I backed away from Chami as I realized that he would not be able to help me either. Whirling, I turned and ran into the clearing, toward the combatants.
Behind me I heard Gryphon yell, "Mona Lisa, no!"
"Stop!" I shouted as I ran to the grappling opponents, a struggling mass of fur and flesh twisting on the ground. "I command you both to stop!"
Writhing and thrashing, the two locked combatants twisted and rolled over me, knocking me to the ground. I felt the heavy crushing weight of them briefly, endlessly, then they were off me and I was gasping. Turning my head, I looked up into Dontaine's eyes. Disoriented, I noticed his eyes were still the same shape, like a human's. But what looked out from within them was not human. His jade green eyes had melted to the color of glittering honey, with that odd clarity that animal's have, as if you could see clear through them. Wolf eyes. Amber lay pinned beneath him, both of them an arm's-length away from me.
"Stop it! Both of you!" I cried in a harsh breathless whisper. It was desperately lacking in forcefulness as a command, but I was trying to regain the air that had just been squished out of me.
"I will be acknowledged Master of Arms?" Dontaine growled. His voice was deeper, rougher, like it took great effort to force a human voice through that harsh animal snout.
"Yes," I instantly agreed.
"That is not all I desire," Dontaine rumbled, his voice painfully deep. This close, the brush of his power was different, odd, more electric. His beast's power washed over me and made me gasp, made me writhe. It beat upon me and was almost pleasurable, but it contained that edge of pain that threatened, that made it sweet. It called to something within me. Something that wanted to rise up and meet it.
It took all of my effort to concentrate on Dontaine's words, his meaning. He was saying that he wished to be my lover. And I understood then why Gryphon had left me to go to Mona Louisa's bed. What did sleeping with another matter? As long as the one you loved still lived and breathed.
"I will take you to my bed once," I said to that half-human, half-animal face.
"No!" Amber roared, and that one word tore through him like a cougar's scream. He gave a sudden, powerful shove and the two of them rolled away from me, wrestling, grappling once more, illustrating the sad truth that it takes two people in agreement to maintain peace, and only one to start a fight or continue it.
Hands snatched me up in an almost painful grip, dragging me back safely to the crowd of onlookers. I turned to see Gryphon, his eyes blazing down at me. "What are you doing?" he demanded harshly, no longer calm, far from detached.
"I'm trying to stop them," I replied shortly. "Almost did."
Gryphon's eyes swirled with fear and anger but the rough screams, the piercing cries, the growls and grunts of rage—animal, human; no difference—drew our attention back to the center. Amber and Dontaine had separated. Both had sprung to their feet. Both were bleeding and battered. And both were fiercely determined to win. They came together in a blinding rush and Dontaine's claws swiped down in a tight slashing arc, ripping with ease through Amber's chest and shoulders.
Amber stood there, unguarded, and let Dontaine rip into him for an unbelievable moment. Then reaching up with an almost casual grace, Amber grabbed Dontaine's unprotected neck with his right hand, dug in assuredly, and ripped Dontaine's throat out. A thick chunk of meat and cartilage spilled from Amber's hand onto the ground as if in slow motion. There was a moment of sheared silence, of stillness. And then came a slow gushing of blood, a dark spurting of fluids. Dontaine fell onto this back, writhing, twisting, his chest heaving, struggling to take in air and unable to do so. He gurgled, emitting wet guttural sounds as if he were drowning in the wash of his own blood and fluids, lying there on the ground helpless.
"Oh, my God!" I broke from Gryphon and threw myself down beside Dontaine. His odd brown eyes, like clear honey, looked frantically up at me. I reached a tentative hand out toward the raw gaping maw of his throat, but stopped short of touching it. The glistening bones of his white spine gleamed visibly. I turned helplessly to look up at Amber. He stood over his fallen opponent's head, gazing impassively down.
"Is he dying?" I asked. It was hard to believe otherwise, looking at Dontaine desperately gasping like a landed fish for air. I knew that to kill a Monère you had to take his head or heart or poison him with silver or the sun. But surely this much strategic damage would kill him, too.
"No. This will not kill him," Amber said. "He will be uncomfortable until he heals and is able to breathe once more, but he will not die." The calmness of his deepened voice contrasted wildly with his eyes. Eyes that had turned feral yellow. Eyes that were screaming inside with the aggression of his beast, triggered from the recent battle.
My hand lowered hesitantly like a fluttering butterfly undecided where to land. I finally touched Dontaine's shoulder, reeling thick fur brush coarsely against the smoothness of my palm. The creature reached up as if to grip my hand. Then remembering his own claws, he dug his hands into the ground instead, sinking the long sharp nails deep into the dirt, forcing that part of him, at least, to lie still while the rest of him spasmed and shook. His chest bucked and heaved, trying to draw in breath. But how could you breathe when your windpipe was torn out?
I felt Dontaine quiver under my hand. As I touched him, his power zinged into me and my palm started to tingle. Nothing unusual with that. I was a healer and I wanted to heal him. But then my whole body started to tingle, to pulse, and that was not usual. The smell of blood and the scent of raw meat filled my senses, blinding me until it was all I could see, smell, taste. I could almost roll the coppery sweet tang of blood on the back of my tongue and taste the salty sweetness of warm tender meat in my mouth. My skin began to itch, to burn, to heat. And the cloth rubbing against my skin suddenly seemed unnatural, unwanted.
"Her eyes," I heard a woman gasp.
"She's changing," Amber said. "Dontaine's beast is triggering her own."
It took a moment before I understood what he had said. I was starting to lose myself. "No," I growled. My voice was rougher, deeper, as if I had swallowed gravel and it was rubbing against my throat. I lifted my eyes up to Amber and shook my head, fighting it. "No."
Gryphon spoke quietly to Amber, gazing down at me. "Take her, watch over her."
"No," I gasped, fighting desperately not to rip my clothes off and free my itchy, prickly skin.
Amber scooped me into his arms like a little child and ran from the clearing, away from ail the people, the curious watching eyes. He loped into the woods, away from all that raw pungent meat. But the smell of blood still rode thick in the air, right beside me, up against me.
I turned my head and like a magnet, my eyes were drawn to the blood seeping down Amber's chest, his slashing wounds looking like dark lines of melted chocolate in the night. But chocolate could never taste this good, this rich, this alluring. Like an irresistible summons, it drew me. And I answered its call, lowering my mouth, letting my tongue press deep inside, digging into the fresh wound as I lapped up the sweet liquid elixir of his life. Amber groaned in painful pleasure, his breath coming heavily, his slow heart thudding loudly. We were deep in the forest now.
"What will it be, Mona Lisa? Sex or meat? We can change and hunt. Or we can fuck."
Dimly, I realized those were the only two ways to channel my beast's energy. It was there just below the skin, a waiting tension, like water ready to spill over the brim, just barely contained. And fresh from battle, with bloodlust singing in his veins, Amber needed the release, too. He was giving me the choice. And he was warning me. He'd said fuck instead of make love. That was what it would be if I chose that option in both of our heightened aggressive states.