Angela Knight - Over The Moon

We left the ice and changed back into our shoes. I didn't really think Mona Sera was here to try and kill us. But with my mother, you never really knew. Safest, always, to treat her with caution. We made our way to the upper level.

"Stay here, please," I said to Aquila and Tomas. Nodding, they remained at a far corner guarding Rosemary and the kids, as Chami, Gryphon, Amber, and I strode forward to see what my dear mother wanted.

Gryphon nodded first to the shorter, stocky warrior. "Kyle." Then nodded to the taller, dark-haired one. "Frangois."

They nodded back.

"Warrior Lord Gryphon. Warrior Lord Amber," Kyle said, politely addressing them by their proper titles.

These two men had once hunted Gryphon at their Queen's order, and had considered Amber as good as dead. I wonder what they felt at their brethren's elevated status, Warrior Lords now instead of roadkill. Were they jealous of them or happy for them? Nothing showed. Their eyes and faces were blank, wiped clean of all emotion and expression, as Amber and Gryphon's had once been. Impassive, as all of Mona Sera's men had to be.

"My Queen seeks a word with Queen Mona Lisa," Kyle said, glancing over at two black cars parked at the curb. Both were Lincoln Town Cars, ubiquitous to Manhattan, looking innocuously like the thousands of others used for private car service here in the city. But the occupants within these two cars were not human businessmen or women returning home after a long day's work.

"Queen Mona Lisa will be happy to meet with your Queen," Gryphon said, "out here in the open."

"Will the park bench meet with your approval?" Kyle inquired.

The bench he spoke of was situated midway between us and the Town Cars. It was occupied at the present moment by a young couple, wrapped up in kisses and each other's arms.

"Yes," Gryphon said, nodding. "That will be fine."

Frangois walked back to the waiting cars while we followed Kyle to the agreed meeting spot.

Kyle cleared it by the simple matter of planting himself in front of the kissing couple. He was a small tank of a man. With his thick arms crossed in front of his barreled chest and a scowl darkening his face, he looked frankly intimidating.

"Go… somewhere… else," he growled when the young lovers finally became aware of his presence and looked up.

They departed without a word of protest, smart couple. I arched a brow and took a seat on the left side, still warm from where they had sat. Amber, Gryphon, and Chami were silent presences beside me.

"Does that work in getting a taxi?" I wondered out loud.

Humor wasn't something Mona Sera apparently encouraged in her men. Kyle didn't bother answering me. Forget smiling. With a slight bow, he departed to wait by the second car.

Frangois opened the rear door of the first car. Head bowed, eyes cast down, he assisted his Queen out of the car. Mona Sera stepped out.

The first time I'd seen her, she had been filled with power and naked. Well, half-naked. The lower part of her had been a serpentine flow of smooth rippling muscles covered by glistening scales. She'd had no legs, just the body of a snake. Mona Sera was a lamia in her other form. As first impressions went, it had been… let's say, impressive.

Even now, fully clothed, she packed the same punch. Not so much because she was beautiful—more striking. Her hair fell long and unbound in a silky wash down to her hips, a true, pure black, so dark that blue highlights reflected from it beneath the crescent moon's silvery light. Her lips were thinner than mine, but the cheekbones, the strong line of jaw… I could see her stamp in my own face, and in that of Thaddeus's. What made me want to keep the two of them far, far apart was the coldness radiating from that icy, handsome face. She had eyes like a doll. No, that wasn't right. She had eyes like a snake. Like the reptile that she was—cold and calculating. No warmth, no compassion. Nothing human in those eyes.

Mona Sera stepped out of the car without a glance at the man whose hand she'd taken, treating it—him—like he didn't exist. Only there for her convenience, to serve her. Frangois remained subserviently bowing until she swept past him. I sensed another male, but he remained unseen in the front seat of the first car. The driver.

Mona Sera took a seat beside me on the bench, as far away as the wooden planks allowed. "You are still here in my territory," she said by way of greeting.

"We are leaving in few days," I said.

"The sooner you depart, the better." She cast me a very unfriendly look, her black eyes glittering coldly. "Trouble follows you like a dark cloud."

See. Real warm, my mother.

Her comment made me wonder if she knew about Lucinda's recent visit.

"Not just one demon dead, but two now have sought you out here in my city."

Yup. She knew. And she wasn't happy about it. Didn't blame her. Neither was I.

At a snap of her fingers, Kyle opened the second car's door. The odor hit me—hit us all—strongly. A pungent, rotting stench that reached our sensitive nostrils and made us instinctively cringe. The smell of death and disease. Foreign to a Monère. Our bodies were able to heal just about anything almost miraculously fast. The only time before I had smelled something like this was when Gryphon had been dying of silver poisoning.

My heart gave a little extra beat when I saw whom Kyle helped out of the car. Beldar, one of Mona Sera's stronger remaining warriors. His hair was white, though that wasn't completely accurate. He was actually blond, but it was a shade so light, so pale, that it appeared white. Beldar looked up and his eyes met mine.

He had green eyes. Not the mixed brown-green of hazel, but pure emerald green like what you would see in a tropical rainforest. Vibrant, stunning. Even ill and weak he was still beautiful, perhaps more so because his fragility allowed me to really see the pure beauty of his features for the first time—the full line of his lips, the lovely flaring arch of his brows, the straight aquiline nose. Features you normally didn't notice when his face was laughing and mobile beneath the shine of his forceful personality. His charm, then, sparkled at you, blinding you to all else. But now he wasn't smiling, he wasn't being charming. He was barely walking.

Supported by Kyle, he shuffled forward until he fell heavily onto his knees before us. Gently Kyle released him and stepped back to join Frangois, standing to Mona Sera's right. Our two groups were split neatly down the middle of the bench, with Beldar between us like a sacrificial victim.

People glanced curiously at our little group but kept on walking. It was Manhattan. People were allowed to be odd here. A man kneeling on the cold cement before two women was nothing.

"Still cleaning house, Mona Sera?" I asked! "Another strong warrior you decided to poison with silver?"

Mona Sera smiled. It was not a pleasant expression. "Oh, no. This I did not do. The blame for this rests on you."

I arched a brow. "Me?"

"You brought a demon dead here among us. It is not running silver that sickens his body. He was bitten."

"Bitten?" My heart suddenly racing, I turned my head to look up at Chami. He stood beside me, strong and healthy, his power and presence untainted by sickness. The tiny marks on his neck were clean, healing, not rotting. I turned my gaze back to Beldar, swaying weakly before us on his knees, but could see nothing obvious. His wound was not visible to our eyes, only discernible by our acute sense of smell.

"Lucinda's bite did this to Beldar?" I asked.

"Not Lucinda." Mona Sera's lips curled. "Her hellhound."

Chills feathered down my spine like an icy hand. "A hellhound? Here? What is one doing here?"

"That is what I wished to ask you ," Mona Sera said coldly. I saw something in her eyes then that I'd never seen before. Fear. A trembling dark shimmer of it.