Sunny - Mona Lisa Eclipsing

His closet was mostly empty with only a few articles of clothing hung within. The dresser drawers were likewise scantily filled. I retreated back into the hallway, closing the door quietly behind me, apologizing silently to the big man for intruding on his privacy but needing to know something more of this house and its occupants—who these people were and who I was to them.

The other bedroom was imbued with Dontaine’s scent. His drawers were all full: socks, T-shirts, underwear—silk boxers. The latter made me hastily close the drawer. His closet was packed full of clothing as well, all carrying his scent. It was looking at those articles of clothing that caused a vision to come upon me.

I stood in the same closest but was looking at a different set of clothes, much fewer, filling only a small portion, and the scent was different, belonging to someone else . . . I was sad . . . so sad.

The memory of that time came to me with a clarity that was sharp and stunning, and my hand spread across my stomach, now as it had then. My empty womb , I remembered thinking and feeling. I had just finished my monthly flow, my red blood spilling down the toilet along with my hopes and dreams of a child from this man whom I was . . . what? . . . Desperately, I grasped onto that last thread. Those feelings . . . that scent . . .

Who was this man to me? Someone important . . .

At that question, that certainty, a face came to me, swirling me back to yet another time . . .

A face like a fallen angel, heartbreakingly beautiful. Skin luminous white and hair as dark as sin. Lips red and full, pulled tight with pain.

He was injured, lying on a stretcher in the emergency room.

And with that image, that remembrance, everything inside me unlocked, and all the memories came flooding back in a gushing cascade.

Gryphon—my first love, my first lover. My first rending loss . . .

I found myself on the floor, curled up in a ball, not daring to move or make a sound lest it stop. But it didn’t. It kept coming and coming in an overwhelming outpour, the floodgates too open now to stop.

Tears poured down my face, and my heart ached in silent, joyful memory. I remembered everything . . . including the baby I had lost—Dante’s and mine.

I don’t know how long I stayed like that, huddled on the floor, my hands clamped over my mouth to keep the screams locked within me. Minutes might have passed, hours. It felt like days . . . like an eternity.

My head ached. So did my heart. And my skin felt painfully raw and tight, newly formed, as if it had been physically stretched to contain the new expansion of myself.

How sweet and sad, wonderful and awful, to remember.

I staggered back to my room to splash water on my face and change out of my sweat-dampened clothes, grabbing the first thing that came to hand—old or new, they all were familiar to me now.

My hands were trembling, I noted vaguely as I sat in front of the mirrored dresser, gazing at my reflection. I looked the same, but the woman staring back at me was different from the woman who had sat there just a short while ago.

I was complete now.

Downstairs was silent but for some bustling in the back kitchen area. Empty, I thought at first, until I heard a page rustle in the front parlor. Following the sound, I came upon Halcyon seated gracefully in a wing chair, a book on his lap. He had to have known I was there—my beating heart announced my presence to him as loudly as a knock—but his gaze remained down, giving me the chance of polite escape.

My Demon Prince. Whom I had not recognized. Who I had thought human at first. Who I had been so carefully avoiding with nervous dread since the words demon and Hell and chosen mate had been uttered. Who sat there as solitary and alone as when I first saw him in a sun-dappled meadow.

“Halcyon,” I said, speaking his name softly, emotions welling within me like a soft, rising tide as I went to him.

He stood with polite, guarded containment. It changed to clear surprise when I didn’t stop a careful distance away but kept going until I was flush against that slender, hard body, embracing him. “Oh, Halcyon.”

“Mona Lisa?”

“Yeah, it’s me,” I said against his chest.

A moment of stunned silence, and then his own arms coming up to hold me in a suddenly tight grip. “You remember?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“How much?”

“Everything. I remember everything, Halcyon.”

He eased me back gently so he could see my face. “Do you remember how we last parted?”

“What? Me acting like a skittish idiot after you saved me and brought me out of NetherHell?”

“After I hurt you,” he amended.

“In order to get me out of that awful place.”

“If you remember, why are you so glad to see me now?”

“Because I almost lost you. Because I did lose you for a little while. I’m so sorry—it must have hurt when I didn’t know you.”

He drew in a deep, shuddering breath. “It was like a samurai sword being thrust right through me. And then, like a fool, I felt glad . . . happy that you’d forgotten your fear of me. Only it wasn’t any better. You were still skittish, still afraid of me. Why?”

“Because your name belonged to this demon who supposedly ruled Hell and had some sort of claim over me. Of course I was afraid of you after hearing that; human perceptions of demons are quite different, you know. Dante said that you’d given me the necklace I was wearing around my neck, and it had freaky properties like allowing you to know when someone who intends me ill touches it. It burned the fingers of Mona Sierra, by the way, a Queen who has this, like, long family grudge against Dante. Was it true?”

“Which part?”

“That the necklace gave you some sort of vibe when it burned her fingers?”

“Yes, it told me you were in danger. It’s why I’m here now. How do you feel?”

“Fine—better than fine. I feel normal.”

“No agitation or reaction to my demon presence?”

“Oh, that.” Before, in the past, I had been quite stirred up by close contact with Halcyon.

I had been in the process of becoming Damanôen , demon living. Now, though, there was nothing. No rising bloodlust or red eyes or demon claws.

The relief of that nonreaction was almost as jarring as getting my memory back. Halcyon’s arms came around my waist as I sagged against him. And even with physical contact, there was still nothing.

“Oh my God, Halcyon, I’m totally fine. Even when you touch me.” I laughed, happy, exuberant. “It must be what you did to me to get me out of NetherHell, tearing Mona Louisa out of me, separating us.”

In the damned realm of the cursed dead, Mona Louisa had grown as strong as my own self, our shared body taking on the physical shape and facial features of whoever was dominant at the moment—talk about weird. It had taken multiple personality disorder to a whole different level.

She might have even permanently overpowered my own personality had we stayed longer in that realm. But we hadn’t. Our integrating souls had been physically separated, leaving a gaping wound that had been slowly killing us both. She had almost faded completely from existence when I had absorbed her back into me.

“She was greatly weakened when we merged back together again,” I said, speaking my thoughts aloud. “Maybe that’s why I’m so calm and nonreactive to your presence now. The question is whether this calmness will last or whether she’ll grow strong again.” And turn me back into a living demon schizoid, who might attack anyone close to me.

“You seem to be fully integrated now,” Halcyon observed. “You said you were able to shift into her vulture form.”