Sunny - Mona Lisa Blossoming

The door creaked open as the sun dropped over the horizon and I knew that the time for fun and games was about to begin. For them. Not for us. All we'd do, unfortunately, was bleed and try very, very hard not to die. I just didn't know if we'd succeed.

Mona Louisa, the bitch, was looking pretty good. I'd labeled her the Ice Queen not only because of her stunning, icy beauty, but because ice ran in her veins and encased her heart. She'd given up one of her own men to the High Council without a qualm. He'd lied for her and then died for her. Miles had been his name, a nasty fellow who'd tried to rape me. Yeah, he'd deserved to go. But no more than she. She'd given the orders, after all. He'd just obeyed. But Queens were the tent poles around which the Monère gathered. They were too precious to kill. Of course, another Queen could kill a Queen in self-defense. But that law wasn't exactly to my benefit just this moment, chained and helpless as I was.

Mona Louisa's hair was a gleaming yellow cascade and her pale skin was as lovely as ever. Only a thin, pink-silver scar above her right breast, where my blade had sank into her, marred her perfection.

She was the vulture who had attacked us. Too bad my knife had been steel instead of silver. Her wound looked as if it'd had five days to heal instead of just five hours. Apparently she had acquired the ability to withstand the sun from Gryphon and had passed it on to at least one of her own men. Reason enough to keep me alive—the potential of passing it on to more of her men. But not if she killed Halcyon. Then she'd most certainly have to kill me. Couldn't risk leaving a witness alive if you murdered the High Prince of Hell.

Not wanting to, but having to, I assessed my own injury. My ripped shoulder was not nearly as neat and clean as Mona Louisa's nice little scar. I'd been sliced wide open: two long, gashing tears slashing through my bicep, curving behind to the back of my shoulder. With my arms stretched tight by the chains, the wound had stayed open. And had started to heal that way. So instead of knitting two pieces of pressed-together flesh back together, it had to fill in the gaping wound like a pit, from the bottom up. The deeper muscle and tendon damage had repaired enough while I'd been out so that I could move my arm now. But it was still a raw, ugly, healing mess. One quick glance was enough to churn my stomach and lighten my head. I looked away before I fainted. Wouldn't want to do that. Mona Louisa would no doubt find a painfully creative way to wake me back up.

Other bodies entered the room, a substantial number of them with healing slices and knitting wounds courtesy of Halcyon's nails. Even weak, they had not taken him easily, I noted with satisfaction. Many of them were faces that I recognized from High Court, her guards. Among those faces peering at me were Gilford, Rupert, and Demetrius, partners in crime to the late unlamented Miles. They'd been part of the original four loaned to me as my personal guards. But instead of protecting me, they had betrayed me. Their expectant gazes and Mona Louisa's glittering eyes shifted the feel of the place. As if it was about to become less dungeon and more torture chamber.

I caught sight of one other familiar face. This one made me catch my breath. "Dontaine?" I whispered as I stared at the arrogantly handsome face of the man I had nursed, the man I had appointed my Master of Arms. His lovely dark green eyes stared impassively back at me. I'd had my suspicions all along, but deep down in my heart, I must not have really believed them or wanted to believe them because the shock of his betrayal was like an unexpected punch in the gut, knocking the wind from me.

"Oh, good. You are awake," Mona Louisa purred. "Wouldn't want you to miss out on the fun."

Yup, still a bitch. But not quite the same. Something about her was different. Instead of icy aloofness, she was practically vibrating with emotion. A flux of eagerness and anger spun across her face, and a hot current of deep passion—hatred—burned in her dark pupils. Her diamond blue eyes gleamed with vicious satisfaction as she gazed at the Demon Prince.

She swished up to him, her long full skirt swirling about her feet in graceful peek-a-boo flutters. Coming to a stop before him, she lifted one perfectly manicured fingernail. She pressed the sharp sliver of her nail to his chest and, with eyes avidly fixed upon him, ran it lightly downward. His taut skin broke easily beneath the soft, cutting stroke, spilling blood and more of that clear viscous fluid.

"Cooked to perfection," she crooned. "How does it feel, Prince, to be the one suffering? To be the one being sliced open. Let us see how you hold up, shall we, when you are the one questioned." Once upon a time Halcyon had questioned her in private for the High Council regarding her role in her loaned men's lax protection of me. The Four Colors, as I'd called them, had handed me over to a band of rogues.

Mona Louisa, it seems, had not enjoyed being questioned by him. Made me wonder what Halcyon had done to her. Not enough, apparently. Nope, she definitely hadn't liked the experience. And she didn't look at all willing to forgive and forget, to let bygones be bygones, and all that other good stuff.

"They're wrong when they say revenge is sweet," Mona Louisa said, raising her perfect oval nail once more, pressing it to another spot one inch over on Halcyon's chest. "Revenge isn't sweet. It's bloody," she whispered and ripped another slice down him. Her hot gleaming eyes watched Halcyon eagerly, disappointed when he didn't even flinch. Blood flowed out sullenly, as if his body were greedy to contain what little it had left.

It was hard to just stand and watch her literally slicing Halcyon's chest to ribbons. Delay. Wait for help. That just wasn't my forte. Depending on others could get you killed. Only now, I had no other choice.

Watching and waiting got a little harder when Mona Louisa uttered a name: "Dontaine."

The men parted, letting him step forward, and I got a glimpse of what was in Dontaine's hands. Whips. Two of them. One was a simple black bullwhip. The other had spiky silver barbs lodged in the long leather strips that flowed out like a horse's tail from the thick stock handle. It was a cat-o'-nine-tails, like what they'd used centuries ago to flog mutinous crew on the high seas.

"The bullwhip first, I think." Mona Louisa curled her soft white hand around the thick phallic-shaped handle and let the curled tail unfurl like a living, writhing leather snake. She caressed the butt against Halcyon's cheek. "Where is the nearest portal to Hell?"

Halcyon remained silent.

"Wrong answer." She stepped back. A flick of a wrist and the bullwhip hissed through the air like an angry serpent and bit into Halcyon. The fingernail had been bad enough. This slicing leather whip with full Monère strength behind it was much, much worse. The leather coil parted Halcyon's flesh like a hot knife cutting through soft butter. His chest was sliced diagonally open from left to right with a gush of soft weeping fluid. The white of his ribs was briefly visible before blood washed them darkly red.

Halcyon didn't make a sound. It was I who cried out. "Mona Louisa, you don't want to do this!"

"Oh, but I do," she said with almost wild gaiety.

"Do you want to call his father's wrath down upon you?"

"It is not I who his father will be seeking," Mona Louisa said with an unpleasant smile. "It will be you, your people, who his son was last seen with."

Shit. She was right.

"The nearest portal, my dear prince."

No answer again seemed the wrong answer.

Another whistle as leather cut through air, and then no sound as leather cut through flesh. This slice was in the opposite direction, from right to left.

"X marks the spot, they say." Mona Louisa threw back her head and laughed, a gay, vicious burble.