by Sunny
“I thought my brother a fool for entwining his fate so much with hers, drowning boat that she is,” I said. “Only more recently do I understand.”
“That he is desperate to save the one he loves,” Giselda said with a sad smile, “just as I was desperate to save our people. You are strong, Lucinda, and you have many others now willing to help, who are no doubt anxious to ascertain your safe return with their own eyes. With so many ties to life, and to love, it is not so surprising that you were pulled back, reborn into life.”
Those ties she spoke of twanged within me now. “Thank you, Giselda,” I said, rising. “It helps . . . everything you said.”
“Anytime,” she said, clasping my hand, a beautiful smile on her softly wrinkled face.
TWENTY-FIVE
MY MEN WERE waiting for me by the front entrance. They didn’t notice me at first, having heard my slow heartbeat and automatically discounting me as Monère. It was Jonnie who spotted me and rushed to me with a cry.
I had a moment to brace myself, to get my skittering nerves under control, so that when he flung himself against me, hugging me tight, I was able to endure it and not fling him instinctively away. At eighteen he was no longer a boy but he was still boyish, not quite a full-grown man . . . a full-grown threat. Still, the suddenness of a tall male rushing at me, boyish or not, had me stiffening so hard that my muscles almost spasmed. With gentle care, I pulled free from him.
“Lucinda, are you okay? We were so worried!”
“I’m fine,” I reassured him, though that was not entirely the truth; my own tense body contradicted my words but he was too excited and happy to notice, and my men too stunned.
“Lucinda,” Stefan said, confusion in his face as he looked behind me to Ruric’s looming presence and his still, demon silence, contrasting sharply with my now much noisier one. Neither of the two Monère duty guards posted near the entrance seemed to notice anything amiss. Only Stefan, and the man beside him—Nico, my bondmate. The weakest among our triad.
“Nico.” I ran my eyes over him anxiously. “You are well?”
“Yes, and you?”
I nodded and gave a happy smile as I took in his hale and hearty appearance. Nico had grown stronger, but a part of me had still worried that he might have collapsed or even died when I had destroyed myself along with my enemy.
I should have gone to them, my two precious men. But already my body was shaky from Jonnie’s exuberant embrace, so I just stood there, looking at them, one as beautiful, dark, and compelling as a fallen angel, the other light, fair, on the rougher side of handsome.
I couldn’t bring myself to hug them, but other things I could do. I held out my hands to Stefan and Nico, and they came to me, slipped their hands into mine.
Questions, the most burning one, Why is your heart beating? went unvoiced. They were reluctant to ask that in the presence of the posted guardsmen. But other questions they could, and did, ask. First and foremost being, “Where are Talon and Hari?”
“Talon stayed behind to become acquainted with his mother.”
“His mother!” Jonnie exclaimed.
“And Hari acquired some other new obligations that I’ll tell you about later.” Later wasn’t until we arrived home.
The house in Arizona was still bland and brown and nondescript, but now—with all the bedrooms claimed and filled—it was a home, truly a home, not just an empty box I briefly stayed at. It was quite modest, even a little shabby, compared to my elegantly appointed residence in Hell, but I’d much rather be here with them, living simply, than alone, existing in lavish luxury. Besides, things could be fixed up, the interior furnished better, more comfortably. I’d just never bothered before. Never had any reason to do so when it was just me.
“We still have to buy two more beds,” I said abstractedly, doing a mental count in my head. With Hari gone and Talon absent, everyone got a bed to themselves, except for Jonnie and Stefan. Stefan would likely cede the bed to Jonnie, who was still recovering from a bullet wound . . . although, come to think of it, he had run to me, no hitch to his stride at all. A rather unexpectedly fast recovery for a Mixed Blood . . .
“We’ll get them tomorrow,” Stefan said. Simple words but so incredibly sweet, implying companionship, a shared future together.
Tomorrow . . . I was damn grateful to have a tomorrow.
“Why is your heart beating?” Nico finally asked once we were inside the house. “Can you tell us now what happened?”
We ended up in the living room, and they listened in silence as I recounted the morbid events, leaving out only one intimate detail—how close I’d had to get to Myrddhin before I could destroy him.
“You ended your existence.” The white knuckles of Stefan’s clenched fists belied the seeming calm of his voice. “Deliberately.”
“I had no other choice. Believe me, if there had been any other way, I would have taken it. But there wasn’t.”
“Jeez, Lucinda,” Jonnie breathed. “Death magick, Merlin as a demon, a Tree of Death, demon ghosts, and you rising out of the ashes as a phoenix.” He shook his head. “If I didn’t hear your heart beating, I wouldn’t believe you.”
I looked at him sharply. “You can hear my heart beating?” As a Mixed Blood, Jonnie’s senses should have been blunted.
As it turns out, I had not been the only one to change. Jonnie had also. Only days after being struck down by a bullet and undergoing major surgery, the boy had healed. Not normal healing, but completely. No scar marred his skin. It was smooth and perfect, no evidence that he had almost bled to death from a gunshot wound. And not only was his hearing keener but his eyesight and reflexes were sharper, his strength and speed much greater.
Of Goddess, I thought, as my heart surged in sudden, fast-thumping rhythm. Had my demon blood somehow mingled with his? Had I broken one of our greatest taboos? Accidentally made him Damanôen, a living demon? Had I delivered a death sentence to this boy while trying to save him?
I had inserted a searing hot fingertip into Jonnie to cauterize his bleeding artery. But there had been no open wounds on me.
My mind searched desperately back in time but could not remember any occasion that could have allowed the mixing of my blood with his while I had been conscious.
What about when you were unconscious? whispered my mind.
“It was my blood,” Stefan said, his voice drawing me out of my dangerous thoughts.
“What?” I said, looking without comprehension at him.
“I believe it was my blood that caused these changes in Jonnie. The bullet passed through me first before hitting him, remember?”
I remembered quite well. Stefan had used his own body to try to shield Jonnie. But even Monère flesh gave way beneath a bullet; it had left a fist-sized hole in Stefan’s back, and a fragment of that bullet, coated with Stefan’s blood, had struck Jonnie.
Monère blood. Not my demon blood. With all my might, I prayed that it was so.
The simple fact that Jonnie’s wound had healed indicated it was a Monère ability, not a demon one—demons did not heal in the living realm—supporting Stefan’s theory. I clutched that comforting piece of fact to me as I collapsed into bed and slept for twelve straight hours.
I AWOKE FEELING surprisingly hungry. Not for blood, but for food.
Ruric looked on, appalled, as I scooped up a bowl of chicken noodle soup that someone, probably Stefan, had prepared. The poor demon looked like he was watching a train wreck taking place before his eyes as I proceeded to eat the delicious-smelling soup. Because demons did not eat solid food in the living realm; we only drank blood. Attempting anything more solid made demons vilely sick. But I ate without any problem. In fact, I slurped down a second bowl.
As the days passed, I also found that sunlight no longer harmed me. Exposure to it no longer drained my power or softened my flesh. I explored my new tolerance for sunlight under the wary, anxious eyes of my men, who I had insisted stay inside the house while I curled up on a blanket o
utside, soaking in the bright warm rays like a small, sleepy dragon. One hour the first day became three hours the next, then five hours the day after that. And all I got was a slight tan that deepened the golden pigment of my skin.
Only Jonnie wasn’t driven crazy as I tested the new limits within myself, because he was as busy exploring his changes as I was mine.
His strength came to a peak two days after my return, falling just short of full Monère strength, then started to wane until he was once more as he had been, only just a touch faster and stronger now. No sign of bloodthirst or new demon wildness.
My greatest fear faded but my lesser ones still remained. I slept alone.
I got the call one day that my own personal funds had finally arrived. I had asked Halcyon to sell the herd of blood cattle I owned down in Hell. He had transferred the proceeds of this sale to Donald MacPherson, who in turn had deposited the money into a new private account that had been set up for me. I was no longer a guardian. I had given my official notice to Halcyon, and no longer felt free using guardian money to support myself and my new expenses, which had quadrupled. Before, I had just drunk blood, which had been of no cost to me—my donors maybe, but not me. Now I ate food, and had three, possibly four other mouths to feed.
Halcyon had undoubtedly been more generous than he should have been converting demon currency into human dollars. But I was fortunate he was there to act as my bank. I doubted any of the human banks could have accommodated me.
We finally purchased the two extra beds we needed, and Jonnie began classes at the new high school.
The first day of school, Jonnie drove off in Stefan’s car, unaware that Stefan and I surreptitiously followed him ten minutes later in my car. Ruric and Nico wanted to come along but we made them stay behind. We wanted to be discreet, not draw attention.
Jonnie seemed to ease into his new classes without any difficulty. It was the end of January, so the timing wasn’t too bad, considering. Through snippets of conversation we learned that Jonnie wasn’t the only new kid; several other students had also just moved into the area.
In school, Jonnie was much more subdued than he was with us at home. Only now did I realize how comfortable he felt with us—with me.
Stefan and I watched and listened from the car, parked in the shade across the street, keeping easy track of Jonnie’s slightly slower heartbeat as he moved from classroom to classroom. When at the next period bell, he headed toward the back of the building, we left the car to slip quietly into the woods behind the school and continue our watch beneath the shade of a tall pine tree.
“I can’t believe how nervous I feel,” I muttered as we kept vigil. “I know he’s supposed to be safe in there, but there are so many kids in there—thousands of them! A shame that boost in strength he gained from your blood didn’t last longer.”
“I’m glad it didn’t,” Stefan said in a quiet, thoughtful voice. “I think Jonnie is, too. Easier for him to blend in. I want him to have a real life; to feel a part of human society. Goddess knows he spent enough years with me, feeling like a fugitive.”
Stefan had been a rogue before I had met him, a Monère warrior who had grown too strong for his Queen and fled her, becoming an outcast. I had saved him from that drifting, precarious life when I had claimed him and his ward. They were safe now, under my protection, as was Nico. But the few white strands of hair scattered among the thick black silk of Stefan’s hair reminded me of another need they had. The need to Bask in the renewing rays of the moon, which I could no longer draw down; only a Monère Queen could.
Bereft of a Queen for almost twenty years, Stefan had aged prematurely. White hair should not have started appearing until after two hundred years of life, but he had these white strands because even though Stefan’s chronological age was one hundred forty-five, his true biological age was that of a two-hundred-five-year-old Monère. He had aged sixty years instead of twenty in the two decades of his exile without Basking.
Nico had also been a rogue, but his banishment had only lasted months, not years; he had not been cheated out of prime years of his life as Stefan had.
The full moon was only a week away, reminding me that arrangements had to be made for Stefan and Nico before the next Basking period came.
Stefan held his head very still as I ran my fingers through his thick hair, touching one of those offending white strands. He guessed what had captured my attention by the more agitated rhythm of my betraying heartbeat.
“I should dye my hair like humans do,” he said.
“No need. It reminds me of your other needs, and that I need to make arrangements for you and Nico to Bask somewhere. If not at a neighboring territory then back at High Court with the Queen Mother.”
“My white hair upsets you.” He turned to face me, catching my hand unexpectedly in his.
I flinched and jerked free with blind terror, falling back away from him as if he had clamped his hand cruelly around my wrist in restraint instead of holding it in a soft and gentle grip, easily broken.
We stared at each other in a tense and frozen silence.
“I’m sorry—” I began.
“You no longer want me,” Stefan whispered bleakly, looking stunned and viciously wounded by my violent rejection of him. “I . . . I know you don’t really need me. You have so many others now.”
“No, I still want you,” I said, begging him with my eyes to believe me.
“Then why did you pull away just now? As if you could not bear for me to touch you?”
I groped for words to answer him, but they stuck in my throat.
Stefan’s eyes narrowed. “Something happened. Something that you didn’t tell us about.”
I didn’t want to tell him. Didn’t want to remember Myrddhin’s foul presence sliding into me. Shame twined with fear that Stefan would look at me differently. That he would no longer want me. But if I said nothing, didn’t explain, I risked losing him that way, too.
“The part I left out, that I didn’t tell you or any of the others,” I said, looking blindly at the school, “was how I got Myrddhin to drop his personal shielding. He was fucking me, of course.”
His next words came gently. “You were scared and frightened.”
Fear and shame thickened my throat. “Yes, you’re right. I was scared and frightened and helpless—truly helpless. His power dwarfed mine. I’d never encountered anything like him before. My father and brother are stronger than I am, but they never used their greater strength against me. And they weren’t evil like he was.”
“He raped you.”
I shook my head. “No, Stefan, he didn’t. I lured him to me, and when he fondled me, when he entered me . . . it felt good. He made me feel”—I had to choke the next word out—“pleasure.”
“That does not make it any less a violation,” Stefan said. “Inside your mind, did you desire the act?”
“I told you already, I needed him close and unshielded, and sex was the only lure I could think of to get him to drop it.”
“No, not your intent—your emotions. How did you feel when he penetrated you? Not the physical sensation but in your mind?”
“I felt panic, fear, revulsion. My mind was screaming: No, I don’t want this. But I didn’t push him away. I wrapped myself around him and pulled him even deeper into me.” A wet tear overflowed, trickled down my face.
“So you could end his sorry existence.”
I braced myself and glanced at his face. He looked anguished, not angry at me.
“Oh, love. You should have told us.”
“I didn’t want you to know,” I said, slow, ragged. “It’s so dirty. So ugly.”
“He wounded you in a way we couldn’t see but should have been aware of. You should have told us so we didn’t accidentally hurt you more. Like grabbing you suddenly, the way I just did.”
“Y-You don’t think I’m dirty . . . disgusting?”
“No, love, never. I’m awed at how brave and smart you are. Grateful that you came
back to us. Look at me.” He stretched out his hands so I could see the fine tremors shaking his long, elegant fingers. “I’m relieved. Literally shaking with relief knowing that it wasn’t me you were rejecting but him . . . your body’s memory of him. It was killing me when I thought you didn’t want me anymore.”
“No, Stefan. I’ll always want you. I was worried you might not want me anymore if you knew.”
“Lucinda. I love you.”
His words ran a thrill through me. Loosened a tight ball of anxiety that had been knotted up tight within me. The deep, unseen wound Myrddhin had inflicted on me didn’t heal right then and there, but it did begin to mend, continued to do so with the soothing balm of his words.
“I’ve never loved a woman before,” he said softly, “not really. Not any of my Queens. But I love you. There was this empty, aching hole inside of me before you came along. Now you complete me, make me whole and happy. So happy that I have this constant dread that it’ll be taken away. That maybe you’ll tire of me.”
“No—never. I love you, too,” I whispered, and crept into his arms.
He didn’t try to hold me or make me feel trapped in any way. He let me go to him. Let me slowly relax against the solid wall of his chest. Let me rest my head down on his shoulder. “You complete me, too. Don’t ever leave me.”
“No, love. I won’t.” He kissed the top of my head, a soothing and comforting gesture.
I rested against him and felt the reassuring beat of his heart. Felt my own rhythm match his. Felt old stagnant fear wash away and new desire flow in and take its place. This was Stefan—my love. The beacon that drew me to my new life, one that had began even before my rebirth.
He called to my heart, as he always had, since the first time my eyes fell upon him. And his blood, so tantalizingly close to me, called up my dormant hunger. A thirst for blood stirred awake within me and drowsily stretched, lengthening out my fangs. I hadn’t drank blood for several days now, just eaten food, something that had been worrying my men.
