by Sunny
I swung full out at Nolan, knowing he could more than adequately defend himself.
He just stood there and parried the blow with insulting ease. In a quick countering maneuver he knocked the wooden sword from my hand and laid his weapon against my neck.
"All right, you proved your point," I said, swallowing at the fresh reminder of how lucky I'd been so far. Lucky that I still had my head attached to my body. "But do I have to start from the very beginning?" Even to myself it sounded whiney — I couldn't help myself. It was embarrassing waving around what amounted to a glorified twig, especially with my men watching from the house, keeping an eye on me. "If I have to practice with this stupid stick, at least can we do more challenging drills?"
Nolan was a good teacher. Flexible. "More challenging drills coming right up, milady." He executed a fluid bow that was not bad considering he'd been out of practice for twenty years. "But I want you aware that my healer wife, as well as your men, will have my head if I get a single scratch on you."
"No scratch, I promise. Just don't treat me like a baby."
He didn't. For the next fifteen minutes, he paired up as my partner, and wooden sword went up against wooden sword, which was much better than thrusting and parrying against empty air. I was grinning like an idiot until Nolan said, "Good. Now let's pick up the speed."
"What do you mean, pick up the speed?"
"You're only moving as fast as a human. Let me see more speed and force behind your strikes. Don't hold back."
"I wasn't."
His turn to say, "What do you mean?"
"I wasn't holding back."
Frowning, he raised his wood sword and said, "Again." We repeated the thrust-parry, thrust-parry maneuvers, and I consciously pushed myself in speed, in strength.
"Harder," he said. "Faster."
"I am," I grunted. When Nolan stepped up the pace, I couldn't match him. Nor could I hang onto my weapon when he increased the force behind his strikes. My wooden blade went flying out of my hand to land on the grass.
A chill went through me as I stood there weaponless, breathing heavily. Nolan's breathing wasn't even labored.
"I'm slow," I said, as if repeating that fact out loud could sink the revelation into my brain. "I move as slow as a human, and am as weak as one." I remembered the pain that had slashed me when I had tried to call up power to compel the taxi driver, and had been unable to. I'd thought it was because of my exhaustion from crossing two different realms, journeying back from death to life. But I wondered now if something in me had been damaged. If my Monère strength, quickness, and power had been torn out of me along with Mona Louisa. That inner wound was still there inside me. I still felt it.
"Forgive me, milady. I should have allowed you more time to rest and recover before beginning your training."
As the stunning realization that I had lost my Monère strength settled in on me slowly, I couldn't bring myself to mouth platitudes. Couldn't find anything worthwhile to say to Nolan. I just nodded and left him, walking back to the house.
When I saw Amber waiting for me by the front door, I dashed up the stairs and was caught up in those big arms that always felt like safety, warmth, love — Amber, my rock.
Those giant arms tightened as they lifted me. "Careful, Amber. Gently," I gasped, even though he always was — gentle and careful with me, ever conscious of his strength. After my words, he started to loosen his embrace and draw back. It was I who tightened my arms around his neck and plastered myself against him, burrowing into his bigness. His arms came tentatively back around, holding me loosely as I murmured, "Oh, Amber." Just that, his name and all that he meant to me.
I didn't question his return, how and why he was there when I suddenly needed him. Nor did he question my almost desperate welcome. He was a man more of action than words, and his next actions were perfect. With me clinging to him like a burr, he went inside and climbed the stairs. Only when we were in his bedroom did he speak. "I missed you. I needed you."
"I missed you, needed you, too." He didn't know, I thought, gazing at his clear, untroubled eyes. He didn't know the awful truth that I had just discovered about my strength. I didn't want to think about it or dwell on it, all the worries. I just wanted to feel, enjoy what I had now, for the moment. Kisses followed, far better than words. A meeting of mouths and hearts. Sweet and gentle on his part. Hungry and ravenous, a touch desperate on mine. Still he was careful, gentle, letting me set the pace. Allowing me to unbuckle his belt, push down his pants as he pulled off his shirt. Letting me shrug out of my own clothes with careless haste and abandon. No thoughts, no modesty, no care, just this — his hands running lightly over my breasts, me pushing him back down on the bed, climbing on top of him, holding the stiff, throbbing jut of him, slipping a quickly snatched condom over him, then sinking down on that thick, swollen head. Oh! Just so.
"Amber," I murmured, closing my eyes, sinking into bliss as my body swallowed him slowly into me. When I had sank down as much as I could, I gave a little wriggle, a sharp swivel, and deeper still he went. A big man all over, was my Amber. Mine. Yes, mine. At least for now. He groaned, I moaned, and together we began to move, him gently, me much less so. I wanted him. Wanted him to wash away all my doubts, fears, concerns. I just wanted him like this — on his back, his stiff rod buried inside me, a part of me, his calloused warrior hands running tenderly over me, stroking my breasts, pinching my nipples, combing his fingers lightly over the soft mound between my legs, there where we came together, melded with sticky wetness to each other as we rocked together, as I rode him, my strong huge stallion, still gentle in his counter-thrusts while I grew increasingly wild on top of him, plummeting up and down with increasing speed, sliding wetly up and down him. His fingers grew more urgent, harder pinches, more abundant squeezes paced and metered to my cries, my needs, my heated murmured response of "Oh, yes… like that… and that." Then just his name, "Amber," and my need to forget, to only feel. A gentle slide up, a harder thrust down, pushing his thick length back in. "Yes." Like that.
Light glimmered through my closed lids as we began to glow. He picked up the rhythm, shoved himself the tiniest bit harder inside me as I rocked and swiveled and gyrated above him. Harder, faster, taking him all, taking him fully, taking him deep, a part of me forever.
"Amber!" I cried as he touched me, the rough gentleness of his fingers sliding over my swollen nub, prominent now, button-hard. A sizzling stroke that sent a sharp bolt of pleasure through me, making me gasp, making me open my eyes. A gentle squeezing pinch over my swollen clit, a gentle forceful drive into me at the same time, sending me flying into climax.
A moment of suspended breath, of suspended pleasure.
Then bursting ecstasy, wracking shudders, spilling cries… and the horrible realization, as I gazed down and felt him follow me into spilling release, that he glowed — and I didn't!
CHAPTER TWENTY
WORDS came later with terrible awkwardness. "Did I… please you?" Amber asked uncertainly. He asked because when Monères had sex, they glowed, but only if they felt pleasure. I hadn't glowed.
"Yes, you pleased me. You saw… felt me come."
"But you didn't —"
"No, I didn't glow." My smile was bittersweet as I realized that things weren't as bad as I thought — they were worse. Much worse.
"Maybe I was too gentle."
I laughed, a far from happy sound. "No, you were perfect." I kissed him lightly, poignantly, trying to say I'm sorry, it's not your fault in that tender gesture. Maybe even a silent good-bye.
"I'm going to take a shower." I slipped out of bed.
The water ran over me, washing away the musky smell of sex, of remembered pleasure, making me feel washed away as well — washed of everything that I was.
I've lost everything. Everything.. even Amber.
Human weakness, human frailty — that might have been workable. No matter my other shortcomings, I could have still been their Queen… as long as I could Bask. As lon
g as I could draw down the renewing rays of the moon and share it with my people. I couldn't now. I couldn't glow. That inner luminous shine of the moon kept as a reservoir within our bodies was no longer in me. I no longer held the moon's light.
A part of me wondered if I was no longer Monère, just human now. Another part of me said it didn't matter. I was useless to my people. Whatever I was, I was useless to them.
Drying off, I went back into the bedroom and found Amber naked, waiting for me. "Tell me what I did wrong?" he said, eyes worried.
"You did nothing wrong, Amber. The problem is with me, not you. Why don't you take a quick shower," I suggested quietly, pulling on my clothes. "And I'll explain everything downstairs. Not only to you, but to the others also. They'll need to know."
It was the hardest thing to leave, to walk away from him. Shutting the door softly, I walked downstairs.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Dontaine and Aquila were the last to arrive. All the rest of my family — Chami, Tomas, Rosemary, Tersa, Jamie, and Thaddeus — were already in the front parlor. Nolan and his wife, Hannah, our healer, were also there. They, too, had a right to know. Exactly what, I was still working out. Lots of secrets I had to keep, but some… most…just didn't matter anymore. If what I suspected was true, I would no longer be with them much longer. So I told them many of the things I hadn't told them before. I told them about Mona Louisa becoming demon dead — not how she had become that way, but that she simply was. Everyone just assumed it was through the usual way — that she died and made the transition to demon life.
When I told them that Mona Louisa's demon essence had somehow become a part of me, and my brother asked, "How?" I told him, told everyone, that it was a demon secret I had sworn not to reveal.
"Sworn to who?" Chami asked.
"To Halcyon and to the High Lord."
That I was acquainted with the reclusive High Lord of Hell didn't seem to faze my men at all, though Nolan and his wife seemed shocked by the knowledge. But then my men knew that I had gone down to Hell twice before. They likely thought that Mona Louisa's demon essence had blended with mine during one of my trips there. I could imagine Monère mothers, generations from now, telling their children my sad story as a lesson for living Monère never to mix with the demon dead — both literally and figuratively. Not only had I gone down to Hell, the first Monère — well, the first Mixed Blood Monère — ever to do so, but I had mated with the Demon Prince and become part demon in truth. Just desserts, many would no doubt say.
"Mona Louisa's demon essence inside me was why I was whisked down into NetherHell. That's apparently where she belonged. And the dheu part of her, the damned demon part of her inside of me, was what wouldn't let me cross the doorway back into Hell."
"So how did you come back?" Thaddeus asked.
"Halcyon. He and Gryphon found me. When I couldn't pass through the doorway separating the realms, he ripped the demon part of her out of me. I was able to cross into Hell, and from there, into the Living Realm again. But it seems I'm damaged now, not whole. All that makes me Monère is gone — my strength, my speed, my power, all my Monère abilities. I can't even glow anymore. I can no longer Bask. Without that, I cannot be your Queen anymore."
Pin-drop silence. Then a rising jumble of voices. Hannah's voice cut through all the others. "Mona Lisa, if I may, I would like to examine you."
A hush fell over the others. At my nod, she took the seat that Amber vacated for her. "Here, in front of everyone?" she asked.
"Yes." Why not?
She lifted her hands and started with my head, giving a gasp when she touched my forehead. I felt the tendrils of her power sink into me like warm, spreading heat. My sense of everyone had been muted, I realized now, but this power, this inner seeking, I felt strongly.
Giving a soft cry, she jerked her hands away from me, not quickly but slowly, as if something sticky tugged her to me and was loathe to give her up.
"What's wrong?" Nolan asked sharply.
Hannah gazed at me mutely.
"Go ahead," I said. "You can tell everyone what you sensed."
"Sensed is a good word," Hannah said, her voice slightly tremulous. "That brief touch only allowed me a glimpse of your inner wounding. Your energy… aura, I suppose would be the best word for it… is severely damaged."
"Is that why you pulled away from me like that?"
"No, I drew back so abruptly because that wound in your aura drew on my energy with unexpected force when I touched you."
"Is that usual?" I asked, frowning.
"Far from it."
"Then, why did it happen?"
"Your body is trying to heal itself. Do you feel any better?"
I searched inwardly. "No, it feels the same. Like this raw, open wound. How about you? Did touching me hurt you?"
Hannah shook her head.
"Then why are you trembling?"
"Because you siphoned off quite a bit of my healing energy. I wasn't expecting that. Didn't even know it could be done."
She reached her hands out to me once more.
"Whoa, just a second," I said, leaning away from her.
"If I just siphoned off enough energy to make you this shaky, why are you trying to touch me again?"
"I wasn't prepared for it the first time," Hannah said. "I should be able to control it better, now that I know what to expect. I'd like to examine you again, more thoroughly this time, and see if my energy helped you in any way."
Because I wanted to know as well, I agreed. "All right, but if you can't control it, you release me right away, understood?"
She nodded and her fingertips rose to hover just over my face. I felt that warm, healing energy floating just out of reach. She ran her fingers down the sides of my neck, touched briefly. A small jolt of energy passed between us — was drawn out of her. She lift her fingers away and continued down my body.
"Lift up your T-shirt, please, milady."
When I did, I felt the warm, teasing presence of those hands slide above my abdomen, not touching, just gliding an inch above my skin, assessing my aura. A brief touch over my belly, and another small jolt of energy passing between us. She moved down my legs.
"If you can remove your sneakers and socks, milady."
I kicked off shoes and socks, and lifted my bare feet up. Hannah passed her hands over my toes and continued down over the soles. Lightly, she grasped the bottoms of my feet. One last surge of siphoned energy, and she released me.
She sat there bravely beside me, inches away, while I felt my body's hunger for her energy. Had I been her, I would have scooted back, far out of reach. "What's the verdict, doc?"
"It is as you say," Hannah said. "You have a raw, open wound, leaking out energy, not just your own but what you took from me as well. All of my healing energy, transferred to you, seems to have washed right out of that hole of your aura."
"So I'm like this broken cup that can't hold water," I said quietly.
"I've never seen an injury like this… I don't even begin to know how to heal it, but I could try."
Try.. and die, I thought. "No, if what I took out of you did nothing, any further attempts would not only be useless but possibly very dangerous for you." A brief hesitation. "Will I get better on my own?"
"I don't know," Hannah answered. "I would have to examine you over a course of days, maybe even weeks. See if you continue to leak away your energy or start to conserve it better."
I sighed. "Nothing to do but wait and see then. I have a leaking hole that you cannot plug. I think if you tried, my body would likely drain you dry, for no purpose, no gain."
"You're not even going to try to let her heal you?" Dontaine asked angrily.
"She just did, not entirely voluntarily, and she wasn't able to heal me. I don't think conventional healing will be able to help me."
"If not conventional healing then what else?" he asked.
"I was thinking of Hell, the High Lord. He's a gifted healer. He may be able to help
me. If not," I shrugged, "then NetherHell, if I can find a way to return there. Try to find Mona Louisa and merge us back together again." My announcement seemed to stun everyone.
"How will you find Mona Louisa again?" Aquila asked. A logical question from my practical business manager. "Didn't her essence dissipate when she was separated from you?"
"Ah, no. Once Halcyon pulled her out of me, she became her own separate being." With the solidifying touch of a gargoyle. But no one here needed to know that. Or how unlikely it was that I would be able to reverse the process, if I could even find her, or go back there in the first place.
"But if you fuse her back into your aura, you won't be able to return here again," Thaddeus said. "You won't be able to leave NetherHell."
"That's correct. If I can fix my problem" — and that was a really big if — "I'll be stuck in NetherHell."
"How likely is it — returning to NetherHell, finding Mona Louisa, and merging the two of you back together? How good are your chances at accomplishing all of those things?" Thaddeus asked intently.
I took a deep breath. "Not very good."
"Then why don't you just stay with us," my brother suggested. "See first if you can heal this wound on your own."
"Even if I did that, I still have to let the High Queen's Council know of my condition so they can start making arrangements to have another Queen take over. If I still can't Bask by the time the next full moon rises, I'll have to step down."
"I can Bask," Thaddeus said into the sudden silence.
Only Nolan, Hannah, and Dontaine were surprised — the only ones here who had not witnessed that miraculous occurrence. A secret we had kept successfully hidden until now.
"Thaddeus —"
"It's all right, Lisa. You don't have to protect me or keep it a secret anymore. Not now when it's what our people need and something I can contribute. I can Bask but I can't lead our people the way you do. Stay here, continue to be our Queen, and let me Bask for you."
