“In time, you will be able to make them appear at will or suppress their emergence if you wish. For now, they will subside when I leave you. It is my demon presence that pulls forth your own.”
“And my nails. Will they become like yours? Or my eyes…will they glow red?” Like Halcyon’s did with rage—flickering fiery red as if the very flames of Hell were ignited in him.
“I do not know. What you are now, what you will become, no one can predict. What you did…no one has done that before.”
His words left a leaden feeling in my stomach. As if I had swallowed down a bar of steel, and it weighed me down like a dropped anchor.
I’d been an oddity before—the first Mixed Blood Monère Queen. Now I was even odder yet with not just human blood mixed in with the Monère, but with demon spirit added in, too. Totally bizarre. And from what he was saying, I might become even more so…if I managed to live that long. Great. Just freaking great.
“Your father called what I did Mortal Draining. I got the impression that others had that ability in the past, that I’m not the first one to do this thing.”
“No. But that you were able to become Damanôen that way…” Halcyon shrugged. “No one else has ever done so.”
“What…they usually just drank down demon blood, right?”
“That is correct.”
“And you killed them all. That’s what your sister, Lucinda, said. I believe her exact phrasing was: My kind hunted and killed things like you long ago. Real inspiring words, you know.”
“You are being sarcastic, very like yourself. That is a good sign.” He spoke totally without humor. In utmost seriousness.
“Answer the question, Halcyon.” And because he was the ruler of Hell—even if I was not going there, dammit! — I tacked on at the end, “Please.”
“You are asking why we killed off all others like you in the past, but are letting you live?”
“Yeah, that’s what I’m asking.”
“Most Monère who became that way did so through blood rape as Mona Louisa did with me.” Blood rape. It seemed to be an actual phrase used by demons, not something I’d just thought up in my head. “Those demons would of course tend to kill those who had violated them so, if they were able. Other Damanôen were killed either because they could not control themselves—they went rampaging mad—”
I must have gone sheet-white, because Halcyon hastened to add, “But you have not shown that tendency.”
“It’s early yet,” I whispered.
“It manifests fairly quickly,” Halcyon said, his voice once again that soothing, gentle tone. Its brief effect on me was totally ruined by his next words. “Others like you were eliminated simply because they were able to sense us.”
I swallowed. “A living demon detector, able to sense your presence. I can see how other demons would not like that. So, they were hunted down and killed off because of that.”
“Yes,” Halcyon said softly. “There were never many Damanôen, and the few that existed were often quickly killed. Knowledge of them, that they once existed, has been lost.”
“More like carefully contained, I’d say.”
Halcyon nodded, acknowledging this. “Lost, contained—however you put it, the fact remains that it has become a secret knowledge among the demons, erased from Monère awareness.”
“And you and your father would like to keep it that way.”
“Yes. Both my father and I would like to keep it that way.”
Circling us back to that crucial question: Of whether or not I had good enough control to keep that secret hidden. Not just the drinking demon blood thing, but that Monère could become like demons while yet living. Fangs popping out tended to give that away.
I didn’t know how to ask this. Couldn’t bring myself to ask him straight out: Will you kill me if I draw too much attention to myself?
I said instead, “Halcyon, what will we do?”
His answer surprised me. “There are two ways we can handle this. We can try and hide it. Or we can try the opposite—not trying to hide it. Diverting them instead from the real reason for your demon-like change.”
“If I have a choice in this, I’m all for not trying to hide it. I think I would fail in the endeavor to hide it,” I said honestly. Fail and die. And now that I knew I would not be enjoying a long afterlife, I sure as heck did not want to depart this life anytime sooner than I had to. “What do you propose?”
“That I claim you publicly as my mate ten days from now at the next Council meeting. Others will presume that any changes, any strangeness you manifest, even those of becoming more demonic…they will assume that it comes from our union.”
Diversion. Creating smoke elsewhere to hide the true cause. “I think that’s a brilliant idea, Halcyon.”
Turmoil flashed in his eyes.
“What is it? What’s wrong, Halcyon?”
His voice, when he spoke, was pitched low. “I do not want it just to be false diversion. I want it to be true. I want you to be my mate in truth.”
“Oh.” One little word to express everything that I suddenly understood. He loved me. Wanted our union to be not just official but real, and feared that it would not be so. That I would agree to it simply to save my life.
Where I once would have hesitated, here I did not. Because I’d come to learn that life could be fleeting. That love was precious where you found it, something to be cherished. Something to grab ahold of with both hands and one’s entire heart. “Yes, Halcyon. I will be your mate. In truth, in love, with everything that I am…even the demon part of me that is you.”
He looked into my eyes, deep into me, and laughed joyously. I was suddenly in his arms, and that remaining thirst for blood that throbbed in me still, became channeled into hunger of another kind. One that involved flesh, yes. But not to eat it. Well, at least not literally.
I felt the tide of need shift within me and welcomed it with delight. With eager hands that roamed and sought and found smooth skin, muscled flesh. With trembling heart that wanted, wanted, wanted him. His love, his laughter. That look in his eyes as he caressed me gently with the back of his knuckles.
“Mona Lisa.”
“Yes, love me.”
“I do.”
“Show me,” I said, my fingers flying, unbuttoning his clothes, unzipping mine. He stood there docilely, letting me undress him, watching as I shed my own clothes. But his eyes…his eyes were anything but docile or tame. They burned with need, with sexual heat, with heart’s desire.
Naked, we came together. And that first touch of flesh to flesh shuddered a cry from me, a sigh from him. He laid me upon the ground, came down on top of me, and I opened my heart and body to him.
“You are mine,” he said, his chocolate brown eyes burning down into mine, watching me, connecting us that way. Watching me as he pushed slowly into me and connected us that way, too. He entered me, slid luxuriously in, and we both groaned. My eyes fluttered shut.
“No. Look at me, Hell-cat. Let me see you. Let me know you. Let me inside of you. Yes,” he whispered as he stroked within me, his face, his body, his eyes a breath above mine, giving us an intimacy that was as deep and poignant as how he felt moving within me. “You hold me so tight, so warmly. My home,” he said, and with another wet slide, pushed back into me. “You are my home.”
Gentle, so gentle he was. And then his eyes slid down, fell upon the side of my neck. Then, and only then, did I become aware that his strokes in and out of me…they were timed to the flux and flow of my heart. As my blood pumped within me, so did he time his movements within me. My pulse quickened at that realization. At the knowledge of where he looked, what he desired. As it did so, his own rhythm accelerated.
Pleasure had weakened me, making me yielding, lax. Making me a soft, receptive sheath for his piercing flesh—a deep penetrating blade that plunged in and pulled out. Now with that one look, that caressing touch upon my neck, everything tightened in a dark and dangerous, convulsive thrill. Halcyon groaned at my tighter clutch, his rhythm thrown off for one faltering second at that gripping pleasure. That inner tightness and awareness. “Ah…sweet Hades.”