Mona Lisa Awakening m-1 Read online

  He was sleek, powerful, dangerous. A graceful, deadly predator with wide shoulders that tapered down to slim hips, powerful thighs, and thick calves roped with muscle. The only soft thing about him was his swathe of dark hair that fell in thick waves to tease his shoulders. My hands itched with the need to bury themselves in the long strands, to discover if they would be as soft and silky to the touch as they promised to be. His chest was smooth perfection, needing no other adornment but the twin areolas that were the color of warm chestnuts and would no doubt be as tasty. Crisp strands of hair arrowed down his lower belly to bush in a dark frame around his stiff, rampant rod that rose up eagerly to meet me, an elegant melding of form with function. It brushed against the hard ridges of his abdomen, bobbing almost as if in greeting. A nervous giggle escaped me and I clamped a hand over my mouth.

  "Do you not still want me, Mona Lisa?" he asked softly, his dark eyes glowing.

  I licked my dry lips. His sizzling eyes followed the movement.

  "I will always want you," was my simple, truthful reply.

  His eyes squeezed shut, then opened, his eyes blazing like burning sapphire. "You are more than I ever hoped to find, a Queen I never dared to even dream of. Will you not lay your hands upon me? Grant me permission to lay my hands upon you?"

  He crawled with sinuous grace onto the bed, his knees resting on either side of me, sinking down onto the mattress, moving carefully as if afraid of frightening me. He needn't have bothered. The extreme lust I was feeling for him, the desperate control I was exerting to not fall ravenously on him and devour him up was scaring me near to death as it was. I scooted back a few inches and fell onto my back as he straddled me and lowered himself down, his arms braced on either side of my head, stopping just short of contact in an unnatural distance that was harder to maintain than just the natural touching of skin against skin would have been.

  "Do you not wish to touch me?" he asked.

  "Yes." Oh, sweet mother may I, yes! Taking a deep breath, I reached out a trembling hand and lay my fingers upon his chest. His skin was cool and smooth, silken skin over living rock. It felt so good it edged toward pain. We both groaned with the thrill of contact. I snatched my hand back.

  He rolled in a fluid motion onto his left side. I turned to face him. He reached out his right hand and I was comforted, reassured when I saw its fine trembling. He touched me lightly in the same spot that I had touched him, just above the heart. I gasped at the pleasure of it. Nothing more, just that light touch, and liquid desire trickled down my thigh. The scent of my arousal thickened and permeated the room. Gryphon's nostrils flared and he breathed harshly, deeply, but did nothing more. When I could stand it no longer, I reached out and placed my entire palm flat against his chest. He shuddered and grated, "Yes. More."

  I stroked him, unable to stop myself, not wanting to, and his hand moved as mine did. A light stroke along the collarbones, a second hand to trace along the line of his shoulder, down the slope of his arm. I buried both hands in the cool falling silk of his hair that felt even better than I had imagined, and made a surprising discovery at his nape. "You have soft, downy… feathers?"

  He hummed an acknowledgment, absorbed in the feel and play of my own hair.

  Suddenly, I had to taste him. I whispered my need, "Gryphon," and rose up on my knees and lowered my lips to his. Satin smoothness. Sweet coolness. And soft. So soft. I brushed my lips against his, enjoying the smooth glide of skin against silken skin until he moaned his need for more and parted his lips. My tongue slipped into the shockingly warm cavern of his mouth and I lapped along his teeth, traced the wet lining of his cheeks, and brushed against the roughness of his tongue. Gryphon groaned again, gripped my shoulders, and pulled me down to him. The pleasure-pain of flesh against flesh, the meeting of my peaked nipples against the smooth hardness of his chest, the brush of his warm, swollen member against my soft belly spurred him into action. He rolled, pinning me beneath him, his lips moving aggressively against my lips, his tongue entwining with mine in a rub-slide-enter-retreat plunging motion that had me parting my legs and arching my hips against his. I pulled him to me, wanting more of his delicious weight. I slid my hands with frantic greed down his back, over his slender waist, to the succulent rounded globes of his bottom, urging him to come into me.

  His hot mouth moved down my cheek, onto my neck, and I gave pounded. He filled his mouth with my flesh, pressed his teeth down with restrained ferocity, growling with his desire to pierce the flesh and taste the sweet blood. But instead of biting me, he sucked hard and released me, laving me with his rough tongue, and dipped down to taste the hollow at the base of my neck.

  "Tell me you want me," he said roughly.

  "Yes," I cried.

  He took my nipple into his mouth, laving the sensitive tip again and again.

  "Please, Gryphon." I gasped.

  "Yes, say my name." His voice rumbled in a pleasant sensation against my breast. "Tell me you need me."

  "I need you now. Please."

  He bit down gently on my nipple and I reared up, crying out as he tugged and sucked with leashed savagery, his other hand molding, caressing, squeezing my other breast, his thumb rubbing over the nipple, sending thrilling sensations spearing through me.

  "Oh, God. Gryphon… Gryphon!"

  "Yes, yes. Say my name," he said hoarsely, his other hand sliding down my stomach to brush through my curls. He parted my folds and slipped a finger into me and I stilled in shock at the wonderful, surprising sensation—such magnificent pleasure—not even daring to breathe as he stroked gently in and out.

  "You're so tight. Relax, yes. Let me…" He slid a second finger into me and I quivered uncontrollably and whimpered, my lashes fluttering shut. He stroked and soothed me with his other hand as he pushed in past the second knuckle, then further.

  "Yes, that's it," he crooned. "How beautiful, how sweet you are. More than I ever dreamed." He stretched me wide with his fingers then slid out. His weight lifted, and my eyes flew open with a cry of protest that stopped as he stood and pulled me forward until my hips hung over the edge of the bed, lifting my legs over his shoulders. His cheeks were slashed with color and his dark eyes glittered like blue diamonds. With his eyes locked on mine, he guided himself into me, filling me slowly as my eyes widened at the incredible feel of him, at the supreme agony of being stretched by him.

  "Oh." I breathed at the breathtaking miracle of wet pleasure instead of dry pain.

  "You're so hot. So hot." He panted. "Yes, like that. Take me. Am I hurting you? "

  "No. Your wound… "

  "I'm fine." He groaned and thrust in all the way. "Fine," and started to move.

  "Yes." I moaned and held myself still for fear of aggravating his wound, of hurting him while he devastatingly destroyed me with his deeply measured strokes. I watched him, drank him in, the sight of him, the feel of him—the sweet agony of pleasure clenching his face, the Tightness of his body sliding into mine, letting him control it all while I took him and held him tightly within.

  He began to move faster, muscles rippling, straining, as he thrust deeper, more forcefully, destroying me, tearing me apart with such frightening pleasure. I felt myself tighten even more, moving toward something that grew and grew in power. And when I thought he could not be more savagely beautiful, he began to glow. We began to glow, a light that started at our joining and spread up our entire bodies, filling us with an incandescent glory that made his skin translucent and limed his mink-black hair with a halo of light, lighting him with a terrible beauty that brought tears of agony and joy to my eyes. Yes, came the thought. This is what we were meant to be, and that power swept over me, flooded me, tore me apart, and rebuilt me even stronger. I convulsed, pulsing and pulsing and pulsing. Blindly above me, I heard Gryphon cry out, "Mona Lisa… mine!" and then he was pumping hotly inside me, groaning sorely, dearly, as he filled me with his seed.

  Chapter Three

  The gentle fingers of the moon caressed Gryphon with l
oving care as he lay beside me, asleep, a creature so beautiful that he stopped my breath, his lovely perfection so unreal I would have doubted its true existence were I not touching him, my leg entwined with his. His arm was flung over me, chaining me to him in sleep, desiring as I desired, that skin-to-skin contact.

  He was cool to the touch, cooler than I, and I didn't know if that was his normal condition or a result of the poison within him. He had seemed better than in the hospital, more rested, his strength quite evident in the soreness I now felt in my thighs, between my legs. But his trembling, in the end, had been equal parts passion and exhaustion and he had fallen deeply asleep immediately afterward. I let him sleep, knowing it was the best therapy for him, content to lie there beside him, secure in his arms, and to listen to the soft soughing of his breath and the slow beating of his heart.

  It was frightening. No, terrifying, in truth, the fierce possessiveness I now felt for him. I needed this quiet period of companioned solitude to absorb the changes and revelations he had wrought with his entry into my life.

  He stirred several hours later, making the transition from sleep to total awareness with one blink of his piercing eyes. His arm tightened around me, then relaxed. "I didn't dream you, did I?" he asked, pulling me closer.

  "No." I breathed my soft confirmation against his shoulder where my head nestled, my heart settled and happy once more inhaled the essence of him. "You smell so good."

  I felt him smile against me. "What do I smell like?"

  "Like the night, the soaring wind, the verdant fields below… and of feathers." I lifted up to gaze down at him. "Why do you have soft down at the base of your neck?"

  "My other form is a falcon."

  "Your other form?" I tasted the strange phrase slowly, unable to prevent my voice from rising to a squeak. "You mean you can become a bird?"

  Gryphon nodded, smiling as if I had amused him.

  Gryphon. Gyrfalcon. A fierce bird of prey.

  I could see it now in some of his features—his sharp, piercing eyes, the strong hooked blade of his nose, the wide shoulders, the long, slender fingers. Would they become talons? I wondered.

  "What is your other form?" he asked.

  I shook my head, dazed. Was that what it was, that wild thing caged within me that I suppressed? "I don't know."

  "Do not worry. You are young. It will probably come to you later, although not all Monère possess the ability to transform into another creature." He frowned and reached up to smooth back my hair with a gentle touch. "Exactly how old are you?"

  "Twenty-one years old. When did you attain your other form?"

  "When I reached puberty at eighteen. But you are a Mixed Blood. Part human. It may come later for you."

  "Do you know that for certain?"

  He hesitated. "No. You are an entirely new entity."

  "What other forms have Mixed Bloods attained?"

  "None of them have had other forms, as far as I know."

  "Bummer," I said with relief. I did not wish to have another form. Not if it meant unleashing that scary, restless force that had prowled within me since puberty.

  "But you are an entirely new territory, to all of our kind."

  "What do you mean?"

  "That you are a Queen is a frank miracle in itself," Gryphon said with grave solemnity. "There has never been a Mixed Blood Queen before."

  "Ever?"

  "Never in our entire history since the Great Exodus from the moon."

  "The moon?"

  "Four millennia ago, a disaster befell our moon. The seas dried up and mountains crumbled. Monère desperately departed their dying planet. Many came to this world, carving out an existence here, all hoping that one day the moon would return to its former glory and we could return to our home."

  "Where do others of your kind live?"

  "We carved out colonies across the face of the earth, in the forests, amidst the deserts, on islands, along the high steppes. Most remain pure, though some have lived among the humans, but it is not easy to live in isolation among them, away from our kind."

  "So just how old are you?" It had been a question that had bedeviled me since he first opened his mouth and those delightfully quaint words and phrases flowed from his lips.

  Gryphon laughed, a rusty sound that twisted my heart. It made me want to entice it from him again and again until his laughter came freely with ease. "Not that old. I am only seventy-five years old."

  "Seventy-five! But you don't look more than thirty."

  "What are you doing?" he asked as I bent over him and combed my fingers through the long, thick strands.

  "Checking for white hair," I muttered, then jerked and moaned as he nuzzled my breast and drew a nipple into the warm, wet cavern of his mouth. "Oh, no you don't. I want some answers first."

  "I have no white hairs," he said, giving my pert tip one last luscious laving of his tongue before drawing away. "Seventy-five is considered young among our people. A warrior is considered mature at one hundred and seasoned at two."

  "Two hundred?" I said, squeaking like a mouse again, which drew a smile from Gryphon. He watched me, pleasure alighting his eyes as I walked naked to my closet. Drawing on a robe, I returned to the bed to perch beside him.

  "Our average life span is three hundred years."

  "And Mixed Bloods?"

  His smile faded, elusive once more. "They possess the lifespan of humans. One hundred years, mayhap."

  Again I felt a mixture of emotions. Pleasure at hearing that I would likely live until a hundred—a lengthy age that few humans reached—and pain that I would not live to three hundred. I felt cheated somehow.

  "Do not worry. 'Tis my belief you shall live longer than that. More Monère blood flows within you instead of human blood, and your heart beats slower than those of your human kind."

  "Fifty beats per minute."

  "The few Mixed Bloods I have encountered have rhythms of sixty and higher, like other humans."

  "So?"

  "So do you not see that the slower one's heart beats, the longer one lives? A hummingbird's heart beats more than three hundred times per minute and they live briefly, gloriously, for one year. A turtle, on the other hand, possesses a rhythm closer to mine. It is not unusual for them to see two hundred, sometimes even three hundred years of life."

  "So you're saying I will live longer than most humans."

  He nodded, his eyes a quicksilver flash of ebon darkness. "That is my belief."

  I took his hand and lay it against my cheek, my smile bittersweet. It was all a moot point. Two hundred more years to live with him would be a lovely prospect, but a longer life would be pointless without him. An amorphous aloneness and gray solitude was all I had know up till now. I had not truly begun to live until my eyes first fastened upon him. I wondered if my new life, my life with him, would be even more fleeting than that of a hummingbird.

  "How much time do you have before the poison kills you?" I asked.

  "No longer than a full cycle of the moon."

  Thirty days. Shit. "When did she…"

  "Yesterday."

  Just one day, and how weak it had made him in that short period of time.

  "What is it?" he asked, his hand moving down to stroke my neck, his thumb brushing against my pulse.

  "I was suddenly worried about the proper care and nourishment of my Moonie," I said, forcing a smile to my lips.

  "I wonder who your parents are," Gryphon mused.

  "The only thing I have from them is the silver cross you saw." Retrieving the cross, I turned it and showed him the engraving etched on the back.

  "Mona Lisa," he read. "Your name."

  "Yes."

  I watched as his eyes narrowed. "May I?" At my consenting nod, he took it from me and held it by the chain. Very lightly, delicately, he grasped the cross and examined it more closely. There at the base was another word etched so tiny, so meticulously, that human eye could not have detected it without the air of a microscope.
/>   "Monère," he read. Carefully, he released the cross and returned it to me, rubbing his fingers together absently where he had touched the silver.

  "Where did you get this?" he asked.

  "It hung upon my neck when they found me as a newborn and the name engraved on the back was the name I was given at the orphanage."

  He gazed at the cross I clutched tightly in my hand and stilled into that sudden immobility, a deep stillness that was beyond human. "Your hand," he said with odd carefulness. "May I see it?"

  I set the cross down and gave him my right hand. He uncurled my fingers. With reverence, he touched the mole there in the center of my palm. It was just a slight roundness, like a pearl buried halfway in my flesh. He held out his other hand and I passed my left palm into his care. He looked down upon the slight rising there, also, then gazed from one hand to the other.

  "What is it?" I asked.

  He did not speak for a moment. When he finally did, it was with a question of his own. "What powers do you possess?"

  I shrugged. "I can see through the darkness and hear miles, around me, if I wished. My sense of smell is acute. I am fast like a cat, strong as a lion. With effort, I can control people's minds with my gaze. With my hands, I can detect ailment within the body and, to a small degree, ease some of the pain, but I have yet to obtain the ability to heal."

  I waited for Gryphon to speak but he just stared down at my palms.

  "Well?" I finally prompted.

  He kissed each mole with careful deference and pulled me down until I lay beside him once more. " 'Tis my belief that you bear the mark of the Moon Goddess, her tears."

  "The Moon Goddess? "

  "Yes, a deity whom we worship. Our earliest ancestress, the mother of us all."

  "And why do you say you believe? As if you're not sure," I mumbled against the hollow of his neck.

  "You are most uncommon, my young Queen. We have only heard of the mark of the Goddess's tears through our lore and legends since the time of our Exodus. Those few Queens who were blessed with such marks were extraordinary healers and great warriors."