Clearly demanding something, the Brightwatch commander gestured angrily at the woman as both Vampires stayed well under their massive parasols to keep off the sun. Viciously, the Vampire man snarled as he argued back, keeping the woman tucked close to his side even as he bared fangs now at the Brightwatch commander. Tensions heated as Ariana watched, the Brightwatch commander pulling a longknife from his gear and gesturing with menace near the Vampire man’s chest. The man slapped the knife away with his gloved hand, snarling so furiously at the commander that Ariana could hear it all the way up through her open windows.
And then spears were being leveled – as both the Fae and Vampires powered up with tremendous swirls of bright and dark power, devouring the afternoon with their might.
Suddenly, the Brightwatch commander lunged – not with his knife but with his hand, seizing the black veil from the woman’s face and hauling it off her. As he did, she shrieked in terror, then snarled at him in distress, her small hand whipping out almost faster than Ariana could see to seize her veil back. But even as she did so, her tall companion heaved forward, grabbing the Fae commander by the throat. The Fae’s blade surged up to gut the man.
As Quindici DaPonti rushed full-tilt down the Hotel’s front steps – Devina and Curio fast on his heels.
Quinn dashed into the morning sunshine, followed by a furious chevron of his Vampires who could also be out in the early day. As Quinn surged through the Fae guards in his black and maroon Armani suit, barreling right in between the Brightwatch commander and the Vampire couple, his dark tendrils of power heaved out in a massive explosion of magic, thrusting all the Fae to their asses and stunning them so hard their rising powers snapped off in the day. That blast of black thunder hit the Fae commander so hard he was launched from the Vampire couple and tossed twenty feet through the air.
Slamming into the trunk of a cork oak, even though he manifested massive wings of emerald-purple light to arrest his momentum.
Like a demon, Quinn stood protectively before the Vampire couple now as the woman hastily re-donned her veil. Staring the Brightwatch commander down, a seething menace roared from Quinn as the man gradually regained his feet. The commander stared right back at Quinn, hateful derision all over his face as he sneered back.
With the couple safely behind him now, Quinn’s smoke-black aura seethed in the bright day like the moon had passed over the sun in a total eclipse, darkening the entire street with his might. As it did, he flicked his fingers, and Ariana watched a tremendous black carriage with gold filigree surge to the front steps of the Hotel. Pulled by two massive black manticores with scorpion tails and lion’s bodies, they roared and snapped black wings as Quinn nodded the Vampire couple quickly inside. As the couple moved up into the carriage fast, the manticores roared and a Vampire driver lashed a whip over their backs. As Quinn kept his powerful control over the entire street with his swirling black aura, the carriage departed.
The Brightwatch having to let it go rather than stop it.
Ariana watched with bated breath from her window, seeing how Devi and Curio and the others stood on the marble steps of the Hotel with their palms out as if in deep trance, their magics swirling out from them as they helped Quinn hold his dark power over the street. She saw how the Brightwatch did not dare challenge it, as they edged back to the opposite side of the avenue to where the morning sun still shone through the edges of Quinn’s power. But staring them all down with a vicious intensity in his furious black eyes, Quinn let his rage be felt; even Ariana could feel it three stories up where his black nimbus flowed over her window, wrathful with malice. Still standing by the trunk of the tree he’d smacked into, the Fae commander had his wings of light spread wide from his back, glimmering like daggers in the day as they swirled in a wind of their own magic.
But with another push of his power, Quinn manifested truly enormous wings of smoke-black midnight now from his own back – blazing with his sun’s corona of fire as he stared the Fae commander down. Those wings were made of writhing flares from the sun, a beautiful, terrible version of what the Fae commander could do and more than thrice the size. Shimmering with his vibrant sun-fire, Quinn’s magic was both luminous and forbidding as he flexed his real power, causing the Fae to back further away in alarm.
As Quinn opened his beautiful lips, Ariana heard him give a growl now all the way from the street; as he bared impossibly long fangs, she watched his face sharpen into horribly elegant planes, his eyes swirling all-black with no white left. Black talons lengthened from his fingers like knives as his spread of darkfire wings surged wider. Swirling like burning black sails on a ghost ship, Quinn’s might was barbaric as he menaced the Fae.
As they slowly backed away, even the commander, though they went with weapons brandished.
All of the Fae guards had now manifested shimmering wings of light in various rainbow jewel tones. But none wanted to face off with the rageful Master Vampire as they slowly slid their gold and silver swords away and lifted their spears, keeping a wide perimeter around the Hotel and the darkened street. As they backed off to a respectful distance, Quinn took one last survey with his searing all-black eyes, then let his power calm. Ariana watched his haughty beauty return as his features eased back to normal and his massive spread of wings relaxed. At last, his wings disappeared, leaving only his regular aura of swirling darkness roiling over the street.
Which he at last pulled back also, until the light of day returned.
“Accost my guests one more time, Commander Junius Alterri,” Ariana heard Quinn bellow across the street to the Brightwatch commander now, “and you will see my full wrath unleashed upon your men, with the entire law of the Red Letter Hotel behind me!”
“She wouldn’t lift her veil, DaPonti!” The Fae commander snarled back now, clearly no love lost between him and Quinn as his vibrant green-purple eyes flashed in the midsummer morning. “They wouldn’t allow us to confirm that she was not the Dark Fae in disguise!”
Shocked as she listened from her window, Ariana suddenly realized this entire problem had happened today because of her. It had escalated because Quinn’s Vampire guests hadn’t wanted to expose themselves to the sunlight this morning, but it had started because of Ariana. As she listened far above, more of Quinn’s argument with the Fae commander drifted up from the street.
“Fool, Fae!” Quindici snarled back, in his cuttingly elegant baritone with an Italianate gesture of disdain thrown at the commander. “Do you think I would be so idiotic as to send the Dark Fae out into the street in such a paltry disguise,rightinto you and all your men? Then you are more excellently stupid than you look. Pass my words on to your King: Ariana Summers is under my protection, and under my protection she will stay. One more attempt at accosting my guests, and Iwillinvoke the might of the entire Red Letter Hotel upon your King and Brightwatch! This is your final warning.”
Though the Fae commander snarled back at Quinn, with one last heave of his emerald-purple wings of light, he snapped his fingers, motioning all his men to stand down. Wings were put away, weapons no longer menaced; but Ariana saw how each and every Fae stood very much at attention now as they eyed Quinn and his Vampires with a steely readiness. It was such a tense standoff that Ariana thought even the drop of a pin could have blasted into a clash, simmering in the rising summer heat.
But at last, Quinn lifted a caustic dark eyebrow at the Fae commander, then spun on his heels with a snap of his fingers. As he flowed dramatically back into the vaulted porticos of the Hotel’s front entrance, his Vampires followed, and Ariana felt the tension in the street ease.
But just before she turned from her window, knowing the show was over, her attention caught on one Brightwatch soldier standing near a tall cypress directly across the street. More casually relaxed than the rest even after everything that had just happened, his fierce emerald-green eyes flicked up to Ariana. His lips curled in a wry smile, distorting the scar upon his chin as he saw her. And as the Prince’s man Alleno Massi, dressed in silver-gold Brightwatch armor now, watched Ariana take in the scene, she saw a certain satisfaction come into his eyes. As if he’d wanted her to see this; as if the Prince himself had wanted Ariana to see just how viciously terrifying Quinn could be when provoked.
But Ariana frowned as Alleno gloated down below. She didn’t know if this had been the Brightwatch commander’s doing, or if the Prince had instigated this event somehow. But letting her fingers slip from the curtains, she backed away from the window – even as Alleno Massi’s smile slipped, uncertain at her reaction.
She could no longer see the street below as she heaved hard breaths, still processing what she had witnessed. True, she had seen Quinn transform into some kind of terrible demon as he’d demonstrated his power in the street just now; but she’d also seen him ferociously protect his people, his guests, and his Hotel as he’d stood his ground when innocent Vampires had been accosted. Most of all, Ariana had watched Quinn protect her, even though she’d not been at the encounter. And as she stood now in her room, the astounded thunder of her heart gradually eased.
Understanding for the first time to what lengths Quinn would go to protect her.
And wondering if the Summer Fae Prince would do the same.
CHAPTER 17 – MUSIC
Ariana found herself still wondering who might protect her better, the Master Vampire or the Summer Fae Prince as she finally made herself ready for the concert later that evening. Though she had thought about Quinn and Prince Lucca both the entire day, neither Quinn nor Devi or Curio had come to her after the Brightwatch event in the street, and Lucca had not sent word. And so Ariana had spent the day alone in the fencing halls beneath the Hotel, then had lounged in the women’s bathing hall until it was time to return to her suite and get ready.
Still stewing over the events of last night and this morning – and wondering what her strange connection to both Quinn and Lucca meant.
A sleek black Italian lace gown had been put in her closet for tonight, swirling in wind-patterns with decadently sheer fabric as she took it down from the hanger now and slipped it on. Modern and luscious, the lace was so fine it was like a waterfall sliding up her body until the entire thing clung to her curves. With an off-the-shoulder design and a plunging décolletage, the gown was decadently clinging as Ariana viewed herself in the tall mirror by her bed. Ornate patterns of black diamonds, dark sapphires, and onyx swirled over the lace, creating a moonlight-over-a-lake effect. As Ariana admired it, she could almost feel a wind blowing over her, rippling that haunting lake.
