by Sunny
It was the perfect segue into what I had wanted to ask him. “Is it? In one of my . . . I don’t know what to call it . . . flashbacks, maybe, I saw a young teenage boy starved even more than those hunters were, and appearing even more wild. He was shackled to a wall and wore only torn trousers. His body was unwashed. His hair was so matted with filth I couldn’t tell its true color, and he smelled of urine, like he’d been chained there for days. Was that something that really happened?”
“I cannot say for sure, but there is a young Mixed Blood boy I saw you with, whom you said had been abandoned in the bayous and grew up feral. When I saw him, however, he was clothed, his hair washed and combed.”
I chewed over his words. Nothing conclusive, but disturbingly possible. I moved onto my next vision. “Then there was you. Pretty much like how I described the boy—half-naked, wild, shackled to the wall.”
“Ah,” said Dante. “That was true memory. You saw me in my maddened state.”
True memory. The words jarred me. I had suspected, but to have someone confirm them as truth was still a shock.
“Do you remember anything else of our encounter?” he asked.
“No, just that brief glimpse. It was triggered when I came to rescue you from Roberto and found you chained up.”
“And enraged. Similar to how you saw me before. Any other memories?”
“Yes. This one, though, was the most disturbing. The moon . . . I was pulling down light from the full moon. Pulling it into myself. Drinking it down like this amazing cocktail of energy. Was that real?”
“Very real. You are describing Basking, what you and other Monère Queens are able to do: pull down the moon’s renewing light and energy. Take it into yourselves and share it with others around you. Only Queens can do this. That’s what makes you so valuable to our people.”
“So Mona Sierra has this ability also?”
Dante nodded.
“Why is that so valuable?”
“Because it renews us and allows us to live a full span of life—three hundred years.”
“Three hundred years!” I squeaked. “You’re kidding me.”
“No, milady. I kid you not. Without Basking, we age faster and our lives are shortened to a human life span, which is why my brother and I are more physically mature than other Monère boys our same age. We were raised up among humans and never Basked in a Queen’s light until you.”
The questing brush of another’s presence, distant yet, interrupted my next question. My head lifted from his shoulder as I felt Dante’s own power flare out in response.
“Your friend?” I asked.
“It is Aquila,” Dante replied after the briefest pause.
“Why did you hesitate?”
“Because Aquila is not my friend,” Dante said, looking out over the water.
“Why? Do you dislike him?”
“No.”
“Then why?”
“Because I left you.”
We had danced delicately to this point once before. “Why did you leave me?” I asked.
“Because you desired that I go.”
“Why, Dante? I can’t remember any of it. You’ll have to tell me.”
“We . . . hurt each other,” he said after a moment’s reflection. “Both of us had the finest intentions, but we wanted different things. And then another matter crept between us, and after that yet another incident.”
“Dante.” I waited until his face turned to me. “You’re saying a lot of things, but you’re telling me nothing.”
Aquila’s presence grew stronger. He was visible now in the sky.
“I’m afraid to tell you,” Dante said in a low voice. “Afraid to help you remember. Afraid that I’ll lose you again when you do.”
Whatever it is, now wasn’t the right time to probe further, I noted in frustration as an eagle, large and graceful, clutching a cloth bundle in its talons, landed behind a building a hundred feet away. “It never seems to be the right time. But you’ll have to tell me soon.”
“Soon,” he promised.
“I’ll hold you to that,” I said as a man emerged from behind the shed, his feathers exchanged for clothes. I looked with interest at the neat, thin mustache and the Vandyke beard, wondering if it would trigger any more memories, but no flashbacks occurred.
“Aquila, I presume,” I said as he approached.
“My lady, are you well?” Aquila asked, both relief and consternation on his face.
“Much better than how I was faring a few hours ago.”
“Dante says that you do not remember any of us.”
“Nope, sorry. Hit my head real hard and can’t remember anything of the last several months.” Despite the easy way I spoke, I was far from blasé about it. “How long before the others arrive?”
“They should be along shortly. They’ll be arriving by helicopter.”
“Do you have any money?” I asked.
“Yes, milady.” He pulled out a small wad of cash, to my vast delight.
“Good. Let’s go do some shopping, and we’ll fill you in on what happened.”
We gave Aquila a brief rundown as we purchased some better-fitting clothes, along with bra and underwear for me—luxury items I’d never take for granted again. We also got sneakers for the both us, even more essential than a bra and underwear.
“The better to run in if we need to,” I quipped, lacing them on.
Aquila looked quite pale after hearing us recount our adventures, and remained sharply alert when I returned our borrowed clothes back to the clothesline. The twenty dollars from the tourist looked like it was going to be a permanent donation, however. There was no sign of him.
The whop-whop-whop of a helicopter headed us back to the waterfront to await its arrival, drawing a crowd of curious onlookers as it landed like a giant metal gnat on the rippling green lawn.
“Quentin’s here,” Dante said. Even though he spoke in a normal tone of voice, I was still able to hear him over the noisy whirling of the helicopter blades.
“Who’s Quentin?”
“My twin brother.” With a broad smile, the first time I had ever seen Dante smile so openly, he stepped forward to greet his sibling. The young man who jumped out of the landed craft was seriously good-looking, I noted, with a face like a male model. They embraced with a quick, hard hug.
The wattage in the young man’s grin rivaled the brilliance of the sun. “Milady. Aquila,” Quentin said, greeting us easily. “Let’s get on board.”
Dante’s father and another man I didn’t recognize were seated in back. I climbed in and took the seat next to the stranger while Dante slung himself into the last seat beside me. Quentin and Aquila sat in front next to the pilot.
As soon as we were all buckled in, we lifted back into the air.
“I know you’re Dante’s father,” I said to the large man sitting on the end, deliberately leaving the headset off so the pilot couldn’t hear us. “But I don’t remember your name.”
“I’m Nolan, milady. Nolan Morell.”
“Where’s the other guy? The one who could turn invisible?”
“Chami’s waiting for us back in Mexico,” Nolan said. “The helicopter could only fit six besides the pilot.”
I glanced at the man next to me who had been watching us silently. He had dark hair and eyes and his skin was deeply tanned like the Mexican natives here. His dark coloring was offset by the white silk shirt and the tan leather gloves he wore, lending a quiet, subdued elegance to his otherwise average appearance.
“I’m sorry,” I said in a loud voice, thinking him human like our pilot, as I peered more closely at his face. “You seem oddly familiar. Do I know you?”
It seemed as if all breath suspended inside the craft for a moment.
“My name is Halcyon,” came the quiet reply, as if the man knew he didn’t have to raise his voice above the noisy thrumming to be heard by me.
Halcyon . . . I had heard that name recently. Then it came to me—when and
where, and why he had seemed familiar. “This Halcyon?” I asked, lifting out the necklace I wore around my neck with the cameo that bore the face of the man sitting next to me. The face I had seen briefly in flashback.
“Yes.”
His confirmation threw my world spinning topsy-turvy once more.
I wanted to make him clarify exactly what he was confirming—that he was what Dante had called him, a demon. But I couldn’t, not with Dante’s other words echoing in my ears.
The woman before you is the High Prince of Hell’s chosen mate.
“The woman” being me.
I swallowed with a mouth that was suddenly dry as I turned to Dante and asked, “This is the Halcyon you were talking about?”
Dante nodded. “Yes.”
“I thought you were making all that stuff up to try and scare Mona Sierra.”
“No,” Dante said, all his joy over seeing his brother draining away into familiar grimness. “I made nothing up. Everything I said was true.”
SEVENTEEN
I SAT THERE in shock, surrounded by my lover, and what—a demon?
What exactly did chosen mate entail? And that was just the first wave of confusion. More came as I remembered everything else Dante had said . . . everything he had been called.
Queen killer.
I had ignored Dante’s words during our capture, putting it down to the most outrageous and creative bit of lying I’d ever heard.
Everything I said is true.
I remembered his other wild, incredible claim: that I was this supposed Mona Lyra reincarnated. And that he had been the one to kill Mona Lyra.
Queen killer . . .
And that I—Mona Lyra—had taken his father’s life and cursed Dante with my dying breath.
It was a tale crazier than the most bizarre Greek tragedy. Unbelievable.
Everything I said is true . . .
“Do you wish me to leave?” Dante asked, snapping me out of the long silence I had fallen into.
Why did you leave me? I had asked him. And his answer: Because you desired that I go.
“If I say yes, what will you do?” I asked. “Jump out of the helicopter into the sea?”
“Yes, if you wish.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Dante.” My slight smile seemed to surprise him. “I’m not giving you up after all the trouble I just went to. The only way I’ll let you leave is if you want to. Do you?” I asked quietly.
“No.”
“Good, because I’m not sure I could give you up even then.” I wrapped my hand around his and felt his broad fingers close around my slimmer ones. “We’ll have to talk more about all those things you said, and fill in all those gaps in my memory, but going by my actions, I don’t think they’ll be insurmountable. In the end, I came after you, didn’t I?”
“How much memory did you lose?”
The question, and voice, drew my attention back to Halcyon. “A pretty large gap. The last thing I remember is working as a nurse in Manhattan. Nothing after that. Not even moving out of the city.”
“How do you feel?” Halcyon asked with calm, focused intensity.
“Fine—no injuries. Everything’s healed.” I was more aware of him now. Aware of a faint sensing of his presence, and an odd lack of sound and movement that I suddenly accounted for with a rapid skittering of pulse. He wasn’t breathing. Nor were there any heartbeats, none that my sensitive ears could discern. I sat there listening for a long time in vain. I was incredibly tired but on edge, finding, despite my lethargy, that I was simply unable to fall asleep next to someone who didn’t have a heartbeat.
We landed at the heliport in Cancun International Airport and found Chami awaiting us there.
“Milady, forgive me. I know you don’t remember us but . . .” The slender, curly-haired fellow who had displayed the alarming knack of turning invisible swept me up in an unexpected hug. “It’s good to have you back,” he said, releasing me. The man was much stronger than he appeared.
It was an odd thing being embraced so warmly by someone who was essentially a stranger to me. A stranger I had inadvertently caused harm to. “I’m sorry about before,” I said awkwardly. “About getting you injured.”
“No matter,” Chami said, brushing it easily aside. “You are here now. Safe.”
“Any sign of Roberto?” I asked. “The drug lord who took me?”
“Nope. More’s the pity,” Chami said, his eyes flashing with heat. “Would have liked to have gone a second round with that bastard.”
We made our way to the terminal for private jets and boarded a comfortable jet without difficulty. Without passports or any form of identification, in fact. Trusting in the men’s ingenuity and talent, I left all the details of finessing and compelling to them, too tired to do anything other.
With effort, once aboard the plane, I pushed back the drowsiness that clung to me like a sticky web. At Nolan’s simple question of “What happened?” I filled everyone in on what had happened up to our escape from Roberto. Dante took up the rest of the tale after that, while I lounged back in my seat and listened with half-closed eyes.
Even tired as I was, I was aware of everyone’s surprise on hearing about my nifty energy-blast trick. That seemed to be a new ability for me.
“What about you, Quentin?” Dante asked, turning to his brother. “Why are you up here instead of with your Queen?”
“Dad called me when things got screwed up, and I came down to save your ass.”
“Did you have your Queen’s permission to leave?” Dante asked.
“Quit playing the older brother. You’re only older than me by six lousy minutes. Of course I got Mona Maretta’s permission, but she’s not my Queen anymore.”
By Dante’s sudden stillness, I gathered that this was more significant than it sounded to me.
“You were only with her for several months,” Dante said. “What happened?”
Quentin shrugged. “Got homesick, I guess.”
“Did she abuse you?” The question was asked in a dangerously quiet voice.
“With you as my big brother?” Quentin said mockingly. “Don’t be stupid. She’s not that dumb. Nah, she was actually pretty nice to me. Just wasn’t what I thought it would be. Maybe I was too sheltered. Or maybe I just grew up with too much human value. She treated me well, but I didn’t like how she treated other people. Plus, I think she was starting to get tired of me in bed.”
“Already?” Dante said. “Maybe Dad should have concentrated on teaching you how to use your other sword more adeptly.”
Quentin mock-punched him in the arm with enough force to sway him back several inches.
“Hah! I’ll wager I’m more adept with that other sword than you are now. No disrespect intended you, milady,” Quentin said, casting a quick glance at me, “or any slur on what you may or may not have taught this lout yet. We’re just joking around.”
The sudden apology—and mention of intimate matters between me and Dante—caused a flush of embarrassment to sweep over my face. I waved my hand in a never-mind, just-goon manner. Thankfully Quentin did, pulling attention back to him.
“You know the saying—two’s company, three’s a crowd? Well, Mona Maretta didn’t feel that way. To her, the number three was just a starting point.”
The choked sound I made drew a few concerned glances my way. My cheeks had to be brilliant red at this point. I fluttered my hand again, encouraging all to ignore me.
“Anyway, I was starting to grow tired of just being her appetizer, and only a small part of it. And I think she was starting to tire of my declining to join in on the more adventuresome bed sport she favored.”
“She was kind to give you a choice,” Nolan noted impassively.
“I know,” Quentin said. “She could have forced me with a simple command. Probably would have, in fact, had I been anybody else’s brother.” He waggled his finely arched brows at Dante. “Anyhow, I didn’t like living like that, by her whim, watching her treat her people as
if they had no rights other than what she allowed. Like I said, she wasn’t that bad, just uncaring at times. I’d already made up my mind not to renew my one-year contract with her. When Dad called, it just expedited things. Having it involve your reappearance”—Quentin flashed a sardonic smile at his twin—“was just extra icing. When I asked to be released from her service to come to my family’s aid, Mona Maretta dropped my contract faster than a hot potato.”
“Why would she fear Dante?” I asked. That had been what he’d been implying.
Quentin glanced at his brother’s austere face. “Let’s just say he established quite a reputation at the last service fair.”
“What did he do to earn such a reputation?” I persisted.
When no one answered my question, I turned to Dante. “Tell me,” I urged softly.
“A Queen caused you a grievous injury,” Dante said, his face carefully free of expression. “I killed her men in retaliation.”
So it was partly my fault, I thought. “Men, as in plural, more than one,” I noted.
Dante nodded.
“How many men?”
“Thirty in total.”
I absorbed the information in shocked silence. “So many?” I whispered. “Just yourself, against so many?”
Dante dipped his head. “It was a serious harm done against you. Done with malicious intent.”
Serious enough to kill thirty men for? “What did she do to me?”
“If you do not remember it, I would rather not speak of it now,” Dante said. He bowed his head. “Please, milady.”
“He is correct,” Prince Halcyon said quietly. “You can talk of such matters later. She is clearly exhausted. You should allow her to rest.”
Everyone deferred to the Demon Prince’s wishes and all conversation ceased. Dante moved across the aisle to sprawl his length across the bench seat and stare out the window, while Quentin and Nolan busied themselves reading magazines. Chami took out a cloth and began cleaning a wickedly sharp-looking blade; Aquila nodded at me gravely and looked away. Prince Halcyon simply closed his eyes, setting an example of the rest he wanted me to get.
Everyone was cooperating except for me. I tried sitting back and closing my eyes, but my tired brain continued to whirl with Quentin’s words . . . Could have forced me . . . with a simple command. Probably would have. . . had I been anybody else’s brother . . .