Sunny - Mona Lisa Blossoming

I looked to the front of the airplane where the rest of my people sat, to what I had thought would be the entirety of people I would rule until Gryphon had corrected my misconception. My eyes softened as they landed upon Thaddeus's dark straight hair, so like mine. Thaddeus, my brother by true blood.

Jamie and Tersa's red hair gleamed like ruby exclamation marks beside Thaddeus; they were the brother and sister of my heart. All three are Mixed Bloods like me—rare, few, and unwanted. Jamie and Tersa's mother, Rosemary, a Full Blood Monère, sat alone in the row behind them. She was a gifted cook who had left her coveted position at High Court to follow me blindly to whatever territory I was assigned. I had been the only one to step in to save her daughter, Tersa, when she was being raped by a Monère warrior. No one else had interfered because it's not against Monère law to rape, kill or do anything your little black heart desired against Mixed Bloods. In fact, their laws were skewed against Mixed Bloods. We couldn't kill Full Bloods.

Yeah, their law sucks. Luckily it had been amended once I became a Queen. I, the sole Mixed Blood exception, could kill a Full Blood. In self-defense, that is. A cold smile touched my lips. Any killing I did would be made to look like self-defense, of course, whether it was or not. Because, no question about it, if I killed them, it would be because they richly deserved to die.

Rosemary had followed me because she believed I would protect her Mixed Blood children, being a Mixed Blood myself. Shrewd woman. She was right. I would do whatever I could to keep them safe. Hard to believe, as I gazed at the stout, dark-haired cook who was as tall as an Amazon, that Rosemary had given birth to Jamie, reed thin and slender tall, and tiny petite Tersa, whose bones seemed as light and as delicate as a dove's. Made one wonder—or not want to wonder—who their human father had been. Redheaded for sure and slight of build. I shook my head, clearing my thoughts. The odd, mismatched mating was not something I even wanted to try imagining.

In the third row sat Tomas and Aquila. With soft brown eyes, wheat-colored hair, and a Southern accent that flowed warm and thick as molasses, Tomas was as straight and true and loyal as the sword he had sworn to my service. Aquila, on the other hand, was an ex-outlaw rogue, one of those who had kidnapped me, in fact. You'd never have guessed it to look upon his very proper and precise person. He was not much taller than my five feet eight. The hair of his neatly trimmed Vandyke beard was crisply straight in contrast to his brown wavy hair. He was older, like Amber. Over a hundred years was my guess. The only one in our little group besides me who knew how to drive… in a jerky "at least half-a-century since he'd gotten behind a wheel" manner of fashion. Aquila's knowledge and grasp of commerce and business was a nice boon for us all, although perhaps not so surprising considering the orderliness of his nature.

Behind them sat Chami, the last and least wanted of my warrior guards. The most dangerous. I had taken him because Mona Teresa, a nasty jealous rival Queen, would have taken him had I not. I'd taken him because he had humbled himself and begged me with his deep violet eyes not to let her have him.

Chami had curly brown hair like Aquila, but with a whipcord lean, greyhound slenderness to his build. The press of his power was like an invisible kiss against your skin, light, barely there. Until he loosened the shield and let you sense the fullness and weight of it. But his real gift was not in the cloaking of his full power, although that was a nifty trick. No, his real power lay in his ability to cloak himself. Actually, not cloak per se, but rather the ability to blend in with his surroundings and background so that he was invisible. Chameleon. He'd been an assassin, killing silently, an unseen hunting shadow, his nature as dark and complex as his gift, his loyalty less sure, although he had stood true thus far, even when we had come up against a demon dead.

My family. My inner circle.

Unknowingly, unconsciously, we had sat in reverse order of power. Mixed Bloods, traditionally—and true in Jamie and Tersa's cases—are not much more powerful than humans. My brother, Thaddeus, and I are the exceptions. But then we are more Monère than human. Our father had been a Mixed Blood, identity unknown. Dead according to our mother, Mona Sera, although I rather thought that she had lied at the time.

Thaddeus was the curious exception in our unconsciously seated hierarchy, which had the strongest sitting in the back to protect the weaker among us. Thaddeus, might in fact, prove to become the strongest of us all with time, if we could grant him that. He was certainly the most unique, even more so than I. Thaddeus, you see, can call down the life-prolonging rays of the moon. He can Bask, something that before this only Queens could do. My brother, Thaddeus, was the men's precious hope for the future. I can see it in their eyes when they look at him… Aquila, Tomas, Chami—all warriors sworn to my service but whose allegiance, perhaps first and foremost, conscious or unconscious, was to my brother. And that's okay. It was my desire as well. I'd rather they see to his safety first. I can look after myself.

The private jet bumped down on the runway of Louisiana's Lakefront Airport, a small domestic airport we'd deliberately chosen instead of the busier Armstrong International Airport, named after their beloved New Orleans' native, jazz legend Louis Armstrong.

We stepped out onto the black tarmac and took our first breath of the deep South. The air was sultry, tinged with the sharp taste of water, both salted and fresh. Beneath that, far away in the distance, was the fecund aroma of moist, fertile earth, and the promise of forests and land, plenty of land. The soft glow of our mother moon fell upon us in welcoming benediction and the night air was cool and comfortable, surprisingly so. Or perhaps not. It was winter, after all. A few weeks before Christmas and not a snowflake on the ground. Okay by me. Monère weren't big on building snowmen, I don't think.

Two men stepped forward to greet us, smiles on their face, and all of my senses locked onto them late, carelessly late in what really was new, uncertain territory. I registered their slow heartbeats the same moment I felt that tingling brush of awareness of like to like. Monère. Full Bloods.

They froze, we all froze, as unconsciously I unleashed my full force upon the strange men, sending out a wave of power to brush up and test theirs, an invisible, unerring, seeking force rippling through the air like a tense arrow unleashed. An answering surge arose… was pulled from them… and I knew the exact moment when our two opposing forces came together, and I tasted them. Power, yes. But not much.

A strangled sound escaped one of the men. Greeting smiles had disappeared, completely gone, and their eyes were wide and wild, their bodies quivering tense.

"Mona Lisa," Gryphon murmured from slightly behind me. They were all behind me, I realized. Unconsciously, I had stepped forward protectively to meet the unknown threat. And my men had let me. Begging the question: Why?

Behind me, I felt the presence of my men, relaxed and easy, deliberately so. Mmmm… belated realization: Perhaps because there was no threat.

Oh.

"Please, milady." Amber's deep baritone came softly from my other side and I hastily called back my power, my force, whatever it was. It came flying back to me like a bird called to hand, wrapping around me, sinking down into the depths I had called it from, disappearing.

See, harmless.

The smaller man, who had involuntarily gurgled, took out a handkerchief—jeez, did people still use those things? — and wiped the sweat off his face, blotting his trim little mustache carefully. He didn't bother blotting the other little thing down below that had popped up along with the sweat. The larger man beside him just relaxed, or tried to. There was a distinct bulge that had risen up between his legs that he was unable to relax away. His muscles still quivered and I realized why now. They quivered with restraint.