Mona Lisa Craving m-3

by Sunny

  I looked at them now, those pearly moles. I glanced from them to Dontaine’s beautiful unmarred chest, remembered the throbbing power that had ached in my hands when I had awoken, the energy I had felt there waiting to be released…and felt a wave of nausea rise up in me.

  “I’m sorry, Dontaine, could you go back to your room? I need to be alone right now.” So I don’t accidentally hurt you. Or kill you. And because my thoughts were on another man, on Dante. Not on the man beside me in bed.

  Guilt churned with worry and a fresh dose of horror upon this newest revelation…what those innocent-looking moles in my hands were capable of. Death. Destruction.

  Dontaine slid out of the bed and picked up his clothes, not bothering to put them on. “If you need me, you know where I am,” he said with a smile that was gesture only. A thin shield to cover the hurt I had inflicted by asking him to leave. Of all my lovers, he was the one I rejected the most.

  Another apology formed on my lips. But what could you say, over and over again, besides sorry? Perhaps a suggestion to look for love elsewhere? “Dontaine…”

  “Hush,” he said, stopping the words from being said. “Try to go back to sleep.” With that quiet urging, he left.

  Sleep, however, was the last thing I wanted to do now. As I’d told Dante before, I’d really rather not remember. So instead of risking another dream, another memory, I lay there in that big bed staring up at the ceiling, trapped by Dontaine’s knowing presence next door. If I got up and slipped out of the house, he would know and follow me, and I did not want to see him, talk to him so soon while I still felt so raw. I might have been better protected, but my freedom was curtailed, and it felt stifling.

  So I lay there, still and alone, and despite myself, played and replayed that little snippet of memory endlessly. Truth or mere dream, a fabrication of my mind? Only one person could tell me. And with that thought, my mind circled back to Dante.

  I had believed myself unarmed when I had walked up to him. No sword, my dagger sheathed. But in Dante’s eyes, I had been armed in the deadliest of manners. And he’d let me touch him.

  Who are you? Who am I? And why have we come together again?

  Last time we had, it had ended with my death. And as I had just discovered, I did not want to die yet. So soon, so young, with no afterlife ahead of me…triggering another thought. Was I really young, merely twenty-one years old? Or did my previous life, and the long stretch in between, make me an ancient hag? And regarding that long stretch of time in between, had I lived other lives before and not remembered them?

  I gazed down at my moles as if they could provide me with an answer. And in their fashion, they did. The Goddess’s Tears and their incumbent gifts had not been seen since the time of the Great Exodus when the Monère had fled their dying planet. So, no. Chances were that I hadn’t lived other unremembered lives in between. Just before…and now.

  Dante. His name was a soft whisper in my mind. I have a lot of questions to ask you. I wondered briefly if he would answer them. If he could? Or would it be better if he did not?

  You may feel differently when you remember.

  My flesh prickled with goose bumps and I shivered again.

  For the next several long hours, as sunset inched slowly closer, the most tantalizing, morbid question of all teased my mind.

  How did you kill me? How did I die?

  THIRTEEN

  AS DAYLIGHT EBBED, the house finally stirred and I was freed from the prison of my room. Thaddeus hadn’t returned yet; the space where he normally parked his car was still empty. I wanted to talk to him, tell him what I’d learned. Perhaps comfort myself with his presence. He was not aware yet of the revelations of the night before because he ran on a different time schedule than the rest of us did. The normal human cycle: sleeping at night, going to school during the day.

  After school, in deference to our flip-flopped habits, Thaddeus usually studied at the library, doing his homework there so as not to disturb the rest of the sleeping household. And probably not wanting to be inhibited by us either, restricted by the need to be quiet. He returned to the house when the brilliant hues of sunset began to paint the sky.

  Chami, Thaddeus’s unofficial guardian, hadn’t liked the idea at all. If it were up to him and the other men, Thaddeus and I would have been guarded at all times, Thaddeus because he was the men’s hope for a different future. My brother was the only male who could call down the moon’s light, who could Bask, something before now only Queens could do. They had wanted to put a guard around him 24/7. Both Thaddeus and I had balked at the idea. Thaddeus had argued that instead of protecting him, it would point him out as a target. His greatest safety lay in secrecy, in letting no others know of his gift. In treating him like a normal Mixed Blood. And trust me, they were not guarded around the clock. Far from it.

  I’d backed Thaddeus because I had promised to try to give my brother as normal a life as possible…and because had I allowed the men this twenty-four-hour watch, the next person they would have imposed it on would have been me. Same blood that we were, we both were used to our freedom, and did not wish it restricted so.

  Chami had finally relented, agreeing that Thaddeus would probably be safer among humans. In general, humans were much more peaceful and civilized than Monères were. In general, though, as I found out, did not take into account the high school teenage subspecies homo sapien idiotae. Schoolyard bullies.

  Thaddeus made himself scarce that evening after returning home. And I saw why in multihued blue-and-purple glory when he slid quietly into his chair at dinner that night. He was sporting not only a black eye, but a bloody nose—one that had stopped bleeding not too long ago. The faint iron-rich scent of fresh blood clinging to him was unmistakable.

  “Thaddeus, what in Hellfire happened to you?” Chami demanded, beating me to the question by a nanosecond.

  I repeated the question. My version of it. “Yeah, what the fuck happened to you?”

  I’d invited the Morells to join us for dinner, with thoughts of having them get to know us better. All thoughts of polite table talk, however, went flying out the window as I gazed at the livid bruises that swelled up Thaddeus’s left eye and puffed up his nose like a bumpy balloon.

  Thaddeus sighed.

  What had he hoped, I wondered? That we would just ignore the black-and-blues and pretend that someone hadn’t used his face as a punching bag?

  “I got into a fight after school.”

  That much was obvious. We waited, but nothing more was forthcoming. I was sorry about focusing everyone’s attention on him, but the fury, the trembling outrage that rose up in me demanded answers now! Not later.

  “With who?” I asked in as calm a voice as I could manage, which was not very calm at all.

  “With three other guys from school,” Thaddeus muttered into his plate.

  “Three other seniors?”

  He nodded. His eyes were cast down so he didn’t see the heat flash through my eyes. Three seniors! Eighteen-year-old boys who were probably taller than I, and way bigger than Thaddeus. He’d basically skipped a grade, and was not only a year younger than the other seniors in his class—he’d only turned seventeen a couple of weeks ago—but he was much smaller in size and of slighter build, making him look years younger than his age. His predominant Monère blood made him mature more slowly, so that while all his classmates had already hit puberty, cruised long past it, he was only just starting to enter it. Only just beginning to hit that fast spurt in physical growth and supernatural strength. He had almost a Full Blood’s strength, but he’d suppressed that part of him through denial.

  Thaddeus had grown up thinking himself human. When his sharper senses and supernatural strength had started to emerge, he’d thought he was going crazy. He’d imposed an unconscious blanket of control over that part of himself, so that his greater Monère strength flared only when that control cracked, usually during times of anxiety and stress. Still…being ganged up on by three boys much bi
gger than you…that had to count as one of those times of stress.

  “Tell me that they look worse than you do,” I said. “Make me feel better about this.”

  My little brother shook his head.

  “Why didn’t you wipe the floor with them, Thaddeus? You could have if you’d wanted to.”

  His answer surprised me, and made me close my eyes and grind my teeth.

  “This sudden spurting strength is so new, Lisa.” He was the only one who called me by just my human name. “I was afraid of hurting them if I fought back.”

  If I fought back. Meaning that he hadn’t. He’d just stood there, or lay curled up on the ground, letting them beat on him without fighting back. Shit.

  “I was worried that…I don’t know…that I might even kill them without meaning to,” he mumbled. “I didn’t start it.”

  “I know that, Thaddeus.” He didn’t have to tell me that; I knew my brother. Even in the short time we’d known each other, I knew he was not the kind of kid to go around looking for trouble.

  “Why were they picking on you?” I asked.

  “Why else? I’m smarter than they are and much smaller.” It obviously bothered him, his short stature and skinny build. “I’m helping a girl out in calculus who’s failing the class. Her jock boyfriend didn’t like the time we were spending together. He and his football buddies decided to let me know just how unhappy they were today after school.”

  A girl, I thought, gritting my teeth. Of course it had to involve a girl. A jock boyfriend usually implied a pretty cheerleader-type girlfriend. A popular blond ditz who, if she stayed true to stereotype, was stupid enough to fail calculus but smart enough to latch onto some brainy guy and use him to help her pass the course. And who better than the new kid, someone desperate to fit in, make some friends? I wondered if Thaddeus had a crush on this girl. I wondered if maybe it wasn’t just the Neanderthal boyfriend and his two buddies I should beat up but the girlfriend as well—the real instigator of this mess.

  I took a deep breath, determined to act responsibly, both as Queen and as older sister. I would not give in to my primitive urges, which were screaming for vengeance.

  “I’ll talk to your principal, Mr. Camden,” I said, not knowing what else to do.

  “No!” Thaddeus said with horror. “If you do, you’ll make it impossible for me at school.”

  “He’s right, my lady,” Quentin said, speaking up from where he sat with his family down at the other end of the long table. Speaking to Thaddeus he said, “Dante and I just went through what you’re going through now. High school can really suck if you have some guys gunning for you. My brother and I taught at my dad’s self-defense school. We’d be happy to work with you. Get you used to your new strength, show you how to defend yourself. Make you more comfortable with how much strength to safely use against human opponents.”

  “You two went to high school?” Thaddeus asked. “During the daytime?”

  It surprised me, also.

  “Sure, most of the time in school is spent indoors. We only went out during gym, only a forty-minute period. A few guys used to pick on me because of my looks. Called me a girly girl, said I was gay, things like that.”

  “What did you do?” Thaddeus asked.

  “I ignored them, but they kept bothering me until one day I fought back and knocked them on their asses. They left me alone after that.”

  And therein lay the answer to Thaddeus’s dilemma. He had to stand up for himself. If someone else did it for him, it would only make him look weak, and the bullies would continue to pick on him.

  Thaddeus looked to me with eager excitement. He obviously wanted to accept the help Quentin was offering, help given by someone who knew exactly what he was going through. It had been my original plan to enroll Thaddeus in Nolan’s self-defense school—a school that might never be now.

  My own safety I might be willing to risk. But the real question was: Did I trust Dante near my brother? Because the help Quentin had offered had included Dante. We’d be happy to work with you.

  “That’s generous of you, Quentin. Thaddeus, would you like to train with them during this next week while they’re here?” Anything longer than that was not guaranteed. Come the next Council powwow, the twin Morell boys were likely flying this coop.

  My brother nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah, that sounds great.”

  “Then I would be very grateful for your help,” I said to Quentin, accepting the offer.

  Quentin smiled at Thaddeus and me. Dante did not. His pale, hooded eyes gleamed at me. Opaque, inscrutable.

  “Great,” Quentin said. “We can begin tonight.”

  FOURTEEN

  THEY DID INDEED begin that very night, right after supper. Not in the clearing, which was deep in the woods, but on the lawn behind the house. Another smooth move on pretty boy Quentin’s part—choosing a spot where it would be easy for everyone to keep a discreet and not so discreet eye on them. Aquila and Tomas chose to do their watching from the kitchen window, which overlooked the back lawn, while Nolan and Hannah more tactfully sipped tea in the parlor, affording them a nice side view of things.

  I was much more blatant about it. Come on, now. This was my baby brother. And not just him but Jamie, who had volunteered his help as the human Thaddeus could practice on. With Jamie’s Mixed Blood strength, he was essentially just that—only human strong. His sister, Tersa, had silently come outside with the rest of us to watch. The rest of us being Chami and me. Chami was ostensibly acting as my guard. His true charge, though, was Thaddeus.

  Dontaine had gone out with his men to attend to their regular duties, though he had wanted to stay. I had seen it in his eyes, in the tightening of his jaw. But with Chami, Tomas, and Aquila watching over me, he’d had no reason to linger.

  Quentin was a good teacher, keeping things low key and casual. He demonstrated the move first with his brother, Dante, who acted in the role of aggressor. A simple maneuver of blocking Dante’s slow punch, grabbing his wrist, and sweeping him over a fast, tripping foot, using his opponent’s own momentum to send him flying. Quentin and Dante went through the moves in slow motion two more times, calling out the steps—punch, block, grab, sweep, and trip. Like a dance.

  Then Quentin had Thaddeus practice it on him.

  “You don’t have to worry if your strength flares up with me,” Quentin told my brother. “Try to keep it at human level, though. I’ll let you know if you start using too much force.”

  He put Thaddeus through the steps three more times until he was more comfortable with it, keeping the moves slow and deliberate.

  “You learn the steps first,” Quentin said, “then you worry about speed and strength.” Though he did work on the latter. He didn’t automatically just go flying past Thaddeus when my brother pulled on his wrist. He made him exert enough strength to accomplish the maneuver on his own.

  “Yes, like that,” Quentin praised, and Thaddeus’s face lit up with a wide smile. “You won’t need to use any more strength than that when someone’s really trying to hit you, putting the full force of their momentum behind their punch.”

  After Thaddeus performed the steps consistently two more times, he paired him up with Jamie.

  “Keep it nice and slow,” Quentin said, watching them both closely. “That’s it. Perfect.” And it was. Jamie swung at my brother, moving in slow motion. Thaddeus blocked and grabbed, and tripped him.

  “I didn’t hurt you, Jamie, did I?” Thaddeus asked anxiously.

  “Nah, you kidding? You could grab my wrist even tighter if you wanted to. The pull was good, though. I went sailing right by you.”

  And so it went. Then it was Jamie’s turn.

  The two boys joked with each other, their eyes lit up with excitement, eager to learn. They were clearly having a blast. The rest of us were much more relaxed, seeing how well Quentin had matters in control. He used Dante only in the initial demonstration; he had no actual contact with Thaddeus and Jamie. The slow, step-by-step
instruction paid off when they moved on to the next phase.

  “Now we’re going to practice it faster,” Quentin said to the boys’ cheers.

  He illustrated the move at a more realistic speed with Dante. They were beautiful together, all effortless strength and lithe grace, executing the moves in perfect choreography. Two healthy young animals. One fair, the other dark. Both natural superior warriors by blood and birthright.

  “And when you are comfortable with that, even faster, like this.” Quentin caught his brother’s punch with an easy block, a punch that came at him so swiftly it was just a fast blur. The next two movements flowed naturally—sweep and trip—and Dante went sailing past Quentin. He hit the ground in a smooth, tight roll and sprang to his feet.

  “Hopefully the guy you take down will just hit the ground hard and lie there instead of doing what Dante just did,” Quentin said, grinning.

  “Oh, man! Can you teach us how to do that next, the roll Dante just did?” Jamie asked, eyes shining.

  “Sure.” Quentin smiled. He seemed to be enjoying himself as much as the boys. “That’s the next thing on the plate, how to fall correctly.”

  Tersa stood quietly by my side throughout all this. Nothing to give away her thoughts while she was out here, watching. Just her actions themselves—that she was here.

  “Tersa, would you like to learn this stuff also?” I asked her quietly.

  A hard, uncertain silence met me, an answer in itself. Yes, she wanted to learn, but was wary about the physical contact required. She had an instinctive fear of men now. Most girls would after they had been violated by a man.