Sunny - Mona Lisa Craving

High Court adjourned several hours later and the real festivities began. Tents were erected on the sprawling lawn, and trade counselors were inundated with service people seeking new positions in other courts. Men, women, a few families, warriors, and trades-men. The greatest number at this fair, however, was the assemblage of young boys. Eighteen-year-old virgins were gathered like a flock of colorful peacocks at the largest central tent, arrayed in their best finery with hair neatly combed, nails buffed, and shoes polished. They looked like high school boys going out on their prom night. Only the dates they took home tonight would be the Queens who had selected them. And it would not be just a kiss that was taken but their virginity.

“My goodness, why are there so many boys here?” I felt their eager attention hone in on me, a Queen, as I walked by on Halcyon’s arm, the Demon Prince on one side of me, Amber, my giant Warrior Lord, on the other.

“It is the first gathering after winter solstice,” Amber explained. “Most of the boys who are of age seek their Virgin Claiming during this first session of the new year. It’s considered good luck to enter your manhood during this time. Summer solstice is another popular time. I see my two boys near the center there.”

“My two are at the end,” I said softly, finding them easily in the crowd. Quentin and Dante. Their clothes were less gaudily bright than the others. They were dressed in simple attire that enhanced their more developed physiques.

They stood out in other ways. They were older, for one, a striking and obvious difference. The other boys stood on the cusp of manhood, eager and young. Quentin and Dante had taken the step over that line already, denoted by their calm assurance, their more noticeable reserve. Men in maturity of mind and spirit. No longer boys.

They were also far more beautiful in my eyes. The simplicity of their clothes drew attention to the lean, masculine beauty of their faces, to the greater breadth of their shoulders, their more muscular arms and chests. And any Queen who had witnessed the fight between Oswald and Dante knew firsthand what a superb warrior Dante was, so different from the other young lads here. His wounds had been healed by Hannah, probably as soon as she’d been able to lay hands on him, and he seemed none the worse for wear from his earlier challenge.

Quentin served as a bridge, standing between his brother and the other virgin boys. Dante stood at the end, positioned halfway between that tent and the next one, which housed older warriors seeking positions, a more desperate lot. They were quieter, more somber men, less than a handful. It was in this group that Dante technically belonged, because he was not a virgin. Not anymore. Yet neither did he really belong with the older men.

Dante’s apartness seemed to have intrigued the Queens. He had not one but five of them looking him over, perusing him with interest. But even surrounded by Queens, his gaze unerringly found mine.

Instead of looking ecstatic as he should have been at so much interest, he looked…desolate. He answered their questions politely and allowed them to look him over like a stud they were considering buying. He didn’t preen as the other young lads did, he simply endured it, tolerating it with a dispassion that bordered on frank disinterest.

“I will leave you to attend to your matters here,” Halcyon murmured. “There are matters I wish to discuss with the other Council members before the next meeting.” It was a considerate gesture on his part. He had made public his claim on me, and now was allowing us separate time to each attend to our own affairs. Maybe he even thought I wished to choose one of the boys for myself and didn’t wish me to feel constrained by his presence. Drawing my hand up, he kissed the back of it. Then he was gone, gracefully winding his way through the crowd, leaving me in Amber’s care.

“Dante and Quentin seem to be quite popular,” I observed, eyeing the two Queens who were circling Quentin; he had his admirers as well. “I can understand Quentin, but why the interest in Dante when he is no longer a virgin?”

“But who did he lose his virginity to?” Amber asked. “You. Very few unclaimed males have that distinction. And with his lightly tanned skin, they cannot help but wonder if he has acquired some of your gifts, such as your rare gift of walking under the sun without burning. Can he do that now?”

“I don’t know,” I answered in a muted voice. “My best guess is probably not. Dontaine gained nothing from lying with me. My gifts don’t seem to transfer so easily anymore.” Not since I had taken the demon essence into me. Perhaps it was better that way. It would have been a disaster if I had been able to pass the demon taint as easily as I had passed on my other abilities before.

A Queen, one of the new ones I didn’t know, stroked a bold hand down Dante’s backside. Seeing him being fondled ignited a maelstrom of unpleasant emotion within me. She was either daring or stupid. Or simply arrogant, as all Queens naturally seemed to be, sure that her touch would be welcomed. With Dante, none of the other Queens had dared that liberal stroking and caressing that the other boys not only encouraged but preened beneath. There was a dangerous stillness to Dante’s reserve that the other Queens had sensed and respected. All but this one.

Dante’s gaze broke away from me to focus on that other Queen, the one who had dared touch him. His expression, one that I could not see, made her hand fall away. Though she didn’t back up or do anything so obvious, her arrogant, inspecting saunter around him increased the distance between them.

His attention drifted away from her like an annoying gnat already forgotten and returned to me. The other Queens saw where his eyes wandered, and gazed speculatively at me.

Hope had flared in Dante’s eyes at the sight of me. Hope that he had quickly hidden. But I had sensed it still.

Don’t make me go , those eyes cried. Keep me. No words spoken aloud or heard in the mind. Just that look. Those burning embers of hope.

Something twisted painfully inside of me.

I can’t … I can’t keep you. You’re too dangerous. You killed everyone I ever loved before.

Reading the answer in my eyes, he gazed at me like a thirsty man looks at a fountain of water he knows he will never drink from again. Desolation filled the pale blue depths, extinguishing that last wild hope. And with it gone, it was as if a flame had been snuffed out, leaving them cold, dead, and empty. His eyes dropped away from mine.

“You should come away,” Amber urged, a silent witness to our byplay.

I almost did, even started to turn away, but stopped when I caught sight of another Queen. This one I knew and hated bitterly. Mona Teresa. Her flame-colored hair glinted beneath the moonlight as she sauntered her way down the line of virgin boys, her six guards following behind her. The guard closest to her I recognized as the man who had raped Tersa on his Queen’s order. Guilt and hatred burned in me at the sight of him.

With a careless caress here, an intimate handling there, Mona Teresa sampled the virgin lads. The boys quivered beneath her touch, just like the horseflesh she casually treated them like. Disappointment was keen in their eyes as she passed them all by, to stop and linger before Quentin, drinking in his perfect male beauty. With a smirk aimed my way, she continued on down the line to Dante, whose beauty was more harsh like a natural gemstone. Less refined, more primitive. Knowledge was in her eyes, and purpose.

“She knows,” Amber murmured, oddly echoing my thoughts. “She knows his history. And yours.”

What he was really saying was: She knows he killed you before, and wants him because of that. Gossip about his past and mine must have spread like wildfire after the challenge and his unexpected win. If news of my pregnancy had been whispered of as well, Dante would become a hotly desired acquisition for any Queen. Especially one who hated me.