Mona Lisa Awakening m-1 Page 11

  "Amber," I said, my voice tight and peculiar.

  He glanced back and froze as he saw the silver blade held to my throat over where my pulse beat. Miles stood behind me, holding the knife. Another man, Gilford, I think was his name, stripped me of my knives while the other two held my wrists.

  We were outnumbered and betrayed. "Run," I said roughly to Amber. "Get out of here."

  Amber hesitated, his face as hard as stone. Instead of running, he came rushing toward us. Damn it! The stubborn gallant fool never listened to me.

  "I wouldn't, if I were you," Miles said with silky menace, "or we shall test how fast she can heal silver."

  The threat halted Amber.

  "Drop the sword," Miles instructed. When Amber didn't move, the blade sliced lightly, professionally, and my blood sang in the air.

  Amber threw down his sword.

  "Very good," Miles said, praising Amber as if he was a dog being trained. "Now kneel. Lace your hands behind your head."

  Amber dropped to his knees and one of the bandits moved quickly behind him, clamping a silver cuff around his wrist. Twisting his arms roughly down behind his back, he fastened the remaining cuff. They'd had it all planned. Bastards.

  "Hand her over," said the bandit who had secured Amber so efficiently.

  "Patience, Aquila. You shall have her as promised after we have sampled her charms first. It is our Queen's most ardent wish. She greatly desires the ability to withstand the sun." And it seemed the way they were going to acquire that gift was by having Mona Louisa's men mate with me and carry my potency back to her.

  Miles yanked my hair back and swiped his sharp blade down my front. My dress parted open almost down to the knees, the fabric yielding like butter to the slicing knife.

  "Fancy yourself an artist with the blade, huh?" I gritted.

  "Oh, yes." Two more swift movements and my bra and panties fell away. "And I am as much an artist with my other knife."

  "See, that's your trouble. Too much emphasis on your dick."

  "With good reason, as you shall soon see."

  Not liking the sound of that, I started to struggle. Miles squeezed his arm around my neck and hooked a leg around one of mine. Rupert, to my right, trapped my other leg. Arms and legs held open, I was on wide display. At least I was still standing up.

  Rupert, the carrot-top, approached me holding a small vial similar to the one I had found in Mona Sera's bedroom. The one thai Gryphon had made me wash my hands three times after touching. Uh oh. I squirmed, wriggled, and twisted, but was held fast.

  "No!" Amber roared, lunging. Aquila jerked his chain back ruthlessly, throwing Amber to the ground.

  With great care, Rupert opened the vial. Ensuring that none of the fluid touched him, he carefully swiped the stopper over my nipples and between my silt. The men all looked at me with avid expectancy, Amber, with anguish. I swallowed, waiting for something to happen. But nothing did.

  "Give her more," Miles ordered harshly.

  Rupert looked at him with wide eyes.

  "Uh, you really don't have to. I'm starting to feel something," I lied.

  "Do it!" Miles screamed.

  Rupert jumped, spilling half the bottle onto my chest.

  "Sweet Goddess," Amber whispered.

  The oily, sweet-smelling substance dribbled down to soak in the hollow between my legs. Nothing for one blissful second. And then heat engulfed me like a rabid fire. I was surprised I didn't burst into flames. It felt as if fiery ants were crawling all over my entire flesh, stinging me, eating me alive.

  I gasped and collapsed, held up only by the men restraining me. They lowered me to my knees and stepped back.

  "Wipe the excess oil off of her!" Amber said hoarsely. "Quickly!"

  Gilford sliced off a chunk of my hem—I guess the dress was already ruined—wadded it up, and wiped it down between my breasts, down my stomach, so close to that area that was suddenly the focus of all that heat and burning fire, a place that throbbed and wept demandingly. I moaned and whimpered. Gilford threw the cloth hastily away from him.

  "You feel it now, don't you, whore?" Miles shoved me from behind and I fell forward onto my knees and hands. "Unnatural cunt. Even the Demon Prince lusts for you."

  I heard the rasp of his zipper going down.

  "That's right. On your hands and knees like the bitch in heat you are." His hand trailed down my back, over the curve of my buttock, and I nearly wept at his touch. It felt so good, so necessary.

  "Light up for me, you mongrel strumpet."

  I felt the head of him probe me in an unimaginable spot. And it felt so good, stretching me. Pleasure that edged into pain. My body screamed for him. I needed him in me. Now. Any way. It was the hardest thing I'd ever done in my life, to roll onto the ground, away from him, onto my back. To stare up at that beautiful, hard, ready cock that my body so desperately craved. I wept, above and below, shaking with need.

  Grabbing me by the hair, Miles yanked me to my knees and jerked my head to the side where he stood waving before me in rampant glory. "Open up." He nudged my lips with his hard staff. "Be a good girl and I might touch you. You would like that, would you not?"

  I whimpered. My lips parted and he pushed in a little.

  "That's a good little whore. Suck me."

  I gathered myself—how hard it was to do so—and slammed my clasped hands up hard into his balls. "Suck that," I panted and fell limply onto my side.

  Miles screamed with pain and rage. He squatted over, clutching himself. "Bitch! Unnatural mongrel bitch!"

  In outraged masculine fury, he threw himself onto me, forgetting himself, his hands wrapped around my throat. The weight of him over my flesh, the rub of his fabric over my nipples—God. I needed that more than I needed air. If my body had its way, it would have gladly let me strangle to death as long as he didn't move off me. I writhed and rubbed against him uncontrollably, wetting him with the excess oil from my body while he glared down at me, that once beautiful face now a twisted, evil grimacing mask as he squeezed and squeezed and shook me with violent rage.

  "Miles!" Aquila said sharply.

  "Do not worry," Miles snarled, breathing rapidly. "I won't kill her. I'm just choking some of the fight out of her."

  That's true, came a distant floating logic. Choking couldn't kill one of our kind. But I wasn't entirely Monère. I was also part human. And humans could be choked to death. It took longer, since I didn't breathe as much, but I began to feel the lack of air—a desperate clawing sensation. I was gasping, trying to draw in air. Suffocating. And over it all, I was burning, burning, burning!

  That terrible aching, throbbing need was only worsened, not relieved, the more I rubbed against him. My vision began to fade. I pushed weakly against his chest, my strength ebbing as the tremendous need for air and the desperate need of my body to be filled built and built and became too much. Something had to give.

  My hands tingled, burned, brightened with true heat. Every electric, pulsing desperate sensation that I felt poured out of me in a frothing rushing gush through my palms.

  The smell of burning fabric and singed flesh polluted the air. Someone was screaming. My throat was suddenly free and I gasped in sweet, life-sustaining air. My vision cleared and I lifted my head and saw Miles rolling madly on the ground a few feet away. The red imprint of my palms were seared into the pale flesh of his chest like a horrendous macabre brand. The fabric of his shirt was whole but for a neat outline where my hands had burned through, like two imprints of cookie dough that had been cut out with a cookie cutter.

  "See how long it takes you to heal that, prick." I gasped, using up the last of my strength. My head fell back onto the ground and my eyes closed. I felt that hot, burning torment creep back over my limp body, tightening it once again, and I wanted to weep and cry and throw myself onto the nearest man.

  I heard the others gather Miles up and leave. His cursing and weeping grew fainter.

  When I opened my eyes, Aquila stood above me,
the other seven men a safe distance away. He was handsome in a severe, stern-looking fashion, older, with short, dark curly hair. The neat appearance of his thin mustache and Van Dyke beard was at peculiar odds with his ragged clothing.

  If he raped me now I wouldn't be able to resist. Frankly, I might even welcome him with open legs. But he didn't fall on me as I expected, to my sharp relief and despair. There was no lust in his eyes, just a nicker almost of pity.

  He showed me the hand restraints he held. Had been holding all along, actually. Only I hadn't noticed them until he drew attention to them, so fractured was my concentration on the desperate clamoring of my traitorous body.

  "Are you able to hold out your hands, Lady?" Aquila asked.

  I didn't know. Could I? I grunted and lifted one hand up to sway feebly in the air. Aquila clamped the cold metal around it and I gratefully let my arm sag back down, leaving him with the burden of holding up the obscenely heavy weight my arm had suddenly become.

  "The other," Aquila said. He enunciated his words in a gentleman's precise, clipped manner. What the hell was he doing with these bandits?

  Making a Herculean effort, I lifted the other arm to waver in the air. Aquila snapped the restraint closed and used them to pull me to my feet. I teetered but didn't fall. He pulled gently, keeping five long feet of chain between us, and my legs moved.

  The slitted dress had fallen almost completely off, held up only by where it caught at my arms. It didn't matter that my breasts hung free in their meager glory or that the only things covering me down below were my inadequate curls. It took all of my dwindling strength just to hang on to the fast unraveling threads of my control. To keep from begging and pleading to be fucked. To just put one damned foot in front of the other in what seemed an endless march.

  We finally halted and the sound I had heard for some time registered at last. Water. We were at a small brook, a different one from where I had met Halcyon a short lifetime ago.

  I stood, swaying, not knowing what else to do.

  Amber's voice drifted distantly to me. "Release me. I pledge my solemn oath that I shall not attempt to escape or resist when you restrain me once again. I just wish to care for her."

  A short man with a large head and wide shoulders snorted. "Like we would take your word."

  "Do you wish to care for her, Greeves?" Aquila asked blandly.

  Greeves shook his head and remained sullen and silent.

  "Your pledge," Aquila demanded of Amber.

  "My solemn oath," Amber rumbled, "upon my honor as a warrior."

  His chains fell away and he walked to me.

  "Amber," I whispered, need huge and monumental in my eyes.

  He waited patiently for Aquila to unshackle me. Then, grasping my wrist, led me to the little brook. He slid the gown off my arms and ripped off a clean piece, untainted by the oil. Methodically, Amber removed his shoes and socks, and then mine. With rag in hand, he led me into the shallow streaming water.

  I gasped. The sensation of cold, prickling water flowing over my flushed, heated skin was almost beyond bearing. He urged me to sit and I resisted him for one useless second before my strength gave out and I collapsed. Supporting me by my arms, he sat me carefully down in the running water. Cool, tickling droplets ran over that most heated, most sensitive part of me, licking me like a thousand wickedly soft tongues. I convulsed in an explosive orgasm and cried out helplessly. I felt the solid presence of Amber squatting behind me, shielding me from the others' eyes, and slumped against him, tears leaking out from beneath my closed lids.

  Amber's arms bunched and moved and the wet cloth smoothed down my chest. I gasped as he rubbed over the excruciatingly sensitive tips of my breasts. He washed me thoroughly while I dug my fingers into his knees until my knuckles whitened and threatened to split, trying to make neither sound nor movement. He cupped water and splashed it over me and I endured it in silence but when the cloth dipped down to that part of me immersed in water, electric shocks stabbed me and I could not help the moan that escaped my lips. I leaned back harder, and opened my legs wider in desperate plea. He stopped before I reached my peak and I whimpered, wildly shaking my head. No! I wanted to plead. Don't stop! He dropped the cloth in the water and guided my hand down into the water to stroke myself. I jerked and resisted him for a moment, then let my head fall back heavily against him in surrendering need. Let him guide my other hand up to squeeze and pinch my nipple. I exploded, literally. A brilliant shower of light fell behind my closed lids. He eased two of my fingers inside me while I was still yet convulsing and pressed my palm against my painfully oversensitive, swollen clitoris, where it seemed every nerve in my body had gathered. That light contact, that touch, was almost too much. My head thrashed and my third orgasm ripped through my body, hard. Then I fell blessedly limp, free for a moment from that terrible racking tension. I tasted blood and vaguely realized that I'd bitten my lips. Amber swung me into his arms and set me down on the grass, still shielding me from the others. He took off his shirt, slid my arms into the shirt and buttoned it back up. I was asleep before he had finished, unaware, unknowing, unfeeling when he swung me into his arms and carried me.

  Chapter Twelve

  I floated in and out of consciousness, pulled into awareness first by the unnatural warmth of my body, followed viciously by icy chills that wracked my body. The chilling coldness had somehow heated my body until it seemed that blue flames licked my skin, burning worst between my legs, and swelling my breasts so uncomfortably full and tight so that I tossed and turned and moaned and whimpered.

  Fingers would guide my hands to those places that needed stimulation most desperately. My body would spasm and I'd sink back into sweet oblivion until the next time. When I became too exhausted, gentle fingers would sink into me and I'd cry out and fall back into blessed unconsciouness.

  At times cool water bathed me. Other times a spoon would push between my lips and he'd gently rub my throat until I swallowed some broth. He…

  "Gryphon?" I whispered and felt a deep rumbling response.

  Not Gryphon. That's right, he had left me, I remembered, and the pain would tear at me sharply once again until I escaped back into peaceful unawareness.

  Gradually, the demands of my body lessened so that I came less and less into awareness. I was content to remain in the soothing darkness. So tired. I was so tired of hurting.

  "You must not tarry long in this place, my child. It is dangerous." A soft hand smoothed my brow. I opened my eyes and looked up into Sonia's sweet face.

  "You should have been my mother," I told her.

  "Ah, sweet child. You are the daughter of my heart. You must return to me."

  "I'm tired, Sonia. So tired."

  She smiled and cast her lure. "Your brother shall need you soon."

  I tossed my head fretfully in her lap. "I don't know how to find him."

  "But you do. I have given you the information." Then she was fading.

  "No, don't go…"

  But she heeded me not and left me so that I could no longer feel her touch.

  "Go to him," she called softly. "Find him."

  I reached for her but she was gone.

  No! I wouldn't let her go. She was my only comfort.

  I staggered to my feet, determined to follow her, but I was so weak. Too weak, a voice whispered.

  I heard a child's voice. My brother?

  I whimpered in pain and weakness. Such effort it required simply to stand. But Sonia had said that my brother needed me. So sweating, trembling, I fought my way upward, one step at a time, out of the deep abyss.

  I awoke to the feel of buzzing irritation and found myself inside a dark, windowless room. A Queen I'd never seen before huddled at the far end of the room. She was restrained, like me, I realized, feeling the cool metal shackles against my wrists. I was cradled in someone's large lap, resting against their hard chest.

  "Amber," I croaked, surprised at the terrible rusty sound I had produced and how weakly it ha
d come out, a bare whisper.

  "Thank the Goddess." He heaved a shuddering sigh of relief, leaned forward and brought a glass to my lips, his movements made awkward by his own wrist restraints. "Drink. It is but water."

  Cool liquid moistened my mouth and eased down my parched throat. I swallowed painfully twice, then pushed it away.

  Amber set down the glass. "Can you eat some meat?"

  "Not hungry."

  "A tiny piece." Who knew such a big, harsh-looking man could be such a coaxing shrew. "Well-cooked, the way you like it." He lifted a spoon to my mouth and I opened up, chewed, and swallowed, knowing he would not relent until I had taken some substance. It felt like a brick going down.

  "You look awful," I rasped.

  And he did, haggard, thinner, with dark bruises of exhaustion and worry puffing his eyes. Amber smiled tiredly at me, his hair uncombed, his chest bare.

  "Where's your shirt?" I asked.

  "It is covering you."

  I looked down. His shirt shielded me down to my knees. The sleeves had been rolled back so many times that it was a thick bundle of cloth against my wrists, just above the metal restraints. My socks and shoes looked peculiarly naked against the bareness of my legs. "Oh. Thanks," I mumbled and closed my eyes, so damnably tired. "What happened?" I slurred.

  "You were ill but you are recovering now. Sleep. We shall talk more once you have rested."

  The next time I surfaced, the sun was up. Amber blinked his eyes open, brought to awareness when I stirred in his lap. I drank more of the water this time.

  "Here, eat."

  "What is it?" I asked, chewing what he stuck in my mouth. "Doesn't taste like beef."

  "Venison."

  Deer. I'd never tasted it before, and didn't particularly care for the taste—too gamey—but I swallowed a few chunks, knowing I had to regain my strength. Exhausted from the effort, I tumbled once more back to sleep.