"The pilot said that we shall be landing soon." Amber's voice was so deep, so dark, so low, it made my spine shiver. "You look beautiful, Mona Lisa," he said, and my name was like a caress upon his lips.

I grimaced. Amber was no doubt referring to my long hair that I had left loose and unbound, and my long formal gown… swirling black lace over black silk lining. One of several dresses I had bought in Manhattan, not because they were to my taste—oh no, not that. Jeans, T-shirt, sneakers, and ponytail were more to my taste, and what Amber and Gryphon had become used to seeing. But the long black gowns were what Monère Queens wore, and that was what I was. A Monère Queen. The newest one.

Monère men were a bit primitive in tastes when it came to their women—long dresses, loose hair, and even looser morals, especially their Queens. No doubt they'd love to throw in barefoot and pregnant if they could manage it. Problem was, very few could. The Monère were not a fertile people. It was difficult, rare, for their women to become pregnant. I wondered if it was a natural state to balance out their longevity—they had a typical lifespan of three hundred years—or if it was a condition they had become afflicted with on this foreign planet, their new home. Briefly, I wondered if it was a condition that had cursed me as well.

I'd worn the dress as a concession, one of many I'd probably be making as I entered my new territory for the first time. As the first Monère Mixed Blood Queen ever, I was strange enough as it was.