Sunny - Mona Lisa Blossoming

"My dear Halcyon," Mona Louisa exclaimed with saccharine delight, her eyes glittering with that same heated fervor. The feel of her, though, was oddly less abrasive. "How nice of you to join us once more. Although it was very, very foolish of you to return. It is truly a wonder that you ruled Hell for so long."

Blaec didn't respond. She didn't seem to expect him to. I wondered for a fleeting moment if the High Lord hadn't spoken because he couldn't disguise his voice. Father and son's tonality was the same, but Blaec had a slightly more arcane rhythm and flow to his words, reflecting his greater lifetime of existence.

"How stupid of you to fall so easily into my little trap, my dear," Mona Louisa sneered at me. "It is almost beyond comprehension that one would do something so utterly dull-witted. No other Queen would have done as you. Come as docilely as a lamb led to the slaughter. But then I expected nothing else from a weak mongrel. So sentimental. So unwise. So… human. Ruled by your heart, not your thinking mind. The taint of your Mixed Blood weakens you." She tsk-tsked in mock pity. Then her eyes hardened to ice. "But my men seemed to have carelessly left you unadorned. Where are the demon shackles?" Her voice cracked like a whip, making her men jump.

"Here, milady," Demetrius said, his voice tremulous as he held up the dark chains he had carried in.

"Why are they not on them, you fool?"

"They agreed to come without resisting if we left them unbound, milady."

"Some things, it seems, only a Queen can handle." Mona Louisa's cold look promised later retribution for her poor foolish men.

She turned her considering eyes to me, then said lightly, almost gaily, "A wager, Mona Lisa. A test of strength. If you lose, Halcyon will agree to be shackled without resistance. You need not be held by such promise. Am I not generous?"

Gryphon tried to speak but only muffled sounds escaped the cloth gagging him. He shook his head, his eyes anxious and urgent.

"And if I win?"

"Why then, both of you, and the beautiful talented Gryphon here, will go free. My word upon it."

It was almost too easy, if you trusted her word. And I didn't know that I did. But the possibility that it could end so easily, so bloodlessly, was too great a chance to pass up. "What specific test?"

"Something basic, I think." Mona Louisa cocked her head and thought for a moment. "How about arm wrestling? Something that primitively human and masculine should appeal to you."

Bitch. I glanced at Blaec. He nodded. I had to trust that he'd be able to break free of the demon chains. But hopefully he wouldn't even have to. I was almost certain I could take her. I was stronger since Basking and being gifted with some of Amber's great strength. I was as powerful now as a Full Blood, if not a little more.

"One arm only, seated," I said. "No trickery. Just pure physical strength. Agreed?"

Gryphon shook his head again and tried to struggle to his feet. Mona Louisa's slender hand pressed him back with disdainful ease.

Mona Louisa dipped her head in agreement, a little smile curving her lips. "Agreed."

A small rectangular oak table and two high-backed chairs were brought in. Mona Louisa and I sat opposite each other with only the narrow width of the long side table separating us. Again I was struck by that odd lack of abrasiveness. I felt her presence, but it was only a faint echo of the annoyance that it should have been. Our skins should have been crawling with the urgent need to put distance between us by now, two Queens this close. But they weren't. She was different somehow.

I braced my right hand on the solid wooden surface, hand cupped, waiting. With a smile of satisfaction, Mona Louisa clasped my hand in hers. She possessed a lady's hand, all cool pampered softness and smoothness. A lady who had never known a day of labor in her long life.

"On the count of three," I said. "One, two, three !"

Mona Louisa's soft hand firmed, gripped me like a vise as I lunged with all my strength, trying for a quick, decisive win. I threw my entire weight behind that downward pulling motion. Her hand dipped back a couple of inches. Then slowly, inexorably, came back up to starting point. Without visible effort, with that amused glee as if she were in on a joke that only she knew about, Mona Louisa levered my hand over to her side. Down two inches… three… four. The wooden surface loomed near and none of my straining effort was enough to withstand her strength. I grimaced, pulled, sweated and grunted to no avail.

Mona Louisa's eyes gleamed like twin icy shards, an intimate distance away from me. Her face was unlined, unmarred by exertion, smiling. She was unbelievably strong.

"How could you hope to ever be my equal?" she asked with serene disdain. "A mongrel bastard. How could you even dare dream of rising up to become one of us? Your human-infected blood can only weaken you. It is my royal duty to rid us of your taint before it stains more of us with your inferiority. Let everyone here bear witness to how weak you really are. So pathetically weak."

She slammed my hand down, crashed it through the wood, sprawled me on the floor, and smiled. "Winner takes all." Mona Louisa pinned me down and her small, smooth hands closed about me like shackles. And I was helpless to break free of her iron grip. Jesus Christ, how had she gotten so fucking strong?

"Your promise, Demon Prince," Mona Louisa said to Blaec.

Without demur, Blaec held out his hands and Gilford quickly clamped the demon chains about Blaec's wrists, closing them with a loud and heavy clang.

"Bring the other pair of demon chains here," Mona Louisa ordered and Demetrius jumped to do her bidding.

I gazed despairingly up at Blaec as I lay there pinned to the ground, Demetrius only steps away from binding me, too. Dear God, had I been wrong? Had I gambled and lost everything? Goddess help us.

Like an answer to my prayer, the demon chains binding the High Lord broke with a snap. Blaec tore the manacles from his slender wrists with two easy motions and straightened his cuffs. As the chains dropped to the ground, his glamour fell away. White wings flared once more at Blaec's temples. Gold skin darkened to bronze. There was a moment of frozen silence where everyone stopped and stared, where all eyes were upon him, all breaths held, where time itself was suspended. Where some recognized who they truly faced and others did not. Then all Hell broke loose.

Death came not with blood or violence. But with almost gentle grace. With nothing but a look, just the weight of the High Lord's gaze, Gilford flashed into light, puffed into dust. The next closest warrior standing next to Blaec almost immediately followed, so that they were like twin strobing lights going off next to the elegant bronzed man, illuminating the High Lord of Hell. A flash, flash of brilliant light and they were gone before the brightness had faded.

Mona Louisa screamed with rage, loud enough to deafen the entire room. "Cut him, slash him! Make him bleed! That will weaken him."

Even facing living death could not counter a warrior's strong inborn instinct to defend his Queen. And she sent them all to their sure death without remorse, without thought, with an ice-cold heart. Sacrificing her men to buy time for herself.

Mona Louisa pulled me up to her like a rag doll in her strong grip and buried her teeth, her fangs in my neck. I felt a sharp pain, a tearing bite. She was pressed so closely against me that I felt her slender throat work strongly as she gulped down my blood like a demon dead creature, pulling it from me so fast that I was dizzy.

With the last ebbings of my draining strength, I stretched out my right hand. A silver blade harkened to my call, leaped into my grasp. I buried the shaft deep down to the hilt in her back. Mona Louisa tore her mouth away and screamed in painful outrage. Letting me drop, she clawed the dagger from her back and threw the bloody blade at me, a blinding whirl of silver. I rolled and the knife sank into the floor where I had lain.