Sunny - Mona Lisa Blossoming

Oh, God! Oh, God!

I started to swim, but water was not my natural terrain. None of my foster homes had ever found incentive to fork over money for swimming lessons. The best I could do was a graceless doggy paddle. And with only three legs. My right leg was sort of numb and useless at the moment from where the alligator had bit me. My swimming, if you were kind enough to call it that, just wasn't going to do the job. I heard—felt—the submersed creature gaining behind me and turned to face it. I definitely wasn't going to out-doggy paddle it; may as well meet it.

Then it sank completely.

Oh, double fuck!

A body sprang and sailed in the air like a flying monkey, too small to be Amber, landing in an almost splashless dive, knifing perfectly into the water near where the gator had decided to play peek-a-boo-I'll-bite-you. They broke the water almost immediately, the two of them intertwined, thrashing.

It was Wild Boy—Wiley—wrapped around the alligator's pale belly with his monkey legs, an arm around the partially opened toothy jaw, the other arm flashing up and down, stabbing a pitifully small-looking knife into the beast's underbelly. They disappeared beneath the water again and I started paddling toward them.

The alligator was either going to munch on Wiley soon or drown him, damn it!

"Mona Lisa!"

I turned my head to where Amber called to me and saw him pointing up in the sky. I felt rather than saw the powerful presence swooping down.

"No!" I managed to get out before incredibly sharp, painful talons sank into my back, digging deep into my flesh. I was yanked out of the water, lifted into the air, then dropped safely onto the bank. The falcon climbed the sky once more, gaining altitude for another dive. But would it do any good? It was hard to time an airborne strike with two thrashing figures popping in and out of the water at unpredictable intervals.

"Mona Lisa!" Thaddeus shouted, running toward me from the brush, Tersa beside him.

"Where's Amber?" I gasped, mostly from the pain. Take your choice now, talon-punctured back or teeth-ripped calf.

Tersa pointed behind me, at the bayou.

I whirled around. Amber was swimming rapidly to the center, and he looked like he knew what he was doing. But there was nothing else. Just rippling water. Then the boy-wrapped alligator broke the surface again. One big stroke and Amber was there, one hand wrapping around the tip of that long snout, slamming the jaw shut with almost casual ease, the other holding one of the creature's stumpy front legs. The animal thrashed and twisted, twirling all of them in the water, but not with ease as it had with Wolf Boy Wiley. It moved in the water with great difficulty, as if weighed down by a massive boulder, which I suppose Amber was.

"Go!" Amber yelled at Wiley, gesturing him away.

Wide-eyed, without hesitation, the boy did so, swimming for the shore with rapid, graceful strokes. Gee, did everyone know how to swim but me?

Tersa ran to meet him. "Wiley!"

When the boy was close enough to the embankment, Amber turned, and with a massive heave, sent the alligator sailing in the air, over the shoulder-high grass, soaring an impressive thirty feet at least before it slammed into a giant cypress tree with a resounding thunk . It sank down like a cut anchor, disappearing from sight but not sound. Unfortunately, from the breaking twigs and rustling leaves, the damn thing was still alive. But it was heading away from us, ceding the battle. Smart thing.

Wiley was out of the water, grinning at Tersa, practically wagging his tail, happy and pleased with her lavish attention. But as soon as Amber came out of the water, the boy loped off into the woods.

"No, Wiley. Come back!" Tersa called after him.

"Let him go back to his home in the forest," I told her kindly. "His heart belongs in the wilderness. He'll come to us when he's ready. He knows where we are."

"Dear Lord, Mona Lisa," Thaddeus said, looking down at my leg. From his tone, it didn't sound good.

Reluctantly, I looked down too. I'd been delaying that joyful chore until now. Okay—torn flesh, dripping blood. No big deal, I told myself as sounds around me muffled and my vision spotted. And I fainted.

I came back to as we were climbing the steps to Belle Vista. Jeez, naming a house, can you imagine that. Though actually it was Amber climbing. I was being carried like a sack of wet potatoes in his arms.

Gryphon came rushing down the steps, dressed, I noted. All the others streamed down like graceful waves behind him—Chami, Tomas, Aquila, Rosemary, Jamie. Even Dontaine, who still seemed to be here. Dusk was falling and everyone was awake. Too bad. It would have been much nicer to creep in unnoticed. Other curious faces I did not recognize peeped out from the front door; house staff, I gathered.

"Dear sweet Mother of Light!" Rosemary exclaimed, catching sight of us. I inwardly winced. A ragged lot we must all look, with me most ragged of them all. "What happened?" she asked.

"Nothing," I reassured her. "We're all okay." No thanks to me.

"You are most definitely not okay," said Chami with some heat.

"It's nothing," I said.

"I am glad to see that you are awake," Amber rumbled. His deep, unhappy voice reverberated in his chest, passing through to me as he pushed into the house. "The nothing you speak of rendered you unconscious for the better part of an hour."

"Oh, that," I said, shrinking with embarrassment. "I just fainted when I saw what a mess my leg was."

"I thought you were a nurse," Jamie said, as I was laid gently down.

"Not on the couch!", I screamed as I saw the beautiful, now ruined, antique couch. Of course I was ignored. With a mental shrug, I relaxed my aching body onto the soft cushions, damage already done and all.

"We have to redecorate any way," said Tersa in a quiet voice.

"Tersa, did you just make a joke?" I asked.

"Oh, milady!" She burst into sobs that made me cringe. Give me blood and gore any day. Tears horrified me. I didn't know what to do in the face of them other than say: I give up. You win .

"It is my fault that you were injured," Tersa cried.

"It was an alligator that took a chomp out of me, not you," I said, helpless before the teary onslaught.

"An alligator!" Tomas exclaimed with soft horror.

"I'm okay."

"You fainted," accused Aquila. Even good ole laid back Aquila was going to jab at me. I desperately wanted the peace and quiet of my bedroom. Unfortunately I couldn't get up and walk. The numbness had worn out and it was hurting like hell now.

"I fainted at the sight of all that blood and gore," I said.

"But you're a nurse!" Jamie protested again.

"Thank you, I heard you the first time." I shrugged. "It was other people's blood, other people's ripped, torn flesh. Never mine before." Everyone just stared at me. "So sue me."

My brother, the voice of reason, spoke up calmly. "We need to take you to the hospital."

"No!" I yelped. "No hospital. I'll have healed too much in the three or four hours they'll make me wait before they see me."

"So you heal quickly?" Gryphon asked. Like us , was the unspoken question. Like Dontaine. His throat was whole now, the skin perfect and unmarred, like magic.

"I don't know," I answered truthfully. "I was never injured before."

"Never?" Gryphon said with amazement.

"Not to this extent. Just little scrapes and bruises. I'd always been faster and stronger than other humans." I shrugged again and winced, forcefully reminded once again of the fact that it wasn't just my leg that was injured.

"I had a charmed childhood." As far as injuries went. The rest of it, not so charmed.

Gryphon eased me forward to gaze at my back. He ran a finger lightly over where his sharp talons had punctured my skin. "I regret that I had to hurt you," he said with quiet sorrow, his rich blue eyes clouded over with remorse.