His breath caught, his hand stilled. Then moved again. Less teasing, less tentative, more bold and commanding. A more purposeful search and find now, coming to rest just above my knees. His eyes holding mine, he slid his fingers in the tight barrier I had created and wrapped them around my right knee. With calm deliberation, he began to pry my legs apart. He growled, a warning rumble as I resisted him. I made him work for it. Made him earn it, sweat for it, only yielding that which he could take by brute overpowering force. When he had opened my legs enough, his knees slid between them, forcing them even farther apart, and he rested his weight full upon me. His thickness was wedged right against me, long, tight, and hard in the opening he had fought for. Almost home. Only problem, his pants were still on.
"You forgot to undress yourself," I said, my lips curving up in laughing feline delight as I saw the realization of his dilemma reach his rueful eyes.
"Will you make me work for it all over again if I step back and undress?" he asked.
I smirked. "You betcha."
He smiled in return, then moved so fast that I did not see it. Just heard the ripping tear as his lower body left me for one brief splinter of time. And then he surged back, and up, and into my body with one forceful plunge, pushing a startled cry from my throat as my inner muscles convulsed around his thick invading length.
He stilled, halfway in me, his great body shuddering. "Am I hurting you?"
"No," I gasped. "Oh, God." I wriggled, strained against him, but my hands were captured, held firmly by him, my body forced open by his, pinned by his body in the most primitive and effective way of all.
He filled my soft emptiness with his hard fullness. Crammingly so. He was a big man, everywhere. And his sudden invasion stretched me almost unbearably, caught me between the prongs of acute pain and acute pleasure, blurring the line between them.
"I am hurting you," he muttered and started to pull back, out of me.
I whimpered, cried out, "No!" and wrapped my legs around him, holding him to me.
"Are you sure?" he asked me fiercely, his cheekbones slashed red, his face as rock hard as how he felt within me.
"Yes."
His eyes narrowed, his nostrils flared. "All right. Then take me. Take all of me." His free hand anchoring my hip, he heaved himself into me, pushing in his long thick length until he was buried in me so deep I thought he'd come out the other side.
I opened my mouth to scream. With pain, with pleasure. I wasn't exactly sure which. And he covered my mouth with his own. Swallowed my cry. Pushed his thick tongue into my mouth so that I was filled with him there too, held suspended by him, chained by his hands, his male hardness buried deep in my soft feminine sheath.
He took me as I had asked him to, challenged him to.
He pulled back out of me—both my inner sheath and my oral sheath—then pushed with slow, insistent deliberation back within me, stretching me, filling me abundantly simultaneously above and below. I mewed, sucked on his tongue, and echoed the action by tightening around him below, within.
His stomach muscles ridged so hard they felt like stone slabs against me, and he made a desperate sound against my lips as he ground himself even deeper inside me. Pulled out. Then another slow, deliberate, stretching push back into my tightness that had us both groaning, trembling. With the third stroke, it was as if the magical threshold of my body had suddenly been reached. It finally eased its almost unbearable tightness, loosened, became more receptive. And like a leash suddenly let go, Amber began a fast, almost furious rhythm, pistoning, pouring himself into me, his tongue stabbing me above as he stabbed me, pounded me, below. And I welcomed him, clung to him, wrapped my tongue and lips and body around him, and asked him for more with arcing body, sucking cheeks, hungry cries. As hungry to hold him, absorb him, become one with him, as he was to pour himself into me.
Our passion, our pleasure, lowered the barriers of our flesh. Called forth the lunar lightness that dwelt within us, so that our glow illuminated our skin and filled the night with building incandescence, growing brighter and brighter as I wound tighter and tighter. Until I finally crested and burst. And it was like the world trembled with my release. His climax followed a heartbeat after mine. Light streamed from us in almost bursting luminosity. Then faded gently away until darkness once more cloaked the night.
Chapter 2
I dreamed of flying, of floating in the air above, and the sweet scent of dead flesh below me, and woke up gasping, alone in my bed. Amber had left before dawn, gone back to his men, his people, safe and unaware of where I would travel that day. To High Court, the ruling seat of our people on this continent, set high and remote in the northern reaches of Minnesota, bordering Canada. They'd summoned me for questioning on Mona Louisa's death, the former Queen who'd ruled my Louisiana territory. The bitch who'd ripped Gryphon's heart out, literally, from his chest, killing him and a part of me. I'd killed her in return, although it was not truly I who killed her finally, though I'd done my best to. It had been Blaec, the High Lord of Hell.
The Council had waited for me. They'd had to, while I roamed the forest in my tiger form, in my separate tiger mind, until the day my human thoughts and feelings had finally filtered into my other self, and I could know and control that animal part of me, and realize that time had indeed eased my grief until it had become bearable.
A Queen had been killed—so had a Warrior Lord, but that was of secondary concern, I learned to my fury—and questions needed to be answered. I was going now to answer them. Up to a point.
The plane landed and we disembarked, Dontaine, Tomas, and I. I'd left all the others behind, those who needed protecting, the youngest among us—Jamie, Tersa, my brother, Thaddeus… him, especially, I did not want there—and the others to protect them… my ex-outlaw rogue, Aquila, and Chami, my deadly assassin. Left behind deliberately, also, was what remained of my heart—Amber, a powerful Warrior Lord, but even more vulnerable than the children. Queens feared him. Feared his bigness, his power, and the legacy his infamous father had left behind—Sandoor, who had raped his Queen and then faked both their deaths. San door, who had inconveniently returned to life and heaped even greater infamy upon himself when he had been discovered to have kept that Queen captive for over a decade, a Queen whom he'd had service his needs and that of his band of rogues. He was truly dead and gone now, killed by my hand. But his son was still paying for the father's sins. Amber would be looked upon with suspicion forever by other Queens, watched carefully by the High Court to see that he, too, did not turn rogue. Turn upon his Queen.
"Two men are not adequate enough to protect you," Dontaine repeated now, as he had many times before during the flight.
My answer remained unchanged as we disembarked and walked to a waiting gray van. "You and Tomas are enough. And I can protect myself."
"We should have brought Chami and Aquila, milady," Tomas said, speaking up for the first time. His southern twang softened his consonants, stretched out his vowels. Brown of hair, plain of face, as loyal and true as the sword he had sworn into my service, he was one of my trusted guards, an older warrior grown too powerful who had been cast out by his Queen and taken in by me. I smiled bittersweetly. Even plain and simple Tomas knew enough not to suggest Amber, the most powerful among us. And the most defenseless against the suspicions he would have faced at High Court.
"I needed them to watch after the others, see them safe," I said to Tomas.
"With all respect, milady," Tomas said in his soft drawl, "but your safety is the most crucial factor to ensure theirs."
"I will be fine, Tomas. I will be spending most of my time answering questions in the Council Hall. Having you two along is already luxury enough."
"A necessity, not a luxury, my Queen. And barely adequate," Dontaine muttered unhappily as we climbed into the van. "And my presence was only because they wished to question me as well."
True enough. He was one of the newest guards to my service, and the one I was least comfortable with.
He'd challenged Amber for right to my bed, and I had agreed to take him into it when I saw that Amber was losing. Amber had ended up winning, unexpectedly. That knowledge and awareness of what might have been, that we could just as easily have been lovers by now, still sat heavily between us in all our dealings.
We traveled the next several miles from the airfield to the compound proper in silence. Then the woods fell abruptly away and we entered High Court, a pocket of civilization carved out among the otherwise untouched, pristine forests that surrounded it. A scattering of small buildings flanked and circled out from a tall, stately, three-storied manor house. Across from it, matching it in height and grandeur, was a domed stone building, the Council Hall where our ruling heads of state, so to speak, the High Council members, gathered.
An impeccably dressed little man, his black hair lined with silver, stood at the foot of the steps leading to the manor house, three footmen arrayed in attendance behind him. He opened the door of the van and assisted me out with a courtly bow.
"Thank you, Mathias," I said, greeting the steward of the Great House, as his small army of footmen fanned out and gathered up our bags and trunks.
"Welcome back, Queen Mona Lisa," Mathias said in formal greeting.
"I'd rather not have returned so quickly," I muttered in reply, and caught the flicker of a smile on the proper steward's face before he smoothed it away.
"It is always a pleasure to have you with us," he returned. Polite words, but he sounded as if he meant them. "The Council will see Warrior Dontaine first, as soon as you have settled into your quarters, and then you, milady, afterward. I've given you the south wing upstairs, the same as last time."
I nodded, grateful for his thoughtfulness, and followed our bags up the stairs and down the right hallway to a large, luxurious suite with two smaller bedrooms adjoining it. With murmured directions from Dontaine, our individual pieces of luggage were sorted out and set in the proper rooms, and the footmen discreetly filed out. With just the three of us, we each had a room to ourselves.
"If you will stay here until I return, my Queen," Dontaine said, his face grim. And though politely couched as a request, it was a clear order. I lifted my brows but had no desire or plans to wander elsewhere, so I simply said, "Sure."
After he left, I showered and changed into a fresh black gown. I had brought all three—all that I owned—with me. No jeans and T-shirts here.
I dried and brushed out my hair, leaving it loose in a dark spilling cloud down my back, and with Tomas glued to my side, ventured downstairs for something to eat, knowing they'd be awhile with Dontaine.
He returned an hour later, as we were finishing our meal.
"That wasn't long," I said, gesturing for him to sit down. Dontaine did so reluctantly.
"There wasn't really much to tell. Nor was it the important part." Meaning, he'd had no actual part in killing the Queen, what the Council was most interested in knowing about. "They will see you now."
I gestured a young footman over, although calling him young might have been inaccurate—all Monere under two hundred and fifty years of age looked young—and told him to bring out the plate of food I'd asked them to prepare for Dontaine. "They can wait five minutes. And"—I smiled—"you can talk fast while you eat. What did they ask you? And even more important, what did you tell them?"
Between gulps of red meat—they liked their meat raw—Dontaine spilled out the details of his testimony. Even with the talking, it didn't even take five minutes to wolf down the entire bloody steak. Part of it was he didn't want to keep the Council waiting long; the other part was that his appetite was back now that his part of it was over, and relatively painlessly so, by his accounting.
Downing the last gulp, he wiped his mouth with the napkin and stood. "If we may go now, milady."
I walked out into the night with my men flanking me, feeling like a prisoner heading for my execution, although that wasn't true. Or at least I hoped not. My greatest danger lay not with the Council, really, but with the secrets I held—and that I had to take great care not to reveal.
A multitude of guards, dressed in various colors according to the Queens they served, crowded the wide corridors of the Council Hall, some sitting, some standing, others milling around, chatting, all waiting. None of each court numbered less than six guards. The two sentries standing watch before the large double doors leading to the inner chamber dipped their head in greeting to me. "It is a private hearing, milady. Your guards must wait outside," one of the sentries said.
I'd kind of gotten that idea already. "Of course."
I walked alone into the high-domed chamber, the heavy doors closing silently behind me. A dozen of the Council seats were occupied, all women but for one man, Warrior Lord Thorane, the Council speaker. Other Queens were there—I felt their distinct irritating buzz against my skin—and over them, I felt the weightier presence of the Queen Mother. But it was a new odd sensation, the awareness of a presence that I should not have been aware of, that caused me to stumble, almost fall. Before I even saw the darker skin, I knew the demon was there. Because I felt him. And I should not have.
Demon dead are children of the moon who have died, but had enough psychic power to make the transition to that other realm. Their hearts did not beat, they did not breathe. Perfect predators, making no noise. Nothing to betray their presence. We barely felt them or sensed them, their presence no longer that sharp rush of attraction as with a Monere male or the comforting recognition with a Full Blood female or the buzzing abrasion with another Queen. We had only a muted awareness of their presence, so that we sensed them only when it was too late, when they were too close to us. Almost upon us.
When I lifted my eyes to the chair on the raised platform to my far right, I knew that the person sitting mere would be a flash of warm golden color among the sea of white Monere skin and have nails that were long, sharp, and pointed. All that was true, I found, as my eyes settled upon that suddenly vibrant presence. Not a pull, not a repulsion, but an almost thrilling awareness; like a bum that did not hurt, just tingle a bit. But with this demon, not only its skin was golden. And it was not a he. It was a she. Her hair waved long and thick about the delicate heart of her face, a striking metallic gold color against the duskier hue of her skin. She was incredibly beautiful and incredibly tiny. Not little, per se. Oh no, not that, with her voluptuous bosom straining the burgundy silk of her shirt, and the generous swell of her hips stretching the tight leather of her black pants. The only thing little about her was her height and her wasp-thin waist.
Lucinda, Prince Halcyon's sister. And her presence was a shock to me because I had been expecting to see her brother, my lover, Halcyon. Or his father, the High Lord of Hell.
"Lucinda," I whispered, and fell weakly to my knees, swaying suddenly not only with awareness but with another growing discomfort within me—something sharp, something painful, something like sharp talons ripping me apart inside, trying to be born, trying to get out. I gasped, clutching my belly. With my next breath, I screamed.
Raised voices sounded outside in the hall, and the double doors burst open, spilling in the sentries, and behind them, a sea of guards. Dontaine and Tomas were suddenly there, beside me.
"What is it, milady? What's wrong?" Dontaine demanded, pulling my hands away so he could see if I was injured. With the first touch of him, the little shocking electric jolts that came from contact with him, the pain eased and I gasped, almost cried in relief, sagging against him.
The room was a messy swell of noise and feeling, a collective sudden milling of presences that felt too powerful, too much to all be contained in the same room. Questions and demands were shouted. Then Warrior Lord Thorane was above me, looking down, his older face creased with worry. "Mona Lisa. What's wrong, milady?"
"I don't know," I said, as bewildered as he. "Something inside me just suddenly started to hurt."
That awareness flared over me again, even surrounded as I was with the presence of powerful men and th
e electric sensation of Dontaine's touch. It pulled me, called to me. I turned my head and, in the sea of encircling faces standing about me, unerringly locked upon that one darker face. I found her not because of her distinguishing color, but because! knew exactly where she stood. And the scratching and clawing inside me, that horrible ripping pain, started again. Shit. I doubled over and another scream was torn from my throat.
"What's wrong, what's wrong?" Tomas shouted, his strong hands trying to pull my hands away as Dontaine held me, huddled upon myself, writhing in his lap.
"Get me away," I whispered, so softly, almost no sound because I had no breath. If I had enough breath, I would have screamed again. But he heard me. They both did. Dontaine lifted me up in his arms and with Tomas's help pushed through the gathered crowd and made his way outside.
"Where?" Dontaine asked, his voice and body hard, while I was soft. Soft with relief against him as the pain lessened with each step he took away.
"The forest," I whispered, my voice hoarse from my screams or from my breathlessness. I wasn't sure.
He plunged into the thick woods. Wrapped in his electric touch, the night cool upon my skin and the soft rays of moonshine falling gently upon me, I felt immediately calmer, the restlessness within me stilling. Dontaine walked in silence, in quiet, and I lay in his arms in blessed painlessness as he took me deeper into the woods until we no longer sensed anything, heard anything, and the chaos of High Court was far away.
"Is this far enough?" Tomas asked.
At my nod, they stopped. "Can you stand?" Dontaine asked.
"Yes," I said, even though I wasn't entirely sure if I could. But my legs held me as Dontaine gently stood me on my feet.
"I never knew how wonderful it was simply not to hurt," I murmured in the quiet of night. The wind blew, rustling leaves in a gentle shuffle, an airy shimmer of sound, moonlight dappling our skin as it shone down through the thick forest of trees.
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