by Sunny
“What is this place?” I asked in awe. “A hotel?”
“No, milady,” answered Aquila. “It’s your home.”
Shock number two was the number of people that came running down the front stairs, calling my name. Not Lisa, but the other one—Mona Lisa.
There was an onslaught of quick impressions and then I was surrounded by a happy babble of voices. There were two men, two women, and two younger people about Jamie’s age—a petite girl and a lanky boy matching my height. As one of the ladies ran with a glad cry to embrace Dante—his mother?—my eyes fixed on the lanky boy. He looked like any other seventeen-year-old kid with dark hair and eyes—unremarkable if you could not feel his presence. I searched his pleasantly attractive features for likeness, similarity.
“Thaddeus?” I said, my voice lifted in question.
Everyone quieted.
“Yeah, it’s me,” the boy grinned. “Hey, I thought you didn’t remember us.”
“I don’t. Jamie told me about you in the car.”
“Oh. So I’m like a stranger again to you, huh?” There was kind intelligence in those brown eyes so like my own. “Must be weird being greeted by a bunch of people you’re supposed to know but don’t.”
I laughed. “Yeah, a little.”
“That’s okay,” Thaddeus said. “What about the others? Are you pulling a blank on them, too?”
Only then did I focus on the others, the sweet-looking woman who stood between Dante and Quentin, an arm around each. “You must be Dante and Quentin’s mother,” I said, “though you hardly look old enough to be the parent of two full-grown sons.”
She flashed me a bright smile, holding tight to her boys. “I’m Hannah Morell. I serve as your healer here. Thank you, milady. Thank you so much for bringing Dante safely back.”
“No need to thank me,” I said, looking at Dante. “We brought each other safely back.”
I turned to the petite girl with the russet hair, quiet manner, and subdued energy signature. “You must be Tersa, Jamie’s sister.”
A brief, shy smile. “Yes, milady.”
“And is this your mother?” I asked, glancing at the large Monère woman beside her.
Tersa nodded and the large woman dipped her knees in a curtsy. “I’m Rosemary, milady. I run this house for you.”
“Thank God,” I said in happy relief. “Good to know someone else is in charge of taking care of this huge place besides me. Who owns this property?”
“You do, milady,” Rosemary said.
My eyes bugged out. “You must be mistaken. I could never afford a place like this.”
“It was given to you when you became a Monère Queen,” Thaddeus told me, his dark eyes twinkling. “Pretty cool, huh?”
“More like mind-boggling. Someone’s going to have to explain this Monère Queen business to me later,” I said fervently. My eyes swept to the last two men standing behind the others and I blinked. One was a blond Adonis, literally breathtaking, so handsome he was. The other was one of the largest men I had ever seen, both in height and muscled mass. Put a war hammer in his hand and he could have passed as Thor, the god of thunder. Their presence proclaimed them both powerful Monère males, but the bigger one gave off an extra crank of power in his energy signature.
We searched each other’s faces as I made my way over to them.
“Do you remember me?” the blond Adonis asked. It was a bit unnerving to be held under the intent regard of his dazzling jade green eyes. As if the rest of his looks were not enough to knock you off your feet already.
“No, I’m sorry. I don’t,” I said after searching his face.
There was no change in expression, but I had the sense that my words had left him vastly upset and perturbed.
The big giant took my hand and gently turned me to him. I got the impression of careful strength as his large hand swallowed mine. At five foot eight, I wasn’t used to looking up; I met most men at close to eye level. But I had to tilt my head back at a neck-craning angle in order to meet his gaze. This guy had to be at least six and a half feet tall, but it wasn’t just the height that made him so intimidating; it was the sheer breadth and mass of him. If he accidentally fell on top of me, I’d be squashed flat like a bug. His features were ruggedly powerful, his eyes a striking dark cerulean blue. He wore a beautiful gold medallion necklace, and his voice, when he spoke, was a deep, soft rumble. “And me,” he asked, “do you not know me either?”
“Sorry,” I said, shaking my head. “Who are you?”
Again, I got the distinct impression that my softly worded apology had eviscerated the big man.
My hand was gently, carefully released as we fell into acknowledged stranger status. “I am Amber,” he said, introducing himself. “I serve as your Warrior Lord.”
The blond sun god introduced himself as well, his smile woefully strained. “And I am Dontaine, your master at arms.”
What the heck was with the titles? “Do I have an army?” I asked, my question meant to be more flippant than serious.
“Not an army, milady,” Dontaine replied, his smile dropping away, “just guards—over a hundred trained warriors.”
Right. As if things were not surreal enough without trying to confuse me more with that incredibly lame joke.
Deciding to ignore the trivial stuff, I concentrated instead on what I had sensed, the strong emotions I had felt emanating from these two, prodding me to ask with shy hesitance, “Are we close friends? Or more newfound relatives, perhaps?”
“They are your lovers,” Dante said behind me.
Pin-dropping silence followed his words.
“Don’t joke like that,” I said, my face flushing, pained embarrassment making my voice sharp and brittle. “It’s not funny at all!” Close friends? Possible. But sex with these guys? No way! Last I knew, I had been more frigid than a Popsicle. Dante was more than I ever dared hoped for, dreamed of. But imagining myself breaking out of my sexual Siberia with these two striking and intimidating men . . . no way. I knew what I looked like.
A blanket of uneasy dismay fell over everyone, as if no one knew what to say to my strong reaction.
“Let’s all go inside,” Halcyon suggested into the sudden silence. The guy didn’t speak much, but when he did, people listened.
We trekked into the house, and if the outside was overwhelming, the inside was even more so. Everything was done with taste and class and lots and lots of money. The gold-leaf wallpaper, in fact, smelled like the real deal, metallic gold. And over my head was one of the hugest chandeliers I’d ever laid eyes on.
I wondered if I had wiped my feet. Probably not, didn’t remember doing so. I stopped and kicked off my shoes, not wanting to dirty the pristine black-and-white marble floor.
“Oh, that’s not ne—” Rosemary bit off the rest of her words as Dante removed his shoes also. “I’m sorry,” she said, flustered. “We don’t have any slippers on hand, milady. I’ll be sure to get some tomorrow.”
“No need. Just didn’t want to get your clean floor dirty. I’m fine walking around in my socks, if you don’t mind.”
“Oh, no, not at all. Whatever you wish, milady.”
She was clearly uncomfortable, and my own uneasiness was starting to rub off on the others.
I looked like someone they knew but didn’t act like that person. And their not-knowing-what-to-do was cranking up my own anxiety in a vicious circle.
A pile of shoes collected at the front entrance as the others all silently removed their shoes, plainly not something they were accustomed to doing.
I cursed my self-consciousness. It was only magnifying the growing awkwardness between us. This whole meet-and-greet felt like one of those horrible blind dates that spiraled calamitously downhill the moment you introduce yourselves, shattering the buildup of pleasantly hopeful anticipation.
How wonderful. The idea of myself as someone’s nightmarish date from hell.
I felt my pulse quicken, my breath coming a bit too fast as
I glanced around, my eyes unnaturally wide. “Are you sure you guys have the right person?” I asked with a small, nervous laugh, more serious than not. “This . . . everything—” The mansion that was supposed to belong to me, all these people who seemed to care about me when I had been so bitterly alone all my life . . . “It’s just not me.”
So, so not me.
I didn’t know what to believe. Whether I should believe anything they told me because the life I knew, the person I knew myself to be, was completely different from what they seemed to be expecting.
“Maybe it’s just a horrible case of mistaken identity,” I found myself babbling. “Or maybe I’m just dreaming or in a coma or locked up in some mental institution and this is all just an elaborate fantasy I’m making up in my mind: dream lovers, friends and family, this mansion, all this talk about being a queen, about demons and princes, reincarnation, curses, and being reborn . . .” I paused, gulped for breath, and finished feebly, “That doesn’t happen in real life.”
By everyone’s shocked expression, I could tell they thought I was in the middle of a breakdown. It made me laugh, because if I hadn’t been in the midst of one, I sure was having one now.
“It’s real,” Dante said into the fraught silence. “You’re not dreaming, not making all this up in your mind.”
The hand he laid on my shoulder certainly felt real.
“This is all just too much,” I whispered, flinging out my hand to wordlessly encompass everything, including the two spectacular men who were supposed to be my lovers, the Demon Prince who claimed to be my mate, even Dante himself . . .
“Too much . . . too good to be true,” I muttered as tears welled up and start to overflow their fragile tension. “It can’t be real.”
“Hush,” Dante soothed. His eyes captured mine, and I watched with dazed bewilderment as those pale blue eyes turned a mesmerizing silver and started to glow.
“Can’t be real,” I said, shaking my head.
“Close your eyes, my love,” he murmured, “and sleep.”
And all my panic, doubt, and sadness drifted away as I succumbed to another’s greater will.
NINETEEN
I WOKE ALONE in bed. At first I thought I was back home in my Manhattan apartment and that everything had been a bizarre dream.
It was the smell, the different scents that flashed my eyes open. That’s right, scents as in plural, not singular. My own scent was strongest, mixed with the fainter smell of—what were their names? I thought for a moment and recalled them: Dontaine and Amber. The smell of them both, here on the bed, on the red silk sheets. In one of the largest bedrooms I’d ever seen.
Oh . . . shit.
I looked around. Everything strange. The only thing familiar being that everything was not familiar. I pinched myself on the arm and felt a painful sting, but no altering of reality.
Sitting up, I noted that I was still fully dressed. How long had I slept or, more accurately, been knocked out? I rubbed my eyes and blinked. Had Dante’s eyes really turned silver and started glowing?
I got up and wandered around, inspecting the room. The hairbrush on the dresser had strands of hair that matched my own new color. Old, familiar T-shirts were mixed in with newer ones I’d never seen before, likewise with my pants, underwear, and socks; unsettling, the mingling of the comfortable old with the new and unremembered. The walk-in closet was the same, containing an array of my old stuff mixed with expensively styled new clothing and shoes.
I walked through an open archway into the large connected bathroom and gazed at my reflected image in the long stretch of paneled mirrors ribboning one entire wall.
Who had I become? Had I lost the new me with this large gap in my memory?
It was probably what everyone else was wondering.
I took a shower and felt much better afterward dressing in my old, comfortable clothing—T-shirt and jeans, a battered pair of sneakers, with my hair up in a ponytail.
Self-armored, I left the room and came to a door halfway down the corridor—two doors, actually, directly across from each other. Both rooms were empty, no heartbeat. I turned the brass-handle doorknob and found myself looking into a bedroom: Amber’s room by the scent, large and roomy and tall-ceilinged like the rest of the house. My perusal paused a moment on a standing mirror, a tingle traveling down my back as the sight of it touched a strand of a memory that seemed almost tangible but wasn’t quite—something to do with that mirror. I waited but nothing more came.
His closet was mostly empty with only a few articles of clothing hung within. The dresser drawers were likewise scantily filled. I retreated back into the hallway, closing the door quietly behind me, apologizing silently to the big man for intruding on his privacy but needing to know something more of this house and its occupants—who these people were and who I was to them.
The other bedroom was imbued with Dontaine’s scent. His drawers were all full: socks, T-shirts, underwear—silk boxers. The latter made me hastily close the drawer. His closet was packed full of clothing as well, all carrying his scent. It was looking at those articles of clothing that caused a vision to come upon me.
I stood in the same closest but was looking at a different set of clothes, much fewer, filling only a small portion, and the scent was different, belonging to someone else . . . I was sad . . . so sad.
The memory of that time came to me with a clarity that was sharp and stunning, and my hand spread across my stomach, now as it had then. My empty womb, I remembered thinking and feeling. I had just finished my monthly flow, my red blood spilling down the toilet along with my hopes and dreams of a child from this man whom I was . . . what? . . . Desperately, I grasped onto that last thread. Those feelings . . . that scent . . .
Who was this man to me? Someone important . . .
At that question, that certainty, a face came to me, swirling me back to yet another time . . .
A face like a fallen angel, heartbreakingly beautiful. Skin luminous white and hair as dark as sin. Lips red and full, pulled tight with pain.
He was injured, lying on a stretcher in the emergency room.
And with that image, that remembrance, everything inside me unlocked, and all the memories came flooding back in a gushing cascade.
Gryphon—my first love, my first lover. My first rending loss . . .
I found myself on the floor, curled up in a ball, not daring to move or make a sound lest it stop. But it didn’t. It kept coming and coming in an overwhelming outpour, the floodgates too open now to stop.
Tears poured down my face, and my heart ached in silent, joyful memory. I remembered everything . . . including the baby I had lost—Dante’s and mine.
I don’t know how long I stayed like that, huddled on the floor, my hands clamped over my mouth to keep the screams locked within me. Minutes might have passed, hours. It felt like days . . . like an eternity.
My head ached. So did my heart. And my skin felt painfully raw and tight, newly formed, as if it had been physically stretched to contain the new expansion of myself.
How sweet and sad, wonderful and awful, to remember.
I staggered back to my room to splash water on my face and change out of my sweat-dampened clothes, grabbing the first thing that came to hand—old or new, they all were familiar to me now.
My hands were trembling, I noted vaguely as I sat in front of the mirrored dresser, gazing at my reflection. I looked the same, but the woman staring back at me was different from the woman who had sat there just a short while ago.
I was complete now.
Downstairs was silent but for some bustling in the back kitchen area. Empty, I thought at first, until I heard a page rustle in the front parlor. Following the sound, I came upon Halcyon seated gracefully in a wing chair, a book on his lap. He had to have known I was there—my beating heart announced my presence to him as loudly as a knock—but his gaze remained down, giving me the chance of polite escape.
My Demon Prince. Whom I had not recognized.
Who I had thought human at first. Who I had been so carefully avoiding with nervous dread since the words demon and Hell and chosen mate had been uttered. Who sat there as solitary and alone as when I first saw him in a sun-dappled meadow.
“Halcyon,” I said, speaking his name softly, emotions welling within me like a soft, rising tide as I went to him.
He stood with polite, guarded containment. It changed to clear surprise when I didn’t stop a careful distance away but kept going until I was flush against that slender, hard body, embracing him. “Oh, Halcyon.”
“Mona Lisa?”
“Yeah, it’s me,” I said against his chest.
A moment of stunned silence, and then his own arms coming up to hold me in a suddenly tight grip. “You remember?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“Everything. I remember everything, Halcyon.”
He eased me back gently so he could see my face. “Do you remember how we last parted?”
“What? Me acting like a skittish idiot after you saved me and brought me out of NetherHell?”
“After I hurt you,” he amended.
“In order to get me out of that awful place.”
“If you remember, why are you so glad to see me now?”
“Because I almost lost you. Because I did lose you for a little while. I’m so sorry—it must have hurt when I didn’t know you.”
He drew in a deep, shuddering breath. “It was like a samurai sword being thrust right through me. And then, like a fool, I felt glad . . . happy that you’d forgotten your fear of me. Only it wasn’t any better. You were still skittish, still afraid of me. Why?”
“Because your name belonged to this demon who supposedly ruled Hell and had some sort of claim over me. Of course I was afraid of you after hearing that; human perceptions of demons are quite different, you know. Dante said that you’d given me the necklace I was wearing around my neck, and it had freaky properties like allowing you to know when someone who intends me ill touches it. It burned the fingers of Mona Sierra, by the way, a Queen who has this, like, long family grudge against Dante. Was it true?”
