“We don’t do that,” she said at last, and dropped the stake. She was condemning who knew how many more women to torture and death…[ ]Maggie was counting on her, wherever she was, and—and—“We don’t do that and I don’t do that.”
“Ha,” Pete said, and grinned at her through broken teeth. “All the way from Minnesota. Long trip for nothing.”
“Not nothing,” Burke said. “She came for me. She just didn’t know.” Then he broke Pete’s neck, a dry snap swallowed by the waves. Pete’s mouth was opening and closing like a goldfish in a bowl, and then—Serena couldn’t believe it—and then Burke literally ripped the monster’s head off and tossed it away like a beach ball. The sound it made was like a chicken leg being pulled from a thigh. Times a thousand.
She spun away from their little group of evil and tried to be sick in the sand, but couldn’t vomit. The sound—and the look on Pete’s face when his neck broke—and the sound—
Burke briskly washed his hands in the surf and knelt beside her. She leaned against him and wiped her mouth.
“I knew you wouldn’t,” he whispered into her ear. “I told you: I’m the beast, not you.”
“I just—couldn’t. He was smirking at me and he knew I couldn’t and he just—I just—” She closed her eyes and heard the snap of Pete’s neck breaking again. This time it didn’t make her feel sick. This time it made her…[ ]not exactly happy. More like…[ ]peaceful? “Oh, Burke. What if you hadn’t come? What if I’d never met you?”
“But I did. And you did. And Maggie can rest. No more bad dreams.”
“How did you know I—?”
He kissed her on the temple. “How could I not know my own mate?”
She clung to him, ignoring the surf wetting their legs, their knees. “Your mate? You still want to—?”
“Since you were in the hole and told me to go away. I couldn’t leave you then. How could I leave you now? You’re for me and I’m for you.”
“Just like that?”
He shrugged.
“Just like that,” she answered herself. The events of the past two days flashed across her mind: all he had done. For her. Had anyone ever…? Who else could have done so much for her, but the man she was destined to be with?
“I’ll outlive you,” she said tearfully.
“On the upside, I can’t knock you up.”
“No kids,” she said, cheering up.
He kissed her again. “No kids.”
They rose as one and walked to the truck, not looking back when the surf covered Pete’s body—both pieces—and took it away.
As predicted, nobody missed him, except the liquor rep, and she quickly found a new client.
No one in the bar who saw Burke and Serena ever forgot them, and no one in the bar ever saw them again. Drifters, in and out of P-town, one of several thousand tourists who came through Cape Cod each summer. Nothing special about them.
No, nothing at all.
MONA LISA THREE
Sunny
My thanks to my editor, Cindy Hwang,
for including me among her fortunate few.
To Roberta Brown, a truly amazing agent.
And to Publishers Weekly and Susan White
of Coffee Time Romance
for giving me such boffo reviews!
CHAPTER 1
It was the beginning of December in Manhattan, smack, dab in the Christmas season, and we were shopping. But not for presents. Oh, no. For something far more practical—clothing. In a couple days’ time, we were heading to Louisiana, my new territory.
The men had insisted that I meet my new constituents dressed like the Monère Queen that I was. Well, three-quarters Monère, at least. That last quarter was comprised of human blood, making me the first Mixed Blood Queen ever; I’d just been officially recognized by the Court. But given that most Monère considered Mixed Bloods to be mutts, mongrels, and the like, I could see my men’s point that I dress like a Queen. T-shirt, jeans, and sneakers wasn’t quite the image of authority they were used to. Oh well.
The Monère, my guys included, were quite backward in their tastes, actually. Long dresses and loose hair for their women. The plan was to break them in slowly, gently. If I had to wear a long black dress, I could do that. For now.
But since they’d insisted on torturing me, I decided it was only fair to torture them right back. I made them get new clothes as well. For Gryphon, well, the torture was more on my part. He was a vision of masculine beauty with ebony-[ ]black hair falling to his shoulders. His long, lean, and delicious build. The white alabaster purity of his skin. The red, red brightness of his cupid-bow lips. So beautiful that you wanted to reach out and touch him, prove that he was real.
He was the first Monère I’d ever encountered, the first man I’d ever loved. He’d come to me a few weeks ago, injured, alone, fleeing his Queen. In saving him, I had really saved myself.
He was my heart. And that vital organ that he claimed pitter-pattered within me as he stepped out of the fitting room dressed in the black Prada slacks I had chosen for him. The vibrant blue shirt he wore brought out the stunning cerulean richness of his eyes. Devastatingly lovely.
Another fitting room door swung open and Amber emerged, the other man who held my heart, roughly handsome in a mahogany brown dress shirt. His straight chestnut locks looked tousled as if he had run a hand carelessly through them, and his deep sea–blue eyes were narrowed in a fierce frown.
Huge was the word that best described Amber. Big and brawny, bounded with muscles, he was toweringly tall, majestic like a mountain. A mass of bulges and mounds—bulging biceps that strained the cloth, a mounded, muscular chest, a hard flat belly, powerful haunches, and thick-[ ]muscled calves. With his harsh features bold and craggy, Amber was beautiful in his own unique way—in his great warrior strength, in his unexpected tender care of me. He’d saved me. Brought me back from the brink of death.
My two Warrior Lords. My two lovers. It was hard to believe that I wouldn’t have to give up one or the other. That I could keep them both. That they would share me, as they put it, alternating in my bed and in my body.
Other sighs, not only mine, were heard around the store. Looking at the two of them, one with the grace and beauty of a fallen angel, the other menacingly big and brawny, with the strength of a towering oak…[ ]who would not sigh, given this vision?
“The pants are too tight,” Amber muttered, redness darkening his broad cheeks.
Actually, he filled out the tan-colored slacks quite nicely—impressively. I circled him slowly, front to back, appreciating the snug fit that showed off the leanness of his hips, the powerful heft of his thighs, and the tightness of his lovely muscular butt, among other things.
“I have to disagree. I think they’re perfect,” I murmured, unable to resist stroking a discreet hand down the enticing curve of his bottom. Beneath my light touch, his buttocks tensed to rock hardness, making my heart skip a beat. Oh, my.
“What do you think, Chami?” I asked, turning to the third man with us. Chami was one of the three other men recently sworn to my service. The deadliest among them. My assassin.
He was tall like Gryphon, almost six feet, but with whip-[ ]cord leanness, slender like a greyhound. Sprawled on the couch in limber disarray, dressed in the light green cashmere sweater and olive pants I had chosen for him, with his soft curly brown hair waving across his smiling blue eyes, I was sharply reminded of how deceiving appearances could be. He looked nothing like the deadly killer that he was.
“I agree with Mona Lisa,” Chami said, a smile tugging the corner of his mouth. “The clothes show off all your…[ ]masculine attributes to nice advantage.”
Amber growled and Chami laughed outright.
“What do you think, Gryphon?” Chami asked, mischievously turning to the other man to share in the blame.
“If it pleases our Queen,” Gryphon replied softly, “that is all that matters.”
“You’re outvoted, Amber.” Reaching up, I
wrapped my arms around his thick, brawny neck and pulled the big man down for a kiss.
“Does it please you?” Amber whispered when our faces were only a caress away.
“Yes,” I breathed against his mouth.
“Then I shall wear them.” A soft press of lips, chaste in action but oh so vibrant in emotion, and he released me. From that one light touch between us, I watched as his blue eyes slowly changed to that extraordinary golden clarity for which he was named—Amber. The eyes of his beast. The color of his eyes whenever he was moved with passion or power. They swirled now with love and devotion, feelings he didn’t bother to hide, looking so different from his normal stony façade.
“Does my clothing meet with your approval?” Gryphon asked, pulling my attention back to him.
I ran my appreciative gaze down his lovely form. “Yes,” was my husky reply. “Very, very much so.”
Pleased, Gryphon smiled with a quick flash of dimples, here then gone like a tender flickering tease that made one want to entice them out again. “Good,” he said, “then it is your turn now.”
I groaned. Amber perked up. They changed back into their regular clothes and we made our way to the women’s section of Bloomingdale’s. The formal wear.
“This one,” Gryphon said, holding up a long gown. Black lace overlying black silk.
“This dress,” said Amber, holding up another glittering, sweeping black confection.
“And this,” said Chami with his choice. Sleek, narrow, long and, of course, black.
I tried on all of them, to the men’s vast appreciation. At five foot eight, I was tall for a woman, with a lean athletic build and a modest bosom, far from lush. My eyes were my best feature, dark like my hair, tilted up exotically at the sides. Other than that, I was average. But beneath my men’s heated, approving eyes, I felt beautiful, desirable…cherished. A novel sensation.
I ended up buying all three gowns. There. Torture, I mean, shopping all done. Now it was back to work, packing and closing down my apartment.
Under a black-velvet star-studded sky, with the first quarter moon lending its slender slice of light to the night, we walked back with our purchases to my Lower West Side residence down in the Village.
The other members of our group were at the Pierre Hotel. And I was suddenly very, very glad we had decided to stay there, notwithstanding the hefty expense, when I opened the door and found a demon in my apartment.
CHAPTER 2
Demon dead was perhaps a more accurate description. They were not creatures from hell as we think of them, although they did live there—in Hell, that is. Demon dead are Monère who died, yet retained enough psychic energy to sustain their existence in another realm—a forever twilight where no life, no colors, existed. They were dead but not gone. And not really dead, although not really alive, either, as we knew it. Their hearts did not beat, they did not breathe. But they felt, they yearned, they bled. And they could kill.
They were incredibly strong and dangerous. Something that even the Monère feared.
My encounter with Kadeen, another demon dead, had almost killed me and my men. Of course, he’d ended up being the one killed, but not by my hand. By his prince’s—the High Prince of Hell, Halcyon, who was sweet on me and courting me in his own way. Who said he loved me. I’d asked Halcyon to find another to love. Because the attention his interest in me engendered was hard wear-and-tear on my body.
This was the third demon dead I had ever encountered. A lot, if you consider the fact that most Monère went their entire long lives without encountering a single one. So far, they’d been either friend or foe. I wasn’t sure which one this was. I didn’t know at all how to react.
My men must have sensed something wrong in the utter stillness I’d frozen into, in the sudden speeding of my heart. Strong arms wrapped around me and pulled me back from the doorway—Gryphon, I knew his touch—as Amber and Chami surged into the apartment.
“No, let me go, Gryphon,” I said, mouth dry.
Reluctantly, he released me when a few long moments passed by and there were no sounds of fighting within.
I stepped into my small apartment and found Amber and Chami standing near the door as frozen as I had been. They were having as much difficulty deciding how to react as I had because the demon dead facing us was a she.
She sat perched on my tiny love seat, fitting comfortably because she was tiny herself. But she was a small thing in height only. The rest of her was…well, lush. No other word for it, with her full generous breasts and hips, and hourglass waist. Even the golden-hued skin and long nails, sharp as knives, distinctive to all demon dead…even those merely added to her attraction. She was all shades of brown, from her large dark eyes to her full pouty lips, more mauve than red. Her hair was a color I had never seen before—gold. Bright and glistening, almost metallic in sheen. She was stunning in a soft kittenish way, sensuality oozing from her very pores. Every man’s dream. Hopefully not my nightmare. Because to cross the portal from Hell into this realm, you had to be strong. Really, really strong.
No matter how delicate, how lush, how sex-kittenish she appeared, she was powerful. The good news was that she wasn’t screaming and chasing after me in her demon beast form, trying to kill me. The bad news was that she was here. What did she want? For that matter, how had she found me? Did the demon dead know enough about the human world to flip through the Yellow Pages?
“So, you are Mona Lisa,” she purred. Her voice was as luscious as the rest of her, full-bodied, rich and throaty, satiny smooth. It literally licked across your skin in a tactile caress. The men shivered lightly, almost imperceptibly, but enough for me to know that they felt it, too. My nipples tightened involuntarily. Shit. I’d almost rather that she was trying to kill me. A touch homophobic? You betcha.
I licked my dry lips. “Yes, I’m Mona Lisa. Who are you?” Not quite rude, but not my most polite, either.
“I am Lucinda.” She said it like it should mean something to me, but it didn’t. Her eyes narrowed slightly. “Halcyon’s sister.”
His sister? Halcyon had a sister?
Well, crap. Now we really didn’t know how to handle her.
“All of Hell is abuzz with your name. A woman important enough to the High Prince that he killed another demon in challenge over you. Halcyon has not executed someone like that for…[ ]oh, what is it now[ ]…a hundred years?”
I flinched because I knew who he’d executed a hundred years ago. Kadeen’s father. And the son had been trying to challenge Halcyon ever since. The High Prince of Hell had ignored him up till now…until Kadeen had snatched me, mauled me, ripped into my throat, and drank down my blood. Then Halcyon had accepted his challenge and had killed him.
Unfortunately, the demon dead do not die—or would that be, die again—easily. Inside, the deepest part of me, I still trembled with the battle, the horror, so fresh in my memory.
“Well, as you can see,” I said, my voice dry and raspy, “I am not much.”
Lucinda threw back her head and laughed. A light, melodious, tinkling sound that shivered down your spine in a delighted caress, stroking things inside you that she had no business stroking. I shifted uncomfortably and decided that her laughing was a bad, bad thing. I’d try not to make her do it again.
“How modest. Is that your attraction?” She stood up suddenly and all of us tensed.
But even though my heart raced, my feet remained planted because I’d already decided how to handle her. She was curious about me. Hopefully, once she satisfied that curiosity, she would leave. It was a game plan of sorts. So I stood there as she walked closer. Although walk was not quite the word for how she moved. Swayed. Swayed would be a much better word.
Standing, her lush shape was displayed even more obviously. She wore a silk shirt like her brother, only it was the color of deep burgundy, the color of blood, instead of the white that Halcyon usually favored. And it molded to Lucinda’s shape in quite a different way than it did to him. Her black leather p
ants looked as if they had been painted on her. Now here was tight. Amber’s pants, in contrast, had merely fit him well.
She brushed against Amber, who was standing protectively before me. And even though she reached only halfway up his massive chest, he almost jumped when she touched him. His fists clenched, unsure of what to do.
“How big and tall you are,” Lucinda purred, looking up at him, a smile curving her full lips. Her gaze trailed down his face until her glance fell like a loving caress upon his neck, on the slow pulse that beat there strongly at the base of his throat. She looked at that bounding pulse like a woman looked at chocolate, as if imagining how it would taste, how it would melt in your mouth. Only it wasn’t chocolate she was craving.
“It’s okay, Amber,” I murmured. “Let her through.”
At my soft command, Amber stepped away and let her approach me. She seemed blissfully unconcerned with the fact that Chami and Amber flanked her on either side now. Either she knew they posed no threat to her unless she tried to harm me, and she was not planning on harming me. Or she was arrogantly sure of her own power and ability to protect herself. She stopped directly in front of me, her head reaching only to my chin, and then did something that no human would have done. She smelled me.
“You smell like the night,” Lucinda said, her nostrils flaring delicately as she took in my scent.
“We were walking outside,” I said a bit breathlessly, my heart pounding at having her this close to me. Close enough to touch. Close enough to rip out my heart or slice off my head with those lethally sharp nails—two of the ways to kill a Monère. Of course, I wasn’t a full-blooded Monère, so I was probably even easier to kill.
She examined me from head to toe in a thorough scrutiny, a thorough scenting. “You smell of power. And the smell of two others cling to your skin.”
She turned, a dainty demon, and stepped up to Gryphon. He’d frozen into that unnatural stillness that they were all capable of holding themselves in, as if they were carved from stone. Only his eyes moved, following her as she leaned in close, took in his scent.
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