Gazing upon Ariana and his son.
“Father.” Lucca spoke now as he crouched with his gilded blades ready, though he strangely didn’t seem surprised about whom it was that stood before them. “Let Ariana go. She’s not your enemy. She doesn’t even know how to fight with her power, or use it yet. Just let her go.”
“She will learn.” The King spoke softly as his searing gold eyes fixed upon his son, then Ariana. Blazing with terrible power, they were viciously bright, even though his aura seemed oh-so-dark tonight. “And when she does, she will be a mortal enemy to us, Lucca. It is for dangers such as this that our ancient sect of the Darkwatch exist, my son. I will pardon you and Alleno for facing off with my Brightwatch today at the palace – I understand you both were merely doing your duty as protectors under our sect’s tenets. But the Dark Fae must be brought back now. And my headstrong young Prince must come back now also… to face his father’s judgement.”
Blinking, Ariana inhaled to hear the King was somehow part of the Summer Fae Darkwatch, and Lucca also – though it explained how they both had a set of charcoal-dark assassin’s gear, and tremendously unique light-bending magics that made them invisible when they wanted to be. As she watched now, Ariana saw Lucca’s aura curl with that same light-bending power his father and the rest of the Darkwatch manifested tonight – creating a haunting effect in the ravine as he rippled and faded from the fire’s light.
“You’re too fatigued from battle, my son.” The King spoke with a hardness in his voice now as he gazed upon Lucca. “I can follow you wherever you flee, as you are not strong enough to hide your light-trail from me right now. Come. Give up the girl. And we can forget this whole thing.”
“Never.” Lucca growled as he raised his blades, though his simmering aura trembled with exhaustion as he spread it wide around Ariana now. “You’ll have to go through me to get to her, father. She is innocent, and I will protect her – even if I have to lose my life to prove my point.”
“Idiot.” The King spoke now, though Ariana saw something almost approving in his hard gaze as he looked upon his son. But with a sigh, he gestured to the Darkwatch guards flanking him. “So be it. Take our youngest, most headstrong member, my Darkwatch. And the Dark Fae.”
“Over my dismembered corpse, Archivolio.”
Quinn’s voice was like stone as he stepped out suddenly from the shadows beside Ariana and Lucca, so close she startled. He’d gotten inside the Darkwatch’s ring without being noticed somehow; and as Quinn’s smoke-black aura rose all around him, Ariana, and Lucca now like a demon, seething with fire for a fight, Ariana saw the King’s Darkwatch shift uneasily. But there was no unease in King Bellari as his eyes burned with gold-white fire to see Quinn. With a low growl that shuddered the night, the King pinned Quinn with his terrible wrath and a chilling, furious disdain.
“Valerio Incendari. This argument is between me and my son – a lesson he needs as part of the Darkwatch. Stand aside.”
“I disagree.” Quinn spoke smoothly now as he stood tall in the night, facing down the Summer Fae King without a single tremor now in his boiling dark power. “My King, you know who I am. Long have you denied me audience before your Court, and I am done asking. Tonight, I have something to say, and you will hear me out, and your son beside me, and Ariana Summers. Though you tried to shut us all up before we were any threat to you, that time has passed. I do not wish us to be enemies, Archivolio, but I wish for certain voices to be heard in your Court – most importantly, those considered Forbidden to you and yours. And what we have to say is this: the Forbidden Lineages don’t need your punishment for the actions of their forefathers any longer.”
“Silence, cur!” Archivolio spoke now as he stared Quinn down with a hateful sneer. “Your father was a far better man than you will ever be, abandoning the Summer Fae like you did to join the Vampires.”
“And should I live ten thousand years, I will never be the tyrant he was, and that you aspire to be,failedDarkwatch shadow of my father.” Quinn spoke with utter darkness in his black eyes now. “By ancient Summer Fae law, Lucca isn’t evenpartof the Darkwatch anymore since he became Prince, and neither are you since you became King. Royals in the Darkwatch are allowed to participate in the Rotation of Kingshiponlyif they give up their Darkwatch allegiance. As I recall, the Courts were rather stern on that point with you, Archivolio, when you ascended your throne.”
“The Dark Fae bitch has poisoned your mind, Valerio; as if it wasn’t already poisoned enough by the Vampires.” The King spoke dangerously now as his eyes burned. “I can see she is a pox on both you and my Lucca; he has never been as ruthlessly disobedient as these past few days, save for when he was protecting you. I should have been more thorough in my decimation of the traitorous Dark Fae; now I will be. Wherever the last of them hide, I will find and finish them. And it starts with her, tonight. Hand her over. Or you will all suffer.Deeply.”
But Ariana almost didn’t hear the King’s final threat as she trembled now with a massive sensation – upon hearing that some of her people might still be alive. As a blaze of wrath surged up inside her, she felt a strange hum began in her body. As her exhaustion stilled, a pure fury rose up in her – and she stepped forward to face King Archivolio Bellari. But somehow, the power of both Lucca and Quinn flowed through her veins now, supporting her. As she glanced at Lucca standing defiant with his blades, the beautiful fury in his blue eyes bolstered her. And as she felt a dark wind gently kiss her lips from Quinn, Ariana felt his approval.
As she stared down the Summer Fae King.
“You bastard.” Ariana spoke quietly as that hum surged inside her chest. Flooding out, it curled around every Fae there with darkness and fire, rainbows and moonshadow as it flooded a strange music into the darkness. “You think you know me? Well, you don’t. You don’t know how it feels to be uprooted, alone, andhunted. You don’t know how it feels to put your trust in strangers because any wrong step could be your death. You don’t know how it feels to belongnowhere, until someone with love in their heart gives you a chance, and a place. So I pity you, for never having experienced what I have these past few days. Because you’ll never value the strength and compassion others have offered me. You’ll never value friends and having a strong network in times of stress. I don’t even care that you came after me when I was alone and friendless. But I feel sorry for your people, because you keepthemalone and friendless – when the Forbidden hearts of the world could offer them so very much.”
“Fool girl.” The Summer Fae King spoke with daggers in his commanding voice as his eyes flashed a pure, vicious gold. “You think to work your Dark Fae wiles upon me? You should know the reason I have been able to hunt down so many of your kind these past six hundred years is because I am immune to your diabolical charms. You make your bed with devils, girl, and theywilltear your heart out. A far worse death than I could give you, had you only chosen to meet your fate with dignity.”
“Maybe so.” Ariana breathed, as a powerful certainty filled her now, humming with a strange vibration through the darkness. “But do you truly speak for your Summer Fae, my King? Do they feel the same way as you do about these matters, I wonder?”
As Ariana somehow received impressions about what was going on with the Darkwatch now, she gestured around – and the King’s burning glance swept his fighters. Each and every gaze was riveted to Ariana, their magics humming in resonance with hers as she allowed her untamed magic to be as wild as it wished to be in her wrath. As her power surged, glorious with moonshadows and fire-dark rainbows in the night, she could feel it digging through the King’s fighters as it searched for the truth. Because whatever was wrong with the Summer Fae was so deeply sick, they were barely aware of it. But it was there – all around, a sudden restlessness broke through the Darkwatch as they listened to her with a strange fire in their eyes.
As if hearing the truth of their lives for the very first time.
“Dark Fae bitch!” The Summer Fae King growled at Ariana now to see his warriors listening to her, his searing gold aura rising in a furious rage. “I should have killed you when I had the chance. Guards! Take them! And kill her this time – and the Vampire with her.”
But as the Darkwatch suddenly shuddered off Ariana’s magic, rushing in to take her, Lucca roared, blazing with light. Stepping close, Quinn seethed with his darkfire also, shoving Ariana behind him as he re-joined his magics to Lucca’s, producing a massive rush of bright-dark wrath in the night. But even as Quinn and Lucca’s power surged out in a tremendous barrier against the Darkwatch, the Summer Fae King roared. With fury in his burning gold eyes, the King blazed so hard Ariana was blinded. She didn’t even see his lance of light, until the King’s strike smote right through Quinn and Lucca’s barrier.
Spearing her through the chest with the full blaze of the sun.
CHAPTER 26 – KISS
King Archivolio Bellari’s lance of pure sunlight launched Ariana off her feet – sending her flying backwards to slam hard into the wall of the waterfall ravine. As she bashed into the rock, Ariana heard bones break, her chest a blazing agony where the King’s lance had skewered her. Even as Lucca and Quinn roared, rushing to her, Ariana could make no sound. She could almost taste Quinn and Lucca’s horror on her tongue as they arrived, but her body was too broken and burning to respond.
As the night screamed all around her, black-edged with death.
A dark vortex opened up inside Ariana, then. Without end, that strange void in her magics was like a black hole in the cosmos as her power opened into a maw of devouring. Taking any energy it could and eating it, trying to knit bones and flesh, it made Quinn roar as he held her, as if Ariana drained him to the breaking point. Lucca cried out also as he cradled her and that vortex drained him, too – but then he was hauled backwards by his father’s Darkwatch. Clapped in silver-gold manacles that flared with menacing golden power, Lucca tried to shove off his father’s guards to get back to Ariana.
As he gave a desperate roar, splitting the night.
“Valerio! Get her out of here!Save her, goddamn it!”
