25. Fae

25

FAE

I don’t know when we slept, but the next day finds Quinn and I curled up in bed together beneath Arturos’ fine cotton sheets. I’m still dead to the world, but Quinn stirs beside me; as I blink blearily, I note it’s not morning but late afternoon from the angle of the sun that streams in through the high windows.

We slept all day after our disastrous Revenant hunt; it’s not quite nightfall and I’m not sure if Arturos will be awake, since he doesn’t daywalk. That thought is banished from me, however, as Quinn snugs in close from behind. He’s hard and ready, though I still feel how bone-tired we both are. Everything in my body hurts, but suddenly feels so much better.

As Quinn slips inside me, rocking me to a slow rhythm in the late day.

He wraps an arm around my middle, slipping his hand down to massage my clit as he takes me. I arch back on him, heating now as our breaths become hard and heavy; his arm beneath me adjusts so his long fingers can stroke my throat.

With his free hand, he changes our position, moving my upper leg back over his hip so I’m in a backward bend over him. Then, sliding his hand up once more, he rubs me, slipping his fingers in and around my cleft as his thick cock eases in and out of me.

I shudder and sigh, gripping hard around him as his sensual fingers stroke my neck. Quinn eases his soft lips along my neck now; I know what he wants and push back upon him, arching harder so he can find the right place. He bites gently, just enough to pierce me with the last points of his fangs. A slow wash of mesmerization comes from him now, and he drinks from me like sipping the finest of wines.

As we stroke, and shudder, and enjoy each other.

It’s beautiful as we make love with the late sun streaming in and Quinn sipping from my neck. He takes his time, sliding his fingers over me and around my opening and himself, teasing every sensation out of me until I’m throbbing so hard I must just burst from my need to come.

He’s endlessly patient, though, as he makes us both enjoy it for as long as it might last. Finally, he hits a place that just feels too good; arching, I spill up into orgasm as he fills me with one deep, final thrust. Quinn comes as I do, with a soft gasp and a hard grip of his body. Once again, his old Summer Fae fire spills around us both, flowing over the bed with my dark rainbows.

And I feel him frown—not knowing why it’s doing that.

We at last come apart. Quinn and I separate with a delicious going, and I turn in his arms, cuddling close around him as I throw a leg up over his lean hip. Quinn is warm in bed; he’s so warm he almost feels alive as I snuggle around him.

His heart beating and making his old Fae power simmer in the waning light with each steady beat.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were alive, Quindici DaPonti.” I stroke his sculpted white chest now, marveling at this man so close beside me.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say I was, too.” Quinn frowns as he lifts a hand, playing it through the last of his power as it dissipates in a ray of sunlight lancing over the bed. “Though I’ve been able to raise my old Summer Fae fire in my Vampire aura for centuries, Ariana, it’s never been like this. Full and bright, with so little of my dark Vampire magic in it at all. Anywhere.”

“What does it mean?” I ask, wondering if he has any theories on what his power is doing right now, since he’s so drained from everything that’s happened.

“Honestly? I couldn’t tell you.” He shakes his head as the last of his auric fire curls away in the waning day, those hot flickers of crimson and gold gone from the room, though my dark rainbows continue to flow around us. “I suppose it’s because of our bond; where my Vampire magic wanes now because of the past few days’ events, perhaps your and Lucca’s fire fills me. Perhaps it bolsters my old magic… making it flare bright now, without hardly any of my Vampire power in evidence with it.”

“Maybe,” I say, though the deepest part of me still thinks it’s something else that’s triggering Quinn’s old fire to rise like this. I roll over so I lay atop him, pushing up to my elbows and gazing down so I can see his face. “So. What are we in for today?”

“We need to prepare for what we’re going to do when we have to go before the Council tomorrow night,” Quinn says without a beat. He traces my cheek with his fingertips, watching me with slow flickers of fire in his dark onyx eyes. Even as he talks about our next move, he palms my bare ass, pulling me close.

To press me up against something that is far from done, despite his earlier climax.

“Well, something is certainly prepared.” I grin at him as I revel in our togetherness.

“ That cannot be prepared for our session with the Council,” Quinn says admonishingly now as he glances down. Despite what he says, though, he’s moving against me, grinding his hardness into me as he traps me close.

Like he never wants to let me go .

“What are you doing?” I ask as I gaze at him from beneath heavy-lidded eyes.

“Reveling in you. For as long as I may before shit hits the fan.” Quinn’s voice is decadent as he thrusts up against me, firmer like he wants to go again. I know his stamina is legendary; we’re both still recovering, though, from everything that happened these past few days, and my head feels strange now as my heart races.

“I thought reveling was a Fae thing. Not a Vampire one.” My comment is casual as I debate the wisdom of throwing down into sex with him all over again, or if maybe I need some orange juice after all that blood loss and craziness yesterday.

My comment makes Quinn stop, though. He sits up, frowning as he gently displaces me until I sit beside him on the bed.

“What?” I ask, my eyebrows lifting. “What did I say?”

“Revelry.” Quinn blinks, his long dark lashes gorgeous as a strange look takes his face. He glances back at me, pinning me with his dark gaze. “You’re right, Ariana. Revelry is a Fae trait. I shouldn’t be drawing energy from you by reveling in our togetherness right now. But… I am.”

“You are?” I blink, befuddled, as I reach a hand out. Setting it to his chest, I feel his heart racing fast like mine now rather than the long, slow beats he has as a Vampire. It’s so fast, it feels like he’s alive. I blink as my gaze flicks to his.

Then Quinn traps my hand to his chest.

“It’s been beating like that for almost the entire past twenty-four hours,” Quinn says now as his serious gaze pins mine, honest. “Since I placed most of my energy in you and cut myself off from the Dark Haven of Florence… my heart has been beating like I’m alive again. A need to breathe consumes me now, too.”

“That shouldn’t be possible.” I shake my head, wondering what is going on. “Should it?”

“No. It shouldn’t,” he says as his dark brows draw down in a line. “It really shouldn’t—even with the bonds of energy you, me, and Lucca all share. I am dead, Ariana. I am a Vampire, a Master who has Sired other Masters of nearly my own strength over the years. They are dead, those I have Sired. So why am I not?”

Something inside me sings as Quinn says this latest phrase, as if everything about it rings true.

And my power blazes through the room—glorious.

“Are you not dead, Quinn?” I ask then, feeling the truth shine inside me suddenly.

“I fear…” He takes a breath as he stares down at me in wonder, holding my hand to his steady-beating chest. “Perhaps I am not.”

Silence takes us as the depth of Quinn’s revelation sinks in.

And something bright flows between our powers in the waning day.

“You’re a Vampire, though.” I reiterate, frowning.

“I know.” His eyes are wondering as he gazes down at me. “But somehow… being with you makes me live again.”

“Us being together doesn’t just make your heart beat… my power actually makes you alive?” I ask now, wondering what that means as we sit together on the bed. As the late afternoon light flashes out beyond the windows, evening falling once more, I feel its breath consume me. For the first time, however, the oncoming night does not strengthen Quinn like it once did.

He frowns more, as I feel something inside him dim for the first time in the twilight.

“Fae dim at eventide,” he says now, rubbing his chest as if his beating heart hurts.

“Maybe your Vampire power’s just so exhausted right now that your old Summer Fae Light feels stronger inside you,” I hedge, “and is dimming right now to the evening?”

“Perhaps.” Quinn is evasive as he takes a deep breath, then glances out the window. “If that is the case, it does not bode well for our demonstration before the Council tomorrow night. I must be able to summon my Vampire power at our showing, Ariana. If I cannot, our entire plan fails— and we do not return a Revenant by the power of Light and Night combined, making the Music of the Spheres sing for us like it needs to.”

“You will.” My words are decisive as I take his hand down from his chest and capture it between mine. “Your Vampire power will recover and you’ll be strong before the Council tomorrow night. I will do everything I can to ensure it.”

“Not if it drains you. Then our Music will never rise,” Quinn says now as he reaches out, brushing his fingertips over his fresh bite-marks on my neck. I’ve been bitten so much in the past twenty-four hours that I think, what’s a little more? as I feel a drip of fresh blood slide down my neck. Quinn smoothes his thumb over it, gathering it up.

Then puts his thumb in his mouth, closing his eyes as he sucks the last bit of my blood from it.

I feel him revel in the taste of my blood then, like ambrosia to him as so many tastes and scents cascade across my palate from our shared connection. I feel Quinn glorify in tasting me; it makes his old Fae power rise now in a shimmering heat all around us as he enjoys me like tasting the finest of wines.

It stops him as he opens his eyes. His gaze fixes on that hot mirage moving all around us now, then brings his thumb down from his lips. He pins me hard with his hot, umber-onyx gaze.

As something awakens in his eyes—with the truth.

“Ariana. I’m Summer Fae.”

“You mean you were Summer Fae?” I ask, breathless for some reason that Quinn has figured something important out about our current situation.

“No. I mean, I am Summer Fae. Somehow. Right now.” Quinn nods to that flame-bright aura still flickering around us, indicating it. I see all the wheels churn within him—then come to a grinding, abrupt halt as searing clarity takes his eyes. “I am Summer Fae. And Vampire. At the same time. Together.”

I feel it then, as something inside Quinn locks home like a bell being rung. As he realizes his truth, I feel the Music sing inside us both, my dark rainbows rushing out now, cascading into the surrounding air like a maelstrom. Quinn’s eyes brighten with power then, in a way I’ve never seen them do before. He reaches out, setting a hand to my face.

And speaks the deepest truth of his life.

“Ariana, I’m… Dark Fae .”

Power explodes inside my chest as I feel the truth hit home. Rainbows of unprecedented colors surge from me and Quinn both now as the Music careens between us.

And I know his words are right.

Because what Quinn realized just now is something he’s known all along. That somehow, way back when he and Lucca sought the Dark Fae and met only Revenants, trying to become one but succumbing to the other, he wasn’t Sired into becoming a Vampire.

He was bitten by a Vampire and left to survive or die, just like I was. Emiliana DiClario found him and Kissed him to her, making him hers. She wasn’t truly his Master, however, and never could be.

Because she never Sired him in the first place.

“She never Sired me. Emiliana lied. She never was my Sire.” Quinn murmurs with deep understanding now, as the truth comes crashing home for him. His eyes flare so brightly the darkness in them is all but banished as they blaze a hot red-gold. “All this time, I thought I was her Vampire. She lied to me. She found me under a bridge, brought out of that Revenant catacomb merely bitten by someone and left to live or die. I must have been so close to death she thought I was a Vampire. She Kissed me to her, which is why I never recall her Siring me. One drop of blood is all it takes to Kiss someone, and I was bound to her forevermore. But it wasn’t truly her magic running through my veins. It was someone else’s… who never finished the job of turning me into a Vampire. Making me Dark Fae instead.”

“Emiliana’s magic, her bond to you and to the entire Dark Haven of Florence must have been masking your Summer Fae power this entire time,” I say now, shocked that all this might be true, yet feeling deep inside me it is. “Your old bond to Lucca was the only thing causing it to survive as so much potent Vampire power surrounded you. You matured as a Vampire, thinking you had simply kept certain traits of your Summer Fae power because of your magic’s strength.”

“I was a Dark Fae, living under Emiliana’s roof and calling myself Vampire.” Quinn takes a breath now as the most horrible look comes into his eyes. “Perhaps she knew. Perhaps she sensed what I was… and kept me beside her all those years, punishing me into serving her because of how my magic could sway others to her abominable will. It was me. I made them stay. I made them all stay… when so many wanted to leave her reign of horror.”

Something dies inside Quinn, then. I feel it, as a terrible scream goes off inside my very soul from his realization. This scream is not mine but Quinn’s, as he realizes what his power did to all those who wished to escape Emiliana’s cruelty. It was him, though, who finally got the drop on her and staked her one dark night after the abuses had been too many.

Him, who had freed all the others.

Though he blames himself now for all the centuries they stayed.

“It is not your fault, Quinn,” I say as I take his hand, cradling it in mine. “Emiliana was a powerful Master and made you stay by her side. She made you stay when you would have gone; when you would have escaped and freed so many others, trapped by her cruel, indomitable power. And you did. You killed her… and set everyone free.”

“When so many others had failed at doing just that.” Quinn looks down at his hands now, as if remembering the Devilswood stake he used on her that night, just like the knife that was thrust into him two nights ago. “I thought my hands were just stronger than the rest, my power calmer, so she didn’t feel me and wake. I thought I was just a more powerful Vampire than the rest who had tried and failed, more trusted by her to make her sleep beside me. Perhaps, though, it was my Dark Fae energy, working its wiles on her even back then… to make her love me the wa y she did, and hate me, and succumb when we made love together. To sleep so soundly afterwards beside me, wrapped in my arms…”

“She was a monster, Quinn. Never forget that. Don’t blame yourself for things she did.” I am reassuring, though I feel him slip back towards that unfathomable void he went into when he became a Revenant. I don’t know how it’s possible for a Dark Fae to become a Revenant.

But I feel that deep pull inside me, too, as I realize now that Quinn and I are the same.

I have half a moment to wonder if Lucca is, too—when someone pounds on the doors of our suite.

As Quinn rises from the bed, throwing on a quilted maroon dressing-robe and heading for the doors, I am quick to wrap up in my long emerald lace negligee left hanging on the bedpost last night after our bath. But I needn’t have wrapped up, as Quinn opens the doors and someone I know heaves inside.

Lucca falling into Quinn’s arms—kissing him like mad as the two embrace.