Mona Lisa Craving Read online

  Those pale blue orbs turned and glared at me. “No, this is my car. Your people must have called it in.”

  Dante’s door was flung suddenly open.

  “Right on the first guess.” Chami shimmered into view, holding a silver dagger to Dante’s throat. He took possession of Dante’s knife and gun, and reached for the car ignition keys.

  “Uh-uh-uh. Keep your hands on the steering wheel,” my chameleon chided in warning as Dante tensed. “I will not hesitate to cut off your head here in front of all these nice people,” he said in a low, deadly voice.

  Dante must have believed Chami’s threat, I certainly did, because he kept his hands on the wheel as Chami removed the keys and pocketed them. When Chami eased back on the pressure of the blade, I saw a thin red line of blood trickle down Dante’s neck from where the knife had cut into his skin.

  I choked back my instinctive cry—Don’t hurt him, Chami—swallowing back the words because I knew that if I tethered the violence on Chami’s end, it would explode out from Dante.

  Oh Goddess, please don’t let them hurt each other.

  Chami drew out a thin whistle and blew it, three short blasts. The frequency was too high pitched for humans to hear. But animals—and Monère—would be able to hear it clearly.

  “Hey, what’s going on?” the patrolman demanded, striding quickly back to us. There was only surprise not alarm in his voice at seeing a third person suddenly with us. From his tone, I could tell that he hadn’t seen the knife yet.

  “Milady, if you can kindly take care of the nice policeman,” Chami requested, keeping his eyes and knife on Dante.

  “That’ll be a little hard for me to do, Chami. I’m handcuffed.”

  “To the car? Or just behind your back?”

  “Behind my back.”

  “Hey you, in the black shirt. Step away from the car,” the officer ordered, wariness in his voice now. He released the safety strap from his gun holster.

  “Can you open the door and scoot out?” Chami asked. “I cannot handle both of them.”

  I had a moment to think, Well, duh. I should have thought of that. Then I was blindly groping for the door handle. My hands fell on the lever, pulled it, and I started to topple backward as the door swung open behind me.

  “Careful,” Dante barked, grabbing my shoulder. That was the only thing that saved me from tumbling out of the car. He looked furious. There was no concern at all over the knife that was cutting deep into the side of his neck, trailing a small rivulet of blood down his shirt. He was focused entirely on me.

  “Release her,” Chami snarled.

  When he was assured that I had my balance once more, he did, and launched himself at Chami with sudden, swift violence, knocking Chami’s dagger aside with a swing of his arm, the warrior bracelet hidden beneath the jacket striking away the blade with jarring force.

  They fell from my sight to the ground as I awkwardly wriggled out of the car, my heart pounding.

  “Officer, help me,” I cried with unfeigned terror. “He kidnapped me. Tied up my wrists.”

  “What the hell,” the policeman muttered, his attention diverted to me. He lifted the gun he had trained on the two wrestling men, and strode around the car to me.

  The officer’s eyes locked with mine, and I had him. Power burned up from within me and spilled out in an invisible gush.

  “You see only two men fighting. No weapons, no knife, no blood. A domestic matter that you do not wish to be concerned with,” I said in a voice that throbbed with the power I had called up, compelling him to my will. “You will go back to your car and report that you were mistaken about the vehicle. The license plate was Alpha-Bravo-George, not Charlie. Then you will wave the other cars by, and drive away, forgetting about us.”

  The officer returned to his car, obediently radioed in the correction, and waved on the few cars that had slowed down to gawk at us. When he had cleared the road of traffic, when no other cars were in sight, he pulled away.

  “Stop,” I cried, rushing to the two warriors fighting in deadly silence.

  Without any human witnesses to hinder him now, Chami winked out of sight—chameleon. An unseen punch sent Dante’s head swinging back. He retaliated with a back-handed blow that caught Chami in the stomach, shimmering the chameleon back into view. Chami’s dagger came stabbing down.

  “No!” I screamed.

  Dante caught Chami’s wrist, the bloody dagger point an inch from his chest. His eyes locked on Chami, and I felt the roil of power spark the air. Saw those glacier blue eyes turn silver and take on that eerie glow.

  “Cease,” Dante commanded, and Chami stopped fighting. “Give me your knife.”

  Chami relinquished it to Dante, and Dante drew it back. To behead him!

  “Don’t!” I threw myself between them, unable to do anything else but use myself as a shield, with my hands bound as they were behind me. Dante’s mesmerizing silver eyes glowed down at me, bloodlust filling them. “Don’t hurt him. Please,” I begged.

  “He put you at risk. You almost fell.”

  “He doesn’t know I’m pregnant.”

  “He almost harmed the baby!”

  The almost mindless rage burning behind those words washed over me and set my body trembling, with the knife poised just over my neck where Dante had stopped its swift descent.

  “Please, Dante,” I whispered. “He didn’t know.”

  But you did, the voice inside of me said. You would have harmed your child knowingly and deliberately.

  For a moment, I wondered if he would kill us both.

  Dante lowered the dagger, and I collapsed back against Chami with shuddering relief.

  “Thank you,” I breathed.

  I didn’t fight him when he drew me away from Chami.

  Dante focused his will, those glowing eyes, back on the chameleon. “You will not move or speak for thirty minutes.” When he released him from his gaze, Chami fell to the ground and lay there unmoving.

  I turned back to look at Chami lying there helpless as Dante led me back to the car.

  “He’s in the sun,” I said.

  “Only for thirty minutes. Not the four hours I could have commanded instead.”

  His clipped words had me swallowing back my protest. Indeed, with but a few different words, the outcome could have been deadly instead of just a short discomfort.

  I’d forgotten about battle lust, I realized, when he opened the car door and gently sat me back inside. All gentleness fled as he turned those pale, gleaming eyes on me. The color was blue once more. I gasped beneath their cold, burning light. Gasped again as he lunged forward and captured my mouth in a harsh, punishing kiss.

  A whimper of fear escaped from my lips as the weight of his body pressed me back, and his warrior’s presence, fierce and battle sharp, sparked against my own energy, making me aware of the ferocity he had kept chained. All that aggression, tightly leashed, he channeled now into me, in that kiss. In the coarse movements of his hands as he shoved up my shirt. On my bra, which he tore away with one rough pull, exposing my breasts.

  I wrenched my face away from him. “Dante, stop!” I cried, struggling to push him off me as he lowered my seat down. “We’re by the side of the road. Anyone can drive by and see us.”

  “Don’t fight me!” His lips ran feverishly over my face in wild, nipping caresses, violence barely contained. Dangerous touches that both thrilled and scared the hell out of me. He was like a dangerous, roaring wildfire, threatening to consume all that it touched.

  “You held my hand, stopped a kill. You left me no other way to channel my aggression. Yield to me.” His breath struck my face in heated gusts as he undid his pants. Then my pants and underwear were down by my ankles, my body nude and painfully exposed, my body, heart, and mind in terrible upheaval. Jesus Christ, we were by the fucking roadside.

  His voice was gritty urgency, his eyes burning need. “Please,” he whispered roughly, and swooped down, capturing my mouth, stealing my breath. Stea
ling the will to fight him.

  I yielded in the face of his need, and stopped fighting him.

  My body’s soft acceptance of him eased some of that overwhelming urgency. And in that momentary lull, his need sparked my own.

  Pulling my lips from him, I said, “No blood,” in a hard, uncompromising tone.

  “No blood,” he promised and nipped my lower lip, three parts caress, one part punishment. Dominating male.

  “Hurry,” I murmured, so terribly conscious of our exposure. Of my nudity.

  “First you tell me to stop. Now you tell me to hurry up and take you.” Amusement mixed with the heated urgency of his movements, like fire and ice—how he made me feel.

  He pressed between my legs, and I felt the bold rub of him naked and hard against my thigh. The utter outrageousness of our situation—by the open road!—the utter dangerousness of our situation—a powerful warrior still flying high from battle, and me, bound and helpless beneath him, with him poised over me, ready to take me…God help me, but it set a part of me on fire. Spiked my own desire.

  His hand slid up my legs, cupped me. And with but that one touch, not even a caress, my core heated, grew moist and damp, wetting his palm.

  “Oh God.” He groaned, and with no other preparation, he thrust into me with gentle, insistent force. He pushed in, groaned as he sank into my honeyed wetness. Tunneled in deeper with a swiveling gyration of his hips that had me gasping and bending my knees to arch up against him.

  He withdrew, pumped back into me with restrained ferocity, his eyes wild, burning with lust. Another withdrawal, another gentle push back in as he watched me with those uncanny pale eyes, making me feel like a helpless butterfly he had captured and pinned. It was a devastating feeling, mixed in with the wet, thrilling pleasure he evoked with each stroke. Too much, those eyes, piercing down into me as if they could see into the very deepest part of my soul. And perhaps he could. As if knowing his gaze was more than I could bear, he dipped his head, and I felt his lips warm against my breast. Felt his mouth take in a tight, pouty nipple, bite down on it.

  I cried out, bowed up into him, and he pressed me back down into the seat with a deep stroke into my body as he sucked on my nipple, tugging on it with less than gentle force. He sank into me again with another insistent thrust, another fierce tug—those two simultaneous movements—and pulled light from me, spilling it out onto my skin, running it down over my body, the moon’s captured glow within us. When the radiance spread to where his flesh joined inside mine, when my light touched him there, it set him ablaze. He lit up above me like a Christmas tree, beautiful to behold—his taut muscles, the driving urgency of his body, his male aggression tightly chained and channeled into me. A warrior, stark and powerful, bold and beautiful. Yet vulnerable in his need for my softness, for my light.

  “Yes,” I sighed as he rose and fell above me, my body taking him in with soft, willing submission. He shifted, braced himself up on one arm, freeing the other hand to run down my body, palm my bottom. His finger whispered over my anal rim in the lightest caress.

  “Come for me,” he said, his face harsh, tightly clenched above me. Another sweet deliberate press of his finger there, teasing my back hole while his thickness filled and drove tightly into my other entrance…that one added touch and I overflowed. My release spilled out, and I came for him as he had asked me to, helpless to do otherwise. I imploded beneath his stroking caresses, his inner one and deliberate outer one, and I shattered in a brilliant, shaking, shuddering climax.

  He drank down my light, then gave into his own release. One more deep stroke, pushing through my spasming tightness, and I felt him grow still, jerk harshly inside as his wet ejaculation spewed into me.

  Until that moment, I hadn’t realized just how restrained his passion had been. Only in his climax did he truly let himself go. Throwing back his head, Dante roared his release to the heavens with a primitive cry. So primal, so beautifully savage he was with his neck corded, with the agony and bliss of release carved harshly on his face. One fixed moment where every muscle, every tendon in his body seized tight…then came the sweet thrill of release. The jetting bliss of satisfaction as he relaxed down over me. I felt his weight blanket me for a brief, lovely moment—too short—then he was pulling his body from mine, lifting himself off. His eyes were heavy-lidded, slumberous, as he crouched down beside me, opened the glove compartment, and took out a packet of wipes.

  “Did I hurt you?” he asked. Even his voice was more soothing in its resonance now, like melted honey.

  “No.”

  “Your hands?”

  “Uncomfortable from the handcuffs. Can you release me?”

  His eyes slid away as he pulled out a wipe. “You know I cannot.”

  Without another word, he cleaned me and dressed me. Maybe there was a limit to how embarrassed you could get. I’d apparently reached mine. I sat there and did nothing as he finished caring for me. Then wiped himself down and zipped himself back up.

  He turned suddenly to look up into the sky. An eagle circled high above us. So high I almost didn’t feel it—that faint, shimmering presence of another Monère.

  It was Aquila shifted into his bird form. Drawn to our location by Chami’s whistle blasts.

  “Maudrëa,” Dante said, muttering an imprecation in a language so old it had almost been forgotten by all. He shut my door and went around to the back, opening the trunk.

  My eyes widened in alarm as he drew out a rifle. “No, don’t. You can’t! It’s Aquila,” I said, twisting around in my seat. “You might kill him.”

  “That is my intention,” he said coldly. He slid two bullets in, chambering the rounds.

  I looked at him with horror, then turned my head skyward. “Aquila,” I shouted. “Go away. Leave us!”

  A shot rang out with a flat crack, and the eagle jerked, tilted. He fluttered in the sky for a moment, still airborne. Then he began to fall.

  “No!” I moaned as I watched Aquila plummet from the sky, silent, graceful, so terribly still. Blood washed down his right wing, streaking his feathers like wine-red paint as he spiraled, until trees cut him from our sight, but not our sound. I heard the rustling of leaves, the snapping of twigs as he crashed through the foliage, a discordant cascade. Then that final, terrible thud as he hit the ground.

  “Aquila.” His name was a mournful, teary sound slipping unconsciously from me. My mind, my body felt numb. I didn’t even register my own actions, my bound hands blindly seeking the door handle, lifting the lever. I wasn’t aware of what I was doing until I was hauled halfway back across the seat toward the driver’s side, with Dante’s hard furious face above me. He reached across, slammed shut the door I had just opened.

  “Stop it,” Dante commanded. Shifting me back into my seat, he pulled out my seat belt strap. “Stop crying,” he said. Only then did I realize that I was making harsh, guttural sounds deep in my throat. Like an animal that was being beaten.

  I leaned forward, preventing him from latching the seat belt, and slid back against my door, twisting against his hold almost hysterically. “No, I have to go to him!”

  “He’s not dead,” he said, giving me a little shake when I continued to fight him. “Mona Lisa, look at me! He’s not dead.”

  His words calmed me down enough that I stopped struggling for a second. As soon as I did, Dante snapped my seat belt in place, then gripped my arms. “I just shot his wing, not his heart. He will heal.”

  “He fell so far. Was so still,” I whispered brokenly. “And there was so much blood.”

  “He’s not human. Only taking out the head or heart will kill us, remember? Listen. Take a breath and listen, and you can hear his heartbeat.”

  He slid his hand beneath his shirt, deactivating the privacy shield, and I heard it for an instant…a faint, rapid heartbeat out in the woods. The sound disappeared as he reactivated the charm. I sobbed then. Sobbed as if my heart would break as the car pulled onto the road, taking me away from my fallen men
. Both of them injured because of me.

  We drove for a time, not long, or at least it did not seem so, before he pulled off the road into a gas station, and parked in front of a minimarket. I sat there, staring straight ahead, not seeing anything. Numb. He glanced at me, then went inside, keeping an eye on me through the glass doors. No need. I was not running anywhere. I didn’t have the heart or energy to do so. Lethargy had gripped me, a cottony distance separating me from the rest of the world and its trifling concerns. He returned with a soft drink, some chips, a candy bar. Driving to the back of the parking lot, he parked there, away from prying eyes. He said something, opened his mouth and spoke, but I wasn’t aware of his actual words. Not until he lifted the can of soda and put a plastic straw to my lips, intruding into the soft bubble that surrounded me.

  “Drink this,” he said.

  Because it was easier to do that than fight him, I took two sips before turning my head away and losing myself once more in the emptiness of not thinking, not feeling.

  The door shut as he got out of the car and came around to my side. Opening my door, he crouched in front of me, ripped open the candy bar, and held it to my mouth. I looked past it without interest.

  “One bite,” he urged, nudging the chocolate against my lips.

  I frowned. Felt a brief flare of irritation at the intrusion. What did he want, I wondered?

  “One bite,” Dante repeated, “and I’ll leave you alone.”

  Because that was what I desired most, I took a bite and swallowed. The peace I sought, however, did not come. Not because of his actions. But because of another’s.

  Like the silent demon he was, Halcyon suddenly appeared. He was dressed in his usual shirt of white silk, with diamonds glinting at the cuffs. Only his attire was civilized. Not his actions.

  His long, sharp nails sank with almost sickening ease into Dante’s flesh, his fingertips half-buried in Dante’s shoulder. Blood—and the demon’s presence—stirred my unholy hunger to life, and it roared past my numbness, shattering it with a desire to feed that overrode my emotional state. That did not care if my men were hurt or killed. The only thing it cared about was the crimson, shiny blood welling up from beneath the thin barrier of skin.