Mona Lisa Blossoming m-2 Read online

  Dontaine's right hand slowly reached out. I watched it like a mesmerized rabbit watched a weaving cobra before it struck. Watched it come closer and closer until he finally touched me, his hand coming to rest fully, heavily on my hip, his fingers splayed. He was injured, weak. But his touch was not that of a patient thanking his nurse. His touch was questioning, questing, almost a claiming. Asking permission to move up… or down.

  I drew in a sharp breath and my eyes shot to his, held his, as my left hand slowly came up to cover his hand and to remove it from me. I slid off the mattress, back down to my knees, and put that dangerous roaming hand gently on the space I had just vacated.

  Forget being obvious or cowardly. No way was I taking off his pants.

  I cleared my throat. "His pants are fine. I'm… uh, just going to change his sheets." Mentally I cringed when my voice came out lower and huskier than usual.

  "Are you sure?" Gryphon asked. It sounded like he was smiling at me but I didn't look up to see if he truly was.

  I nodded, not looking at either of them. Men. Nothing but trouble. Even when you were trying to help them.

  I gathered the clean linen Gryphon had brought in. "Dontaine, I'm going to go behind you now to loosen and roll up the bed sheet."

  Again that silent warning snarl.

  "All right. Maybe not," I said, trying to work out the logistics in my mind. "Then I'm going to have to kneel on the mattress in front of you and bend over you to loosen the dirty sheet and secure the clean sheet."

  No snarl. Apparently that was fine with him. Dontaine scooted back to make more room for me, a clear invitation.

  "I'll roll both the dirty sheet and the clean sheet behind you. You'll have to lift yourself up, and I'll roll them both underneath you to this side." Staring hard at him, I said, "No hanky-panky while I do this."

  Dontaine's teeth flashed in a wolfish grin. Obviously he was feeling better. His breathing still whistled, but it was easier, less desperate. And I wasn't sure, but I think the wound in his throat had filled in even more. If I stared and kept my eyes fixed on it, I wouldn't see the healing. But look away and then look back minutes later, and you could see a small difference. It was like a flower slowly unfurling. The minute actions themselves were invisible. But you could note the progress.

  I knelt in front of him, my weight sinking into the mattress so that Dontaine rolled against me. But he was behaving himself. He kept his hands off me. I leaned over him, tugged the sheet loose, rolled it up, and secured the new sheet as best as I could, all the while sharply-aware of Dontaine's bare skin, his bare body, pressed up against my legs. "Lift up," I said. He did, shifting easily. I eased off the mattress, and rolled the bundle beneath him, stripping off the stained sheet and tucking in the new one. "There. All done," I said, stepping back.

  "Are you?" Gryphon murmured.

  "Yes, this is as much as I can do for him. I can't heal him."

  "Can you not?"

  I turned and stared hard at Gryphon. "Not without fucking him." And my tone clearly said I was not going to do that.

  "How do you know?" Gryphon asked.

  Actually, it was a good question.

  "Healing power is within you," Gryphon said.

  "You mean, just touch him and try to heal him?"

  "That is the way other healers do so. Have you never tried to before?"

  I shook my head. Not since tapping into my new healing power. I had failed in the past and presumed it would be the same now.

  "Why not try now?" Gryphon asked, oh so reasonably.

  "Why not, indeed?" It would be a wonderful ability to have, to be able to heal someone without having to get naked and intimate with the person I wanted to heal. My thoughts flew sadly to Beldar, my mother's warrior, the last man I had healed. Though I had not taken him into any body, I had been intimate with him. And it had hurt something within me to have known him so, and not be able to claim him. To give him back.

  "All right," I said, making up my mind. "Let's give it a try after I finish up here first." I emptied the bloody contents of the soap dish into the basin of water, dumped the dirty water in the sink and returned to place the empty basin beneath him by the edge of the bed to catch any dripping blood. On my hands and knees, I used the dirty sheets to mop up the rest of the floor. I looked up to see both of them staring at me.

  "What?" I asked.

  "It is… ah, most unusual to see a Queen cleaning the floor," Gryphon replied, his eyes wide and surprised.

  I shrugged. "Someone has to. I do toilets and bathtubs as well."

  "A woman of many talents," Gryphon murmured huskily.

  With but the tiniest inflection and a look in those crystal blue eyes, a picture of soft sheets, bare skin, tangled limbs, and heated sighs filled your mind, enveloping you in sensuality. That was Gryphon's talent, his power.

  "Getting me in the mood before the laying on of hands?" I asked, my voice trembling slightly.

  "It cannot hurt."

  "It worked. I'm more than ready."

  "Are you?" Gryphon whispered.

  I nodded, tore my eyes away from Gryphon, and walked to Dontaine, deliberately laying both of my hands on him. One on his chest, one on his shoulder, covering two wounds. Concentrating, I called up that power within me once again. It came, spilling down my hands in an effortless shimmer, a tingling force. I let it sink down into the torn flesh of his shoulder, trail down to the very base of his injuries. And as the power seeped through him, I thought of his skin whole, unblemished. Closing my eyes, I pictured it in my mind, torn flesh knitting together. Heal! I thought. Heal.

  My palms tingled, heated. And then stopped.

  I opened my eyes and looked down. His wounds were still there. I made a soft sound of disappointment and let my hands drop away. "I can't do it."

  "Let me help you," Gryphon said. Slowly he eased up behind me. Dontaine watched him with wary green eyes but did nothing else.

  "Sex opens you to your healing power," Gryphon murmured softly. "Use that. Open yourself to it, do not try to shut it out. Touch him." He guided my hands back to Dontaine.

  "Stroke his chest. Feel his skin, how soft it is." Gryphon's voice was like a delicate purr in my ear, as tantalizing as the supple flesh beneath my hands.

  "You are aware of him, of his body. Do not fight it. Let it wash over you. Smell his scent, his body's musk as it readies itself for you." Gryphon guided my hands lower to brush over the tense ridges of Dontaine's abdomen. Then even lower until I brushed over the thick bulge of his arousal.

  For one second, I was tempted to linger over Dontaine, to trace the dimensions of that lovely erection. To squeeze him and feel the fullness and heaviness of him in my hand. Dimly, I realized that wasn't normal. That wasn't me. And that realization was enough to break the spell and jerk me back, breathing heavily.

  I backed away from both of them, my eyes wide on Gryphon's face with startled comprehension. "You're seducing me for him. You sent Amber from this room deliberately with this purpose in mind. You want me to sleep with Dontaine. Why?"

  Gryphon didn't even bother to try to deny it. "He has a great gift," he said with simple reason.

  "And that is reason enough to throw me to his bed?"

  "Do you remember what you made me swear when I was dying? When I had resigned myself to death," Gryphon asked me in a low tone. "You made me promise to fight, to live so that I can serve you."

  Gryphon spread his hands open in a speaking gesture. "I am serving you. We have enemies. They will not stop coming after you. And Dontaine has a rare ability, a great gift. If he passes it to you, you will be even stronger, even harder to kill."

  "You know how hard it is for me to face my beast," I whispered. "That change… a Half Form like that… the possibility that I could become something monstrous like that…" I laughed harshly. "Oh, Gryphon, you do not know me well. That is the strongest argument to keep me from Dontaine's bed."

  I shook my head, backing away. "I will never sleep with him. Ev
er."

  Whirling, I ran from the room.

  Chapter Six

  It was times like this when I realized how different we were. No matter how much I loved Gryphon, and he loved me, we were different. I was part human, and I clung to my humanity with both hands, wrapping it around me like a comfortable, familiar blanket in this new and frightening world. I kept expecting Gryphon to be more human, and Gryphon kept expecting me to be more Monère. I found my room by opening my senses until I could hear Thaddeus, Jamie, and Tersa, faster heartbeats than the others. I veered left from them toward the west wing. There were two other doors in that wing, across from each other, but I was guessing my room was the one at the very end. The big-ass room that was larger than my entire apartment had been back in Manhattan. Airy, spacious, opulent like the rest of the house, with its own sitting room. Tall ceilings, big bed with red silk sheets, plush carpeting were my fast impressions as I swung into the bathroom connected by an open archway. The bathroom was just as big as my living room had been.

  I stripped off the gown, left it on the floor, and stepped into the lavish shower. It was more spacious than a bathtub even, with clear walls and door. Didn't matter. No one to see me. More important to turn on the shower, step under it, and let the tears finally flow. Cool water ran and I cried silently, letting the water wash over me, rinsing off the dirt and blood, wishing it was that easy to rinse away the hurt and pain I felt.

  We are not humans, Gryphon had told me. Even after all they had done, all I had seen them do, all I had done, unbelievable non-human things… still I hadn't really heard him until he did something like this. Want me to sleep with another man just to possibly acquire his gift.

  It hurt.

  I didn't understand how Gryphon could do that. Not just be passively okay with it but actively try to seduce me into it because he had known it was not something I would have done myself.

  I am serving you, Gryphon had said. The sad thing was that he honestly believed that. It was a time-honored Monèrian Queen tradition. Sleeping with men, then casting them aside when they became too powerful. And the men slept with their Queens because they were drawn to them, and because they wished to acquire more power to survive, to advance. A dangerous tightrope that many of them fell off of. Because what did Queens do to men who became too powerful for them to control? They killed them. Another time-honored Monèrian Queen tradition. Like a black widow spider, killing the males she mated with.

  I am serving you.

  Gryphon was keeping to the promise to which I had made him swear when I was afraid of losing him after I had only just found him. A promise I had selfishly wrenched from him because I did not want to be alone again. I'd made him promise to fight to live. He was fulfilling that promise. Only… oh, baby, serve me another way. Not like this. Not like this.

  When I was clean, when the tears finally stopped and my breathing finally evened, I turned off the water and toweled off. Big fluffy towels to go with the big fluffy room. I was alone and thankful for it.

  I'd been alone ail my life. Physically, the last three years. Emotionally, almost all my life. Ever since Helen, the human mother who had adopted me and loved me as her own, died when I was six and I entered my first foster home. In the long years that followed, I'd grown used to that solitude. The last couple of weeks, I'd gone from just taking care of myself, to taking care of nine others. And now finding I had to expand that to over four hundred more. God! The pressure, the responsibility, was almost smothering. Deliberately, I slowed my breathing. Wouldn't do to hyperventilate.

  I felt dawn like a gentle promise, advancing slowly, inexorably. Pressing against the horizon, creeping ever closer. Someone had unpacked everything and put all my stuff away. I fumbled through the drawers until I found the big T-shirt I slept in. Old, worn, comfortable, and familiar. I had a sudden sharp need for things comfortable and familiar. With the soft cotton pressed against my skin like a faithful friend, I crawled between the sheets, tired and heartsore, and welcomed the unthinking bliss of sleep.

  A wolf howled at the crack of dawn. Not a rooster. A rooster would have been preferred. Nasty though it would have been, a cock-a-doodle-do wouldn't have shot me out of bed with the hair on the back of my neck standing on end.

  It came again, a long, jarring mournful howl.

  Shit!

  I threw open a couple of drawers—couldn't remember where everything was. I finally found a pair of jeans, slid into them, and into my shoes in almost one continuous motion, and ran out the door. Other doors opened. I met Gryphon and Amber, still dressed, at the end of the corridor. I caught a glimpse of Chami, Tomas, and Thaddeus, who looked as if they had thrown on clothes as quickly as I had.

  Down the corridor, Tersa poked her tousled head out. "What is that?"

  "Good question," I said, looking at Gryphon. "Is that Dontaine?"

  "No." There was an odd look on Gryphon's face, almost as if he knew what it was but didn't wish to tell me.

  Another eerie howl floated up the stairs. I ran after it, chasing it like an ethereal specter down the spiraling steps, the others behind me.

  "Wait," Amber called out behind me. "Let us go first."

  I ignored him, bypassing the last twenty steps by leaping over the carved wooden balustrade and landing lightly on my feet. I dashed down the hallway, opening my senses. There. I passed through the kitchen, the laundry room, and came to a closed door. A sniffling sound came from behind it, and a heartbeat. Not a slow, slow one like Amber's or Gryphon's, whose hearts beat no more than thirty times a minute. A moderately slow one like mine, like Thaddeus's. Fifty beats per minute. And it wasn't fur I smelled. Not an animal. A human.

  The door was locked.

  "Open the door," I said softly to whoever was behind it.

  The sniffling stopped, but the door remained locked. The rest of the gang came pounding up behind me.

  "No, do not open it, Mona Lisa," Gryphon said.

  For some reason, I did not want to listen to Gryphon tonight. In fact, I felt a strong urge to kick open the damn door just because he'd told me not to. And looking at me, I think Gryphon somehow knew what I was feeling. He held up a ring of keys.

  "Open it," I said flatly and stepped aside. See, reasonable. It wasn't smart to ruin one's own property if you didn't need to.

  Gryphon inserted a key. He knew exactly which one, I noted. He opened the door and I stepped inside. I didn't need lights to see in the dark. We were creatures of the night. Darkness was our home. I saw as clearly as if sunlight had flooded the room.

  A boy was locked up, shackled in silver manacles against the wall. I could tell it was a boy because he was shirtless. Ail he wore was a pair of ragged pants that made Dontaine's ruined pair look pristine. Dirt, mud, stains, and bruises covered him. His hair was long and matted, hanging about his face in dreadlocks. Not a fashion statement but the real thing caused from dirt and tangled, unwashed hair. The boy's eyes gleamed like shiny wild things from behind his straggles of hair. Yellow teeth were bared and a growl rumbled from his throat.

  He was Thaddeus's height but so different from my brother. Thaddeus had the thinness, the lankiness of a young boy about to sprout. This poor creature's thinness was the thinness of hunger, of starvation. His rib bones pushed out, while the skin covering them seemed to be trying to suck them back in, dipping so painfully inward into a belly that wasn't just flat and hollow, it was concave. But he was strong. Every bit of flesh he had was lean, developed muscle. The wiry strength of his body, even more than his clothing, his hair, bespoke his wild state. He looked to be even younger than Thaddeus. Fourteen, maybe. And he'd been crying, alone in the dark.

  "He's a Mixed Breed," I said. My senses told me that. And not just half. More. Possibly three-quarters of his blood was Monère. Like me. Like Thaddeus.

  Someone flipped the switch and fluorescent light lit the room.

  A sharp gasp. Then Tersa whispered, "Oh, dear Goddess."

  I kept my attention fixed on the boy. "Can
you understand me?" I asked softly.

  No reply. Just that warning rumble.

  "It's okay. We're not going to hurt you," I soothed.

  When I turned to Gryphon, my voice wasn't as gentle. "What the fuck is this?"

  Gryphon had on his impassive face, the one that told you nothing. "A present Mona Louisa left behind."

  "How long has he been here, locked up like this?"

  "Horace did not say," Gryphon said quietly.

  "Two days." It was Dontaine's raspy voice. He'd pushed through or maybe everyone had just stepped back and let him through. He'd healed enough to close his windpipe but not cover it. The little bones and cartilage of his trachea were clearly visible, moving as he talked. He didn't drip blood, but it glistened there. Wet meat. "He existed in the bayou. She had him captured two days ago. Left him for you."

  No need to ask why. The message was clear. This is what Mixed Bloods are to us.

  "Was he causing trouble?" I asked.

  Dontaine shook his head slightly, making the loose flesh move around his trachea. It was even worse than watching him talk.

  "He is a wild thing," Dontaine said.

  "I kinda got that when he howled," I said.

  "Grew up in the swamps. But no, he was not killing cattle or raiding human livestock."