Sunny - Mona Lisa Awakening

Thaddeus nodded. "Yes. I'd like to meet them."

"All right," I agreed, liking his caution, wanting the opportunity to know this intelligent young man better.

"It's the full moon tomorrow," Gryphon reminded me quietly.

"Yes, I know. Even more reason," I said, remembering the thick woods behind Thaddeus's house.

A young nurse entered the room. "Did you need anything?" she inquired.

"Yes," I replied, taking charge. "I'm Thaddeus's sister. I'd like to sign him out of the hospital and take him home now."

"Oh. I didn't know he had a sister." Her forehead furrowed together in a frown. "I'll have to call Dr. Smith and let him know."

After her departure, I told Thaddeus, "I'll be right back. I need to call the others."

"No need," Thaddeus said. Reaching over into his bedside drawer, he handed me a cell phone.

He had to show me how to use it. I'd never had one. Why should I? There'd been no one for me to call before.

Aquila answered on the second ring and I explained the situation to him. "Pack up everything and check out of the hotel. We'll be staying with my brother." I gave him Thaddeus's address and telephone number, and after a brief aside to Thaddeus, his cell phone number as well.

"How old are the others?" Thaddeus asked curiously after I handed the cell phone back to him.

"Aquila and Tomas are much older than you and I. But Jamie is nineteen and his sister, Tersa, is twenty-four. They're Mixed Bloods like us, but more like humans. We're three-quarters Monère, only a quarter human. You'll meet them and their mother, Rosemary, later. "

A gray-haired doctor entered the room, brusque and abrupt. "I've got to get back to an admission in the ER," he said to me. "What's this about you claiming to be my patient's sister? He told me quite plainly this morning that he had no other family."

The doctor eyed Gryphon and Chami with frank suspicion and didn't look too kindly upon me, either, despite my most winsome smile.

"I'm his half sister. We share the same father. Different mothers. That's why he didn't think to call me until later," I told him, concentrating fiercely on appearing trustworthy to the bristling doctor.

"So he hardly knows you," Dr. Smith said, shaking his head.

"Sorry. I'm not going to let a near-stranger waltz out with my patient even if you are who you claim you are. You can deal with the social worker tomorrow."

I was in front of him before he could turn to go, capturing him with my eyes. "You see no reason why Thaddeus cannot leave under my care," I murmured as my power strummed the air.

"I see no reason why Thaddeus cannot leave under your care," Dr. Smith repeated obediently.

"I am an experienced nurse and can monitor him just as well at home." I said.

The doctor parroted, "You're an experienced nurse and can monitor him just as well at home."

My voice was a low, hypnotic whisper. "You feel happy and reassured that your young patient has family who will take care of him, and will go sign the orders immediately for his discharge." I released him.

Dr. Smith blinked and smiled at us. "I'll go and take care of the orders right now. The nurse will give you the rest of the instructions and sign you out. Make sure you follow up in one week with an orthopedist to ensure that the arm is healing well. Good luck, young man." He strode from the room.

I couldn't look at Thaddeus. Could do nothing but let the silence thicken in that sterile room.

"Wow," Thaddeus said. "Will I be able to do that someday?"

I looked up into his excited eyes. There was no fear, no horror. My smile of relief was dazzling. "Maybe."

Twenty minutes later the five of us piled into the limo, Thaddeus sitting in the front passenger seat so his cast-encased arm wouldn't be jostled, Chami and Amber in the second row, and Gryphon and I taking the back seats.

"Cool ride," Thaddeus said.

"We're borrowing it for the moment," I said.

"You grow stronger," Gryphon murmured in an undertone too low for Thaddeus to hear.

"What do you mean?" I breathed back.

"You are not fatigued."

And I realized with sudden shock that he was right. There was none of that drained feeling, none of the tired shakiness that usually plagued me afterward. The expenditure of energy had cost me nothing. And I wondered just what that meant. I was growing stronger. But why? What had caused it. For that matter, I wasn't sure exactly if I liked it. Some people might crave power, but I'd never been one of them.

That dark force inside me stirred and stretched and blinked at me with bright gleaming eyes. Soon , it promised before it went back to its patient slumber.

No , I thought with a dry mouth. I didn't crave power. I feared it.

Thaddeus returned to morose somberness when we entered the house he had grown up in. It was even more beautiful inside than out, with large windows, raised ceilings, and thin oriental rugs thrown over a parquet floor. The burnished mahogany wood of the staircase was echoed by matching mahogany molding trimming the upper walls. There was a cozy lived-in clutter to the house—a bowl of change by the side table alongside unopened mail, a blue quilted jacket hanging over the end of the banister.

"I thought I'd feel better at home," Thaddeus said. "But home is people, not just a place. Christ, I can't believe they're gone." He surreptitiously wiped his face with his fingers.

"Come on," Thaddeus said, his voice rough as he climbed the stairs. "I'll show you the guest rooms."

The sound of a car pulling into the driveway drew us back downstairs.

"Go ahead and help carry our luggage in," I said to Amber and Gryphon, shooing them out the door.

"Aren't you scared of him?" Thaddeus asked me quietly, once we were alone. I knew to whom he referred. Upon first meeting the towering Amber, Thaddeus had flickered briefly with power. He had quickly doused it but the taste of it had been enough to widen Amber's eyes with surprise.

Amber?" I replied. 'He's a gentle teddy bear."

A dark brow arched up in a gesture so like mine that it stole my breath.

"With you, maybe," Thaddeus said dryly. "Not with others, I bet."

Jamie, Tersa, and Rosemary trudged in loaded down with bags, Tomas and Aquila entered behind them, carrying trunks of luggage followed by Amber and Gryphon who hauled in even more stuff so that it filled the entry hall.

I made the introductions and watched Thaddeus juggle the sleeping arrangements around in his head before suggesting, "Tersa and Rosemary can sleep with me in the guest room. The other men can bed down in the library, if that's okay with you, Thaddeus." The library called up images of nineteenth-century elegance, with large, commodious wing chairs and dark-toned wood paneling. Chairs and side tables invited one to linger and read. But more importantly, the library had a closing door and thick curtains. Left unspoken was the tacit agreement to leave his parents' bedroom untouched.

Thaddeus nodded jerkily in assent and moved to help the others settle in.

Stopping me with a light touch, Tomas said in his soft drawl, "Milady, I thought I should tell you, I felt another Monère's presence for a brief moment when we left the hotel. I kept my senses open coming here but didn't feel it again."

A cold prickle of unease raised the tiny hairs of my forearm. I glanced at Gryphon and Aquila and saw that they had heard. They drew near.

"Could it have been one of Mona Sera's men?" I asked Gryphon.

"Perhaps," Gryphon said slowly. "We are in her territory."

I looked at Aquila. "Could it be Sandoor?"

Aquila stroked his neat Van Dyke beard thoughtfully. "He has never moved far from the Minnesota forests of Koochiching territory. But he's never had reason to before."

"It's a long way from Minnesota to New York," I observed.