Over the Moon

by Angela Knight

  “But I am not content,” he admonished me gently. “And you must not ask me not to hope. It is my sole reason for living now.”

  There were no words with which to answer him. I could do nothing but sit beside him and quietly bleed from his calm words.

  “Do not forget me, Mona Lisa,” he whispered softly, in the barest of sound, as two black Town Cars pulled up to the curb. Two cars looking like all the others that had passed by. But these thrummed with the unmistakable power of Monère males, and of the presence of another Queen.

  I gazed blindly at those cars. “I…[ ]No, I won’t forget you, Beldar.”

  My nails bit into my palms as I fiercely willed myself not to cry. I would not send him off with tears in my eyes.

  Kyle and Francois emerged from the second car and opened the rear door of the first. Smooth white hands extended from within and grasped each of theirs. Mona Sera stepped out, covered in a flowing black cape covering her from head to toe. The lustrous brown mink collar was her only color.

  She walked toward us and Kyle and Francois fell subserviently behind her, ignored like good servants.

  Beldar went forward to meet her and bowed deeply, kissing her hand in a smooth courtly gesture. “My Queen, I thank you for saving me.” His voice was low with a husky warmth that brought a cool smile to Mona Sera. But his eyes…bent over low, bowing at his waist, his eyes glanced back at me. They found and met mine, and his words, I knew, were meant for me, not her.

  “You have healed him,” Mona Sera observed with not one word of thanks.

  “Yes,” I said and didn’t bother to explain how I had managed to do so. I owed this cold creature nothing.

  “When do you leave,” Mona Sera asked abruptly, her tone clipped and sharp. Displeased.

  “Tomorrow.”

  “To Louisiana,” she said. “Mona Louisa’s former territory, once quite prosperous, but no longer so after Hurricane Katrina’s wrath.” And I saw it clearly, then, what Beldar had seen when I had not. She was jealous of me. Of my men and of the territory that I had been awarded.

  “Do not think,” she continued with cool malice, “that the people there will embrace you as eagerly as they did Mona Louisa. You are far less a Queen than she was.”

  Louisiana had been Mona Louisa’s former domain until she tried to kill me. Okay, not really kill me. Just deliver me into the hand of outlaw rogues who weren’t exactly known for their gentle treatment of women. Oh yeah, and for trying to kill Gryphon when she could no longer have him. Bitch. She had a lot in common with my mother, come to think of it.

  Now I had to take over what Mona Louisa had once ruled. I had to win over the local Monère there. And as my mother said, I doubted they would welcome me with opened arms. Too bad. They were stuck with me.

  “Do not concern yourself on my behalf, Mother,” I said mockingly. “I am up to the task before me. And if my territory is less than what it was, rest assured that I shall bring it back to its former glory.”

  “What unbecoming arrogance you have for a mongrel bastard.”

  “Your mongrel bastard,” I returned evenly.

  “The only reason I tolerate your presence now. But do not push me, child. And do not mistake our relationship for more than what it is. When you leave tomorrow, do not come back ever again or I shall hunt you down and kill you like the unwanted intruder you are. Is that clear, daughter mine?”

  “Oh, yes, Mother dear. Like crystal.”

  She swept one last hateful glance as us—me sitting there, with my men tall and strong behind me—then she turned and walked away.

  We watched as Kyle and Francois returned to the second car, as Beldar gracefully handed Mona Sera into the back seat of the first car and shut the door.

  Beldar looked up. Gave me one last searing look, his eyes running over my face as if he were engraving it into his memory. One last lingering glance from those haunting emerald eyes, so strikingly green set against the white spill of his hair, and then Beldar slid into the front passenger seat.

  After they drove away, we sat there for a long time in the cool evening darkness, in an almost funereal silence; I not the loss of my mother, but something truly heartbreaking, the loss of one of her men.

  Beldar had always been hers, never mine. My mind knew that, but my heart did not. In my heart, I felt as if I had given him up.

  “You cannot save everyone,” Gryphon said softly beside me.

  “I know.” I truly did know that. But, oh, how I wished I could.

  CHAPTER 8

  I watched as Gryphon and Amber carried the headboard and bed frame out of the apartment. Chami and Aquila hefted the mattress easily out after them. It was handy having five strong Monère men helping me move. Made things quick and easy.

  In the tiny kitchen, Rosemary and Tersa were busy wrapping the glassware in newspaper and packing them in boxes. Thaddeus and Jamie carted each box downstairs as they became full, loading them onto the waiting truck parked in front of the apartment. They were being donated, along with the furniture, to a nearby homeless shelter.

  Do not bring anything other than yourself and your clothes, I had been told. My new home in Louisiana was already fully furnished, and not just with ordinary furniture like the ones I was giving away, but with valuable antiques.

  I gazed around the barren apartment that looked larger but more forlorn with its bare walls and naked flooring, and felt no sadness at leaving everything behind. I was taking the most important things with me, things that really mattered—the people in my household. My family.

  “Is there anything else, milady?” Tomas asked me in his soft southern twang.

  “I think that’s it, Tomas, other than the kitchen stuff.” With his light brown eyes and hair, Tomas reminded me of summer wheat fields swaying beneath the sun. He gazed at me with his usual quiet somberness. What wasn’t usual was the closed, guarded expression on his face.

  “Is something wrong, Tomas?”

  His eyes fell, and he shook his wheat-colored hair.

  I walked over to him and gently lifted his chin. “Tell me, Tomas, tell me what bothers you, please.”

  He lifted his eyes and looked at me like a child lost. “I thought that I would be the one to go,” he said in a low voice.

  “Go?”

  “The one that you would give to Mona Sera.”

  My eyes widened. “Why would you think that, Tomas?”

  “You love Amber and Gryphon. And Rosemary, as one of our few women, is too valuable. Aquila is good at business and can drive. And with his uncommon ability, Chami is uniquely useful. I have no special skills.”

  “Oh, Tomas,” I said softly. His loyalty was as straight and true as the sword he had sworn into my service. I knew that had I chosen to give him up, he would have left me with bewildered eyes and a broken heart, but he would have gone had I ordered him to, because he had given his word to protect and to obey me.

  He was only two inches taller than I was, so that I had only to lift my eyes a short distance to meet his, giving me an intimacy with him that I did not have with the other taller men.

  “You are one of my guards,” I told him. “When you gave me your oath, when I accepted you into my service, I also promised to protect you. I would never give you up, any of you. I would have bargained, negotiated with Mona Sera, had I not been able to save Beldar. But if she had left me with no other choice, I would have fought before I gave any of you to her.”

  “Mona Sera’s men number more than twenty,” Tomas said simply.

  “Then between the six of us—Amber, Gryphon, Chami, Aquila, you, and I—we would have been equally matched against them. And we would have been fighting for something that meant more to us than simply obeying the orders of a Queen we feared. We would have won. At cost, but we would have won. Never doubt your worth to me again, Tomas. I hold every single one of you dear in my heart.”

  He expelled a shaky breath, bent low and kissed my hand. “No, my Queen. I shall not doubt you again.”
/>
  When he straightened back up, I leaned over and kissed him gently on the cheek like a mother did with a beloved child. He rewarded me with one of his brilliant smiles that lit up his plain face, transforming his features into something almost handsome.

  I’d found Tomas looking to serve at High Court. Grown too powerful for his Queen, she had simply released him from her service. More merciful, it would seem, than executing him on some flimsy pretense of punishment. Or perhaps he had grown too powerful for her to try that. He had been waiting there, unwanted, ignored by the other Queens, until I had approached him.

  I wondered what happened to other warriors who had grown too powerful to be considered safe. Where did they go? Did they, too, become bandit rogues like Aquila had, even though no one overtly threatened their life? Did guards cast from their Queens’ courts become outlaws simply because they had nowhere else to go?

  No, I could not save everyone. But as I looked into Tomas’s sweetly plain face, I was glad, fiercely glad, that there were a few that I could.

  EPILOGUE

  After I turned over my apartment key and had my deposit refunded to me without question—another nice perk that came with being Queen; having big, intimidating men looming behind me—I took them shopping.

  Nice dresses for Tersa and Rosemary—they had politely but completely ignored my suggestion of getting some pants. Not only Monère men, it seemed, were old-fashioned—and more casual clothes for the boys. Young Jamie, who loved American pop culture, which he’d picked up from watching TV, was the most adventuresome among them. He fingered his new blue jeans as if they were more precious than diamonds, and eyed the cowboy boots adorning his feet with something close to awe. He had gazed so longingly at the boots, I hadn’t been able to resist buying them for him.

  Thaddeus picked out some pants and shirts with casual efficiency, while I had fun dressing Tomas and Aquila. Hmmm, what did you choose for a wild rogue gone respectable? Not so hard a choice, as a matter of fact. Aquila looked nothing like the bandit he’d once been, one of the group that had kidnapped me, in fact. With his Vandyke beard neatly trimmed and a face serious and proper, he looked more like a scholarly professor or the successful man of business he once was. Sharply creased charcoal slacks, a gray-and-black patterned vest, and a simple cream shirt fit him quite nicely.

  “Yummy in a quiet, distinguished sort of way,” I said, smiling.

  Aquila fingered the neatly pressed pleats—only a tasteful few—with obvious pleasure. “Yes, milady, they are. It is very nice to have clothes that actually fit once more, and are not patched.”

  He’d been wearing donated clothes since helping us escape from the forest. And ill-fitting though the clothes had been, they were far better than the rags he’d worn. A bandit’s life, it appeared, hadn’t been too profitable.

  I let him wander off to select a couple more sets of casual attire, and turned to study Tomas, who stepped out from the fitting room.

  A smile broke across my face. The straight-cut black denim—he didn’t know they were jeans and I didn’t enlighten him—and the rich bronze hue of the shirt contrasted nicely with his wheat-colored hair and light brown eyes. The snug fit of his clothing made him look taller and emphasized his broad shoulders, narrow hips, and muscular arms and chest, all of which had been hidden beneath the looseness of his usual attire.

  “Perhaps a size larger,” Tomas said dubiously.

  “Oh, no. This fits you perfectly,” I murmured, twirling my finger at him. “Turn around.”

  He did so with endearing awkwardness, his cheeks staining a dull red under our interested perusal.

  Yup, the rear view was just as perfect, the jeans molding to his backside with loving attention. One thing for certain, all of my guys had great butts.

  “Mona Lisa enjoys a snug fit,” Amber rumbled softly beside me.

  I colored beneath his bland expression and the words that could be taken another, more intimate, way. With Gryphon I’d have had no doubts about a sexual innuendo, but with Amber I wasn’t as certain if he had intended it or not. Bits of Amber’s true personality were slowly emerging beneath my love and his new freedom, like his tendency toward dominance. I wasn’t sure if this was another new aspect of him coming out.

  Ignoring his comment, I turned to the others. “What do you think, Rosemary?”

  The large cook ran an inspecting eye up and down Tomas. “He looks like a prime cut of meat,” she said with a tiny smile.

  Simple, dear Tomas flushed even more. My poor men, I don’t think they were used to being ogled so blatantly by a bunch of women.

  “Get used to it,” I said, looking at both him and Aquila.

  “To what?” Tomas asked.

  “Women looking at you. And you guys can look right back. You, too, Chami,” I said, turning to where my chameleon lounged in a chair.

  “Can we?” Chami said, arching a brow.

  “Yes, indeed. I don’t know how many women there will be in our new territory, but any present, unattached and willing, you are welcome to date.”

  “Date?” Tomas said. “What does that mean?”

  “Date means to court, kiss, hold hands. You know.” I fluttered my fingers. “To do that kind of stuff with women you are attracted to.”

  The expression on Tomas’s face could only be described as astounded. “You would allow us to do this ‘date’ thing?”

  “Well, yeah. And not just allow it, but actively encourage you to. If there are single unattached women there, and they have a pulse, they are going to notice you guys. Feel free to notice them right back,” I said with a grin.

  “Does that pertain to us as well?” Gryphon asked, his face smoothed in that remote blankness that let you read nothing.

  Is he asking because he wishes to see other women? Because he no longer wants me? a little voice whispered in my ear. Or was he asking because he feared me no longer wanting him?

  A bit insecure, me? Yup. And it seemed to go both ways. We were both—or should I say, all three of us—insecure. If I let it, it could drive me crazy. I chose instead to go with my gut feeling.

  I walked over to Gryphon, ran a light finger along the hollow of his throat, and smiled like the dangerous feline cat I was in my other form. “If you and Amber so much as look at another woman, I will scratch your eyes out, and then hers.”

  The blankness left Gryphon’s face, and his eyes filled once again with expressive warmth. “When we have such rich bounty at hand, why would we wish to look elsewhere?”

  I rewarded him with a light searing kiss. “Aw, you guys always talk so pretty.”

  White flakes of snow fell from the sky as we drove to the airport later that same night, like crystallized confetti dropping from the sky. Celebration, not sadness, at leaving this lonely island I had called home. An island packed to its bursting seams with people, but with none that I had been able to call my own. That had changed with the advent of Gryphon into my life, only a short time ago in matters of days and weeks. In terms of emotional commitment, a lifetime ago. New York was my old life. Louisiana was my future. A new home for us all.

  We were a ragged lot of outcasts and misfits, composed of those unwanted and those thrown away. But we’d found a belonging with each other. Though we were small in number, we were strong. Together we would keep us all safe. But I wanted more than safety for us. I wanted us to be happy in all our varied needs.

  A private jet was waiting for us, another perk of being a Queen. There would, no doubt, be other benefits, along with other problems, that came with the title. That was the trouble with having things. You had to be strong enough to keep them.

  Soon we would know exactly what Mona Louisa had left for us. May it be trouble or blessing, peace or strife, there was no other choice but to go forward. Yet even as we moved ahead, I could not help looking back and remembering a pair of vivid green eyes staring at me with such yearning, such soulful need.

  Be safe. Be well.

  And maybe someday we�
�d be able to do more than just survive. Maybe someday we’d both get lucky.

  Author’s Note

  Dear Reader,

  Enjoy meeting Mona Lisa and her beautiful men? For more, please pick up my first single title, Mona Lisa Awakening, and the sequel, Mona Lisa Blossoming, coming out from Berkley in February 2007. And be ready to pleasure all your senses as she awakens to powers hidden and bliss unexpected. As she ventures into the dangerous Monèrian society and discovers that wicked delight and perilous plight are often mixed as one…or two…or maybe even three…

  Till then–

  Sunny

  www.sunnyauthor.com