Mona Lisa Eclipsing m-5 Read online

  The doctor kicked out two nurses and three young interns. That still left almost a dozen people in the room.

  “Dontaine,” I said in a normal tone of voice. “I need you.”

  A scarce moment later, I felt Dontaine’s presence outside, heard him say politely, “Excuse me, please.”

  Dontaine entered the room in full, stunning glory. Everyone looked dazzled, no doubt expecting some big bruiser to enter, not someone who looked like a living, breathing Adonis. Dontaine didn’t need a sword; he simply smote them all with a blinding smile. A few in the room embarrassingly came close to swooning, and not just the women, I noted.

  “Tone it down a little, Dontaine, will you?” I said with a dry smile.

  The wattage dimmed. “Yes, milady.”

  He walked straight to me, people parting before him like the waters of the Red Sea. The rogue, however, knew him for the threat he was.

  “Easy, Jarvis,” I said. “My word that Dontaine will not harm you or the girl. I need him to help me bring out my light to share with you.”

  By the sudden hot, sensual change in Dontaine’s expression, I knew he had mistaken what I intended. No, I tried to convey in the severe look I shot him, we’re not having sex!

  “What are you talking about?” Agent Stanton asked. “Bring out what light?”

  “Jarvis has not bathed in a Queen’s light for six years; that’s why his energy is nearly depleted. I need Dontaine’s help to ignite my light so I can share it with Jarvis, similar to what we do when we Bask, pulling down the moon’s light.”

  “And how will this guy help you do that?” Agent Stanton asked, eyes narrowing.

  “By kissing me. Nothing else,” I said to Dontaine, making things clear. “Just kissing.”

  Dontaine’s emerald bright eyes sparkled with a delight that was out of proportion to what I proposed, until I realized why he seemed so pleased. Because I had called him instead of Dante.

  “And how will kissing you help bring out this light you’re talking about?” Agent Stanton asked.

  “We glow only in pleasure,” I said, lifting my face to Dontaine. As Dontaine lowered his head to me, all my awareness of the watching audience, the nervous rogue, the skeptical FBI agent . . . all of it suddenly dimmed as Dontaine’s mouth lowered until he was just a few inches away from my lips.

  “Just a kiss?” Dontaine murmured. “Quite a challenge.”

  “I have full faith in you.” I watched Dontaine’s emerald eyes darken to forest green, watched his eyes dilate, the expanding black iris chasing the green color out to the very rim.

  Those firm, lovely lips lowered to airbrush their way across my check, over my jaw, not touching, just the light, stimulating buzz of his presence against mine, and then those lips landed light as a butterfly on my neck, grazing the exact spot where Halcyon had sunk his teeth into me. It had long healed. No trace remained of my skin ever having been pierced there. But it was still incredibly sensitive.

  I shivered, bit back a moan as I felt Dontaine’s tongue with sudden, electrifying sensation. His teeth grazed skillfully, precisely, there against that invisible bite wound for an eye-rolling, heart-pounding moment before moving down the bend of my neck, torturous nibbles of pleasure mixed with that gentle buzz of sensation that was something I felt only with Dontaine whenever my skin contacted him. With delicate finesse, Dontaine slowly released more of his power into the contact until there was a significant bite, tiny electric shocks dancing along my skin, mixing the biting pain of it with the pleasure of his tongue, teeth, and lips, running it over and over where Halcyon had left his invisible mark.

  I gasped, quivered.

  “My lady,” Dontaine said, his husky voice vibrating my ear. “You are alight.”

  My skin was glowing, soft and pearlescent, the inner moonlight we carried inside us brought to the fore. Jarvis gazed at me with wonder and hungry yearning in his eyes. The expression in Kelly’s eyes, however, was not just wonder but fear. I felt the same reaction from others in the room, but had to shut it out and ignore it for now.

  “Keep touching me, Dontaine,” I murmured as I knelt by Jarvis’s chair.

  Dontaine’s finger lightly stroked over my sensitive neck as I placed my hand on Jarvis’s uninjured thigh. His body, the one part he could not voluntarily control, stirred, tenting the sheet covering his lap. I felt hunger in him, not just the normal physical desire of warrior for a Queen, but an even more visceral one of all the drained and depleted cells in his body thirsting for the illuminated light in my hand resting against his skin. So close and yet unable to pass across the barrier of his own unlit skin. It was partly from his weakened state and partly because, as I had explained, we glowed only in pleasure. Just resting my hand on his leg was apparently not eliciting enough pleasure.

  I lifted my other hand to Jarvis’s face. Felt him shiver beneath my touch as I leaned forward and kissed him with warm sensuality. He liked it, but not enough to glow. There was too much learned fear and intimidation of who and what I was—Queen—to relax into the desire. More drastic measures, like a hand job, were looking more and more eminent. But I really wanted to avoid that if I could. Not the greatest first impression to make here.

  My glance shifted to Kelly, standing beside us. A stormy expression was in her young, street-hardened eyes. She hadn’t liked me kissing Jarvis, not at all. Made me wonder if the nature of their relationship was less platonic, on her part, at least, than what I had presumed.

  I drew back but still kept my hand on his thigh. “Kelly, maybe you should try. Kiss him. Try to bring out Jarvis’s light.”

  Jarvis jerked beneath my hand. “No, milady, please. It’s not like that between us. She’s my friend—a child.”

  “Hush, Jarvis,” I admonished, squeezing his thigh. “Kelly’s hands are bandaged. She can’t touch you any other way. I will not force her, if she does not wish to, but if she is willing, you must let her try.”

  “The child,” said eighteen-year-old Kelly, “is willing.”

  “Kelly—”

  “Shut up, Jarvis,” she said, moving in front of him. “Close your eyes and think of England or something.”

  He made a rough sound of laughter that stopped abruptly when Kelly leaned forward and touched her mouth to his. It began as a chaste and gentle kiss, then slowly deepened, became more heated. His eyes closed, but I was pretty sure he wasn’t thinking of England.

  Light gathered slowly on Jarvis’s skin like creeping dawn, just the faintest spark, but that was all I needed. The barrier between us dropped and my light rushed into him. And not just my light but my power. I thrust it into him. Thrust it the same way I had learned to push power out of my hand in a concentrated blast of energy. Healing power was different, more natural, but Jarvis’s body was nearly depleted; it hungered for what I had to give him.

  A wash of power, of energy, of shared light blasted out from me to him. A moment of dazzling brightness that drew cries, and then the light dimmed and was gone from my skin, but lingered still on his in a soft afterglow that slowly faded into his perfect, unmarred, unblemished skin.

  His wounds were completely healed, the full thickness of his epithelium fully restored.

  I stood so that I could see his back, and found it as perfect as the rest of him.

  A shocked roomful of faces stared back at me; more than one mouth was agape.

  “He’s healed,” Kelly whispered. And then a pandemonium of sound and voices—exclamations, questions, demands—broke out.

  TWENTY-SIX

  IT TOOK A few moments for the initial hysteria to die down. None of the shouted questions had been answered because as things had started to quiet down, Kelly said, “My hands no longer hurt. Take off my dressings.”

  Since I was closest, I ended up unwrapping the gauze from her hands, wincing when I saw the tender, wet redness of her skin from fingertips up to forearm.

  “That looks tender,” I observed.

  Her reply was, “You should have seen
what they looked like before.”

  That surprised me. “You mean they’re better?”

  “Much better,” said Dr. Hubert, coming over to examine her. “She had second-degree burns. Now they’re only first-degree. But that’s nothing compared to this patient’s improvement.” Fascinated, the doctor ran his hands carefully down Jarvis’s arm. “Does this hurt?” he asked.

  “No, sir,” Jarvis answered.

  “Unbelievable,” the doctor muttered, lightly pinching up a fold of skin. “Full epithelium—dermis, subcutaneous tissue, and fatty latter. Everything’s been restored.”

  He marveled over Jarvis’s healing while I puzzled at Kelly’s hands. “You were touching Jarvis”—kissing him actually—“when I healed him. Some of the healing must have spilled over to you a little.”

  “This isn’t a little,” Kelly said. “My hands were blistered, the skin broken, weeping out clear fluid.”

  “They still are,” I noted.

  “That’s the ointment they smeared on me,” Kelly said. “Yuck, I have to wash my hands.”

  I caught a nurse’s eye. “Can you bring some clothes for Jarvis and something to wash the goop off his skin with?” It took her a little bit of time to make her way out of the room. Unfortunately, it had gotten even more crowded in here. All the nurses and interns who had been banished had rushed back inside during the light show we had just put on.

  “Watch them,” Agent Stanton muttered tersely to the agent beside him and went to examine Jarvis, giving me, Dontaine, and Hannah as wide a berth as he possibly could.

  Great, I thought. I heal someone—two someones, actually—and now Agent Stanton was afraid of me.

  “I didn’t know I could heal a Mixed Blood,” I said to Hannah. Even if it was just a partial healing.

  “It is more than I would have been able to do,” the healer said.

  It suddenly hit me then. I had healed without sex, without orgasm. With only just some neck nuzzling.

  The nurse pushed her way back into the room with some blue scrubs identical to ones the doctor and interns were wearing, with a washcloth, towel, and basin of water in her hands.

  “I can wash him,” Kelly offered.

  “Let the nurse do it, Kelly,” I told her. “That way she can see for herself that he’s really healed. And you should probably take it easy with your hands; they still look pretty tender.”

  “They don’t hurt.”

  “That’s likely just a temporary effect. You’ll probably start to feel pain again in another hour.”

  Agent Stanton finished his inspection of Jarvis and made his way back beside the other two agents.

  “May I examine him also?” McManus asked.

  “Ask him.” I turned to Jarvis, who was being carefully washed by the wide-eyed nurse. “Jarvis, this is Mr. McManus, the attorney I hired to represent you. Do you mind if he examines you also?”

  “No, milady.”

  I made a help-yourself gesture to McManus.

  “Okay,” Stanton said. “What the hell did you just do?”

  “Monère Queens have the ability to draw down moonlight,” I said, trying to explain, “which acts as a revitalizing energy source for us. We are able to share this light with other Monère.”

  “It’s daylight. There’s no moon outside,” Stanton said flatly. None of the feds were going for their guns, but their attitude of let’s-play-along-with-the-poor-deluded-girl was gone now. They were treating us, treating me, like a definite threat now.

  “The light we draw down is stored within us, inside our body. With Dontaine’s help, I was able to pull it out and share it with Jarvis.”

  “You also healed him. Or did he heal himself?”

  “No, I healed him. But my healing ability is a little different from Hannah’s, harder to access and more erratic.”

  “And more powerful,” Hannah asserted.

  “I’d trade that for better control,” I said.

  “You are getting that,” she said with a smile. “Very well done, milady.”

  “You called Kelly a Mixed Blood,” Stanton said. “What do you mean by that?”

  “It means that she’s half human and half Monère.” I could tell by Kelly’s startled glance she hadn’t known that before. “That’s probably why I was able to partially heal her.”

  “Can you heal other people like that?” Dr. Hubert asked. “Other patients here?”

  “No, I’m sorry. Our kind of healing only works for those with Monère blood. Hannah can tell you more; she’s worked with humans before.”

  “Humans?” Agent Stanton said in a sharp tone. “So you admit that you’re not human.”

  That drew McManus’s attention away from Jarvis.

  “The Monère are a race of people who once lived on the moon over four million years ago before our planet became uninhabitable,” I said.

  That drew a lot of startled looks, but no one jeered at my claim, not after what they’d just witnessed.

  The nurse was done washing Jarvis and had helped him put on the blue top. Without a shred of self-consciousness, he stood, letting the sheet drop, and pulled on the pants.

  I didn’t like the way Agent Stanton was staring at us. Definitely time to go.

  “Kelly, perhaps you’d like to change out of your hospital gown as well,” I suggested.

  “I’d rather she stay with me, milady, if you please,” Jarvis said.

  I asked the nurse to bring Kelly’s clothes. She readily agreed and scurried away.

  “How soon can you discharge Jarvis and Kelly?” I asked Dr. Hubert.

  “I’d like to keep them for another day for observation,” he answered.

  “That’s not usual practice. There’s no reason now for them to remain in the hospital.”

  “Nothing about this is usual,” he replied.

  “Then they’ll sign themselves out against medical advice,” I told him as the nurse returned with Kelly’s clothes. Obviously feeling the tension, the smart girl stepped into the bathroom to change.

  “Jarvis, do you have any shoes?” I asked.

  He retrieved a battered pair of sneakers from a small closet and slipped them on.

  “You’re just going to leave?” Dr. Hubert said, scowling deeply.

  “Yes. Sorry, Dr. Hubert. Thank you for everything you and your staff have done. If you can bring the AMA forms, Jarvis and Kelly can sign them and we can be on our way.”

  The doctor stalked out of the room, and Kelly came out of the bathroom, fully dressed.

  “Anything else you two need to get?” I asked.

  Kelly and Jarvis shook their heads.

  “Okay, then. We’ll sign the AMA forms on our way out.” Or not. When I tried to walk out of the room, two FBI agents blocked our way.

  “Excuse me, please,” I said politely.

  “Sorry, ma’am, can’t do that,” said the shorter of the two.

  “Why not?”

  “Because we have to take you into custody,” Agent Stanton answered behind us. They had boxed us neatly between them.

  I glanced at McManus and he quickly stepped up to the plate. “For what reason are you taking my clients into custody? They haven’t broken any laws.”

  “Doesn’t matter. They’re not human,” Stanton said. “They’re coming with us.”

  Ah, so that was how it was going to be.

  I laid a hand on McManus’s arm, halting his protest. “That’s okay, Mr. McManus. We’ll see you downstairs in front of the hospital. Jarvis, please bring Kelly along. Stay close to me.” I could have used compulsion to make the two agents step away but wanted to introduce that in a more delicate manner, so for now I simply sprang over the two agents and dived over the policemen standing guard outside. I hit the ground in a neat roll and sprang back to my feet, the others behind me, moving at supernatural speed.

  “What the hell!” a guard exclaimed. “Where did they go?”

  By the time he finished speaking, we were a hundred feet away, down by the
elevators where Nolan, Dante, and Quentin sat waiting for us.

  I told Jarvis, “They’re with us. Everyone down the stairwell.”

  “Just close your eyes and keep your feet and head tucked close to my body,” Jarvis said to Kelly, whom he was carrying in his arms. Her lips were white. All this seemed to be new to her. I was surprised she hadn’t squeaked in alarm. Tough gal.

  It took us less than ten seconds to climb down four flights of stairs, gaining a couple minutes of lead time.

  I pushed open the ground-level door, walking out into sunlight.

  “Where to?” Jarvis asked, more nervous about my own men than by whoever else might be out here.

  “There are reporters waiting in front of the hospital. I’m going to speak to them now, tell them who we are. Do you wish to come with us?”

  “You told me to stay close to you, milady,” he said uncertainly.

  “It would be safest for you that way, but we’re about to go public. If you would rather not be a part of that, we can part ways here and now. Or you can join us, be part of our group.”

  “Join you, milady?” he said, looking confused. “I’m a rogue.”

  “So were Hannah and Nolan, and their two sons, Quentin and Dante,” I said, gesturing to the Morells. “I don’t have a problem with former rogues.”

  “Former? I don’t understand, milady. Are you asking me to serve as . . . as one of your men?”

  “Yes, Jarvis. I’m offering to be your Queen.”

  Stunned disbelief ran across his face. He began to drop to his knees, still holding Kelly.

  “Please don’t kneel again,” I said, stopping him with a quick hand under the arm. “A simple yes or no will do.”

  “And Kelly?” he asked hoarsely.

  “She’s welcome to join us also.”

  He set her on her feet, asking her silently what her decision was.

  “I’m staying with you,” Kelly said, “wherever you decide.”

  Jarvis swallowed and said, “Then, yes, milady. Please . . . I would like to serve you, if you will have me.”

  I smiled. “Then consider yourself sworn into my service. Welcome to the family.”