lips kissing me on the other side. I exploded into heat. Moaned my need. Gasped for air. Grasped desperately for thought, for control. But there was none.

The part of me that was Queen, my Aphidy—the innate, sexually attractive force between Monère men and their Queen—burst out from me, a wild and uncontrollable force set free. It rippled through the air like an invisible arrow, finding and seeking its targets with unerring ease.

Amber and Gryphon cried out, arching against me as it struck them full force. As it brushed against their own power, flaring it up in response to mine, so that we were suddenly engulfed in a drowning cloud of rising energy, of burning passion.

Amber's teeth bit down into me until he almost, almost broke skin but not quite, making me cry out with painful pleasure. Gryphon nipped me sharply on the other side, stuttering my breath. His hands reached down and with one pull, tore open my shirt. Buttons scattered in a noisy roll on the floor, but the sound was drowned out by our pants, our cries. My bra came undone and Gryphon's long, smooth fingers cupped my aching breasts, pulled low sounds from my throat, while down below, larger, rougher hands shoved my pants and underwear down my legs. I kicked free of them and felt Amber cup me, felt the hard press of his broad hand against my dewy lips.

The feel of smooth gripping hands above and callused fingers below made me buck my hips back against Amber and arch my chest out toward Gryphon. But the frustrating barrier of cloth pressed against my bare skin.

"Your clothes," I gasped. "Take them off."

Unable to wait for them to obey me, I blindly grabbed Gryphon's shirt and pulled. The sound of ripping cloth rent the air, and the violence of it, the tearing sound of it spurred us to an even greater frenzy. Amber ground his groin against my bottom, heavy, full, and wonderfully hard. His hands left me, and a moment later I felt the brush of his hairy chest against my back.

Belt buckles—one, then another—clanged against floor. Knives thudded to the ground. And then we were all, finally, fully naked.

They sandwiched me between them, Amber's thick length a burning brand low in my back, Gryphon's hardness a nudging prod against my soft belly. I felt empty, so empty. Needing—aching—to be filled. But how could I take more than one man into me? There was only one place I could think of, and it would not accommodate them both. I shook my head, tried to fight clear of the sensual haze, then could only gasp as Amber sank two wide fingers between my legs.

"No, you're too big for her. The other way," Gryphon said, his words making no sense to me. Amber was big, yes, but he was able to fit into me.

Amber's fingers slipped out, and Gryphon spun me around to face Amber. I tried to clear my mind so I could understand what Gryphon meant. But then it was too late to think. I could only feel as Amber lifted me up and sank me down upon his length.

"Oh, God," I choked, as his incredible thickness slowly invaded me. He was so big, so thick, so wide that he had to work himself into me. I was stretched, wonderfully, terribly stretched, as with a grunt, with a series of hard little shifting thrusts with his hips, he pushed himself into me one inch, then another, and another and another…

Like a circuit suddenly connected, I began to glow. Amber's skin began to shine, turning us into creatures of light.

Behind me, Gryphon's slender fingers caressed down where Amber entered into me and I stiffened, tightened up, causing Amber to give a deep, reverberating groan. One of those slender fingers, wet with my own liquid desire, crept up to circle my anal pucker.

"Gryphon, what are you doing?" I asked in a high unsteady voice.

His chest brushed my back in a silky caress as he rubbed himself against me.

"Let me be in you as Amber is in you," he whispered against my neck, making me shudder.

Oh God, I thought, as I realized what he was asking. As I realized that that was what I wanted, too.

I shivered. Said, "Yes."

One more circling, wetting caress, and then he pushed that finger into me. And that slender digit was as tight an invasion in me back there in my virgin anal hole, as Amber's wide thick length filling me in front, sinking into my vaginal sheath.

"Oh God, oh God," I whimpered as he pushed into me, as they both pushed into me. My body clenched involuntarily, spasming around finger and rod, drawing out Amber's deep groan and Gryphon's soft moan. But instead of keeping them out, my inner clenching seemed to suck them both in, until Amber hilted within me and Gryphon's finger was pushed fully in to the webbing. And somehow, he felt as big as Amber did in me. I trembled and panted between them, pinned and stretched by them both.

"Oh, how sweet and tight you are," Gryphon crooned and the room radiated with our light, was brilliant with our glowing pleasure.

As if given some signal, Amber bent his head and took a tightly beaded nipple into his hot mouth. He sucked and tugged on the incredibly sensitive, elongated tip at the same time that Gryphon pulled his finger halfway out and then pushed back into me with slow determined force. I cried out and exploded. Shafting brilliance burst from me like a physical expression of the undoing within me. Waves of convulsions overtook me and ecstasy blinded me to all but the rhythm of my own body spasming and clenching around the two thick things that stretched me, filled me, were within me. And I held them tightly, as if they were my only anchors in a world gone trembling wild.

The ground tilted and careened as my devastating release passed, and I realized, when my senses were able once more to sense normally, that we were on the floor. Amber was lying on his back with me braced on top of him, and he was still hard and thick within me, still glowing as my light absorbed back into me. His golden amber eyes glittered wild and feral with his leashed passion.

"You didn't come," I said.

"No," he rumbled, and the sensation of that vibration passing up through me—felt most acutely where he still throbbed within me—forced my eyes to close and my breath to stop.

Before I could ask why he had held back his release, the feel of a hard velvet shaft sliding down from behind to touch me in that intimate space where Amber stretched me, shocked me silent. Gryphon's length dipped and glided between my legs, rolling in the honeyed wetness that overflowed from me.

"Gryphon?" I asked questioningly.

"Let me in," he whispered, his warm breath a silky caress shivering my ear as his body blanketed me from above. "Let me come into you fully."

I didn't know what Gryphon meant until his finger slid out of my sphincter. The pull of his leaving tugged sound from my throat, and then I felt another hard presence there, wet from my own fluids, bigger, wider than his finger had been.

"Let me in," he murmured and slowly pushed in.

"Oh!" The melting laxness left my body and I tensed unbearably tight again. "Oh, God… Gryphon."

The stretching was almost painful. Pleasure and pain mixed and became sublime. Beneath me Amber arched up, his huge body straining with restraint not to move more as Gryphon slowly sank his shaft into my back entrance. Amber's eyes locked with mine as he lifted his hips, rising up as if to meet Gryphon within me.

"Amber," I whispered as my body began to glow with the moon's lunar brightness once more. Behind me, above me, Gryphon's radiance danced with ours, casting shadows on the ceiling and walls, making us creatures of light, creatures of darkness.

Within me, I felt them touch, separated only by one thin wall. They touched and held still. I writhed, moaned, whimpered, crammed so achingly full I almost couldn't stand it.

"Move," I commanded with a shaky breath. "Dear Lord, move!"

They did. And if I thought that what had come before was torture, feeling them both moving within me, pulling out in opposite directions, then plunging back in to meet within me, in and out, in and out, meeting, converging, bulbous tips rubbing one over the other, sliding my thin membranous wall between them, surrounding me both inside and out, pulling apart and then surging together once again in perfectly synchronized counterpoint movement… feeling them moving within me like that was pure devastating pleasure.

Sensation flashed like wildfire, engulfing me in a hot conflagration so that I was burning, burning, crying. Then Amber was swallowing up my cries, his mouth covering mine, his tongue surging into me in the same beating rhythm as how they moved within me, in front and behind. I was burning, stretching, and crying, so that I didn't know where pleasure left off and pain began. The two were intertwined, one. Then even more sensation was added into the stormy, potent mix as Gryphon's hands cupped my breasts, squeezed. As his teeth sank sharply, sweetly, into my neck, piercing me that way as well, tasting my blood.

The pressure—the incredible pleasure—built within me until it was one huge gigantic ache. Waves of intense pleasure climaxed in a cresting crescendo. And the orgasm burst over me, out from me, as if it could no longer be contained. My body heaved helplessly, caught up totally in the bucking throes of climax, lost to control but not to sensation. I felt Amber stiffen beneath me, gripped by his own shooting convulsions. I felt the powerful jet of his pleasure splash against the mouth of my womb. I felt Gryphon shudder behind me, his body seize. Felt the heat and wetness of his own release fill me in another passage.

Slowly, the terrible tension left us. Light dimmed, faded, was absorbed back into us. And we melted one atop the other like fallen combatants after a fierce battle.

Chapter Four

So much for alternating weeks. I didn't know how to feel—appalled or delighted that I'd made love to Amber and Gryphon both at the same time. So I shoved the thought away from me. Put it away for another time to ponder. Maybe to savor.

I showered and dressed in a comfortable cotton shirt and cable-knit sweater I hadn't yet packed, sore in places usual and unusual. Gryphon had to wear his new shirt. His old one was completely ruined. First time I'd literally ripped the clothes off a man. Probably wouldn't be the last. I found myself grinning at that happy thought. With the pleasant task of keeping my men clothed, shopping might even become enjoyable.

Amber's old attire was safe and whole, though, and he donned them once more, insisting on saving his new clothes for when we arrived in my new territory.

Packing… well, we'd have to finish that another time. I couldn't stay in the apartment after our recent minage; too discomforting, the thought of it. So we left, and I made the executive decision to take everybody out and have some fun that night. We were in the Big Apple, about to go to Louisiana. I wanted to play… on ice. Something I'd never done before. Something I doubted New Orleans would have. And even if they did have skating rinks, none of them would be as splendid as the famous Rockefeller Center rink.

The first time I'd come to Manhattan and walked by the world-renowned center the Rockefeller name had made famous, I'd glanced at the happy, laughing people twirling beneath the giant Christmas tree, the country's largest, skating with their boyfriends, girlfriends, family members, and loved ones, and I had daydreamed one day of it being me down there. An orphan's dream. But tonight it wasn't a dream; it was reality.

My skates suddenly went one way while my body decided to go another, and the slippery blades flew out from beneath me. My arms windmilled—yes, people really do that when they're about to fall—and with a shriek, I landed on my derrière, pulling Gryphon down with me.

The startled look of surprise and mild affront in Gryphon's eyes as he crashed onto the ice set me off laughing so hard that it brought tears to my eyes.

"I'm sorry," I gasped, dabbing my eyes, "but if you could only see the look on your face. Like"—I mimicked his Old World manner of speech—" 'How dare this graceless thing happen to me.'" I lay back on the ice and howled.

"I fell," Gryphon said with slow dignity, "because you made me fall."

"Yeah," I grinned as other skaters veered around us, "I know."

Carefully, he tried to pick himself up. The skates slid out from under him, and with that shocked look of surprise again on his face that I found so hilarious, Gryphon fell splat once more onto his butt—setting me off in another rollicking-rolling, laugh-till-you-split-your-sides fit.

He cut me off mid-chortle with a kiss. "Are you having fun?" Gryphon asked, his tender blue eyes smiling down at me with a soft light.

I kissed him back, face flushed, a happy smile plastered on my face. "Yes."

"Surprisingly, so am I. Though I would much rather be standing with Amber."

Amber was the only one I had not coaxed onto the ice.

"I would crack the ice if I fell," he'd said with inarguable truth. "I shall keep watch while the rest of you frolic on the frozen water." He shook his head as if to say: The odd follies of humans.

A pair of black skates swooshed expertly to a stop before us, and I looked up into a pair of dark slanting eyes so poignantly like mine. Dark hair fell in sharp straightness around a face that looked even younger than his sixteen years. It was Thaddeus, my brother whom I'd just recently found. A Mixed Blood like me, he had been abandoned at birth to an orphanage, the same as I. But he had fared better. His adoptive parents had loved him and raised him to maturity until they had been killed by a truck that had drifted into their lane and hit their car head-on. Only Thaddeus had survived the accident and the white fiberglass cast on his arm was a stark, grim reminder of that recent tragedy. We were not immortal, but we sure as hell were harder to kill.

"Show-off," I said to Thaddeus.

He held out a hand and helped me to my wobbling feet. "Hey," he said, grinning as he pulled Gryphon upright next, "it's one of the few things I can do better than you guys." He looked over my shoulder. "Uh, oh. Looks like the others need my help again."

I watched as he skated nimbly off, back to the others in our little group. Rosemary, the only Full Blood Monère woman among us, was gingerly step-walking with her skates, faring pretty well with that method, her plump face flushed pleasantly by her exertions. Tomas and Aquila, my two other guards, chivalrously supported her on either side. They were powerful warriors in their own right. But standing next to Rosemary, shorter than her by a couple of inches and far more slender, they didn't look it. Rosemary stood six feet tall and was built like an Amazon. She had left her coveted position as High Court cook to follow me to my new territory. The reasons for her doing so were several meters behind her—her children, Tersa and Jamie, rare Mixed Bloods like Thaddeus and I. Only they were only half Monère. That quarter difference in blood made a crucial difference. They were essentially human, without a Full Blood's greater strength or gifts.

I watched as Thaddeus slid to a smooth stop before Tersa. She'd fallen. Beside her, her brother, Jamie, was climbing clumsily to his feet. Their flaming russet hair gleamed like Christmas ornaments and their laughter was even brighter with the joy of youthful enjoyment. They were closest in age to Thaddeus and I—Jamie, nineteen, and Tersa, twenty-four. Tersa was actually older than I was by three years but I tended to view her as my junior. She was tiny, petite, only five feet tall, with delicate bones like a bird. But it wasn't just her size that made me protective of her. Weaker, more vulnerable, without my strength, she'd been raped to draw me out to my enemies. To show their disdain for our mongrel blood. Their mother, Rosemary, had left her sought-after post, taking up a position with me, because she knew I would do my best to protect her children. And she was right.

My brother, Thaddeus, was the only one who did not know of Tersa's brutal taking. All the other men were cautious and gentle around her, careful not to touch her or make her feel uncomfortable with their male presence. But Thaddeus didn't know. He held out a hand to her. My breath caught, wanting to stop him, yet too late to do so.

With but the barest hesitation, Tersa reached out and took Thaddeus's hand. Let him pull her up and help brush the ice from her clothes. Then, laughing, they helped clean up Jamie.

"They are good together," Gryphon said quietly, echoing my thoughts.

"Yeah, they are." My family. Thaddeus, the brother of my blood. Tersa and Jamie, the brother and sister of my heart. And the others… all of them mine, under my care.

"Mona Lisa." Amber's soft utterance of my name, spoken more than a hundred feet away, came to me clearly through the cacophony of sound. With so much noise bombarding our acute senses, it was a natural habit to tune it down until it became a low background hum. But some things, like the speaking of one's name, cut sharply out and apart from the rest of the din, reaching your ears easily.

I turned my face and looked to where Amber stood at the edge of the rink, his massive size standing him apart from others. But even were my eyes blindfolded, I would have known precisely where he stood from his powerful presence alone. We sensed each other in ways humans could not. That innate draw of a Monère male to his Queen was a strong pull that went both ways. It was always there, sometimes muted. But never forgotten, always felt.

I looked into Amber's stony face, blank with cool control. But I knew every nuance of those solid features so well now. I gazed into his eyes, dark blue like the color of the sea, saw the alert tension filling them, and knew that something was wrong.

I loosened that power that was within me, called it up from deep inside and flung it wide and searching, a tangible force trembling in the air in a full spreading radius outward. Searching, searching until it found one and then another's presence like ours. Two Monère males, Full Bloods, above and behind me. And a short distance beyond them, two other males and a Queen. Her distinctive power brushed abrasively against mine in an irritative, stinging fashion, feeling a bit like fire ants biting your skin—an innate reaction when two queens came in contact with one another. Whereas we were drawn to males and they to us, we were repelled by other queens—nature's way of ensuring that we disperse wide to propagate.

I turned around and looked up to the short encircling wall overlooking the rink, crowded with eager tourists who had come to the city and were enjoying the festive sight of the elaborately decorated giant tree and the circling skaters swishing small and tiny below it. The surrounding wall above us was packed three feet deep with gazing people, but the ones I sought were easily picked out among them. One man tall and dark-haired. The other with light brown hair, shorter, more beefy. Nothing usual about them but for the power they emanated in a low, steady thrum. I recognized their faces. Mona Sera's men.

Chami came to a sliding halt beside Gryphon and I. Aquila and Tomas, aware now of our nonhuman observers, skated back with Rosemary to stand protectively in front of Tersa, Jamie, and Thaddeus.

Technically, I was a Queen—an uninvited Queen—in another Queen's territory, Mona Sera's. Reason enough to hunt me down and try to kill me and my people. Although that wasn't what I really feared.

Why? Because I was Mona Sera's daughter.

Before you get any other wrong ideas here, let me set you straight. Our recently renewed acquaintance was not what you would call a cozy mother-daughter relationship. She'd tossed me out like garbage when I was born because of my mixed blood. I'd only discovered she was my mother when I broke into her home seeking a cure for Gryphon. He'd once belonged to her and she'd poisoned him with silver because he no longer wished to serve her. Mona Sera was like the wicked Queen of the West—okay, I know we were technically in the east, but you get what I mean. She was vicious and cruel. Even among the Monère, who weren't exactly known as the most gentle of creatures… even among them, Mona Sera was considered one of their worst Queens.

Before she'd found out I was her daughter, she'd ordered Amber to rape me. Being her daughter hadn't saved me. It was the fact that I was a Queen and her daughter that had spared me that fate. I was of use to her. Nothing more. She'd taken me to High Court, and had me acknowledged as a Queen. Though a Mixed Blood, I was a precious Queen nonetheless. And she did so only to have her own fertility and Queen-bearing status recognized; it gained her brownie points with the Council, increased her own value.

She'd given me two gowns, two of her men, Amber and Gryphon, and then washed her hands of me once more.

Whether you live or die now is of no concern to me, she'd said.

Now some might think that giving me two of her men was a generous gesture on her part. Trust me, that wasn't the case. They had become too powerful for her, and she did what Queens typically did when that happened: She tried to kill them. They were dying when she'd given them to meGryphon from the liquid silver she had poisoned him with, Amber from sun poisoning. She'd roasted Amber under the sun's hot rays, under the guise of punishing him for disobeying her, until he was one gigantic, weeping mass of boils and pus.

Mona Sera had only given Gryphon and Amber to me because I had asked for them and because they were dying. She hadn't expected them to live; no one had. But I'd saved them and now they were mine.

We left the ice and changed back into our shoes. I didn't really think Mona Sera was here to try and kill us. But with my mother, you never really knew. Safest, always, to treat her with caution. We made our way to the upper level.

"Stay here, please," I said to Aquila and Tomas. Nodding, they remained at a far corner guarding Rosemary and the kids, as Chami, Gryphon, Amber, and I strode forward to see what my dear mother wanted.

Gryphon nodded first to the shorter, stocky warrior. "Kyle." Then nodded to the taller, dark-haired one. "Frangois."

They nodded back.

"Warrior Lord Gryphon. Warrior Lord Amber," Kyle said, politely addressing them by their proper titles.

These two men had once hunted Gryphon at their Queen's order, and had considered Amber as good as dead. I wonder what they felt at their brethren's elevated status, Warrior Lords now instead of roadkill. Were they jealous of them or happy for them? Nothing showed. Their eyes and faces were blank, wiped clean of all emotion and expression, as Amber and Gryphon's had once been. Impassive, as all of Mona Sera's men had to be.

"My Queen seeks a word with Queen Mona Lisa," Kyle said, glancing over at two black cars parked at the curb. Both were Lincoln Town Cars, ubiquitous to Manhattan, looking innocuously like the thousands of others used for private car service here in the city. But the occupants within these two cars were not human businessmen or women returning home after a long day's work.

"Queen Mona Lisa will be happy to meet with your Queen," Gryphon said, "out here in the open."

"Will the park bench meet with your approval?" Kyle inquired.

The bench he spoke of was situated midway between us and the Town Cars. It was occupied at the present moment by a young couple, wrapped up in kisses and each other's arms.

"Yes," Gryphon said, nodding. "That will be fine."

Frangois walked back to the waiting cars while we followed Kyle to the agreed meeting spot.

Kyle cleared it by the simple matter of planting himself in front of the kissing couple. He was a small tank of a man. With his thick arms crossed in front of his barreled chest and a scowl darkening his face, he looked frankly intimidating.

"Go… somewhere… else," he growled when the young lovers finally became aware of his presence and looked up.

They departed without a word of protest, smart couple. I arched a brow and took a seat on the left side, still warm from where they had sat. Amber, Gryphon, and Chami were silent presences beside me.

"Does that work in getting a taxi?" I wondered out loud.

Humor wasn't something Mona Sera apparently encouraged in her men. Kyle didn't bother answering me. Forget smiling. With a slight bow, he departed to wait by the second car.

Frangois opened the rear door of the first car. Head bowed, eyes cast down, he assisted his Queen out of the car. Mona Sera stepped out.

The first time I'd seen her, she had been filled with power and naked. Well, half-naked. The lower part of her had been a serpentine flow of smooth rippling muscles covered by glistening scales. She'd had no legs, just the body of a snake. Mona Sera was a lamia in her other form. As first impressions went, it had been… let's say, impressive.

Even now, fully clothed, she packed the same punch. Not so much because she was beautiful—more striking. Her hair fell long and unbound in a silky wash down to her hips, a true, pure black, so dark that blue highlights reflected from it beneath the crescent moon's silvery light. Her lips were thinner than mine, but the cheekbones, the strong line of jaw… I could see her stamp in my own face, and in that of Thaddeus's. What made me want to keep the two of them far, far apart was the coldness radiating from that icy, handsome face. She had eyes like a doll. No, that wasn't right. She had eyes like a snake. Like the reptile that she was—cold and calculating. No warmth, no compassion. Nothing human in those eyes.

Mona Sera stepped out of the car without a glance at the man whose hand she'd taken, treating it—him—like he didn't exist. Only there for her convenience, to serve her. Frangois remained subserviently bowing until she swept past him. I sensed another male, but he remained unseen in the front seat of the first car. The driver.

Mona Sera took a seat beside me on the bench, as far away as the wooden planks allowed. "You are still here in my territory," she said by way of greeting.

"We are leaving in few days," I said.

"The sooner you depart, the better." She cast me a very unfriendly look, her black eyes glittering coldly. "Trouble follows you like a dark cloud."

See. Real warm, my mother.

Her comment made me wonder if she knew about Lucinda's recent visit.

"Not just one demon dead, but two now have sought you out here in my city."

Yup. She knew. And she wasn't happy about it. Didn't blame her. Neither was I.

At a snap of her fingers, Kyle opened the second car's door. The odor hit me—hit us all—strongly. A pungent, rotting stench that reached our sensitive nostrils and made us instinctively cringe. The smell of death and disease. Foreign to a Monère. Our bodies were able to heal just about anything almost miraculously fast. The only time before I had smelled something like this was when Gryphon had been dying of silver poisoning.

My heart gave a little extra beat when I saw whom Kyle helped out of the car. Beldar, one of Mona Sera's stronger remaining warriors. His hair was white, though that wasn't completely accurate. He was actually blond, but it was a shade so light, so pale, that it appeared white. Beldar looked up and his eyes met mine.

He had green eyes. Not the mixed brown-green of hazel, but pure emerald green like what you would see in a tropical rainforest. Vibrant, stunning. Even ill and weak he was still beautiful, perhaps more so because his fragility allowed me to really see the pure beauty of his features for the first time—the full line of his lips, the lovely flaring arch of his brows, the straight aquiline nose. Features you normally didn't notice when his face was laughing and mobile beneath the shine of his forceful personality. His charm, then, sparkled at you, blinding you to all else. But now he wasn't smiling, he wasn't being charming. He was barely walking.

Supported by Kyle, he shuffled forward until he fell heavily onto his knees before us. Gently Kyle released him and stepped back to join Frangois, standing to Mona Sera's right. Our two groups were split neatly down the middle of the bench, with Beldar between us like a sacrificial victim.

People glanced curiously at our little group but kept on walking. It was Manhattan. People were allowed to be odd here. A man kneeling on the cold cement before two women was nothing.

"Still cleaning house, Mona Sera?" I asked! "Another strong warrior you decided to poison with silver?"

Mona Sera smiled. It was not a pleasant expression. "Oh, no. This I did not do. The blame for this rests on you."

I arched a brow. "Me?"

"You brought a demon dead here among us. It is not running silver that sickens his body. He was bitten."

"Bitten?" My heart suddenly racing, I turned my head to look up at Chami. He stood beside me, strong and healthy, his power and presence untainted by sickness. The tiny marks on his neck were clean, healing, not rotting. I turned my gaze back to Beldar, swaying weakly before us on his knees, but could see nothing obvious. His wound was not visible to our eyes, only discernible by our acute sense of smell.

"Lucinda's bite did this to Beldar?" I asked.

"Not Lucinda." Mona Sera's lips curled. "Her hellhound."

Chills feathered down my spine like an icy hand. "A hellhound? Here? What is one doing here?"

"That is what I wished to ask you," Mona Sera said coldly. I saw something in her eyes then that I'd never seen before. Fear. A trembling dark shimmer of it.

She leaned toward me, and the abrasiveness of her nearness scraped rawly against my nerves like tiny claws. "Your presence brought it here. This"—she swept a hand toward Beldar—"is your fault. You are costing me yet another warrior, daughter mine. And I do not like it," she spat, her eyes glinting like black onyx stone. "Fix him. And return him."

I had a bad feeling where she was going with this. I was the only healer of sorts within the area. No healer, apparently, had wished to swear into Mona's Sera's service. "You want me to heal him?" I said, just to be sure.

"Yes. If Beldar dies, I will take one of your men in his stead." Mona Sera's eyes flicked past me to the other half of our group, watching and waiting in the distance. "Or perhaps your woman."

She meant Rosemary, a Full Blood Monère female. Tersa, a Mixed Blood, didn't even exist in her eyes. I watched as Mona Sera's eyes flicked dismissingly over Jamie and Thaddeus. Had she seen the likeness? Guessed that Thaddeus was her son? Would she even care?

"No," I said, shaking my head, feeling panic welling within me. "You cannot blame this on me."

"Oh, but I do." She turned those black moribund eyes back to me. "Heal him or forfeit one of your own for what you will have cost me."

"I-I don't know if I can heal him. What about the healers at High Court? Would they be able to help him?"

"You may try that if you wish, if he lasts that long. He was bitten but two hours ago and already the decay spreads across him like a living eating thing. If you wish to bring him to High Court, do not tarry long. But as to whether the healers there can cure him, even they will not be able to tell you. No Monère has even been bitten by a hellhound."

I was feeling more and more faint. "Never?"

"No, because no hellhound has ever been seen in this realm before." Her hard eyes drilled into mine. "Do what you wish. I shall return tomorrow. For Beldar or another. It matters not to me."

She stood and with a swirl of her long black coat, disappeared into the backseat of the first car. Kyle and Frangois stepped into the second car and they drove away.

Gently, Amber went to Beldar's side. Kneeling, he wrapped an arm about the smaller man's waist.

Beldar gasped with pain. "No! Let me… let me hold on to you instead, old friend." Braced against Amber, he pulled himself to his feet and allowed Amber to guide him onto the bench.

Aquila, Tomas, and the others joined us.

"Who was that?" Thaddeus asked.

I looked into my brother's eyes. "That was our mother, Mona Sera." I'd never told him about her before and he'd never asked. He'd been smart enough to realize that had there been anything good to say about her, I would have told him.

"No," Thaddeus said, his voice soft but firm. "The woman I just buried was my real mother. The one who loved me and raised me. Not the one who gave me away."

I caught his hand in mine and squeezed. "She did us a favor by giving us away."

Thaddeus squeezed back, smiled slightly. "Yes, it would seem that she did." Worry came into his eyes as he looked at Beldar. Worry mixed with pity. "Can you heal him?"

"You heard?" I asked.

Thaddeus nodded.

"I don't know," I whispered. God help me, I did not know if I could heal him.

God help us all if I couldn't.

Chapter Five

Before I became a Monère Queen, I was a nurse. But my nursing skills, good though they were, was not why Mona Sera had brought Beldar to me.

As we rode in a taxi back to my apartment, I turned my hands over to gaze at my palms. Embedded in them was the reason why she had sought me out—my Goddess's Tears. They were moles the size and color of pearls. Two moles buried deep in the heart of my palms, one in each hand. I'd had them all my life. And all my life, I'd been able to sense injury and sickness with them and ease pain. But not heal, though I had sensed the power within me to do so. That had remained dormant until I had come into contact with others of my kind and had entered the Monère's secret society, a violent and dangerous world. There, I had used these molesmarks the Monère had only heard about in their lore and legends but had not seen since the time of their great exodus from the Moon, their dying planet that they had abandoned four million years ago. I'd used the Goddess's Tears to heal and to hurt. And the injury I was capable of inflicting had been enough to have the rogue bandits who'd kidnapped me consider cutting off my hands. My mother had spoken true… trouble did seem to follow me like a dark cloud. But if there had been peril, there had also been grace. I rubbed those pearly moles now, felt the tiny bumps, and wondered if they could save Beldar. If they could save us.

The taxi came to a halt in front of my Greenwich Village apartment, and we got out. Braced between Amber and Gryphon, Beldar managed to hobble to the elevator. Chami and I followed behind. I'd sent the others back to the Pierre. If I was going to have sex, I wanted to have it in relative privacy, away from the acute senses of the others.

Why was I thinking about sex? Because that was the way I healed.

Yeah, I know. Not the most convenient gift, mine.

The elevator doors pinged open and we stepped onto the seventh floor. Though Beldar's harsh panting and choked groans sounded loud in our ears, a human would have barely heard them. Nor would they have smelled anything. Had anyone seen him, he would have appeared drunk, listing and unsteady, having to be supported by others. But there were no eyes to watch him in the empty corridor other than our own.

I opened the door and he staggered in, leaning heavily against Amber. He sank down—collapsed, really—onto my small love seat. My apartment, like most apartments in Manhattan, was small. It was essentially only two main rooms; the tiny kitchen and even tinier bathroom did not count. The main space had a small dining area near the front door. The rest of the oblong space was the living room, a sitting area comprised of a rust-colored love seat and a green-patterned armchair.

The remaining room was my bedroom, which was even smaller than the living room space. Basically just my queen-sized bed—which I'd gotten, incidentally, before I'd known I was a Queen, in case you're wondering—and a crammed-in dresser. Hip-wide walking space only in there.

I really didn't know where to put Beldar, wouldn't know until I'd seen how badly injured he was. And something in me shied away from doing that because I knew it was going to be something horrible, something I'd want to run screaming from instead of embrace.

I shut the door behind me, and the locks snicked loudly into place. Bracing myself, I turned back to look at him. Beldar's eyes were closed, his head tilted back, resting against the love seat. His skin was pale and clammy, and his heart was beating fast for a Monère, sixty beats per minute instead of the usual thirty, pounding like a fierce drum in my ears.

The smell was even worse in the enclosed room, and the putrid stench of rotting flesh rolled my stomach. Fighting not to gag, I walked over to the windows and opened them, gasping in a few breaths of fresh air. But that didn't really help because my own fear was bitter and metallic in my mouth. I didn't know if I could do this. Even if I could find pleasure, make myself shine, make him shine, I didn't know if I could heal him.

Gryphon came up silently behind me. "What's wrong, Mona Lisa?"

"I don't know if I can do this," I said softly.

His arms came around me and I leaned back into the comfort of his embrace, gazing blindly out the window into the blackness of night.

"You sound fearful," he said with surprise. "You have never been afraid before."

I laughed, but it was not a happy sound. "I have always been afraid, Gryphon. Always."

"Then I had not seen it before. I have only seen your fearlessness, your great heart." He turned me in his arms, peered deep into me with his sharp falcon's eyes. He was a gyrfalcon in his other form, and keenness of sight all the way down into another's soul was one of his gifts.

"You doubt yourself," he said with soft amazement, "when you never have before."

"I'd never failed before. But I failed with you. I couldn't heal you when you were dying. And Beldar smells much worse than you did even near the end, weeks later, when you were rotting away from the silver poisoning you from within. What happens if I fail with him, too?"

"You did not fail with me," Gryphon said softly. "You simply found another way to save me. If you cannot heal him with your power, we will find another way with him as well."

His trust humbled me. But his words made me think, gave me an idea. One I didn't like but had no choice but to pursue. Looking into Gryphon's beautiful eyes, this man, this miracle whom I loved so much… it was the hardest thing to be the Queen that they called me, and ask what I asked next of him.

I took a deep choking breath and made myself do it. "Gryphon, you've interacted the most with the demon dead. Are the most knowledgeable about them among us. I… I must ask you to search for Lucinda. Perhaps the demon dead princess will know how to heal Beldar. I'll do my best to heal him, but in case I can't… Take Chami with you and try to find her, please. For me. For all of us."

Gryphon brought my hand up, and pressed a gentle kiss to the back of my fingers. "Of course. I shall go do as you ask." He strode to the door, Chami beside him, and I watched them, feeling a terrible knot of worry and fear twist my stomach as I sent them out into danger.

"Be careful," I called out to them because I could not stop myself. "If you cannot… if the hellhound is with her… Don't let yourselves be hurt. Come back to me safe and whole, and as you said, we will find another way."

Gryphon smiled, a tender curve of his lips. "As my Queen commands." And then he and Chami were gone. Only Amber remained. Amber, me, and a dying Monère warrior bitten by a beast from Hell.

I took one last deep breath of cool night air and walked over to Beldar, eased him out of his long coat. Then, kneeling before him, I began unbuttoning his shirt. It was stained on the right side by a dark wet substance—the source of the foul stench.

"I've dreamed of this," Beldar said, his mouth quirked up in a weak smile. "You kneeling in front of me, your hands touching me. Of course, I hadn't imagined myself in quite this much pain."

"I, no doubt, was the one in pain," I said tartly, a hard glint entering my eyes.

"Ouch." He gave me a rueful smile. "Still don't forgive me for when we first met."

"When we first met, Beldar, you were going to rape me. No, I do not forgive you. You would have taken me without a qualm, wearing that pleasant smile that even now graces your lips."

"Ah, but I would have thanked you afterward," he said like the charming bastard he was, grinning with a shadow of his old charisma.

While it was true I hadn't forgotten, would never forget, I also wasn't as mad as I pretended to be. We'd been intruders, Gryphon and I, stealing into Mona Sera's dwelling. And when Beldar had pounced on me, it had actually been in an attempt to save Amber from their Queen's wrath. Amber had refused to rape me, so Beldar was going to do so in his stead. Twisted, and yet still gallant in a perverse way.

And so, even though my fear of that time was still a sharp memory within me, my hands were gentle as I pushed open his shirt… and gasped. Not a smart thing to do because it drew more of that terrible smell into my lungs.

He'd been bitten on the right side, just below the ribs. Terrible ripping tears that had turned his flesh into jagged raw meat with deep gouging grooves. And yet that wasn't what made me gasp. It was the color of his skin surrounding that awful bite that filled me with such revulsion.

Blackness had seeped malevolently beneath the surface of his white skin, swirling, spreading slowly in a sluggish creeping advance even as I watched, like a dark hand of corruption moving insidiously within him. Like an evil hand of death, despoiling the clean flesh it touched, changing it into putrid mush.

It had spread across his entire abdomen and was moving up his chest. The blackish discharge oozed from the hole in his side like fecal drainage, making the nurse in me wonder if his bowels had been perforated. But only for a moment. The Monère part of me that could smell him knew that it wasn't stool that leaked out his side but rotten, decaying flesh.

"Merciful Light. It looks even worse than it feels," Beldar said faintly. "And it feels really, really bad." A painful shudder rippled through him.

A sharply indrawn breath turned me to Amber, to find him kneeling beside us. Wetness glistened his eyes as he gazed upon the horror that was Beldar. Any doubts about whether Amber cared for this man ceased to be as I looked into those deep sorrowful eyes. Yes, Amber cared. He cared deeply.

"Do not fear, Beldar," Amber murmured. "Mona Lisa shall aid you."

The total faith I heard in Amber's words shook me. How could he believe in me like that? Completely, with such absolute trust?

Beldar's face suddenly twisted. "Oh, Goddess!" he cried, as another agonizing wave of pain wracked his body, and the corrupting darkness crept further up him. "Hurry, please," he gasped, fear wild in his eyes. "If you are going to try and save me, do so quickly while there is yet something to salvage."

I gazed at him helplessly for a moment. With his fear echoing within me, desire was the farthest thing I felt. Then a wonderful calm stole over me, that stillness that sometimes came upon me before a battle, when I knew there was nothing else to do but go forward. The doubt, the unusual hesitance in me faded away, disappeared as I realized there was no one else to help him. Only me. We no longer had time to doubt and worry. Only act. And I knew what I wished to do.

My right hand came up to cover the ravaged side of him, to barely touch the ruined surface gently. Putrid slime wet my hand, coated it. But it was the pain deeper within that decay that called forth my own power to the fore, pulling it from the center of me. It flowed up my body, and washed down my arms and out through my hand in a powerful rush. The Goddess's Tears embedded in my palm tingled and warmed, reverberating my hand as that energy spilled down into his wounds, taking away his pain, balming it like a cool wind as it searched and assessed and found that the damage within him was deep and malignant, frighteningly so.

"Oh, my," Beldar breathed, turning wondrous eyes to me. "You took away the pain."

"Only temporarily. And only the pain. I cannot heal you that way."

"I know," he whispered. "You heal with sex." And with the pain gone, the look in his eyes became more heated, more male.

I shook my head. "No intercourse, Beldar. Amber will be the one in my body, bringing me as I bring you."

"No sex?" he said, pained. "I'm dying, Mona Lisa, truly dying. But you are killing me even more."

I touched his sweat-dampened face. "You are not mine, Beldar. I must return you. I would not be doing you a favor returning you more powerful than you came to me. You walk the line already with Mona Sera. I do not wish to be the one to tip you over so that she feels threatened, so that she feels she has to destroy you."

He froze under my hand in that unnatural stillness the Monère were capable of. And I did not know if it was in fear, or because he was not used to a woman's gentle touch, making me wonder how long it had been since anyone had touched him in kindness, in tenderness?

"You think optimistically," Beldar said quietly. "In terms of a future when I do not know if I truly have one. When I saw you that first time with Amber, there on the dungeon floor as you tried to save him, both of your bodies aglow, filled with our moon's marvelous light, I thought then that if Amber were to die, being with you, being in you like that, would be a wonderful way to go."

Slowly, carefully, he brought up a hand to lay it over mine, to press my fingers even more into him so that my palm cradled his cheek and jaw. Turning his head ever so lightly back and forth, he rubbed himself against my hand. "I still feel that way. That it would almost be worth dying for if you touched me as you touched him. With care and compassion and kindness." With those words, Beldar laid himself bare, let me see him naked without his cheerful, blithe mask. As I gazed into his serious, beautiful green eyes, I did not know how to respond.

"If it does not work," Beldar said quietly. "If you cannot save me, then will you take me into yourself?"

I'd been reared among humans and had enough of their blood in me so that intimacy with a man was not something I shared lightly. A bond was forged between people who joined their bodies one with another. And I was possessive enough that I wanted to keep those that I claimed. But if Beldar was going to perish, then for that short period of time before he went, he would be mine in truth. Only mine. My touch would be the last he knew. My kiss, the last to touch his lips.

"Yes," I said, in a husky rasp. "If it does not work… then yes."

Mixed emotions flurried across Beldar's face. "I do not know now what I wish for. For you to heal me… or not heal me."

I laughed softly and let heat seep slowly into my own eyes. "No intercourse does not mean no pleasure, Beldar."

He turned dazzled eyes to his old friend. "I envy you your Queen, Amber. It must be joyous to belong to her."

"Yes," Amber said. "She is more. Better. We are fortunate."

"I am the one who is fortunate," I said, rising to my feet, my thoughts centered on what needed to be done. "Help me remove his clothes, Amber, and your own while I wash my hand and retrieve the bedding from the other room."

"And then I shall remove yours when you return," Amber rumbled, his eyes bleeding from deep blue to that pure startling golden amber. His cougar eyes.

Pulling myself away from the hot sensual promise in those eyes, I went into the bathroom. Cold water ran over my hands as I washed them in the sink. Drying them, I went into my bedroom, tore the comforter from the bed, and brought it out into the living room. Spreading it over the carpet, I tossed the pillows I had also carried with me down on top of it.

"This will jostle him less," I said softly to Amber, "and give us more room to maneuver."

With that striking gentleness that I always found so surprising in one so big, Amber lowered Beldar down onto our makeshift bed, Beldar's bare legs and naked pale arms looking so white against the blackness eating the center of his body.

In the short moment of time I had been gone, Amber had managed to rid himself of his clothing. Big and brawny, he was a shocking contrast against Beldar's injured frailness, his skin gleaming white and pure and whole like the healthy animal that he was. Muscles bulged in Amber's arms, shoulders and chest as he laid Beldar down on top of the comforter. The sinewy columns of his legs flexed and swelled, his powerful thighs bulging as he knelt, moving in that natural, graceful, unselfconscious ease that I envied. I would never be as comfortable as he was, unclothed.

My eyes moved down him as Amber stood up. And the sight of him dangling long and thick, stirring, coming alive, becoming wider and fuller, made me flush with heat. I stood unmoving, a pliant doll, as he came to me and with gentle care, lifted the T-shirt over my head. Those large fingers, surprisingly nimble, undid the clasp of my bra and I watched as those twin cups dropped to the floor, a splash of whiteness. Instinctively, my cheeks burning, my hands came up to cover the small, delicately rounded curves of my breasts.

A sound of protest came from the ground. "No, please. Don't cover yourself." Beldar's eyes locked with mine, vivid, pleading, flashing with a deepening green fire. "Let me see you," he whispered.

Trembling, I dropped my hands back down to my side. Closing my eyes, I felt the cool night air whisper across my skin, felt my nipples peak and bud beneath that breezy touch.

"You're beautiful," Beldar said softly. "Beautiful."

I shook my head, knowing I was not. But didn't tell Beldar to look away. Dying cut him a lot of slack. I kept my eyes closed and let his remain open.

I felt the waistband of my jeans tighten and then loosen. Heard the rasp of the zipper sliding down. Felt the worn denim and then my underwear being pushed down my legs, leaving me horribly, vulnerably naked. My hands fisted, my jaws clenched. I shook with the control I exerted to remain still under Amber's gentle disrobing.

Beneath his urging hand, I stepped out of my pants, shaking like a leaf blown by a strong wind. A hand tilted up my chin. "Open your eyes," Amber said softly.

My lashes lifted and I stared into his brilliant amber eyes.

"Drop your shields," he murmured, stroking his fingertips along the softness of my cheeks.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"You keep leashed your natural attraction to us, your Aphidy, barricaded behind a high strong wall of your will. Allow it to come out and it will be easier for you." He bent down and pressed his lips against mine in a soft sweet caress, "Lower your shields," he said, and capturing my lower lip with his teeth, bit down hard enough for it to both hurt and please.

With a gasp, a jerky sob, I loosened my control. Like a wild animal suddenly set free, the inner power within me that was always near the surface, roared out with breathtaking force, spilling from me and hitting the others.

They cried out and suddenly Amber was crushing his mouth down on mine, forcing my lips open, plunging a wide, thick tongue inside, hunting, seeking, finding, capturing my tongue with his, kissing me with almost punishing force, as if he would eat me alive. I opened my lips wider, slid my tongue against his, and pushed and parried, teased and tantalized, hungry mewling sounds spilling from my mouth as I ate from him in turn.

Amber's strong arms wrapped around me and the world tilted and cloth brushed against my heated skin. I found myself on the ground, my face only inches away from Beldar. His luminous eyes, sparkling like precious emerald gem-stone, were opened wide, dazzled and dazzling. His lips were parted; full, flushed, cherry-red… alluring. I leaned over and tasted him, too.

Beldar groaned as my lips met his, and his mouth moved against mine with a terrible hunger.

"Let me in, let me in," he pleaded, and the echo of his words, so like Gryphon's, sent a flush of tingling heat through me. I parted my mouth and he swept in and took control of the kiss, his agile tongue hungrily learning the. contours of my soft inner flesh, the smooth surface of my teeth, the feel of the wet slide of my tongue against his, rubbing, sliding, gliding against mine, entwining them and then sucking my tongue into the cavern of his own mouth.

The taste of him was tart and tangy, like sweetness edged with something sharper. He murmured, groaned, breamed into my mouth, one hand sliding to the back of my neck to hold me to him, the other hand smoothing down my shoulder. Then like a lure he could not resist, he cupped my breast, rubbed a thumb over a taut nipple, peaking it even more. I made a soft sound and he ate it down.

"Blessed Lady, you are so sweet, so sweet," he cried and swallowed me up in another kiss.

Behind me, Amber pressed his heated lips down my back, and nibbled my shoulder, making me push back and writhe against him as one big hand flattened across my belly and pulled me back against him so that he pressed, thick and long, against my bottom, a hard shaft riding between my cheeks.

Before me, I slid a hand up Beldar's hair-prickled thigh until I held him full, thick, and aroused in my hand. He nipped my lower lip as Amber had done earlier, a sharp sweet stinging bite. I rewarded him by wrapping my fingers hard around him, pulling a low agonized sound from deep in his chest. But like the nip he'd given me, I knew it wasn't pain he felt but pleasure.

Amber's splayed hand smoothed even lower down my belly, sliding into my triangle of hair. A thick, callused finger pushed slowly inside me with testing roughness and I bucked back against him, squeezing that coarse finger with delicate, clinging inner muscles. At the same time, unconsciously, I squeezed what I held in my hand. Beldar groaned long and hard into my mouth, and he bucked forward, pushing himself within my tight grasp.

He tore his mouth from mine, pressed his heated face against me, and panted in my ear. "Oh, Goddess. Oh, Goddess. Yes, yes, more."

And then I couldn't hear anything. Could only feel as Amber pulled his finger out and began pushing his much bigger, much wider penis into me.

I wasn't stretched enough, wasn't wet enough. I was moist but not soaking wet. I was dry enough, tight enough, to feel every pushing, stabbing, stretching inch of his pulsating hardness moving into me, invading me. And it was wonderful, wonderful with that touch of discomfort. I could feel him even more, even sharper, with that edge of pain mixing with the incredible pleasure.

Light began to shimmer my skin, turning me into a luminous glowing thing, leaving Amber with no doubt as to what I felt. We only glowed in pleasure. And it was pleasure that inundated me, a painful pleasure.

I turned my face into Beldar's. "Shine," I whispered against his full, tender lips, "Shine for me," and lapped across the parted seam of his mouth. With my hands, both of them now, I pumped Beldar's hard velvety shaft in my closed fists in time to Amber's stretching, insistent push-and-slide entry into me.

I pulled—up and up. One long slow squeezing pull, almost terribly tight—and Beldar rewarded me with another groan, with the shimmer of his own pleasure lighting him from within.

As Amber pulled out of me, his fat mushroom head bumping and gliding along my responsive inner tissues, making me catch my breath, I started with my other hand at Beldar's base, pulling slowly, tightly, up his root as my other thumb swirled over his weeping crown, rubbing over his sensitive tip, anointing him with his own essence.

I lifted my thumb and brought it to my mouth, my tongue flicking out to taste him as Beldar watched with harsh breath and glittering eyes. I savored his essence, swirled it along my tongue and opened my mouth to his, sharing his own taste with him. Grating a rough oath against my lips, he plunged his tongue into me. Pushing, retreating. Sliding in, sliding out. Again and again in a heavy surging rhythm, fucking my mouth as I tightened my lips around him and sucked his tongue, my cheeks hollowed out, my mouth a receptive oral sheath for his thrusting aggression. He murmured, muttered, made wild sounds against my lips. And then he was tearing sounds from me as his fingers clasped my nipples, tugging and squeezing them, rolling them between tight thumb and forefinger in rhythm to his thrusting tongue and his sliding, hot-frictioned movement in the sheath of my hands.

The sensation of Beldar's hands, lips, tongue, and fingers, his pulsating hardness in my hands, and Amber's thickness pushing, pulling in me… It all built and built in a powerful spiraling tension within me, winding me tighter and tighter. The room glowed brilliantly with our incandescence, with our bright light as I twisted and climbed and stumbled to the very top of the cliff, teetering there for a long precarious moment, heat filling me up, swelling, brimming. And then spilling over.

I reached blindly down with one hand as I felt my contractions begin and found Beldar's tightly scrunched balls. One squeeze and I spilled him over, too. He pulsed and jerked in my hands, and wet fluid splashed onto my stomach and chest, so hot. And then I was taken over by my own release. But even then… even then I did not forget. My hand released his pulsing length and found his wet oozing side. And the reason for all this, the purpose, was foremost in my mind amidst our tumultuous release.

Heal—I thought, I willed, even as I shuddered and trembled. Please heal! And crying, convulsing, I spilled the hot energy of my climax and of Amber's jetting release into that wounded, blemished spot, channeling everything pouring out from us there, with strength and with prayer.

Please, Mother Moon. Please help me help him. Save us. Save my people. I can't—won't!—give any of them up.

My light peaked and began fading back into me, and I felt Amber's incandescence mute and dim. But the room still glowed. Beldar still glowed.

I removed my hand, pulled back from Beldar so I could see. And wanted to cry in anguish. To say no!

The torn flesh had healed. But his skin still had that dark stain, that malevolent blackness against the pure white of the rest of him. But the darkness was different somehow. He gleamed from within like a shiny unearthly thing. Radiance burst from him with almost harsh brilliance, lighting even that dark rotted core of him so that it gleamed and sparkled like black diamonds caught beneath the sun. But it wasn't the sun that shone. It was the moon—our life source, our energy. The essence of who we were.

Amber shifted, pulled out of me, and lifted up on an elbow to gaze uncertainly down at Beldar. "What's happening?" he asked.

"I don't know," I whispered, as befuddled and caught up in the wonder of what I was seeing as much as he.

Beldar looked down at himself. But as the light started to change, to grow even brighter, fiercer, his expression of awe gave way to one of frightened panic. His eyes rounded and he threw back his head, screaming in hoarse pain. His body thrashed and rolled in agony.

"What's wrong?" I asked and grabbed his hands, pinning him down so he wouldn't hurt himself as he tossed and turned.

"Hurts," he cried. "Dear Goddess, it hurts. Worse than before. Ahhh!" He bucked suddenly, his body arching up off the ground, almost lifting me with him, as a violent spasm gripped him. His feet pedaled frantically against the floor, moving him clockwise around me, as if he could desperately outrun the pain that way.

"What's the matter?" Amber asked, grabbing Beldar's ankles, anchoring him still. But the moment Amber touched him, he knew. As I had known with that first contact.

"He's warm. Almost hot," Amber said softly, and his eyes, when he lifted them to me, were frightened.

By nature, Monère were cold-blooded creatures, their skins cool, their heartbeats slow. Night was their domain and they slept during the day when the hot sun ruled the sky. As a Mixed Blood, I was different. I could walk the days as well as the nights. I could withstand the sun, the heat, as well as the cool darkness. But Full Bloods could not.

I didn't know if what was happening was because of me. I didn't heal this way. My curative process was quick and clean. They were usually miraculously whole right after I channeled energy into them. It had never been like this before, a prolonged, protracted, intensifying process. Nor had anyone continued to glow for so long after I had stopped. Was the human part of my energy flow somehow making him warm? Or was it part of the corruption itself? Most importantly, how long could Beldar's body tolerate the increased temperature?

He writhed and tossed on the ground in pitiful distress and we could only anchor him by wrists and ankles while he burned. And burned was the word for it. The black light glowing through his chest and abdomen became almost unbearably brilliant and warm. Black shards of light glittered and gleamed through the front of him like the sun pulsing through a dark prism. But as he tossed and moaned, begged and cried in tearful writhing agony, the blackness seemed to grow lighter. He sparkled brilliantly, a harsh black-and-white thing.

Slowly, so slowly that I wasn't sure if I was seeing the truth of what was, or of what I wished it to be… slowly that emitting light gained ascendance over the darkness, overpowering it, shining through it… burning it away. The dark edges shrunk, slowly eaten away by the pure cleansing white light.

Beldar simply lay there now, moaning softly and panting, slicked with perspiration as he continued to glow, as light slowly overcame darkness. But it was a cool dampness, not a warm one that drenched his skin.

"It's burning the corruption away, Beldar," I said, caressing his wrists in comfort now rather than in restraint. "Soon," I crooned. "It's almost done."

His chest heaved, filling and emptying like a bellow. "I pray that it finishes soon, either way. As long as I never experience that pain again. Dying would be better than going through that again."

"Hush," I admonished gently. "You're not going to die. You're going to live." I was certain of it now as the warmth in his skin faded even as the darkness within him disappeared. When the last speck of that rotten blackness vanished in a stunning blaze of glorious white light, the radiance was gone. Like a switch suddenly flipped off, he suddenly stopped glowing, and the light vanished back into Beldar in one quick flash.

I ran my hands gently over the new skin on Beldar's chest. His flesh was smooth, whole, healed. I felt only solid muscle and untorn skin beneath my palms as I slid my hands lower, over his abdomen. Sensed only wellness through my tingling moles.

"You're well," I said, smiling brilliantly.

He lay there on his back, looking completely wrung out. "I feel as if I've been to Hell and back."

"I did that once," I said quietly. "I felt as if I were being torn apart."

"That pretty much describes it." Beldar's lips curved into a tired smile. "You healed me."

I shook my head. "I'm not sure that I did. My powers don't work like that. Maybe it was simply your own lunar light within you. Maybe that healed you once it was brought out."

"No," Beldar said with soft surety, "you healed me."

Chapter Six

We ended up taking turns showering. I went first at the men's insistence, even though I thought Beldar should go before me—the putrid smell still clung to him.

Amber efficiently bagged the comforter and Beldar's shirt, both stained with slimy blackness, and threw them out. The room smelled much better with them gone. Beldar ended up wearing one of my size large T-shirts, one of the ones I usually wore to bed.

"It smells of you," he said, his emerald green eyes somehow looking even larger and more brilliant with his damp hair slicked back away from his face.

I didn't know how to treat him now. Not with the combative banter we usually thrust and parried our words with. We might not have had intercourse, but we'd been intimate, and I discovered that that in and of itself created a bond. Less strong but still there. And somehow, I could read him better' now. I saw the sadness that filled those eyes for one brief moment before he slid his usual carefree mask back on, a charming roguish smile once more gracing his lips.

I felt an answering sadness in me that I had to give him back into Mona Sera's cruel rule. That he couldn't belong to me.

I didn't know what to say, so I said nothing.

The doorbell rang and I went to the door and opened it without looking because I knew by their slow heartbeats who were on the other side of it—Gryphon and Chami. But they weren't alone. Another, whose heart did not beat, stood beside them. Lucinda. And in front of her was what looked like an amazingly big dog.

I backed up slowly and instinctively away from that big dog because I knew that wasn't what it really was.

I'd never seen a hellhound before, had only heard their hellish baying, but as I looked into those yellow eyes—not amber but almost a true yellow, like the burning fires of hell, feral and frighteningly intelligent—I knew that that was what stood before me. A hellhound almost as big as me, its head reaching nearly to my shoulders, brindle black and brown in coloration.

It padded silently into my apartment and for one wild moment, I seriously considered giving in to my body's screaming urges and throwing myself out the window to escape it, even knowing that it was seven stories down to the bottom, a distance I could not survive. It was a gut primal reaction to danger, the desire to flee. These creatures ate big bad demons, gobbled them down. Even the demon dead fled before them. It took a huge straining effort on my part not to run screaming away from it.

I moved slowly backward until I bumped up against Amber. His hands lifted to my shoulders and began to shift me behind him, but I resisted, shaking my head slightly. Beldar was a still, unmoving presence beside Amber, though that wasn't completely true. He was still in the sense he wasn't running, but he was moving—trembling. Almost violent tremors shook his entire body.

We were all deathly still, fearful that any sudden moves might trigger violence. Only Lucinda strolled casually into the apartment with swaying lithe ease. Gryphon and Chami entered and closed the door behind them, and the latching sound it made seemed loud and portentous in the harrowing silence.

"You lied to me," Lucinda said, her eyes cool, wide, and alert. "No one here has been bitten."

"They didn't lie," I said hoarsely. "Beldar was bitten but he's healed now."

Lucinda gave an almost evil laugh. Melodious, tinkling even, but with a malice that made your skin creep. "Now I know you surely lie. No one heals a hellhound's bite."

Well, hell. How do you argue with a demon dead princess? "It's the truth. Can't you smell it, the decaying scent? It lingers still on Beldar."

Both mistress and beast padded over to Beldar, and he looked as if he didn't know which to be more frightened of, Lucinda or the hellhound. Beldar's eyes grew enormous but he didn't run. More than I could have done, I think, faced with the two of them so close they could touch you, kill you, rip you apart. Or simply bite you again and leave you to die in rotting corruption.

"You must be Beldar," Lucinda crooned. One long, sharp fingernail scraped down his cheek. He shuddered and I wondered it if was in fear, or in reaction to Lucinda's sensual voice slithering over him in a tactile caress.

"Yes," he rasped, a faint sound barely audible. He looked as if he were trying not to breathe too hard. Be still and maybe the beasts before him would not tear him apart.

A long pointy fingernail stroked down Beldar's chest, slipped under his T-shirt and lifted it up, baring his tense, ridged abdomen.

Lucinda's head lowered and her cheek brushed against Beldar's nipple. "I do smell something…" She turned her head slowly back and forth, rubbing against him almost like a cat, and drew in a deep breath "… here."

There was a dazed expression in Beldar's eyes, helpless and bewildered. Fear was there, yes. But also arousal. Shocking, unexpected, sexual excitement was growing against his will. He hadn't known what a demon dead could do to him.

Beside Lucinda, the beast's great jaws yawned wide and open, revealing something no earthly canine possessed—a double row of razor-sharp fangs. As if one row wasn't already enough. A long pink tongue rolled out and lapped against Beldar's healed fleshed in the exact spot where he had been bitten, leaving behind a flushing redness, as if sandpaper had scraped across that skin. Beldar looked as if he were about to keel over or throw up. Lucinda straightened up and captured Beldar's eyes. "Did Brindell bite you?"

Brindell, apparently, was the hellhound's name.

"Yes," Beldar said faintly, his voice dry and crackly. "And Mona Lisa healed me."

All eyes, including those frightening yellow ones, swung to me.

I never did well being the object of everyone's scrutiny. Made me want to distract them. "If you can't heal a hellhound's bite, Lucinda, as you say, then why did you come?" Even without serving as a distraction, it was something I wanted to know.

Something flickered in Lucinda's eyes. "I was going to kill him. Free him from his pain. Give him a chance to make the transition to Hell before all his energy was completely consumed."

A mercy kill. That was unexpectedly—kind. More like what Halcyon would have done. Not, I would have thought, something Lucinda would do or even think to do. Perhaps she was more her brother's sister than she looked. More than her stunning, lushly cruel appearance suggested. Or maybe she simply wanted to clean up her mess, get rid of the evidence, as they say. But then again, when Beldar died—and he would have done that fairly soon—all evidence would have disappeared with him. I didn't know what to think.

"How did you heal him?" Lucinda demanded, her eyes fixed on me with cool, sharp appraisal.

"I brought forth his light. I think his own light ate away the corruption."

"Ah, you made him glow, did you, you naughty girl." She gave a shiver-inducing low chuckle. "His light or your power? Which was it, I wonder."

Hopefully she wasn't thinking of conducting an experiment. Like having Brindell bite Beldar again or someone else, then Lucinda making them glow to see if they healed. It was a nasty, nasty thought. I didn't like having it in my head.

The hellhound glided over to me. I tensed, unable to help myself, as the great brindled beast sniffed my face, lingering around my mouth, and moved downward. I flinched as it sniffed my crotch. Gee, maybe it had more in common with its canine brothers—or would that be sisters?—than just the "hound" at the end of its name.

Satisfied with me, the creature snuffled curiously at Amber, standing behind me, then rolled out its long pink tongue in a knowing doggy grin as if to say: Ah, so that's who I smell on you.

It seemed uncannily intelligent, those yellow eyes, as if it understood all that had been said. Closing its mouth and those frightening teeth, it swung back to sniff at me once more. How fun.

"Brindell seems to be as fascinated by you as my brother is," Lucinda murmured, and I didn't know whether to be outraged or not on Halcyon's behalf at having his sister compare him to a dog. A hellhound, demon beast, or not, was still essentially a dog. Hell's version of one, at least.

"Perhaps it is the human blood mixed within your veins," Lucinda pondered thoughtfully, her hand resting casually on Beldar's chest, still bared, as if she had forgotten where it lay. "It makes you different. Stronger instead of weakening you as it does to others, so that you have both sides' strength without the weaknesses."

Lucinda turned her contemplative eyes back to Beldar, and her gaze fell to the slow bounding pulse in his neck. It sped up beneath her dangerous attention. "I wonder if your blood would taste of her magic. Or would it carry a hint of the corrupting darkness that almost consumed you? What do you say, Beldar? Hmmm? A little sip of your blood, and then Brindell and I shall leave you."

It was almost funny. With Beldar a head taller than Lucinda, she looked tiny beside him, like something he had to protect instead of something threatening him. But the trapped look in Beldar's eyes, the frozen stillness he held himself in beneath her hand, said he knew the real situation. The diminutive demon princess was something to be feared.

"The process by which he healed was strange, erratic," I said, speaking up. "I do not know how his blood would react in you. And I would ask that you not risk it, Lucinda."

She turned her dangerous, slumberous eyes my way. "You say that in an effort to spare your man."

"Yes, but it is also out of concern for you, Lucinda. You are Halcyon's sister," I said with truthful sincerity. "I would not wish any harm to come to you even inadvertently by my hand."

Her dark eyes, so like her brother's, narrowed in inscrutable thought. "How odd you are. No wonder he finds himself so drawn to you." Then she blinked, as if clearing away her thoughts. "Brindell," she called softly.

The hellhound swung away from me and padded obediently to her mistress' side. Without another word, Lucinda and her hellhound departed.

Beldar sagged against Amber as the door closed. I think we all sagged a little. Feeling as if gelatin were holding me up instead of solid bones, I sank shakily down onto the love seat.

"Not one of my best ideas, asking you to bring Lucinda back," I murmured weakly. "She wouldn't have been able to save Beldar anyway."

"No, but you were able to," Gryphon said. He gazed at Beldar, strode to the other man, and gave him a tight embracing hug. And I realized that Beldar had been Gryphon's friend, too.

"It is good to have you back, brother," Gryphon said, stepping back.

"It is good to be whole once more. And to garner a taste of the bounty you and Amber both enjoy." Beldar's tone was light, but the emotion shadowing his eyes was not. "You lucky bastards."

"Yes," Gryphon said softly, as the three of them turned to look at me—Amber, Gryphon, and Beldar. "Yes, we are. Very, very lucky."

Chapter Seven

When night fell again, we sat on that same bench in Rockefeller Plaza where all this had begun, waiting for Mona Sera. I sat in my usual left corner, with Beldar seated on my right. Amber, Gryphon, and Chami stood to my left, slightly behind me. And though Beldar sat on "their" side, versus "ours," he still felt a part of our group. There was no animosity, no wariness toward him on the men's part, nor him toward them. Only a touch of sadness.

Beldar was unusually quiet and serious, as if his glib and charming surface skin had burned away with his rotted flesh, leaving him naked and tender. And I… I seemed to be as quiet and serious and as solemn as he. We sat in silence until Beldar broke it.

"I will continue to hope, you know," he said, his brilliant green eyes fixed on the road in front of us.

"For what, Beldar?" I asked, making myself turn and look at him, something I had been avoiding doing up till now. His long white hair and shocking green eyes were as startling and beautiful as always. But the sight hurt me somehow rather than pleased me. Made my heart ache.

"That one day I, too, will become lucky."

Simple words, with not so simple meaning. They stabbed me sweetly because I wished it, too, in my heart of heartsthat he belonged to me. But wishing was just that, wishing. It did not make things come true.

"I do not think Mona Sera will ever give you up, Beldar," I said in a low voice.

His eyes continued to restlessly sweep the cars that passed. An almost-silent sigh lifted his chest. "You are correct. Mona Sera would sooner see me dust and ashes than have you acquire another of her men. She threw Gryphon and Amber away like broken toys, and now pouts like a spoiled child that you troubled to fix them and keep them. And not only that, but make them even better than what they once were. She envies you."

"Me?" I said. It would have surprised me less had he turned and smacked me across the face. "She envies me, her Mixed Blood bastard child?"

"Yes, she is jealous of Amber's and Gryphon's devotion to you. Devotion that she could never inspire. Will never be able to inspire. They served her, a pure Full Blood Queen, out of fear. As do I. As do all of her men. But they serve you, a Mixed Blood Queen, out of love. And they serve you better because of that love. That she will never be able to forgive you for—for making her jealous of you when she considers you less."

It was an oddly perceptive observation, something I, would never have conceived of. And yet that wasn't what I had meant. "I meant to say that she will not give you up because she values you."

His lips twisted into a wry smile devoid of humor. "You are correct. She does value me, as you say, or she would have simply let me rot away. Just bringing me to you is unusual care on her part. Yes, she… values me, and shall do so up until the time my threat to her outweighs my usefulness to her. Then she shall kill me without a blink, without a tear from those lovely cold eyes. Shall you mourn me then, Mona Lisa? Will you think of me as I will think of you with my last dying breath? Or will you have forgotten me long before?"

His words and the calm acceptance of his fate shook me. "She may give you to another Queen," I whispered.

"And risk having another benefit from something she gave up, as what happened with you?" He shook his head. "No, that is not Mona Sera's way."

"You must not wish to… become lucky, Beldar. It is both dangerous and unfair to you because it is unlikely ever to happen. You must be content that Mona Sera does care for you." In her own twisted, selfish way.

"But I am not content," he admonished me gently. "And you must not ask me not to hope. It is my sole reason for living now."

There were no words with which to answer him. I could do nothing but sit beside him and quietly bleed from his calm words.

"Do not forget me, Mona Lisa," he whispered softly, in the barest of sound, as two black Town Cars pulled up to the curb. Two cars looking like all the others that had passed by. But these thrummed with the unmistakable power of Monère males, and of the presence of another Queen.

I gazed blindly at those cars. "I… No, I won't forget you, Beldar."

My nails bit into my palms as I fiercely willed myself not to cry. I would not send him off with tears in my eyes.

Kyle and Frangois emerged from the second car and opened the rear door of the first. Smooth white hands extended from within and grasped each of theirs. Mona Sera stepped out, covered in a flowing black cape covering her from head to toe. The lustrous brown mink collar was her only color.

She walked toward us and Kyle and Frangois fell subserviently behind her, ignored like good servants.

Beldar went forward to meet her and bowed deeply, kissing her hand in a smooth courtly gesture. "My Queen, I thank you for saving me." His voice was low with a husky warmth that brought a cool smile to Mona Sera. But his eyes… bent over low, bowing at his waist, his eyes glanced back at me. They found and met mine, and his words, I knew, were meant for me, not her.

"You have healed him," Mona Sera observed with not one word of thanks.

"Yes," I said and didn't bother to explain how I had managed to do so. I owed this cold creature nothing.

"When do you leave," Mona Sera asked abruptly, her tone clipped and sharp. Displeased.

"Tomorrow."

"To Louisiana," she said. "Mona Louisa's former territory, once quite prosperous, but no longer so after Hurricane Katrina's wrath." And I saw it clearly, then, what Beldar had seen when I had not. She was jealous of me. Of my men and of the territory that I had been awarded.

"Do not think," she continued with cool malice, "that the people there will embrace you as eagerly as they did Mona Louisa. You are far less a Queen than she was."

Louisiana had been Mona Louisa's former domain until she tried to kill me. Okay, not really kill me. Just deliver me into the hand of outlaw rogues who weren't exactly known for their gentle treatment of women. Oh yeah, and for trying to kill Gryphon when she could no longer have him. Bitch. She had a lot in common with my mother, come to think of it.

Now I had to take over what Mona Louisa had once ruled. I had to win over the local Monère there. And as my mother said, I doubted they would welcome me with opened arms. Too bad. They were stuck with me.

"Do not concern yourself on my behalf, Mother," I said mockingly. "I am up to the task before me. And if my territory is less than what it was, rest assured that I shall bring it back to its former glory."

"What unbecoming arrogance you have for a mongrel bastard."

"Your mongrel bastard," I returned evenly.

"The only reason I tolerate your presence now. But do not push me, child. And do not mistake our relationship for more than what it is. When you leave tomorrow, do not come back ever again or I shall hunt you down and kill you like the unwanted intruder you are. Is that clear, daughter mine?"

"Oh, yes, Mother dear. Like crystal."

She swept one last hateful glance as us—me sitting there, with my men tall and strong behind me—then she turned and walked away.

We watched as Kyle and Frangois returned to the second car, as Beldar gracefully handed Mona Sera into the back seat of the first car and shut the door.

Beldar looked up. Gave me one last searing look, his eyes running over my face as if he were engraving it into his memory. One last lingering glance from those haunting emerald eyes, so strikingly green set against the white spill of his hair, and then Beldar slid into the front passenger seat.

After they drove away, we sat there for a long time in the cool evening darkness, in an almost funereal silence; I mourned not the loss of my mother, but something truly heartbreaking, the loss of one of her men.

Beldar had always been hers, never mine. My mind knew that, but my heart did not. In my heart, I felt as if I had given him up.

"You cannot save everyone," Gryphon said softly beside me.

"I know." I truly did know that. But, oh, how I wished I could.

Chapter Eight

I watched as Gryphon and Amber carried the headboard and bed frame out of the apartment. Chami and Aquila hefted the mattress easily out after them. It was handy having five strong Monère men helping me move. Made things quick and easy.

In the tiny kitchen, Rosemary and Tersa were busy wrapping the glassware in newspaper and packing them in boxes. Thaddeus and Jamie carted each box downstairs as they became full, loading them onto the waiting truck parked in front of the apartment. They were being donated, along with the furniture, to a nearby homeless shelter.

Do not bring anything other than yourself and your clothes, I had been told. My new home in Louisiana was already fully furnished, and not just with ordinary furniture like the ones I was giving away, but with valuable antiques.

I gazed around the barren apartment that looked larger but more forlorn with its bare walls and naked flooring, and felt no sadness at leaving everything behind. I was taking the most important things with me, things that really matteredthe people in my household. My family.

"Is there anything else, milady?" Tomas asked me in his soft southern twang.

"I think that's it, Tomas, other than the kitchen stuff." With his light brown eyes and hair, Tomas reminded me of summer wheat fields swaying beneath the sun. He gazed at me with his usual quiet somberness. What wasn't usual was the closed, guarded expression on his face.

"Is something wrong, Tomas?"

His eyes fell, and he shook his wheat-colored hair.

I walked over to him and gently lifted his chin. "Tell me, Tomas, tell me what bothers you, please."

He lifted his eyes and looked at me like a child lost. "I thought that I would be the one to go," he said in a low voice.

"Go?"

"The one that you would give to Mona Sera."

My eyes widened. "Why would you think that, Tomas?"

"You love Amber and Gryphon. And Rosemary, as one of our few women, is too valuable. Aquila is good at business and can drive. And with his uncommon ability, Chami is uniquely useful. I have no special skills."

"Oh, Tomas," I said softly. His loyalty was as straight and true as the sword he had sworn into my service. I knew that had I chosen to give him up, he would have left me with bewildered eyes and a broken heart, but he would have gone had I ordered him to, because he had given his word to protect and to obey me.

He was only two inches taller than I was, so that I had only to lift my eyes a short distance to meet his, giving me an intimacy with him that I did not have with the other taller men.

"You are one of my guards," I told him. "When you gave me your oath, when I accepted you into my service, I also promised to protect you. I would never give you up, any of you. I would have bargained, negotiated with Mona Sera, had I not been able to save Beldar. But if she had left me with no other choice, I would have fought before I gave any of you to her."

"Mona Sera's men number more than twenty," Tomas said simply.

"Then between the six of us—Amber, Gryphon, Chami, Aquila, you, and I—we would have been equally matched against them. And we would have been fighting for something that meant more to us than simply obeying the orders of a Queen we feared. We would have won. At cost, but we would have won. Never doubt your worth to me again, Tomas. I hold every single one of you dear in my heart."

He expelled a shaky breath, bent low and kissed my hand. "No, my Queen. I shall not doubt you again."

When he straightened back up, I leaned over and kissed him gently on the cheek like a mother did with a beloved child. He rewarded me with one of his brilliant smiles that lit up his plain face, transforming his features into something almost handsome.

I'd found Tomas looking to serve at High Court. Grown too powerful for his Queen, she had simply released him from her service. More merciful, it would seem, than executing him on some flimsy pretense of punishment. Or perhaps he had grown too powerful for her to try that. He had been waiting there, unwanted, ignored by the other Queens, until I had approached him.

I wondered what happened to other warriors who had grown too powerful to be considered safe. Where did they go? Did they, too, become bandit rogues like Aquila had, even though no one overtly threatened their life? Did guards cast from their Queens' courts become outlaws simply because they had nowhere else to go?

No, I could not save everyone. But as I looked into Tomas's sweetly plain face, I was glad, fiercely glad, that there were a few that I could.

Epilogue

After I turned over my apartment key and had my deposit refunded to me without question—another nice perk that came with being Queen; having big, intimidating men looming behind me—I took them shopping.

Nice dresses for Tersa and Rosemary—they had politely but completely ignored my suggestion of getting some pants. Not only Monère men, it seemed, were old-fashioned—and more casual clothes for the boys. Young Jamie, who loved American pop culture, which he'd picked up from watching TV, was the most adventuresome among them. He fingered his new blue jeans as if they were more precious than diamonds, and eyed the cowboy boots adorning his feet with something close to awe. He had gazed so longingly at the boots, I hadn't been able to resist buying them for him.

Thaddeus picked out some pants and shirts with casual efficiency, while I had fun dressing Tomas and Aquila. Hmmm, what did you choose for a wild rogue gone respectable? Not so hard a choice, as a matter of fact. Aquila looked nothing like the bandit he'd once been, one of the group that had kidnapped me, in fact. With his Vandyke beard neatly trimmed and a face serious and proper, he looked more like a scholarly professor or the successful man of business he once was. Sharply creased charcoal slacks, a gray-and-black patterned vest, and a simple cream shirt fit him quite nicely.

"Yummy in a quiet, distinguished sort of way," I said, smiling.

Aquila fingered the neatly pressed pleats—only a tasteful few—with obvious pleasure. "Yes, milady, they are. It is very nice to have clothes that actually fit once more, and are not patched."

He'd been wearing donated clothes since helping us escape from the forest. And ill-fitting though the clothes had been, they were far better than the rags he'd worn. A bandit's life, it appeared, hadn't been too profitable.

I let him wander off to select a couple more sets of casual attire, and turned to study Tomas, who stepped out from the fitting room.

A smile broke across my face. The straight-cut black denim—he didn't know they were jeans and I didn't enlighten him—and the rich bronze hue of the shirt contrasted nicely with his wheat-colored hair and light brown eyes. The snug fit of his clothing made him look taller and emphasized his broad shoulders, narrow hips, and muscular arms and chest, all of which had been hidden beneath the looseness of his usual attire.

"Perhaps a size larger," Tomas said dubiously.

"Oh, no. This fits you perfectly," I murmured, twirling my finger at him. "Turn around."

He did so with endearing awkwardness, his cheeks staining a dull red under our interested perusal.

Yup, the rear view was just as perfect, the jeans molding to his backside with loving attention. One thing for certain, all of my guys had great butts.

"Mona Lisa enjoys a snug fit," Amber rumbled softly beside me.

I colored beneath his bland expression and the words that could be taken another, more intimate, way. With Gryphon I'd have had no doubts about a sexual innuendo, but with Amber I wasn't as certain if he had intended it or not. Bits of Amber's true personality were slowly emerging beneath my love and his new freedom, like his tendency toward dominance. I wasn't sure if this was another new aspect of him coming out.

Ignoring his comment, I turned to the others. "What do you think, Rosemary?"

The large cook ran an inspecting eye up and down Tomas. "He looks like a prime cut of meat," she said with a tiny smile.

Simple, dear Tomas flushed even more. My poor men, I don't think they were used to being ogled so blatantly by a bunch of women.

"Get used to it," I said, looking at both him and Aquila.

"To what?" Tomas asked.

"Women looking at you. And you guys can look right back. You, too, Chami," I said, turning to where my chameleon lounged in a chair.

"Can we?" Chami said, arching a brow.

"Yes, indeed. I don't know how many women there will be in our new territory, but any present, unattached and willing, you are welcome to date."

"Date?" Tomas said. "What does that mean?"

"Date means to court, kiss, hold hands. You know." I fluttered my fingers. "To do that kind of stuff with women you are attracted to."

The expression on Tomas's face could only be described as astounded. "You would allow us to do this 'date' thing?"

"Well, yeah. And not just allow it, but actively encourage you to. If there are single unattached women there, and they have a pulse, they are going to notice you guys. Feel free to notice them right back," I said with a grin.

"Does that pertain to us as well?" Gryphon asked, his face smoothed in that remote blankness that let you read nothing.

Is he asking because he wishes to see other women? Because he no longer wants me? a little voice whispered in my ear. Or was he asking because he feared me no longer wanting him?

A bit insecure, me? Yup. And it seemed to go both ways. We were both—or should I say, all three of us—insecure. If I let it, it could drive me crazy. I chose instead to go with my gut feeling.

I walked over to Gryphon, ran a light finger along the hollow of his throat, and smiled like the dangerous feline cat I was in my other form. "If you and Amber so much as look at another woman, I will scratch your eyes out, and then hers."

The blankness left Gryphon's face, and his eyes filled once again with expressive warmth. "When we have such rich bounty at hand, why would we wish to look elsewhere?"

I rewarded him with a light searing kiss. "Aw, you guys always talk so pretty."

White flakes of snow fell from the sky as we drove to the airport later that same night, like crystallized confetti dropping from the sky. Celebration, not sadness, at leaving this lonely island I had called home. An island packed to its bursting seams with people, but with none that I had been able to call my own. That had changed with the advent of Gryphon into my life, only a short time ago in matters of days and weeks. In terms of emotional commitment, a lifetime ago. New York was my old life. Louisiana was my future. A new home for us all.

We were a ragged lot of outcasts and misfits, composed of those unwanted and those thrown away. But we'd found a belonging with each other. Though we were small in number, we were strong. Together we would keep us all safe. But I wanted more than safety for us. I wanted us to be happy in all our varied needs.

A private jet was waiting for us, another perk of being a Queen. There would, no doubt, be other benefits, along with, other problems, that came with the title. That was the trouble with having things. You had to be strong enough to keep them.

Soon we would know exactly what Mona Louisa had left for us. May it be trouble or blessing, peace or strife, there was no other choice but to go forward. Yet even as we moved ahead, I could not help looking back and remembering a pair of vivid green eyes staring at me with such yearning, such soulful need.

Be safe. Be well.

And maybe someday we'd be able to do more than just survive. Maybe someday we'd both get lucky.

Author's Note

Dear Reader,

Enjoy meeting Mona Lisa and her beautiful men? For more, please pick up my first single title, Mona Lisa Awakening, and the sequel, Mona Lisa Blossoming, coming out from Berkley in February 2007. And be ready to pleasure all your senses as she awakens to powers hidden and bliss unexpected. As she ventures into the dangerous Monèrian society and discovers that wicked delight and perilous plight are often mixed as one… or two… or maybe even three…

Till then—

Sunny

www.sunnyauthor.com