Sunny - Mona Lisa Blossoming

I laid a hand over his. "Hey, much better than being alligator meat."

"If you're not sure how quickly you heal, you should go the ER, have them stitch this up," Thaddeus said persistently.

"How bad is 'this? " I asked, swallowing. "Do you think it's healed any?"

"I can't tell," my ever-truthful brother replied. "Too much blood."

Okay. Don't look, don't look. Or I'd be doing another swan dive.

"No hospital," I insisted stubbornly. Thaddeus looked like he was going to usurp my decision and the others frankly looked inclined to support his little revolt. I zeroed in on my likeliest ally. "Rosemary, take me up to my room, please. Help me get cleaned up."

"Well, that certainly cannot hurt your wound," she muttered sarcastically. Okay… maybe she was inclined to support the revolt as well.

Thankfully I felt her big arms wrap around me and carefully lift me up. It felt a little weird being carried up a winding staircase by a woman. Crap, how many stairs could a house, mansion, whatever, have?

Rosemary, bless her stout heart, brought me straight into the shower. It was more than big enough to hold two people, and for once I was thankful for all that luxurious space. We left my muddy clothes on the shower floor, dripping dark brown rivulets toward the drain. I felt like a baby as she toweled me dry and slipped the comfortable T-shirt that I slept in over my head, but I didn't complain, only sighed in relief as she laid me on the bed and propped a folded fluffy towel under my leg.

"How does it look?" I asked her.

"Like something big took a bite out of you."

"Not helpful," I muttered. No help for it. Bracing myself, I cautiously looked down at my leg. I wasn't entirely sure—my first look had been in a fainting swoon, after all—but I think it was a little better. Or maybe that was just because it had been cleaned up. It wasn't bleeding much, just oozing sullenly, and throbbing like an abscessed tooth ready to spew out its rotten pus and decay.

I swallowed, took a shallow breath, and looked away. Rosemary pressed a clean washcloth to my leg. The poor towels. Between Dontaine and I, we would have a bunch of them to replace.

The thump thump thump of whirling blades grew loud and deafening in my sensitive ears before I mentally turned the volume down. "What's happening?" I asked Rosemary. She'd gone to the window, peering out.

"It's a helicopter."

I know that , I wanted to say, but kept my sarcasm tightly clamped and unspoken. It wouldn't help, and she'd been only kind and helpful to me.

The wind from the whirring blades through the open window blew back Rosemary's hair, and the curtains fluttered as the helicopter landed.

"What's a helicopter doing here?" I asked.

Before she had time to answer, the noisy aircraft had lifted from the ground and flew away, and the answer to my question hurried up the stairs and walked into my room.

"Halcyon?" I said, gawking at the golden-skinned man who had just entered. He was a slim man of average height and average build. An elegant man with expensive and exquisite taste. He wore his usual ivory silk shirt—he had a closetful of them. I know, I saw them. But instead of the diamond cufflinks, black onyx rimmed with gold peeked in tasteful display from his cuffs today. Narrow tailored black pants and dashing knee-high black kid boots completed the outfit. With his somber expression and aloof air of reserve, he looked like a nobleman from an era a couple of centuries gone by. It was what I'd first noticed about him when we had met—that reserve, that apartness from others, that… loneliness.

No one would guess at first glance that he was the High Prince of Hell. That he was the demon dead, something that even the Monère feared. The demon dead were what the Monère became when they died, those with strong enough psychic power to make the transition to Hell and sustain a physical presence there. There was nothing unusual about Halcyon that one could sense but for his golden skin and those long nails that graced his fingertips, sharp as knives.

"Mona Lisa." His voice was as cultured, as elegant as the man himself. The worry I saw in his face, however, was foreign. Worry was not something you usually saw in his face. Worry was usually in the other guy's face.

"What are you doing here?" I asked, pulling the bedsheet up high, suddenly, terribly conscious that the last time I'd seen him, he had brought me to a dripping climax from a bite alone, sipping my blood. A small taste of me as I taste you .

I became vividly aware that I wasn't wearing a bra, not that I really needed one, lightly built as I was, but it was a shield of sorts between my nipples and the revealing sheet. Even worse, I was highly conscious of the fact that I wasn't wearing any underwear. Not a state you wanted to be in before a man who didn't even need to touch you to really touch you.

Another person slipped into the room. "Healer Janelle," I said like a numb nut, "what are you doing here?"

She wore her usual maroon gown that denoted her gift and her status. Janelle was the High Council's resident healer back in Minnesota.

I know. What's in Minnesota, right? It's a place with acres and acres of pristine land and untouched forests, right near the border of Canada. Perfect really for Monère headquarters.

Hey, it'd worked so far.

"Gryphon called us and told us that you were injured and that there was no healer available to you here." She came to the bed, tut-tutting as she saw my leg. Turning to the others, she said, "If you will give me a moment alone, please, with my patient."

It took a lot of guts to kick the High Prince of Hell out of a room, and to do so politely. Halcyon nodded and graciously stepped outside, Rosemary behind him. I unclutched my flimsy sheet and relaxed. Janelle, watching me, just quirked her brow.

"It's, uh, nice of Halcyon to escort you here," I said. "To see that you arrived safely."

"It was not my safety that was his primary concern," Janelle replied dryly.

Okay.

"Have you tried to heal yourself?" she asked.

The thought of healing myself had, in fact, occurred to me. I'd actually been expecting Gryphon to walk in instead of Halcyon. But somehow, being all torn up and gory and throbbing with pain that really, really hurt, didn't quite put you in the mood for sex, at least when I was the one hurt. See, real limitations here with my healing gift.

I shook my head.

"Would you like to try?" Janelle asked. "Or would you rather I save the lesson for later and heal you first?"

I looked up and searched her eyes. They were as kind and as clear as always. No hidden innuendo, no sign that she was suggesting we engage in a bout of lesbian sex. Was she?

"I, um, can't seem to heal myself without being intimate with others."

She blinked. "I see. Have you ever tried healing without sex?" She had no problems using the three-lettered s-e-x word, obviously. Though it was odd as hell hearing sex coming out of her serene mouth.

Thoughts of Gryphon guiding my hand down to cover Dontaine's stiff groin flashed through my mind. I pushed it away. "Yes, and I wasn't able to," I replied.

"You were able to take away pain with touch, if I remember correctly."

I nodded.

"Would you like to try at least that?" she asked.

That I had no problem trying, and wanted to kick myself for not thinking of it first. I took a deep breath and laid my hands over my torn up leg; didn't even have to look to do that. I concentrated, went deep within myself, and pulled up… "Nothing," I said frowning. "It's not coming."

"Never mind, child. Forgive an old teacher. It is hard for one to concentrate when one is in such pain." Janelle laid her hands gently upon my leg, barely touching. Just the pleasant sensation of her touch for a moment, then I felt a soft surge of power, a steady humming that at first covered my skin, easing the pain, and then sank down like gentle warmth deeper into the flesh, melting, knitting, making whole. It wasn't a fast process like the explosive healing burst of power that came with my orgasmic release. It was a slow, steady streaming of gentle power. I felt a warmth, a tiny vibration in my flesh as she worked, oh, so patiently, her hands relaxed and still, her face serene and kind as a healer should be. Just being in her presence was an easing balm. Only the faint moisture that dewed her lip and dampened her brow betrayed the effort it cost her.