by Sunny
How his eyes had blazed when I had said those words—I accept Dante as my champion. How odd the twists and turns tricksty fate continued to bring into our lives.
Everyone poured out into the courtyard to witness the spectacle about to unfold.
Oswald had gotten his wish for a bloodier fight. His terms. Unarmed combat, four-legged form allowed.
I’d seen the look in Dante’s eyes as Oswald had announced the rules. Just a faint flicker in his eyes, no other betraying movement. But somehow I knew that the last part of it had bothered him. I didn’t know what Dante’s animal form was or if he even had one. Could he even shift? If he could, it still had to be a new ability only recently attained with puberty, which usually took place around seventeen years of age in Monère males.
I spent another five minutes haggling, to no avail. Oswald’s chosen terms stood. Shifting was allowed. The only concession I managed to wring from Mona Sephina was that the winner was the man who first pinned his opponent to the ground for ten seconds. I don’t know if that helped Dante or made it harder for him. He gave me no hint, no clue as to what would help him. In truth, he didn’t seem to really care what the terms were.
Both Mona Sephina and I agreed that the challenge was to be nonfatal. Death was not allowed. Would be punished, in fact, by awarding victory to the other side. No guarantee, but at least it would motivate Dante and Oswald not to kill each other. No male liked to lose.
Again, I didn’t know if that hindered Dante or helped him. Maybe it would have been easier for Dante to kill Oswald rather than pin him; he was a big guy. But in this matter I was operating solely on my own preference. And I found that I’d rather Dante lose and live. In my heart of hearts, I did not want him to die.
Oswald stripped down to just his pants. Unclothed, he was an even more imposing figure with a thick chest, massive shoulders, and heavy, dense muscles that knotted his hairy body with solid strength.
Dante, on the other hand, was more elegantly built, with sleeker muscles. Like a ballet dancer rather than a burly wrestler. Even the way he removed his clothes was in marked contrast to the way Oswald had done so. Instead of rough, forceful gestures, it was a graceful, deliberate disrobing, with calmness, precision. He passed his sword and dagger into his brother’s keeping. The wrist bracelets and necklace were removed next and also handed to Quentin. Standing beside each other, you could see the features that made them brothers. The similarities—the high-bridged noses, the long, lean cut of their faces. And their differences—the warm tawny brown of Dante’s hair, his lightened blond streaks coming from the sun’s natural touch, not a bottle; and Quentin’s darker hair. One face smooth, almost girlishly pretty with big eyes and long lashes; the other face less refined, yet roughly beautiful somehow in its harsh imperfection.
It was in the eyes, though, where the true difference lay. Quentin’s eyes were still soft, still young. Dante’s eyes were those of an old soul, one that had lived long and hard. One to whom death, pain, and suffering were familiar knowledge.
When all items of clothing were removed by Dante, all but for his pants, he stepped forward into the cleared center, ringed by the curious throng that was composed of Queens, guards, maids, foot-men, and various other housestaff. All who had come out to watch the fight.
The two opponents approached each other, and it was like watching a young David step forward to meet a hulking Goliath. I knew Dante’s history, had seen him fight. With a sword he was almost unparalleled. But I did not know what he was capable of in unarmed combat, and the disparity between their sizes…it was frankly daunting. Dante’s muscles seemed as naught next to the bulk of Oswald’s more mature, brutish mass. They were of the same height, both just over six feet, but Oswald was almost twice Dante’s weight. Twice his width.
With a grin, Oswald charged, going after Dante like a two-ton tank. They collided with resonating impact. Surprisingly, it was Oswald who went tumbling in the air for a dozen feet before crashing to the ground. The big warrior lay there for a moment, stunned by the unexpected outcome. Then he picked himself up, and with a roar, launched himself at Dante again. With coiled, springing grace, Dante met him in the air. Oswald swung. With a lithe twist, Dante ducked his blow, and landed one of his own. The force was enough to alter Oswald’s course. One moment he was springing forward, the next second Dante snapped Oswald’s head back with a solid hit that not only halted his forward momentum, but sent him flying backward in reverse.
Dante seemed to pack quite a punch.
Oswald landed with an impact that made the ground tremble. He shook his head, clearing it, and seemed to decide that a change in strategy was required. With a rippling release of power and a sparkle of light, he started to shift. Oswald’s big, broad face pushed forward into a snout. His brown eyes lightened to yellow. His spine curved and he fell onto all fours. A short, hairy coat of tawny fur spilled over his skin, a tufted tail emerged, and a beautiful auburn mane thickened around his head and shoulders. With a great roar that showcased the long canines wickedly well, he completed his shift into lion form—a magnificent and deadly predator, even bigger now than he’d been in his upright one.
All eyes turned to Dante. Energy pulsed once, twice. But he didn’t shift as everyone expected. Only two things changed. His eyes silvered, and his hands started to morph, to shorten, thicken, the bones becoming more curved. Two-inch long claws pushed out of his fingertips, sliding out like blades. A partial change. I’d only seen two others do that, shift only that one part of themselves. One had been Dontaine, my master at arms, and it had not been an easy thing for him to do—more of a slow and painful process. For Dante, it seemed as natural and simple as breathing. And his change was even more refined than Dontaine’s had been. No fur. Just his human skin, though it was thicker and coarser now. There was no hint of what his animal self was, other than those long, curved claws. The only other person who had accomplished such a partial transformation so effortlessly had been Lucinda, Halcyon’s sister, a demon dead princess.
From the murmurs that came from the audience, the light gasps, I took it to mean that the partial shift and the ease with which it was done was not a common ability. Still, impressive though it was, those claws did not seem an adequate match for Oswald’s lion. I glanced at Nolan and Quentin’s faces, and saw from their troubled expressions that they did not think so either.
The crowd backed farther way, giving them more room as the lion sprang. Dante stood his ground. At the last instant, he slashed and rolled out from beneath those powerful paws, scoring four diagonal cuts along the lion’s underbelly. It continued in that same pattern, like a beautiful, vicious, choreographed dance—Oswald attacking and Dante dodging, scoring light hits when he could. But quick though Dante was, in his lion form Oswald was equally as fast. And he had four clawed appendages to Dante’s two. On top of that, he had flesh-tearing canine teeth, making it five weapons in his arsenal to Dante’s mere two. Inevitably, one of those swiping paws caught Dante. The impact sent him slamming to the ground, his left side ripped open, the white of his ribs showing through the torn flesh.
The excitement of the bloodthirsty crowd swelled, and their eager cries swallowed up my gasp in a sea of sound. But Dante’s eyes turned from his springing opponent and unerringly found me. As if he’d heard my soft cry of distress. Could discern it from all the other noise.
Only when he was assured of my physical well-being, that I was fine and my reaction simply that of seeing him injured, did he turn his attention back to Oswald, back to the fight.
It left me shaken, that look, that keen awareness of me even in the midst of battle. I swallowed a scream as the lion fell on Dante.
Dante rolled away at the very last instant so that Oswald hit the ground not on top of his prey as he had intended, but past him. A hard, downward chop of Dante’s hand, and the thick bone in the lion’s foreleg broke with an audible crack. A sweep of Dante’s legs, and the big animal toppled to the ground. Dante rolled on top of him, and dro
ve his right claws through the lion’s two back legs, his left claws stabbing through the upper forelegs, pinning the beast to the ground in a brutal, effective manner, with his body behind and out of reach of the great jaws.
The crowd fell unexpectedly silent at the sudden reversal. Into the silence, Quentin started counting, “One. Two. Three. Four…”
On the count of five, the lion tried to heave back up. With almost casual violence, Dante yanked his left claws out from the pinned forelegs and backhanded the beast across his head with a powerful blow. The lion fell back to the ground, knocked out for the remainder of the count. When ten was called out, Dante un-hooked his right claws, wiped the blood stains on Oswald’s thick pelt, and stood up. Two soft pulses of power and the long, hooking nails shrunk back beneath the flesh, and his hands became just hands once more.
The crowd parted, making way for him as Dante walked back to his brother. He stood quietly, allowed Quentin to bind his wounds, then donned his necklace, arm bands, and clothes, in that order. With his dagger secured and his sword belted at his side, he strode to me and the crowd slipped back away from him…and from me, once they saw where he was heading. Only Amber, Dontaine, Tomas, and Aquila remained by my side.
Stopping before me, Dante went down on one knee, bowing his head.
“Your victory, milady.”
Then, with no more fuss than that, he stood and walked away, his family following after him. Leaving behind a stunned audience of warriors and Queens and one particularly furious one—Mona Sephina, who gazed down at the still unconscious Oswald with tight, thin lips.
“That’s a cool one,” someone in the crowd muttered, voicing the sentiment aloud for us all.
Dante had taken down a warrior much older and more powerful than himself with an economy of motion, snatching victory from his competitor’s grasp with simple, elegant savagery. He had defeated a warrior shifted into his animal form while he had remained in his upright one. Most disturbing of all, though, was that not once while Dante had fought Oswald had emotion touched him. No rage, no passion, no anger. Not even triumph in the end.
A cool one, indeed.
And far more dangerous than even they knew.
TWENTY-TWO
I FELT HALCYON’S presence after most of the crowd had drifted away. The sudden awareness of him was like that of a tuning fork being struck, leaving my entire body vibrating with every part of me conscious of him. I felt him, felt his thoughts, and knew that he was lending me some of his control. I tasted eagerness, concern, curiosity…and nervousness from him.
Why are you nervous? I wondered. Just a normal thought, one that popped into my mind. I was surprised when he answered.
Meeting you again. Wondering if you had changed your mind on becoming my mate. His words sounded as clearly in my mind as if he had spoken them out loud.
I saw him then, a slender man with skin a dark, vivid gold against the white silk of his shirt, his hair a sumptuous fall of black against the white and gold backdrop. Simple. Elegant. Breathtaking.
Your eyes flatter me. I am most common in looks and appearance, he whispered in my mind. But I heard a smile in his voice. My own lips curved up in response.
You are all things but common to me, Halcyon.
Our hands touched, and his fingers wrapped around mine, golden brown skin against fair white. A lovely study of contrasts. What we were.
He lifted my hand to his lips in a gesture that only he could make so naturally graceful. “Hell-cat,” he said, and kissed the back of my hand.
“Halcyon.” I brushed my fingertips across his golden cheek and felt warmth flare up in his mind and along his skin at my touch. Amber and Dontaine greeted him politely, and he responded in kind to them, nodded cordially to Aquila and Tomas.
“It seems I missed quite a show,” Halcyon murmured. But I felt the truth through that connection we shared. He had deliberately waited until it was over so that he would not distract me, though it had been hard for him to do so. To stay away, knowing that I was here.
I was both touched and flattered. And watched, entranced, as a light, scarlet blush touched that gold-dusted skin.
This connection between us both soothes and stings, Halcyon murmured wryly in my mind. Nothing can be hidden when we are thus joined.
Out loud he said, “I have something I wish to give you waiting in my quarters. Will you come with me there?” Silently he added, You can quench your hunger in the privacy of my place.
I nodded. Told Aquila and Tomas to wait for us at the Council Hall, while Amber and Dontaine accompanied me to Halcyon’s abode.
“We’ll meet you in a little while,” I told them.
Bowing, Aquila and Tomas left.
Halcyon took my hand, set it in the crook of his arm, and led me down a path that wound behind the Great House. We passed a few other small, private residences before we finally arrived at his. It was set farthest back, away from the other lodgings, closest to the bordering thicket of woods. His dwelling here was simple and comfortably furnished, smelling like him, I thought, as I stepped through the doorway.
We do not have scents was his amused thought.
Then what do I smell?
What you are picking up is my physic scent. And because he was not used to censoring his thoughts, I caught the rest of it. That it was something that was only normally sensed by other demons.
He caught my distress. “Forgive me, Hell-cat. That was thoughtless of me,” he murmured, earning puzzled glances from Amber and Dontaine.
After we entered, Halcyon lifted his hand and stroked his palm over a stone mosaic design made of individual rocks embedded in the wall. As he passed his hand over it, a small, nondescript gray pebble set near the bottom began to glow, turning emerald green. I felt the thrumming energy slide over me and stretch wide to encompass the entire room.
“You already know what it is,” Halcyon said with surprise.
“A privacy shield. A sound barrier. So that no one outside can hear us.” I knew because Dante and his mother each had a similar stone.
Interesting, Halcyon thought. Kámennae stone are quite rare.
What type of rocks are they?
Have you not guessed yet? They are remnants from our mother planet, the moon. Taken from her core.
“You can speak to each other mind-to-mind,” Amber said, breaking into our silent conversation.
“Yes,” I confirmed, and felt apprehension flit through me. I had not told Amber of my new demon nature. The reason why I had asked him to come here now with Dontaine was so that I could explain it. So that he could see and know.
“I have a small part of Halcyon’s demon essence in me that allows this communication. It is not something he infected me with,” I added quickly, as concern and anger flared up hot and strong in Amber’s eyes, changing his blue eyes into the yellow-gold color of his name. “It’s something I took into myself through my own actions.” And that of another Queen.
“An accident,” I murmured, though it had not been so much an accident as ignorance. When I had sucked Mona Louisa’s light and essence into me, it had been with the full intent of killing her. Infecting me with Halcyon’s demon essence, which she had drank down into her, had just been an unforeseen side effect.
“Halcyon would not have knowingly done this.” I put my hand over Amber’s arm, and felt his thick muscles tighten beneath my grip. “It makes them vulnerable to those like me. They call us Damanôen, demon living, because we can sense them. In fact, it was their past practice to kill all those like me.”
I felt Amber’s energy flare anew beneath my restraining grip. “Halcyon’s trying to save me, Amber, not kill me. One of the reasons why he wishes to publicly claim me as his mate.”
“To give you his protection,” Amber said in a hard, grating voice.
I nodded. “And as a diversion. We want people to think that Halcyon infected me because of my intimacy with him as his mate.”
“Why?”
“To hide t
he real reason why I have become demon living.”
“And what is the real reason?” he asked.
“I cannot tell you, ever. That is the real secret we are protecting. I’m sorry, Amber.”
Those feral yellow eyes stared down at me. “If the cost of it is your life, then it is knowledge I can live forever without.”
I squeezed his arm in gratitude.
“That’s the reason why you wished to rid yourself of the babe,” Amber said in sudden understanding.
“Yes. Even though the child could be yours, I feared how this change in me would affect it.”
“It is not mine, Mona Lisa.”
Amber’s words startled me with their surety. “You sound as if you know this for certain.”
“I do,” Amber said. “Who have you shared your body with since this new life has sparked in you?”
Actually, I had to stop and think about it a moment. To rerun the past few days in my mind. “Just Dante.”
“Only Dante. Since that first time you lay with him,” Amber said.
“Why do you sound so sure about that?”
“We are the children of the moon. Beings tied close with nature and its rhythms. A Monère woman knows whose seed has taken root in her body. And she will instinctively desire only that man while his child grows in her.”
“Oh.” There was still so much I did not know about who and what I was. But with that explanation, my behavior of the past few days became clearer now. Why I had just slept in Amber’s arms and then Dontaine’s. How I had lain with them without making love with them, without desiring to do so, and why they had not pressed themselves on me. I realized the full significance now of that look in Dante’s eyes when I had taken him into my body that last time of my own free will, of my own instinctive desire. He had known then, for sure. Everyone had known who the father of my child was all this time. Even me, deep inside.
