Taking a deep breath in the hot midsummer morning, Ariana steadied herself. Though the oaks and laurel in the Florence city park were stately and the air was fragrant, a strange chill had taken her now from what Prince Lucca had just said about destiny. As a dark sensation devoured her, similar to what had happened when she’d been on the phone with her parents a few days ago, Ariana’s magic dissolved from the day. Lucca’s intense summer-blue gaze softened as he watched her. Reaching out, he touched her hand upon the picnic blanket; a gentle wind poured through her, stirring the lavender bushes and draping wisteria all around.
“Forgive me. I didn’t mean to turn our morning so intense.” Lucca smiled wryly now. “I’m simply concerned about the magical resonances we’re all feeling, Ariana – you, me, and Quinn. None of us is able to escape what’s happening between us, how fate is pulling us all together.”
“You still care about him, Quinn.” Ariana stated, cocking her head.
“Do you think a man could be aroundthatday and night and not fall in love, Ariana?” Lucca sighed with a hard smile now, tension in his blue eyes as he poured himself and Ariana another espresso. “Quinn is not a malicious soul. But what he does, he does for gain, and it has always been thus. Even when we were boys, he was talented at games of power; far more than I was. I was always the ruffian to his cultured elegance. And though we were both hotheaded, Quinn was able to cool that fiery nature behind his political grace. Though he has deepened in that ability over the past few hundred years since becoming a Vampire, his basic nature hasn’t really changed. Quinn will manipulate, he will hide critical information and wage his plots; but despite that, he is still a good man trying to do what’s right and noble. And curse me, I always did have a thing for nobles.”
“Do you dislike Quinn’s political nature?” Ariana asked, curious as she watched Lucca beneath the wisteria’s shifting shadows.
“I find his machinations ever-fascinating, actually.” Lucca spoke as he set his coffee down upon the picnic quilt, turning it at the base with his fingertips. “It was always one of Quinn’s strengths to be subtle that way, whereas I had more brash military might, and still do, leading armies and men. But he was always the brains behind any maneuver. I know I need his cunning to aid my agenda, and yours. But I don’t have to like it exactly.”
The way he said it suddenly made Ariana pause. Lowering her coffee cup, she set it carefully down. “He hid things from you, way back when. That’s part of why you’re so angry at him. He machinated behind your back and lied to you about it to try and keep you safe.”
“He did.” Lucca spoke quietly, his gaze deeply sad now. “Quinn and I were raised together. We fought together. We fucked together, with or without women. We were lovers and comrades and friends… until we fucked it all up, trying to become Dark Fae and get more power to fight our fathers’ war. We ruined what we had because of ambition. Specifically because ofQuinn’sambition, as he was the driving force behind that entire idea. And once he became a Vampire, we could never get our love back. Not to mention that I was supposed to be his Darkwatch protector – and when Quinn withholds critical information, no one can protect him.”
“That’s why you’re so wary of Quinn’s plotting, regardless of what he’s plotting about. Because he hides information that could get someone hurt.” Ariana understood as she watched Lucca.
“Ariana. The problem with Quinn is that he doesn’t know when tostopplotting.” Lucca spoke intensely now, his blue gaze simmering with darkness as he stared Ariana down. “Since he became a Vampire, he got embroiled in a world where everyone plots and manipulates behind closed doors as much as he does, and quite a lot more. Fae can be vicious with our wagging, rumor-mongering tongues, and when we are aroused to fight, but Vampires never stop fighting. Quinn learned those ways at the hands of his old Master Emiliana DiClario. He was her golden boy, her perfect and perfectly ruthless protégé. Though we were in love once, all of that changed when I saw what Vampire society pushed him to, how it pushed him to be. And Quinn never pushed back.”
“But he did. He killed his Sire and took over her Dark Haven, making it a far better place these past two hundred years.” Ariana spoke out against Lucca’s cynicism now as a strangely protective feeling opened inside her for Quinn. The memory she had seen last night cascaded through her again; watching Quinn become frozen in agony after she saw even a glimpse of what he’d endured under Emiliana DiClario.
Feeling it, Ariana suddenly knew there were thousands of memories like that, which Quinn kept locked away. As her magic suddenly swirled around her with a swift forcefulness, Lucca blinked. Cocking his head, he set his coffee aside.
“Ariana. You’re feeling fiercely protective of Quinn right now. Why?”
“Because I don’t think you or anyone else really knows how he was treated these past few hundred years.” Ariana spoke with an edge to her voice now as she lifted an eyebrow at Lucca. “He won’t share much of it with me, but I think Quinn was badly abused by his old Master, and carries those wounds silently because he doesn’t want to hurt anyone else by opening up. He’s kept the things he experienced at Emiliana’s hands a deep secret even from his own Dark Haven; and he’s never seen a counselor, so I’m pretty damn sure he hasn’t told you over the centuries. I think you have a prejudice against Vampires and you’ve been looking at that prejudice for six hundred years since you and Quinn were split apart – rather than at him.”
As Ariana stared into Lucca’s bright blue eyes and saw stubbornness there instead of compassion, her magics gave a furious swirl in the shade. Lucca had cocked his head with a doubtful and patronizing look upon his face now – as if telling Ariana that she didn’t know what she was talking about, even though he didn’t say it in so many words.
But as a furious surge of heat and light hurtled up inside her in the midsummer morning, she knew she was right. Inhaling, her energy suddenly became a maelstrom; with a growl, power rose up inside Ariana as her magics blossomed from her in a furious wave. Leaning over upon the quilt, Ariana lifted her hand, slapping her palm to Lucca’s chest. In a torrent of thought and emotion, Quinn’s memory from last night was just suddenly pouring through her as it rushed into Lucca.
Making him gasp as he clutched her hand to his heart.
As Quinn’s memory seethed from Ariana into Lucca, is was far more than she consciously recalled from last night. She saw new details as she watched it all again; the vision of blood and lust and death terrible as it poured through her in an inescapable wave.
But it was more today, as that memory hurtled into Lucca. As if a bond the Master Vampire and the Summer Fae Prince already shared enhanced the memory, it was Quinn’s emotions Ariana suddenly experienced as she sent the memory into Lucca.
As her power heaved through Lucca in a maelstrom now, Ariana felt terror, stillness, and a heart-wrenching fear. She felt how Quinn held himself so still and emotionless in a place of marble perfection because to show Emiliana even the slightest flicker of an eyelash at her grisly scene between the lovers would make her send him to select two more and do it all over again.
And they had to be friends; they had to be people Quinn cared about, because she was punishing him. He had been disobedient and this fuck-and-bite-to-death scenario she had created, pushing it to orgiastically deadly heights by her magic and making him watch, was not because she wanted those Vampires dead. It was because she was proving a point to Quinn; that anyone he cared about, anyone he loved besides her, was a pawn in her game of ownership. And if he disobeyed her or showed even the slightest hint of not agreeing with her games, it was death.
Not death for him – but for anyone and everyone he cared about.
Tears welled in Lucca’s eyes as he gasped, blinking up at the arbor and the trees. Embroiled in the memory, Ariana had missed Alleno arriving with his sword half-drawn and steel in his emerald eyes, when Lucca used one hand to wave his cousin and Darkwatch protector off.
Still clutching Ariana’s hand to his heart, Lucca’s power flowed all around them now, bright with love and dark with pain beneath the wisteria vines. Ariana’s heart cried out with him as his eyelashes fluttered and a sob left his very soul to see what Quinn had gone through, and feel it. When Quinn’s memory at last flowed away, spent, Lucca’s beautiful summer blue eyes opened.
On fire with bright-dark agony as he stared at Ariana.
“My god! Quinn! Why did he never tell me?” Lucca breathed raggedly, his heart thundering beneath Ariana’s hand.
“Because he didn’t tell anyone, Lucca.” Ariana responded as she eased her pressure upon Lucca’s chest, though he didn’t let her get away, his hand cradling hers. “Because he didn’t want anyone to think he was weak and put his Dark Haven at risk; but more than that, it’s because he didn’t want to harm anyone with the violence of his memories. She was a monster, Lucca. Emiliana DiClario was a monster to all… and to none more violently than hergolden boy. He just endured it and didn’t tell anyone.”
“Until it was time to kill her.” Lucca suddenly realized as Ariana watched comprehension dawn in him. Letting out a soft, terrible breath, Lucca blinked at Ariana. “My god. I’ve been such a fool.”
“You just didn’t know what he didn’t want you to know.” Ariana spoke quietly now as she retrieved her hand and Lucca finally let her go. “He didn’t even want me to know. My magic sort of… pressed the issue last night. Which was when I saw the memory, though Quinn quickly shut down our connection so I didn’t see more.”
“Ah, Quinn…” Lucca fell into silence now as he sat beside Ariana on the quilt. As she looked up at him, she saw him blink a number of times, a tear shedding down his cheek as he stared off in the direction of the Red Letter Hotel Florence.
