Sunny - Mona Lisa Blossoming

"Are you?" Gryphon murmured.

"Yes, this is as much as I can do for him. I can't heal him."

"Can you not?"

I turned and stared hard at Gryphon. "Not without fucking him." And my tone clearly said I was not going to do that.

"How do you know?" Gryphon asked.

Actually, it was a good question.

"Healing power is within you," Gryphon said.

"You mean, just touch him and try to heal him?"

"That is the way other healers do so. Have you never tried to before?"

I shook my head. Not since tapping into my new healing power. I had failed in the past and presumed it would be the same now.

"Why not try now?" Gryphon asked, oh so reasonably.

"Why not, indeed?" It would be a wonderful ability to have, to be able to heal someone without having to get naked and intimate with the person I wanted to heal. My thoughts flew sadly to Beldar, my mother's warrior, the last man I had healed. Though I had not taken him into any body, I had been intimate with him. And it had hurt something within me to have known him so, and not be able to claim him. To give him back.

"All right," I said, making up my mind. "Let's give it a try after I finish up here first." I emptied the bloody contents of the soap dish into the basin of water, dumped the dirty water in the sink and returned to place the empty basin beneath him by the edge of the bed to catch any dripping blood. On my hands and knees, I used the dirty sheets to mop up the rest of the floor. I looked up to see both of them staring at me.

"What?" I asked.

"It is… ah, most unusual to see a Queen cleaning the floor," Gryphon replied, his eyes wide and surprised.

I shrugged. "Someone has to. I do toilets and bathtubs as well."

"A woman of many talents," Gryphon murmured huskily.

With but the tiniest inflection and a look in those crystal blue eyes, a picture of soft sheets, bare skin, tangled limbs, and heated sighs filled your mind, enveloping you in sensuality. That was Gryphon's talent, his power.

"Getting me in the mood before the laying on of hands?" I asked, my voice trembling slightly.

"It cannot hurt."

"It worked. I'm more than ready."

"Are you?" Gryphon whispered.

I nodded, tore my eyes away from Gryphon, and walked to Dontaine, deliberately laying both of my hands on him. One on his chest, one on his shoulder, covering two wounds. Concentrating, I called up that power within me once again. It came, spilling down my hands in an effortless shimmer, a tingling force. I let it sink down into the torn flesh of his shoulder, trail down to the very base of his injuries. And as the power seeped through him, I thought of his skin whole, unblemished. Closing my eyes, I pictured it in my mind, torn flesh knitting together. Heal ! I thought. Heal .

My palms tingled, heated. And then stopped.

I opened my eyes and looked down. His wounds were still there. I made a soft sound of disappointment and let my hands drop away. "I can't do it."

"Let me help you," Gryphon said. Slowly he eased up behind me. Dontaine watched him with wary green eyes but did nothing else.

"Sex opens you to your healing power," Gryphon murmured softly. "Use that. Open yourself to it, do not try to shut it out. Touch him." He guided my hands back to Dontaine.

"Stroke his chest. Feel his skin, how soft it is." Gryphon's voice was like a delicate purr in my ear, as tantalizing as the supple flesh beneath my hands.

"You are aware of him, of his body. Do not fight it. Let it wash over you. Smell his scent, his body's musk as it readies itself for you." Gryphon guided my hands lower to brush over the tense ridges of Dontaine's abdomen. Then even lower until I brushed over the thick bulge of his arousal.

For one second, I was tempted to linger over Dontaine, to trace the dimensions of that lovely erection. To squeeze him and feel the fullness and heaviness of him in my hand. Dimly, I realized that wasn't normal. That wasn't me. And that realization was enough to break the spell and jerk me back, breathing heavily.

I backed away from both of them, my eyes wide on Gryphon's face with startled comprehension. "You're seducing me for him. You sent Amber from this room deliberately with this purpose in mind. You want me to sleep with Dontaine. Why?"

Gryphon didn't even bother to try to deny it. "He has a great gift," he said with simple reason.

"And that is reason enough to throw me to his bed?"

"Do you remember what you made me swear when I was dying? When I had resigned myself to death," Gryphon asked me in a low tone. "You made me promise to fight, to live so that I can serve you."

Gryphon spread his hands open in a speaking gesture. "I am serving you. We have enemies. They will not stop coming after you. And Dontaine has a rare ability, a great gift. If he passes it to you, you will be even stronger, even harder to kill."

"You know how hard it is for me to face my beast," I whispered. "That change… a Half Form like that… the possibility that I could become something monstrous like that…" I laughed harshly. "Oh, Gryphon, you do not know me well. That is the strongest argument to keep me from Dontaine's bed."

I shook my head, backing away. "I will never sleep with him. Ever."

Whirling, I ran from the room.

It was times like this when I realized how different we were. No matter how much I loved Gryphon, and he loved me, we were different. I was part human, and I clung to my humanity with both hands, wrapping it around me like a comfortable, familiar blanket in this new and frightening world. I kept expecting Gryphon to be more human, and Gryphon kept expecting me to be more Monère. I found my room by opening my senses until I could hear Thaddeus, Jamie, and Tersa, faster heartbeats than the others. I veered left from them toward the west wing. There were two other doors in that wing, across from each other, but I was guessing my room was the one at the very end. The big-ass room that was larger than my entire apartment had been back in Manhattan. Airy, spacious, opulent like the rest of the house, with its own sitting room. Tall ceilings, big bed with red silk sheets, plush carpeting were my fast impressions as I swung into the bathroom connected by an open archway. The bathroom was just as big as my living room had been.

I stripped off the gown, left it on the floor, and stepped into the lavish shower. It was more spacious than a bathtub even, with clear walls and door. Didn't matter. No one to see me. More important to turn on the shower, step under it, and let the tears finally flow. Cool water ran and I cried silently, letting the water wash over me, rinsing off the dirt and blood, wishing it was that easy to rinse away the hurt and pain I felt.

We are not humans , Gryphon had told me. Even after all they had done, all I had seen them do, all I had done, unbelievable non-human things… still I hadn't really heard him until he did something like this. Want me to sleep with another man just to possibly acquire his gift.

It hurt.

I didn't understand how Gryphon could do that. Not just be passively okay with it but actively try to seduce me into it because he had known it was not something I would have done myself.

I am serving you , Gryphon had said. The sad thing was that he honestly believed that. It was a time-honored Monèrian Queen tradition. Sleeping with men, then casting them aside when they became too powerful. And the men slept with their Queens because they were drawn to them, and because they wished to acquire more power to survive, to advance. A dangerous tightrope that many of them fell off of. Because what did Queens do to men who became too powerful for them to control? They killed them. Another time-honored Monèrian Queen tradition. Like a black widow spider, killing the males she mated with.