Mona Lisa DarkeningMonère, book 4Sunny
CHAPTER ONE
UsIf you asked my people, I think they'd take the ability to Bask over their Queen being a raving beauty any day. Or rather night. As a people descended from the moon, we were children of darkness. When the sun set, that was when our day began. Then again, maybe you shouldn't ask my people, because even though my looks were average not hideous, but definitely not beauty queen material either they treated me as if I were a raving beauty. The men, at least. The men who were my lovers.
Under the moonlit shadows of the darkened night, I glanced at two of them there by my side. Amber, my rugged Warrior Lord, who loomed a head taller than other men. Whose great strength lay not just in the heavy muscles roping his massive body, but also in the love and devotion gleaming from his dark blue eyes. That the pull of emotions in him weakened me more than his obvious and splendid body strength, physically swayed me toward him before I caught myself. Not yet, I thought, but soon soon.
Beside him stood Dontaine, my master at arms, my other lover. Blond, fair of face and body, a sumptuous feast to the eyes. Whereas Amber looked like a harsh god of war, Dontaine was like a Greek statue a Greek god. A living Adonis with sun-kissed hair, splendid green eyes, and a body any woman would want to worship with her hands, her tongue, her mouth any part of her body. He, too, looked at me with love, though I don't know why. Out of all my lovers, he was the one I rejected the most. The one I used the most. Used literally for blood.
It was an odd night, a special night the vernal equinox. Aequus Nox, which meant equal night. When day and night were of equal length, and the sun crossed not only the Earth's equator, but the celestial equator as well. Even more special, it was one of the rare times when the full moon coincided with the first day of spring, the season of renewal. Perhaps that was what was causing this strange restlessness within me a skittishness, a feeling of something not quite right. Spring fever likely.
My people were gathered around me, and I recognized more of their faces now, recalled their names. Intricate, interweaving strings bound us all together, and I was slowly learning the many loops and circles. I'd worried over that, my lack of connection to my people, over four hundred of them. But like many things in life, names and familiarity with the people behind the names came slowly with time, and hopefully thankfully I would have plenty of that. Time.
I had survived to see another full moon emerge in its brilliant round glory. Quite an achievement, tainted as I was with demon darkness. If the whims of fate had swung another way, I would have been dead by now, killed by Prince Halcyon, the ruler of the demon dead realm. Instead I was his lady, his mate the High Lady of Hell.
And where was my Demon Prince? Presiding over his people in that other distant realm, Hell, while I presided over mine here in the living realm. I was missing the festivities of Aequus Nox, one of the big demon holidays. At least that was how it sounded to me when Halcyon had explained it. Were it not the full moon, the time when we Basked, I would be down there with Halcyon, mixing and mingling and being introduced to his people. A daunting thought because his people had fangs and drank blood my blood if they had the chance. But then,
so did I. Have fangs and drink blood, that is.
I was a human-Monère Mixed Blood Queen with demon dead essence residing in my living being. Quite a tongue twister and mind bender. The poetic term for my condition was Damanten, demon living. A rare state of being because most of my kind had been slaughtered as soon as they were made, usually by the demons whom those very unwise Monères had blood raped because, alas, that was what sparked our living dead state. Why would they do that, you might ask drink a demon's blood? Because it gained them a demon's strength, which was even greater than a Full Blood Monère's. But, shhh, don't tell anyone that, it's a secret. A secret that demons would kill and have killed to protect.
The downside, and there's always one, was the physical manifestations that occurred along with that stolen power. It was pretty hard to hide what you had done what you had become when you started sprouting fangs. Now don't get me wrong. Fangs are no stranger to the Monère. Lots of us had them. But only in our animal-shifted forms. Not in our human forms. Of course, my fang flashing happened only when the niggling presence of another demon triggered the demon essence in me. Then wham! It was like turning into the Incredible Hulk. Only instead of growing green and muscle-bound and horrendously ugly, my teeth morphed into fangs, my nails sharpened into dagger points, and I had the uncontrollable urge to suck down blood, any which way, any damn how. Pretty hard to keep hidden a powerful urge that almost takes you completely over until you've satisfied that hunger with a sip or two of blood. By the time you've gained back your control, the gig's pretty much up.