On the Prowl (Alpha and Omega #1) - Page 27
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 burn 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 the 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.
"What happened back there, milady?" Tomas demanded, his voice clipped and harder sounding, his usual soft drawl absent.
"I don't know."
"Do you not?" came a voice, soft and sultry. I felt her first before I saw her. Felt that tingling vibrant awareness, that sensing of demon dead.
She stepped out as if from the very shadows, a part of it, startling my men because they hadn't sensed her, spinning them around.
She stood far enough away so that I felt her but was not writhing yet in pain. Because I understood now that it was her presence that had caused it, triggering something to life within me, something that wanted to come out, even if it had to claw its way out of me.
"Do you sense me, young Mixed Blood Queen?" she asked, her beautiful face still and unsmiling, looking unreal, like a golden statue come to life.
"Yes," I answered in a quiet voice. "I sense you. How can that be? What have you done to me?"
She smiled then, a human expression that warmed her still perfection, brought it to life. Then she laughed, that touchable laugh, the one that stroked you like a living, tactile thing. We all shivered, my men and I.
"I? I have done nothing," Lucinda said. And though her voice was slow and languid like honeyed syrup, her eyes were hard and observant. "It is from what you have done to yourself."
I frowned. "Because I have been with Halcyon?"
She shook her head, causing her long metallic tresses to dance and shimmer about her face like a flow of hammered gold come suddenly to life.
"No. You could have taken him into your body a thousand times and it would never have caused you to sense him a fraction more. It is that other thing you have taken into your body – Mona Louisa."
My body chilled as her meaning became clear to me. And her words had been deliberate. She had called Mona Louisa a thing. And she had been. A Monere who had drank demon blood and become a little of both, breaking the demon dead's greatest taboo… the tasting of their blood. And for good reason. Because drinking that blood had made Mona Louisa strong, demon dead strong. Blaec, the High Lord of Hell, had killed her and slaughtered her entire retinue of guards to keep that demon secret. He'd let me live because he knew I would keep his secret in return for his keeping mine.
What was my secret? Mona Louisa had been strong enough to kill Gryphon, my first love, by literally ripping the heart out from his chest. She'd killed him, and I'd wanted to kill her in turn, but I had not been strong enough to do so. She'd fought me and was beating me. And in my anger, my despair, my desperation, I'd turned to the source of us all, our Mother Moon, and begged her vengeance, begged her for help.
Then I had done something I hadn't known was possible to do. I'd pulled the moonlight out from within Mona Louisa. When we Queens Basked, we pulled down the moon's rays, and they entered us, resided within us. I'd turned that power that all Queens had and used it upon another Queen: pulled the light out of her and into me. Sucked her power, her essence, her energy into me, drained her dry until she had been nothing but a wrinkled bag of shriveled skin holding together dried bones. Weak, helpless, but still living. I'd beheaded her, but she hadn't died because she had become more than Monere; she'd become part demon, and demons did not die even when beheaded. I could have chopped her into little pieces and she still would have existed. It had taken Blaec's touch to kill her. Make her finally cease to be. Only she hadn't, it seemed. Ceased to entirely be.
My mouth dried and my heart stuttered. And deep, deep within me, it was as if someone laughed. Screeched with glee. I fell to the ground, feeling weak, feeling horribly frightened. Feeling something move within me like the stretching of wings.
"The High Lord should have killed you," Lucinda said in a voice gone quiet, causing a reaction quite opposite from that tranquil sound. Tomas grabbed my hand, staying beside me. But Dontaine moved forward, toward Lucinda. His sword sang free as he pulled it from its sheath. "Leave us, demon," he demanded.
She smiled, standing there calm and serene, a head shorter than Dontaine but not at all frightened. "And if I don't, white knight, will you try and make me?" she purred.
He didn't answer her, just came at her, sword drawn.
"No," I said, but my voice came out weak and thready instead of the harsh command I had intended. Beside me, moonlight from Tomas' sword reflected into my eyes. He'd drawn his weapon too, quietly, less flashy. Just there suddenly in his hand.
"You've drawn your blades. I shall have to draw mine," Lucinda said, the sultry flow of her voice flavored with two things you usually did not hear when a man advanced upon you with a naked sword shining sharp and bright in his hand… amusement and eagerness. And it was the latter that scared me most.
A shimmer of power, a darker, more subtler force, and the sharp fingernails of her left hand extended, grew four inches long. Thick, wide, and curving. Became deadly claws like five sharp knives suddenly growing from her hand. "It's not always length that matters most," she said, luscious lips curving, eyes laughing, like a sex kitten about to seriously play.
She sprang. Only you couldn't see her move. She was just suddenly no longer there but behind Dontaine, like a wind blown past him. Something he felt but could not see, she moved so fast. Beside me, Tomas sucked in a shocked breath. Nothing stirred for a moment, then a blonde lock of Dontaine's hair, sliced free, floated lightly down to the ground like a dying leaf parted from a tree.
Lucinda laughed at what she saw on Dontaine's face as he swung about to face her. "Still want to play?" she asked, her dark brown eyes sparkling like hot chocolate, eager to melt, eager to burn.
Dontaine growled. Literally growled, a deep warning animal rumble that sounded odd coining from a human throat. Then he moved, with Monere quickness, a fast blur. But still motion you see. He struck at her but she was no longer there, like a ghost suddenly vanishing to reappear yards away, closer to me, closer to Tomas.
Tomas gave no warning, like the sword he had drawn. He simply rushed to attack her, to fend off the threat he perceived to me. Both my men rushed her from opposite sides, coming together in a blur of motion. And Lucinda stood there, a calm little demon, until they were almost upon her, a fierce light in her eyes, a little smile curling her lips. And then she moved. They all moved. With sound and motion and grunts and thuds as they fought fiercely. As Dontaine went tumbling head over heels, tossed away like a stick playfully thrown for a dog to fetch. As Tomas slammed hard to the ground, Lucinda kneeling on his chest, looking too tiny to have done what she had done – overpower two strong warriors.
Looking like a kitten who had the claws of a monstrous tiger, the sharp points of her left hand were buried like nails through Tomas's wrist, pinning his hand and the sword he still held to the ground in a brutal, effective manner. But his other hand was free and had drawn a hidden dagger.
"Not fair odds." Lucinda tsk-tsked. "Too little men to challenge me. But then I never claimed to be fair." She drew back to strike, to move.
"Don't!" My voice rang out in a hoarse croak. And Tomas's dagger froze in its striking drive, not because of my command, but because Lucinda's tiny hand gripped his. "Don't… hurt," I gasped.
"Don't hurt whom? Him or me?" Lucinda asked, both menace and amusement in her voice.
"Both," I whispered. "Both." I tried to stand, to move toward them, but that other thing within me fluttered, stirred in protest. No, it screamed. Not closer. Away. Away from the danger, not to it! I fought to stand and lost the battle, unable to. But you didn't need to stand to move. I started crawling toward them, on hands and knees, my whole body trembling, shaking, resisting, as I dragged myself closer.
"Halcyon's sister. No, Dontaine," I rasped as I sensed movement behind her. I blinked the sheen of pain-driven tears from my eyes – odd that fear dried your mouth, but pain moistened your eyes – and as my vision cleared, I saw Dontaine frozen like a literal statue behind the dainty golden demon, his sword angled for a downward thrust into her back, held unnaturally poised on the brink of that violence. And I knew it was not from obedience to my command – I would have been too late – but from the invisible power of her will. Her psychic powers were what held him immobile, a frozen prisoner in the tendrils of her invisible force. She didn't need physical touch to stop him. It was not just their physical strength that made demons greatly feared.
She stood, pulled her claws casually from the ground, from Tomas's pierced wrist as his face writhed with silent agony. With a thought, she held him immobile, too. A shimmer of that dark shadowy power, and that hideous claw shrank back down to just pointy nails. She licked each bloody tip, slowly sucking each digit clean, savoring it; her cheeks hollowed with each sucking pull, her lips pursing around her fingers like a puckered kiss, making the motions dangerously sensual. The flash of ivory fangs I glimpsed made her just plain dangerous. She swayed her way to me slowly, seductively, like death come to play.
She crouched down before me, looked into my eyes, those sharp nails freshly cleaned of Tomas's blood inches from my face. Curiosity was in those dark, dangerous eyes. "Halcyon's sister," she said, repeating my words. "What an odd creature you are to wish me no harm just because I am your lover's sister."
The tremors shaking my body were becoming wilder, stronger, with her near presence. It was as if my very skin tried to crawl off me, away from her. The skin on my back, shoulders, and arms rippled, moved, as if it had a will of its own. As if something beneath it was moving, struggling to come out, like a vulture's wings – Mona Louisa's other form. My skin burned as it stretched and I gasped at the pain, at the fight I had within myself just to stay planted there, not scramble away from her as every instinct in me was screaming to do.
"Me," I wheezed, fighting to take the breath back into my lungs that the pain had forced out of me. "Just me. Let my men go." I deserved to die, for so many reasons, not just one. They didn't.
"You would not still be living, breathing, had my brother not claimed you as his mate," Lucinda said, and her voice was no longer sensual. Just hard, as if all pretence had been stripped away. "My kind hunted and killed things like you long ago." Her eyes, dark like bittersweet chocolate, the one feature so like her brother, looked down at me with none of the affection, the warmth, usually in his. And I realized then how cold those eyes could be without emotion. "But he did, and my father spared you when he should have destroyed you after what you had done and become. I shall abide by his choice. For now." She stood and smiled, and it was not a friendly gesture. "I can always kill you later," she said like a soft promise, and walked away.
Like a breeze blowing cobwebs away, the invisible bonds holding my men vanished and they were free. They rushed to my side, crouched protectively in front of me. But she was truly gone, back into the night, a child of darkness. Demon dead. And suddenly all I could smell was blood. The rich heady scent of it, its pounding, throbbing call. I could almost taste it like sweet wine rolling down my tongue. My eyes, my body, my entire being was drawn to the man who stood to my left, slightly before me, the flexing of his hand gripping the sword, pushing the blood out of his wounded wrist, two gaping holes where Lucinda's claws had pierced through like Crucifixion nails. Fat drops of red blood fell to the ground like precious wine spilt wastefully, and an ache started in my body, in my soul, for that dripping blood. An ache that throbbed and grew with each spilling, hypnotic drop… plunck… plunck… plunck… A thirst that seemed enormous, unquenchable. I wanted to lap that blood up, take it into me like air, as if I would perish and die if I didn't have it. And it was not the hunger of my tiger beast for raw meat. I just wanted to drink down his blood, a horrified part of me realized.
A burning sensation filled my mouth, my gums, my teeth, as if that part of me wished to morph, to change, also. Into what? Dear God, into what? What was I becoming?
Tomas. I forced his name into my mind, tried to see him as a person, and not something I could drink to quench that burning, aching thirst. Wounded, bleeding Tomas. He protected me from a threat in front, already gone, when the real threat now lay behind him, so close, a hand grasp away. My fingers spasmed where they lay planted on the ground as I desperately fought the need to reach out and grab that bleeding wrist, touch my fingers to that blood, squeeze it tighter to wring out even more of that redness. The need punched me hard in the gut, drew a small sound of distress from my throat.
At the sound, my men turned back to look at me, saw me doubled over. "Mona Lisa," Tomas cried, reaching for me. "What's wrong?"
"No. Don't touch me!" I choked, throwing myself back away from him, my eyes fixed on the jagged holes of his pierced wrist, on the torn flesh that cried red tears of sorrow at being wasted so, untasted, unsavored. It drew me, beckoned me like a siren's call. Taste me. Taste life.
I shook my head violently, dragging myself farther away from his dripping temptation, frightened that if I tasted his blood, I would have fangs in truth; it was a burning promise a thin skin away from a violent, erupting birth. I pulled myself back until I came up against something solid, something warm, something electric as my skin met it. I tamed my head to see Dontaine crouched down behind me, hands set carefully on his spread knees. "Tell me what's wrong," he said in a gentle soothing voice, the kind of voice that one used to talk a jumper down from the roof.
I looked at him with wide wild eyes. "His blood." My voice cracked on the words, on the intensity of my hunger.
"Tomas, leave," Dontaine commanded.
Tomas's honey brown eyes flashed with ire, with rebellion. "I will not leave her like this," he said with a fire I had not seen in him before.
I whimpered as he took a step closer, my eyes fixed on that dripping, red blood.
"Look to where her eyes gaze, Tomas. Your blood is calling her beast's hunger up, and she is trying to fight it. The only way you can help her is to leave."
It was a hunger, all right, but not that of my beast's. That animal hunger was at least something I could understand, relate to. This… this was an undead hunger, thirsting for life itself. Heavenly Father, how had Lucinda been able to walk away so calmly from him after she had pierced his skin? How had she not slaughtered us all? Drank us all down?
"Is he right? Do you wish me to leave?" Tomas asked, and I had to force myself to concentrate on his words, to understand them.
"Yes. Please go," I said in a careful trembling voice, forcing the words out when a larger part of me wanted to scream for him to stay. Stay and feed me!
Head bowed, he turned and left us, and that hungry, thirsty part of me howled inside as I saw my food walking away, punished me by driving that sharp longing deeply and fiercely into my body like a dagger thrust. I put my face into the ground and screamed, my fingers digging into the cool damp earth, anchoring me there so I did not ran after him, chase him down,