Sunny - Mona Lisa Blossoming

Only in the car did Halcyon finally remove his hands from his pockets. "So that is a school. So many children," he murmured. "Over a thousand beating hearts I sensed in there."

"You've never been to a school before?" I asked, starting the car.

"The Monère do not have such a thing. Nor enough children to warrant such an institution," Halcyon said, a tinge of sadness in his voice.

"Are you feeling well, Prince Halcyon?" Thaddeus asked from the backseat.

My brother's question made me turn and look at Halcyon. Really look. And what I saw alarmed me. He looked haggard, sallow beneath the golden hue of his skin.

"What's wrong?" I asked sharply. Concern flared even greater when he dropped his head tiredly back against his seat. He'd never displayed any weakness before. Heck, he'd never been weak before, and seeing a crack in that great strength now rattled me completely.

"The sun bothers me," he admitted quietly.

"The sun?" I said, leveling him a hard look. "Halcyon, you were walking in daylight when I first met you. The sun was shining brightly down upon you then and it didn't seem to bother you."

"I remember feeling as if something in the woods was calling me," he said, smiling weakly in remembrance. "It had been so long since I had walked the earth beneath the sun's rays."

My knuckles tightened around the steering wheel until they were white. "Shit, Halcyon. You told me when we first met that the sun doesn't bother you."

He closed his eyes. "Not in short doses. Even these lengthy hours today I could have withstood at my full strength, but I have been long away from home." Home being Hell, which I wasn't exactly sure if Thaddeus knew just yet.

"I had already tarried seven days at High Court before Gryphon called us here," Halcyon said.

"You should have told me that." I was angry and frightened, my voice harsh. "I would never have asked you to accompany us if I had known."

"I wished to come," he said simply. "I wanted to see what a human school was like."

"Jesus Christ, Halcyon." I felt like smacking him for taking such a foolish risk. "Are you going to burn or melt or anything like that?"

Again that weak smile. "No, just bring me back to the house. I will rest, then depart for High Court tonight, and return back home. I will be fine once I am back in my own realm."

"I noticed that you hardly ate anything last night, sir," Thaddeus said.

"You are most observant, Thaddeus. I did not eat at all, actually."

I was getting an ugly suspicion here. "Let me guess. You cut up your steak and moved it around."

Halcyon sighed and admitted, "Foolish pride again."

"Why would you do that, sir?" Thaddeus asked politely.

"Because he doesn't eat food. Am I right, Halcyon?" I asked, spearing him a hard glance.

"Meat is not what I require," he said, closing his eyes.

"So this is even more my fault." But no one had told me. Still, I should have asked or at least guessed. Tersa and Jamie had been absent from dinner last night and now I knew why. Their mother had kept them hidden from Halcyon. She hadn't wanted them being served up as blood donors to the High Prince of Hell. Regret and guilt flooded me. "Halcyon, I would have provided what you needed, had I known."

He opened his eyes to gaze at me. "Would you have?"

"Yes." I reached out, touched the back of his hand. "And I would have trusted you to keep it clean, no hanky-panky while I did it."

"That I could not have promised to do," Halcyon said, smiling, turning his hand until his palm met mine. Carefully he closed his hand around mine, his long nails resting lightly against my skin.

-

"The fault is mine and of those under me," I said softly. Because they had known and hadn't told me, and I hadn't asked. "Forgive me. I will do my best to make amends for my breach in hospitality."

"There is nothing to forgive. The fault lies with my foolish pride," Halcyon murmured, his eyes a dark caress.

"What does he need, Mona Lisa?" Thaddeus asked.

I looked at my brother through the rearview mirror. "Blood," I said, and saw his eyes widen slightly.

The Suburban jolted suddenly, as if something large had hit it.

"What the—" My question was drowned under the screaming groan of metal. Above us, talons punctured the ceiling, the sharp claws popping through the fabric lining right above our heads. With a heart-stopping lurch, the car was yanked from the small road we were on, and then we were airborne for the distance of a dozen yards. No other cars or houses in sight because this was private property, my property. We were only five minutes away from home.

The talons disappeared, and we were dropped with a lurching thud into a field with waist-high weeds. Before the car had stopped rocking, I had the door open and was out. A giant eagle came swooping down at me with razor-sharp beak and lethal talons. I hit the ground, then scrambled back up when it hurtled past me. For one terrible second I thought it was Aquila, my guard, the former bandit I had trusted and taken into my service. His other form was a bald eagle. And then I saw that the plumage was less rich, the black and white coloring different, the white of the head extending farther down into the chest and the upper part of the wings. Not an eagle—a vulture. And its presence felt different… jarring, abrasive.

"Behind you!" Thaddeus screamed and I ducked and rolled, barely in time. A hard rush of wind blew over me and the hunter's wings brushed against me, missing its main target, but still striking me a glancing blow. Fiery pain slashed my shoulder and the bittersweet smell of blood filled the air as I tumbled to the ground.

A second large bird, a red-tailed hawk, shot past with an angry shriek. Nope, not my people. The hawk was smaller than the gyrfalcon Gryphon became, a muddy swirl of brown instead of snowy white, with a chestnut-colored tail. But still it was a deadly predator of the sky, a dark shadow of death winging overhead.

"Stay in the car!" I yelled to Thaddeus. He hesitated, then got back inside and shut the door.

"You, too, Halcyon."

"I think not," the Demon Prince said quietly and came around the car to crouch down beside me. Hard to order him around when he actually outranked me. Too bad. He didn't look too good. But if he insisted on playing… I offered him my silver dagger, my eyes scanning the blue sky.

"I do not need that," Halcyon said, and flashed his long nails when I glanced over at him.

"Oh, yeah. Forgot," I muttered. "Here they come."

The vulture hurtled down, dropping hard from the sky. The hawk was right behind it, a brown rushing blur. I sprang away from the car and stood, a clear inviting target, hands bare, daggers sheathed. With the barest adjustment, they veered toward me, diving like bombers.

"Mona Lisa, no!" Halcyon cried.

Just before the vulture struck, I called the daggers to my hand, one silver, one plain steel. I let the silver blade fly. A swift evading maneuver by the giant bird and I missed. I missed! Fuck!

The vulture came right back on target with a sharp angling of its wings, plunging straight toward me. With no time to call back the silver blade, I met talons with steel. I leaped up to meet it, striking it in the air. I had a fraction of a moment to savor my dagger sinking into the vulture's body, and then it struck me with the full momentum of its dive behind it. It felt like a freaking hammer hit me. Stunning force, a sharp tearing impact in my right arm, and not too much pain—not a good thing. It was better when it hurt like hell. When you didn't feel anything, that meant the wound was deep and the injury bad.

I think I dropped the dagger, couldn't tell. Couldn't feel anything in my right arm. And then I didn't know anything other than I was careening through the air, thrown by the impact of that motherfucking big bird. It shrieked with triumphant glee and swooped past me, red droplets dripping from its breast. I hit the ground with smacking force, eating dirt. The fall kicked the breath from my lungs and made me see stars.