Sunny - Mona Lisa Blossoming

"Milady, perhaps the Demon Prince will be more inclined to talk if Mona Lisa is the one suffering," Dontaine suggested.

Something flickered in Halcyon's gaze as he turned his dark eyes to look upon Dontaine. Something that made the tall, fair Judas take half a step back.

"Why, Dontaine, darling. I think you are right," Mona Louisa said. "Although whipping her will not be nearly as much fun."

"Mona Lisa is a proud bitch. I was thinking of something much worse than the gentle kiss of leather." Dontaine glanced at me assessingly, and his handsome smile chilled me. "She reacts most unusually when I touch her in my Half Change form. It calls her beast forth against her will."

"What fun is calling her beast?" Mona Louisa demanded, pouting.

"Calling Mona Lisa's beast only partway, my Queen. Not all the way. Did not your steward report to you what occurred in the forest? She mates quite enthusiastically then, like the mongrel bitch she is."

"Does she?" Mona Louisa gazed at me with frightening consideration.

"I could make her willing, like a cat in heat, against her conscious choice," Dontaine suggested slyly, like a cunning devil. "And then I and all the other men here could take her, one after the other, in front of the Demon Prince while he watches, helpless and bound."

I tried to keep my face blank, but the tension in my body must have betrayed me.

"She hates the idea," Mona Louisa said delightedly.

I more than hated it. I wanted to kill Dontaine. Kill them all. I wanted to call forth my beast, rip out of these chains, and rip into them. I wanted to take my chances rather than submit to what he suggested. But however willing I was to gamble my life, I would not chance Halcyon's. Delay and survive. It was like a goddamn mantra looping around in my mind. Letting all the men here fuck me would certainly be a good delaying tactic. I just didn't know if I'd want to survive afterward. And the look on my face must have told her that.

Mona Louisa laughed like a gleeful child who'd just been told she was getting a present. "Yes, yes. Do it, Dontaine."

"Wait," Halcyon rasped, speaking up for the first time. "I will tell you what you wish to know."

"Too late, Demon Prince. Do it, Dontaine." Mona Louisa smiled wickedly at me. "Do her."

Dontaine tossed the cat-o'-nines into a corner, stripped off his shirt, and stepped out of his shoes.

"No!" Halcyon said, jerking violently against his chains, rattling the heavy metal. But they held fast and he collapsed, drained by the brief outburst.

"Dontaine, please," I choked out. "Don't do this."

The look on his beautiful betraying face was calm and peaceful. "I have to."

That odd electric energy began to ripple and pulse, and Dontaine began his transformation. He stretched, morphed, changed. Grew taller, broader. Muscles stretched, bones distorted, his jaw elongated into a muzzle, tendons popped, and dark gray fur rippled like a magical wash over his skin, covering it. He shifted and then arrested the change part way, taking on that monstrous form, choking the room with his power. He lifted his head and howled, a chilling primal cry of freedom as his wolf beast merged with his human form, a monster, a legend. Werewolf.

I shrunk back against the wall. I would have merged into the stones themselves had I been able to. But I couldn't. I could only stand there, cowering, trembling, shaking my head, as that terrible beast with Dontaine's eyes walked toward me with lurching, jerky strides on his partially bent hind legs. His gruesome claws reached for me and I screamed with horror, with fear, with helplessness.

But instead of touching me, he tore the demon chains free.

"Dontaine, what are you doing?" Mona Louisa shrieked.

"Freeing my Queen," came his deep, growling response. His claws slid inside my wrist shackles so that only his nails touched me, not his flesh. With a simple twist and pull, the silver metal broke and dropped from my wrists. He tore the chains from my legs, leaving the manacles dangling about my ankles.

A guard standing in front suddenly crumpled to the floor, his neck twisted oddly, his blood staining the floor. Another guard screamed in pain, jerked, gurgled, and fell to the floor with his neck broken, stabbed from behind. His blood sprayed outward, the tail of the crimson arch stopped short by something right next to it.

Something invisible that became visible briefly upon the touch of blood. Chami suddenly appeared, two silver stilettos held in his hands, the long thin blades dripping with his victim's blood. The guards standing beside him cried out and leaped toward him. Chami winked out of sight—chameleon—and they caught nothing but air. One of them screamed and bent over, clutching his sliced belly.

"Dontaine, get Halcyon!" I cried and stretched out my freed hands. The Goddess's Tears buried deep in the heart of my right palm gave one deep throbbing pulse and a sword sprang free from a surprised guard's grasp.

Uttering a battle cry, I let it fly. The sword swung through the air, singing a song of death as the blade came down on the neck of one of the guards who had dived for Chami. It severed the man's head with almost sighing ease. The decapitated head flew from its body. Light shimmered out, and with a bright burst, scattered ashes rained down to the ground, and the man no longer was. His clothes fell to the floor, an empty shell, no longer supported by form.

"Off with their heads!" I shouted with savage glee, blocking a sudden vicious lunge with my sword. The sharp bite of metal striking against metal clanged like a clarion. But it was my right hand, my injured arm. I was barely able to hold my sword against the pressing force of my attacker's blade. He was overpowering me, and he smiled at my weakness.

It was Rupert, I realized, of the carrot-top hair. One of the betraying four who had delivered me into the hands of the outlaw rogues. The man who had spilled half a bottle of aphrodisiac on me and nearly killed me.

It was that smug smile of Rupert's that did it. That, along with the remembered agony of the aphrodisiac's hellish burning upon my body, and the ache of my right shoulder wound now. It triggered almost a berserker's rage in me. My left hand pulsed once, almost painfully hard, and a silver dagger flew from a bewildered guard's hand into mine. With dizzying speed and an almost wild strength, I plunged the knife into my attacker. I sank the dagger deep, deep, all the way to the hilt, just under Rupert's sternum, and angled it up into his chest cavity, just like Chami had taught us.

Rupert looked at me with shock and surprise widening his eyes. One clean swipe left severed his aorta, and Rupert's eyes glazed and lost focus and his sword eased against mine. With an almost gentle push from me, his sword fell from his hand and clattered to the floor. Slowly he fell to his knees.

I took a step back and my entire torso turned as I lifted my sword up and back and then let it fly forward in a graceful downward swing with the full strength of my hips and back behind it. It passed through flesh and bone with slicing ease. And then flesh and bone was no more. Bright light scattered free, ashes fell, and clothes floated to the ground, empty.

I glanced around me. Half a dozen bodies lined the floor, Chami's work. Neck and high belly wounds. Spinal cords severed, aortas cut. They were still alive, would eventually recover, given time. Not as final as my ashes and light method. But it was an efficient way of putting down a lot of men quickly. Unfortunately, there were plenty more men still left standing, and some had shifted into their animal forms.

I caught sight of another bright flash of light. Ashes hazed the air and drifted down, coating Dontaine's furry feet. A huge spotted leopard screamed and pounced on Dontaine from behind, crashing them both to the floor. They rolled on the ground, a blurring mass of gray and orange fur, biting fangs and striking claws.