Devastating, it crashed through the underground hall in a surge of midnight-dark rainbows and blitzes of silver-gold fire; and Quinn’s lips fell open as that power hit him, their connection deeply personal as it careened between them once more. The corona of fire in his onyx eyes flared as their connection roared; swirling up around her, his black nimbus darkened the fire’s light. Ariana swallowed hard as she stared at Quinn, and watched him blink his long lashes as if trying to throw off their sudden resurgence of resonance. With a quick in-breath, he stood, and Ariana’s heart thundered as he stepped close, though he merely offered his hand to escort her.
“Come. We have said enough.” Quinn spoke as he fought to hold back their resonance. “Let me take you back to your rooms so you can think over everything we’ve discussed and we can both let our magics… quiet some. I simply hope that you understand I do not wish you ill will, Ariana. But I cannot deny that I have certain aspirations – and your coming to me presents me with an opportunity I would be a fool to ignore.”
Ariana could feel Quinn’s honesty as she placed her hand in his. He didn’t mean her ill, and though his dark nimbus swirled around them both now in the firelit solar, he held it back as their eyes locked. But the connection now roaring between them was too much, as if fate itself had intervened in all their plans. As Ariana touched Quinn’s hand, she felt the coolness of his skin as he tried to be stone, then his flare of heat as he failed. She could almost feel his pulse hammer as she rose to standing before him. As a deep power pulled them together, dark as graves and bright as falling stars, Ariana felt that ancient burn rush through them both.
Lifting her hand to his lips, Quinn closed his eyes, pressing it with a kiss. But though he’d meant it to be gentlemanly, the press of his lips suddenly made Ariana’s heat spike. As her power rioted, exploding hard through her like a sun going supernova, she cried out. Quinn responded, his kiss suddenly not so gentle as the fire in him flared also.
With an animal growl, he pressed his kiss into her harder as that power swept them. Ariana felt his fangs; she cried out from a terrible fear and a devouring eroticism as a blaze of heat flooded Quinn. His breath caught as his power rose in a maelstrom of darkness and fire. And then he turned her hand over, kissing her inner wrist and scraping her with his fangs.
And shoved Ariana away suddenly – as his hand snapped to his mouth in shock.
It was the most awful, most beautiful look Ariana had ever seen as she clutched the settee for support, shuddering from all that dark-light pleasure still coursing through her. She was undone by Quinn’s sudden heat and danger; but even as she gasped, she saw how he was unhinged from whatever had just happened between them. As he stared at her, still touching his lips with his fingertips, he shivered from head to heels, his eyes blazing like twin suns.
And then he closed his mouth, summoning the emptiness of the grave as he spun on his heel, striding from the midnight solar.
CHAPTER 14 – WALK
Heaving hard breaths, Ariana stared after where Quinn had gone. But the fountain-solar with its crackling fire was empty now; even as she strained her senses, she couldn’t hear or feel Quinn in the catacombs beyond. Like a specter, he’d disappeared; and as Ariana swallowed, shivering like a leaf in a gale from whatever had just happened between them, a feeling of rejection rushed up inside her. As if he’d torn out her heart with his sudden unbridled passion and just as abrupt departure, Ariana reached up, gripping her chest. But there was no stopping it as her heart gave an awful pound, then another.
As her magic flowed out around her in a terrible, dark maelstrom.
Whisking quickly into the room as if she’d been summoned somehow, Devina’s full red lips fell open at Ariana’s state. As Ariana gripped her chest, trying hard to not cry now with her head awhirl and her emotions deeply confused about Quinn, the statuesque supermodel Vampiress rushed to her. Cradling Ariana close, Devi let Ariana shudder in her arms.
As a despair Ariana couldn’t name crushed in.
“Curse that Quinn! Treating you like this. Come here. Let’s settle down, come on…” Devi spoke gently as she held Ariana, stroking a hand over her hair. Hitching in near-sobs, though not even knowing why she did, Ariana nodded. As the statuesque Vampiress tucked her close, escorting her over to Quinn’s ebony bar, Ariana found herself grateful for Devi’s brisk presence. As the supermodel Vampiress poured Ariana a stiff three fingers of bourbon, then held it out with a no-bullshit look, Ariana took it gratefully.
Drinking hard.
As her wretched energy began to calm, Ariana finally registered that Devi was still in her black cocktail dress with blush spiked heels from earlier; and though Devi lifted an eyebrow as Ariana downed her drink, she didn’t say anything. But the bourbon burned inside Ariana like fire now, and she felt wrath suddenly seethe up her throat for Quinn and how he’d just walked away from her after the intense passion they’d shared. As she finished her drink, Devi’s lips quirked, and then the Vampiress plucked the glass from Ariana’s fingers and set it back on the glossy ebony bar.
“Come on. We should go for a walk. We need to have a little chat, sister to sister.”
It was a distinct change from how the mercurial Devi had been towards Ariana earlier, and Ariana found herself blinking at the Vampiress now as Devi beckoned her over to a hidden door beside the fireplace that she’d opened. As they entered the blue-gold back halls of the Hotel, Ariana found herself glad they weren’t taking the Hotel’s main areas wherever they were headed. She was grateful for the silence as Devi led the way through the narrow halls. They saw no one as they traversed turn after turn, descending three different corkscrewing staircases until they were deep underground, before curiosity got the better of Ariana.
“Where are we going?”
“We’re going to get some air. And talk frankly about our mysterious Master, darling.” Devi huffed with attitude now, though it wasn’t for Ariana. “Because I can see now that you need it. Like it or not, sometimes fate deals us a bad blow. And yours just got really shitty with all of Quinn’s manipulations heaped upon your newfound power and everything else.”
“But… I thought you didn’t like me.” Ariana frowned as she rubbed her wrist, still feeling a strangely dark tingle from her previous passion with Quinn, though the bourbon had smoothed it.
“I don’t like many people, darling.” Devi spoke as she glanced back with a small, humorous smile upon her lips. “It’s really not personal. And you are far kinder a Fae and more tolerable than most, which is a welcome change.” Suddenly, they came to a dead-end in the catacomb with a weeping statue of a madonna filling the alcove. Facing the statue, Devina drew on Quinn’s magics through her veins. As his scintillating dark magic filled the Vampiress, she reached out, touching the madonna’s cold marble hand.
And the statue melted away in a dark swirl of vapor – admitting them to a passage beyond.
“This way.” Devi spoke as she ushered Ariana on. But the passage was utterly dark, and as Ariana hesitated, glancing around to see if there was a torch or something, Devi moved her hands in a complicated gesture, producing a small orb of swirling violet light between her hands. Flicking a smile at Ariana, she held the light up in her fingertips so they could proceed. Moving forward, it was just enough to see by as they entered the long hall.
The alcove closing behind them in a shimmer of magic.
“Where are we?” Ariana asked, feeling suddenly claustrophobic in the long, dark tunnel so far underground. She and Devi walked side by side now in the vaulted tunnel, the way ahead and behind holding a cavernous feel and a musty smell.
“We’re in the catacombs beneath Florence.” Devi commented as she selected another hall that branched off from the first, just as dark and empty as the one prior. “Since the Summer Fae King’s Brightwatch are all over the normal entrances to the Hotel, I thought I’d take you outside a different way to give you a break from Vampire sex and intrigue and politics. Long before this city was shared between Vampire and Fae and other Twilight Lineages, we Vampires made it our ancient stronghold, and we still own the nighttime places below. The entire city is warrened with passages that only ancient Vampire magics can open.”
“You opened this passage with Quinn’s magic.” Ariana noted as her mood rose suddenly, hearing that Devi was taking them someplace beyond the Hotel.
“Quinn holds an old line of Vampire magic, Ariana – a powerful one. He acquired it from his Sire Emiliana, and her Sire before her, and so on.” Devi spoke quietly now as they took another branch-point. “Being Sired to him blesses me with it, and as his trusted Second, he allows me to wield his power through my veins. It is not a gift he gives lightly. And it is not a power I take lightly. Unlike other Master Vampires who build their Dark Havens with an army of slaves, Quinn builds a circle of trust, of those who are furiously loyal because they are grateful for how his gift saves them from a life of hell. And how his belief in equality and sovereignty continues to save them.”
“Some would consider being dead and drinking blood a life of hell.” Ariana commented before she could stop herself.
