It was the first day of spring. It was also the time to Bask, to draw down the silver rays of the moon and let its renewing light seep into us. Us being the Monère, the children of the moon — what I was, what my people. Creatures descended from another planet. We were blessed with supernatural speed, strength, and beauty. As a human-Monère Mixed Blood, the first ever to be a Monère Queen, I had the first two. Missed out on the last one, though. Oh well. Better to be fast and strong, in my opinion, than beautiful. And able to Bask, to draw down our home planet's renewing light and energy and share it with my people. Oh yes, that gift was perhaps the most crucial of all, and the one I was most thankful for. Because without that renewing light, we would live only a hundred years, a human's lifespan instead of the three hundred years our lunar birthright gifted us.

If you asked my people, I think they'd take the ability to Bask over their Queen being a raving beauty any day. Or rather night. As a people descended from the moon, we were children of darkness. When the sun set, that was when our day began. Then again, maybe you shouldn't ask my people, because even though my looks were average — not hideous, but definitely not beauty queen material either — they treated me as if I were a raving beauty. The men, at least. The men who were my lovers.

Under the moonlit shadows of the darkened night, I glanced at two of them there by my side. Amber, my rugged Warrior Lord, who loomed a head taller than other men. Whose great strength lay not just in the heavy muscles roping his massive body, but also in the love and devotion gleaming from his dark blue eyes. That — the pull of emotions in him — weakened me more than his obvious and splendid body strength, physically swayed me toward him before I caught myself. Not yet, I thought, but soon… soon.