Beside them stood a woman, massive of girth and height, towering a couple of inches taller than both my guards. Rosemary, my cook, my unofficial chatelaine who ran the monstrous mansion we now lived in, Belle Vista  -  a house that had its own name, can you imagine? She'd left her coveted position at High Court to follow me to whatever territory I might be assigned to because of her two children, Tersa and Jamie, Mixed Bloods like me. They were not here tonight. Neither was the other Mixed Blood among us, my brother, Thaddeus. And the most deadly, the most unwanted among my guards, Chami, my chameleon, my assassin, was also not present. He'd stayed behind to stand guard over Rosemary's two children and Thaddeus.

I stopped and took my place before them, Dontaine standing beside me with the rest of my guards. Ringing out behind them in a thick spreading throng was the rest of my people  -  so many faces and names I did not know. I blocked them out for now, blocked everybody out, and lifted my face up to the night, to our light, our source of power and life  -  the moon, full and beautiful in her round glory. It called to me, that distant planet, tugged at something within me, and I opened myself to her, loosened that something within me in welcome, in acceptance. Yes, I am your child. Bestow your blessings on me, and I will anoint the others in your stead as your vessel, Mother Moon.

A warm, thrumming power unfurled within me, was pulled from me outward, upward, like an invisible arrow reaching for the sky, reaching for the moon, and finding it. Like a soft sigh breathed down from the heavens, light began to shower down, glorious rays that illuminated the night and bathed me in its glow. Little butterflies of light darted within me, filling me anew with energy, with power. Filled me tight, so tightly within, until I overflowed and burst outward, spilling the light onto the others, spreading it to them in a glowing, flowing wave that undulated over them, then entered them, too, bowing their backs. Renewing them, filling them with life and energy and power. Sending us all aglow, incandescent creatures of the night. Children of the moon.

Basking. This was what made me Queen. This was what ran our society. A society that centered around its Queens because only they could call down the lunar rays each full moon, to renew us and to extend our lives. Without Basking, we aged as humans did. We died sooner.

The glow faded, dissipated, disappeared within us. My duty was done, and the people slowly dispersed into the night. "Don't go," I said, turning to Amber.

"No," he answered, his voice a soft, reassuring rumble in the night.

"The rest of your people?"

"Your people," he corrected me gently. "They will return back to Missouri."

"How?" I asked with a small smile. "Flying, crawling, loping?"

He returned the smile with one of his own, a slow curving of lips that stoked warmth within me. "By car. We parked in the woods by the eastern border, half a mile away."

"Stay with me tonight," I said softly.

His blue eyes deepened, darkened. "Yes." He glanced behind me to Dontaine and the rest of my men, and told them, "We'll be at the west cottage tonight. Keep everyone away."

"Yes, my lord," Dontaine replied.

I left, conscious only of the power and presence of the man at my side as he drew me deeper into the woods, darkness folding like a comforting shroud around us. The night breathed with life  -  the rustling of leaves blown by the wind, the hooting of an owl, the chirping of crickets in song, the swoop of wings, the splash of water in the distant bayou. So alive. Every sensation so sharp, every sound so clear. It felt as if I were coming back to life, emerging from deep hibernation. A painfully long one, away from my love. More than two long weeks since he had left me, though he had done so at my bidding.

Rule for me. Be safe for me. And return to me whenever you can. And he had.

"You haven't touched me," I whispered as we walked, so close, a hairbreadth away from each other, but without that final contact.

He turned his head, looked at me then, and my breath caught. His eyes burned that rich yellow-gold, the color of his beast. What he had been named for  -  Amber. The color of his eyes whenever he was moved with passion or power. Or both.

"If I touch you now, I will not stop." His voice was deep and dark and so rich in timbre that it vibrated the air. "And the cottage is yet a mile away."

"I don't want to wait," I said huskily, feeling my own eyes dilating, expanding, so that everything came to me even more sharply, clearer.

"You must," he said, and I blinked at the hard command, the quiet arrogance in those words. He was changing, my Amber. Becoming more confident, more... dominant.

I almost purred. "Must I?"

He slanted a look at me, eyes narrowed, a tiny smile lifting his lips. "Yes," he said deliberately, "you must."

Oooh. He wanted to play. Or rather, he wanted to dominate.

I licked my lips and his eyes followed the gesture, darkening. My clothes were suddenly too constricting, my skin too sensitive, my breasts too full, my nipples too peaked. I unzipped the dress and stepped out of it, leaving the discarded, hateful dress on the leaf-strewn ground, and kicked off my shoes. Cool air teased over my skin, wisped through the blush-colored lace of my bra, the triangle of my panties.

Now it was Amber's turn to catch his breath, to run his hot eyes over the unclothed paleness of my skin. For his nostrils to expand and inhale in the rich ready scent of my softening body. My turn to tease him by running a hand down my neck, between my breasts, and trail tantalizingly lower. "Are you sure?" I asked in a slow, languid drawl.

He growled. And I laughed.

In a blink, my laziness slipped away. "Catch me if you can," I challenged. With my eyes aglow, I leaped away.

And large predator that he was, dominant male that he was becoming, he gave chase.

I made him work for it, truly fight to get what he wanted  -  me. I ran like the hounds of hell were behind, chasing me. I ran like the wind. A blur of soundless speed that whipped the air with my passage. So fast that had a human seen us, he would not have seen anything, only sensed the stirring of movement through the rippling air currents left in our wake. And he was right behind me, as fast as I, his form bigger, stronger, even more powerful. He caught the heel of my foot, tumbled me to the ground. I rolled, went with the momentum, kicked out of his grasp, and bounded away again, my trailing laughter teasing him like a ghost.