And she devoured him back – burning with light and darkness and glory.
As massive wings unfurled so hard from Ariana’s spine that they devoured the amphitheater’s upper tier and that unearthly music rang the entire night, she felt herself suddenly drink down not only the moon’s vicious glow but also Quinn’s own grave-deep fire. Even as his wings spread to match hers, he gasped against her, struggling against the massive pull of her magics. But she had her arms locked around him now and he couldn’t get away, trapped in their decadent embrace. Ariana felt his roaring shock at how quickly and well she could drink him as alarm shuddered his body. But as that silver-gold moonlight roared inside Ariana, exploding with black rainbows in the night, Quinn finally broke free from her kiss and her devouring magic with a powerful roar.
Hauling her wrist up to his lips – and biting his kiss deep into her flesh.
Quinn was like a demon as he drank Ariana’s blood, crushing her to him and bending her backwards with his strong, wire-honed body. Fangs penetrated her deep and Ariana cried out with sex and pain and pleasure all at once, Quinn’s growl hot against the delicate skin of her wrist as he consumed her. But even as she rocked, a dark passion flooded her, power pouring into her from Quinn’s bite. As he drank, crushing her wrist to his lips and pressing their bodies close, she fell into him.
Bliss flooding her in a maelstrom as their passions intertwined.
Exploding that darkly angelic sound through the night as her wings surged to fill the entire grotto, Ariana blazed as Quinn’s dark passion swept her. As that deep, furious wave consumed Ariana, seething through her rainbow-darkness and making the music between them scream, she felt it devour Quinn also. Like a black ocean on fire, Quinn crushed Ariana to his lean, unforgiving body, making her cry out with abandon as he gripped her waist hard, his iron-strong fingers digging into her flesh. As he drank, she felt him connect to a furious blaze of silver-gold light that exploded like a star inside her, deafening in its angelic might. And as it blazed inside him also, sound devouring everything in the night, Quinn cried out.
Roaring and pushing her away.
The charm between them crashed and broke as Quinn hastily stood – staring at Ariana like a demon of the ancient world as he heaved hard breaths. Gasping as the music of their power sundered and true night came flooding in now, Ariana’s revelry broke as the string quartet suddenly came to an abrupt halt in the grotto. Every Vampire in the space had reappeared as the charm on Ariana’s necklace gave out; turning in shock, they saw their Master standing and breathing hard as he stared down at Ariana.
Power roared all around Quinn as Ariana’s aura and his still twisted together in the night, though their resonance was broken now. Passion devoured his eyes like ancient suns as he stared down at her, reaching up and wiping his bloody lips with one wrist as his dark eyes burned. For a moment, Ariana felt Quinn’s body on hers, his mouth still devouring her and his darkfire energy thrusting deep inside her. He was a dark star as he gazed down upon her, and she was the thing that ate stars, Ariana knew as she stared up at him. As Quinn gripped his chest, disaster in his dark eyes, Ariana knew she had broken something in him.
Something that had always been in control and sure.
“Play on.” Quinn commanded abruptly, waving a hand at the musicians as the entire grotto stared, even the faces in the stone seeming to watch their Master Vampire falter. With confused glances, the musicians obeyed, though Ariana could tell the magic was gone from the night. Their music sounded jangled now, full of cacophony as Quinn’s heartbeat gradually slowed.
And then stopped, as he mastered himself and strode from the grotto.
Again, Ariana found herself abandoned by Quinn. Hot tears of wrath stung her eyes as Vampires continued to watch her with shocked faces; pushing up from her seat, Ariana decided her evening was over. Striding down the stone steps, she shouldered hard past Curio as he rose from one of the lowest tiers with alarm to accompany her.
But tears were already pouring down Ariana’s face as she came to the rock wall, and she flicked them away with her fingertips, hating the night now. As Curio caught up, smoothing his long hands gently down her shoulders, mercy was in his eyes along with astonishment. Waving a hand at the wall, Ariana’s throat gripped as she finally spoke. “Open it. Now.”
“Of course.” Curio was all kindness as he waved a hand over the grotto’s recessed wall and the darkness opened up to the moonlit colonnade they had come through earlier. But the moonlight shining down and the sighs of lovers all around only made Ariana grind black deep inside as she marched through, flicking tears away over and over.
As her entire body trembled with rage now, a violent, massive sensation devoured her in the depths of the night. Struggling to contain it, Ariana failed suddenly – screaming out her fury to the darkness all around. With shocked cries, lovers halted their trysts in the colonnade as a black energy devoid of rainbows, silver, gold, or light surged from Ariana. Like a void, a mercurial darkness raged now, deep inside her heart.
And all around, even Vampires shrank from it as they stared at her with eyes wide in the night.
CHAPTER 19 – MIDNIGHT
Ariana couldn’t sleep after the vastly interrupted concert with Quinn. Curio had been kind, dabbing her wrist-bite with unguent that closed them, then helping her out of her black lace gown. But Ariana had soon banished him from her rooms when he tried to be cheeky and cheer her up. Once he’d gone, she’d taken out her cell phone and tapped through it in a furious rush, finding her parent’s number. No messages from either friends or family waited for her, and part of Ariana was relieved Quinn’s cover story was holding in the human world. But again, as she considered calling her family and getting the truth out of them, she paused with her thumb over the call icon as that utterly dark, void-like energy churned inside her.
And she set the phone down.
She stood awake at the open wrought-iron doors of her balcony now, the small clock on her mantle chiming midnight as moonlight flooded in. Staring out over the cobbled street below, Ariana drank in the night in her lacy blush silk negligee and robe, everything inside her still roaring from her truncated passion with Quinn and her frustration with her family’s lies. The glide of silk upon her body was smooth like Quinn’s touch earlier in the grotto, the sensation both decadent and heinous now as Ariana stared at the silver moonlight outside.
Wanting to be free – and feeling utterly caged as the walls of her suite closed in.
As Ariana sighed, her heart screaming so hard now she could barely stand it, she noticed movement on the street below. But it was just the Brightwatch rotating their guards as the midnight hour struck in some unearthly belltower far off in the city. As she stood in the open doorway, Ariana heard quiet jokes and ribald camaraderie pass between the Fae guards. No one was looking up at her; and she stared down at the moon-drenched street, thinking how strange it was that soldiers were like that wherever a person went. In the moonlight, she saw the flash of a flask, produced from an inner pocket of one guard’s gear. With a clandestine grin, he and his fellows took a quick sip before winking at each other and slipping the flask away. Frowning, Ariana suddenly realized her vision was incredibly clear tonight, almost astonishingly so.
When a dark-swaddled figure eased down the stone wall and landed lightly on the balcony beside her.
Ariana’s reflexes were fast; a quick up-strike went to his face with the heel of her palm to break his nose, and a following punch with her other hand was already going to his neck to crush his windpipe. But with a fast move she didn’t even see, the intruder deflected both strikes.
Sending Ariana stumbling backwards from his massive strength.
Quick like the moonlight itself, he surged in through the doorway, clapping a strong hand to her mouth just as a startled sound left her – and saving her from tumbling backwards over one of her breakfast chairs by a fast hand around her waist at the same time. Breathing hard, Ariana’s eyes were enormous as her heartbeat thundered to have been caught by the nighttime marauder. She was in the wrong position to knee him in the groin and she didn’t think fast enough to jab his eyes, before he pulled a swath of dark grey silk down from over his nose and mouth. As he quickly took his deep grey hood down, Ariana inhaled in surprise.
To find she’d been caught by the Summer Fae Prince.
“Don’t scream!” Lucca Bellari spoke quickly, hushed. “I’m not here to hurt you.”
“Okay.” Ariana spoke into his hand, though what came out was muffled and more like,urrghay.A smile somewhere between wariness and amusement quirked Prince Lucca Bellari’s full lips, and then he was lowering his hand from her mouth, slowly.
