Read Mona Lisa Eclipsing Online
Authors: Sunny
Tags: #Paranormal, #General, #Romance, #Fantasy, #Supernatural, #Shapeshifting, #Erotica, #Fiction
Mona Lisa Eclipsing (32 page)
Jarvis nodded his silent assent.
Hannah came to stand in front of him and I moved back. Jarvis remained kneeling on the floor.
Everyone cried out in protest as, without ceremony, Hannah laid her ungloved hands gently on Jarvis’s burnt shoulders and pushed down through the gel until her hands came in contact with his skin.
“Quiet!” I commanded, glaring at them. “None of you can help him, only she can. Let her work!”
“She’ll infect his burn wounds!” sputtered the older doctor, obviously the senior physician in the room.
“We do not get infections,” I said as I felt the gentle flare of Hannah’s power. “Our body naturally heals our injury. He should have been half healed by now.”
Agent Stanton snorted. “Then why hasn’t he?”
“I don’t know,” I said, watching Hannah.
Agent Stanton and the doctor, whose name tag read
Dr. T. Hubert
, came around the bed to stand next to me, and saw most clearly what was happening as Hannah swept her hands down Jarvis’s arms. Wherever her hands touched, the wounds healed into perfect unblemished skin, but only for a second. As soon as her hands moved on, the healed skin quickly melted back into angry, raw wounds.
Dr. T. Hubert
, came around the bed to stand next to me, and saw most clearly what was happening as Hannah swept her hands down Jarvis’s arms. Wherever her hands touched, the wounds healed into perfect unblemished skin, but only for a second. As soon as her hands moved on, the healed skin quickly melted back into angry, raw wounds.
“Dear lord!” gasped Dr. Hubert. At his words and expression, the rest of the onlookers crowded closer for a better view.
“Everyone stay where you are,” Agent Stanton ordered sharply. “Agents Dutton and Maloney—over here.”
The two agents made their way over to Stanton, McManus following behind them.
“I’m his attorney,” McManus said, returning Stanton’s glare. His jaw dropped, however, when he caught sight of what Hannah was doing to Jarvis’s hands—the all too brief, temporary healing.
Hannah lifted her hands to Jarvis’s unburned chest, hovered a moment over his heart, then moved her fingers down his abdomen.
“Is it the gel smeared over his skin, Hannah?” I asked. “Is it interfering with the healing?”
Pain and sadness darkened her compassionate eyes as she drew her hands away. “No, milady,” Hannah said. “He’s too injured for me to heal . . . too weak.”
“Weak? How can he be too weak?” I asked. “He was powerful enough to be a threat to his Queen. Powerful enough to do a partial shift of just his arms.”
“What energy he had, he used in their escape from the fire. He does not have any reserves left to heal himself. Mona Lisa . . . he’s dying.”
Kelly made a choked sound.
“I didn’t know we could die from burn wounds,” I said, astonished. Other than sun poisoning, I thought we could be killed only by having our heads severed or our hearts removed. Jarvis’s head and heart were obviously intact.
“Neither did I. His heart is severely damaged—much like Amber’s was when you first met him, almost dying from the punishment his Queen inflicted on him.”
Hannah was talking about sunlight. Amber’s former Queen had roasted Amber in bright sunlight. Was heat the common element? Had the burning heat of fire done to Jarvis what several hours of direct sunlight had done to Amber?
“There’s nothing you can do?” I asked.
“No, I’m sorry, milady. It’s beyond my ability—his heart and other organs are starting to shut down. He will start to fade soon. It’s been too many years since he has Basked and it has weakened him.”
“You and your family didn’t appear weak, and you were rogues for twenty years. He’s only been without a Queen’s light for three years.”
“We did weaken, but none of us were ever injured as severely as Jarvis. If we were, we might not have recovered, even with my healing talent.”
“Who the hell are you people?” Agent Stanton said in a blustery demand.
“Quiet, please,” I said. “I need to think.”
The FBI agent bristled like a rooster. “I demand an explanation.”
“I’ll be happy to give you one,” I said sharply, “but I’d like to see first if there’s a way to save this man—if that’s all right with you? Or do you not care if he lives or dies?”
“Your healer just said she can’t save him,” Dr. Hubert said, subdued, all his anger gone, eyeing us with curiosity and wariness now.
“Please, milady Queen,” said Jarvis. “I don’t mind dying. But Kelly—she’s innocent. I’ve told her nothing of us. Please, I beg you to keep her safe from our people.” Placing his injured hands on the floor with a squishy sound, he abased himself before me.
Kelly cried out and reached for him, but there was no safe place to put her hand. His back and shoulders were as raw and damaged as his poor arms and hands, and his head was too far away, bowed down at my feet.
I hadn’t been flustered before—excited and nervous, yes, but not flustered like I was now.
People gasped. I felt my face flushing. “Um, Jarvis?”
“Yes, milady Queen.”
“You have my word. Kelly will not be harmed. Now, please get up off the floor.”
Jarvis slowly lifted up and rose to his feet. The relief I had started to feel evaporated as the sheet across his lap fell to the floor, leaving him naked in front of me.
He was a couple of inches taller than me, I noted, and fairly big. Maybe I should have been wary or frightened of him, a Monère warrior who was wounded, and therefore at his most dangerous. My men would certainly have had a conniption fit. But looking into those oddly defenseless, guileless blue eyes, it wasn’t fear I felt, just more embarrassment—on his behalf and mine.
Carefully keeping my eyes fixed on Jarvis’s face and chest, I bent and retrieved the fallen sheet, draping it low around him like a towel, keeping it below the burns ending just above his buttocks.
Kelly grasped the sheet behind him, and I left it to the girl to preserve her companion’s modesty, more for our sakes than his—like most Monère he didn’t seem to mind being naked. “Jarvis, can you lie back down on the bed, or would you prefer to sit in a chair?”
“A chair, please,” said Jarvis.
Kelly brought her chair forward, and Jarvis eased himself down onto it.
Laying my hand on his chest, I drew away the additional pain the movement had caused, and he sighed a breath of relief. “Thank you, milady Queen.”
“You can call me Mona Lisa, or just milady.”
He nodded, ducking his head in a shy gesture that I thought hugely ironic. Flashing a roomful of people didn’t faze him the slightest, but being allowed to address me by name made him shy. It made me want to crush the neck of the idiot Queen who had turned him rogue. He was a gallant blend of meekness, courage, and odd innocence. He would never be a threat to her or any other woman. His friend Kelly, on the other hand, was an entirely different matter for all that he sought to protect her. Though she was young, she had a toughness in her eyes that he lacked. I wondered if that was their relationship: he protected her physically, but she watched over him in all other ways.
I closed my eyes a moment to shut out all the distraction. I had a choice here. I could let Jarvis die. His death would not hurt our cause; it might even help it, cementing his heroism in the public eye. Or I could try to save him, and in doing so, show more than I had intended this first round and risk alienating people, frightening humans, and outraging Monère.
But I had no choice, really. I could not stand by and let this valiant rogue die when I had the means and ability to save him. I could only try to do it in the least shocking way possible. Grabbing him and running was out of the question; the bright rays of the morning sun outside would finish Jarvis off. It would have to be here, in front of witnesses.
I turned to Agent Stanton. He was the real authority I had to deal with here. “I can save him and heal him,” I told Stanton, “and everyone can stay and watch, but I will need the help of one of my men. He’ll be unarmed and won’t make any trouble as long as your men don’t make any threatening moves like drawing their guns.”
“Our guns will stay in their holsters,” Stanton said, “as long as your guy doesn’t make any aggressive moves in turn.”
“He won’t. I would appreciate it if you can inform the policemen stationed outside.”
Stanton nodded to the agent next to him, and the man began winding his way through the crowd.
“Dr. Hubert,” Stanton said, clearly irritated. “Can you clear out some of your people? It’s too crowded in here.”
The doctor kicked out two nurses and three young interns. That still left almost a dozen people in the room.
“Dontaine,” I said in a normal tone of voice. “I need you.”
A scarce moment later, I felt Dontaine’s presence outside, heard him say politely, “Excuse me, please.”
Dontaine entered the room in full, stunning glory. Everyone looked dazzled, no doubt expecting some big bruiser to enter, not someone who looked like a living, breathing Adonis. Dontaine didn’t need a sword; he simply smote them all with a blinding smile. A few in the room embarrassingly came close to swooning, and not just the women, I noted.
“Tone it down a little, Dontaine, will you?” I said with a dry smile.
The wattage dimmed. “Yes, milady.”
He walked straight to me, people parting before him like the waters of the Red Sea. The rogue, however, knew him for the threat he was.
“Easy, Jarvis,” I said. “My word that Dontaine will not harm you or the girl. I need him to help me bring out my light to share with you.”
By the sudden hot, sensual change in Dontaine’s expression, I knew he had mistaken what I intended.
No
, I tried to convey in the severe look I shot him,
we’re not having sex!
No
, I tried to convey in the severe look I shot him,
we’re not having sex!
“What are you talking about?” Agent Stanton asked. “Bring out what light?”
“Jarvis has not bathed in a Queen’s light for six years; that’s why his energy is nearly depleted. I need Dontaine’s help to ignite my light so I can share it with Jarvis, similar to what we do when we Bask, pulling down the moon’s light.”
“And how will this guy help you do that?” Agent Stanton asked, eyes narrowing.
“By kissing me. Nothing else,” I said to Dontaine, making things clear. “Just kissing.”
Dontaine’s emerald bright eyes sparkled with a delight that was out of proportion to what I proposed, until I realized why he seemed so pleased. Because I had called him instead of Dante.
“And how will kissing you help bring out this light you’re talking about?” Agent Stanton asked.
“We glow only in pleasure,” I said, lifting my face to Dontaine. As Dontaine lowered his head to me, all my awareness of the watching audience, the nervous rogue, the skeptical FBI agent . . . all of it suddenly dimmed as Dontaine’s mouth lowered until he was just a few inches away from my lips.
“Just a kiss?” Dontaine murmured. “Quite a challenge.”
“I have full faith in you.” I watched Dontaine’s emerald eyes darken to forest green, watched his eyes dilate, the expanding black iris chasing the green color out to the very rim.
Those firm, lovely lips lowered to airbrush their way across my check, over my jaw, not touching, just the light, stimulating buzz of his presence against mine, and then those lips landed light as a butterfly on my neck, grazing the exact spot where Halcyon had sunk his teeth into me. It had long healed. No trace remained of my skin ever having been pierced there. But it was still incredibly sensitive.
I shivered, bit back a moan as I felt Dontaine’s tongue with sudden, electrifying sensation. His teeth grazed skillfully, precisely, there against that invisible bite wound for an eye-rolling, heart-pounding moment before moving down the bend of my neck, torturous nibbles of pleasure mixed with that gentle buzz of sensation that was something I felt only with Dontaine whenever my skin contacted him. With delicate finesse, Dontaine slowly released more of his power into the contact until there was a significant bite, tiny electric shocks dancing along my skin, mixing the biting pain of it with the pleasure of his tongue, teeth, and lips, running it over and over where Halcyon had left his invisible mark.
I gasped, quivered.
“My lady,” Dontaine said, his husky voice vibrating my ear. “You are alight.”
My skin was glowing, soft and pearlescent, the inner moonlight we carried inside us brought to the fore. Jarvis gazed at me with wonder and hungry yearning in his eyes. The expression in Kelly’s eyes, however, was not just wonder but fear. I felt the same reaction from others in the room, but had to shut it out and ignore it for now.
“Keep touching me, Dontaine,” I murmured as I knelt by Jarvis’s chair.
Dontaine’s finger lightly stroked over my sensitive neck as I placed my hand on Jarvis’s uninjured thigh. His body, the one part he could not voluntarily control, stirred, tenting the sheet covering his lap. I felt hunger in him, not just the normal physical desire of warrior for a Queen, but an even more visceral one of all the drained and depleted cells in his body thirsting for the illuminated light in my hand resting against his skin. So close and yet unable to pass across the barrier of his own unlit skin. It was partly from his weakened state and partly because, as I had explained, we glowed only in pleasure. Just resting my hand on his leg was apparently not eliciting enough pleasure.
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