And then she was lunging at the blood-cart with a snarl – as Lucca seized her fast, holding her back in the night.
CHAPTER 17 – BITE
Lucca caught Ariana hard around the waist as she lurched towards the blood-cart with her senses on fire, her vision searing red and her mind gone. As a terrible need gripped her, every nerve aflame like she’d been cast in a bonfire, all she could think about was getting to the blood. Her power roared in the night; as she struggled to get free of Lucca, her magic hammered him and he grunted like he’d been punched. But the Summer Fae Prince was strong, and corralling his arms solidly around her, Lucca crushed her close.
As Alleno rushed out from the shadows of the bridge.
“Hold on, Ariana, hold on!” Lucca growled low by Ariana’s ear as Alleno skidded to a stop beside them. As Alleno helped Lucca slam up some kind of magical barrier with their rainbow-light powers, the two sealed her off from the outside world. It cut off the scent of raw blood in Ariana’s nostrils – but suddenly, the blood running through both Alleno and Lucca’s veins smelled all too good. Ariana struggled now to reach up, her open lips straining towards Lucca’s neck as a cry of need and frustration left her. When she couldn’t get to him, she struggled harder.
Snapping at Alleno like a beast and trying to take a chunk out of him.
“Her Vampire’s bloodlust is on rampage, Lucca. I don’t know if we can contain it!” Alleno growled inside their sealed-off magical space as he seized her chin, trying to look in her eyes. But Ariana yanked her head and tried to bite him again as a dark animal power blazed deep inside her. It was as if her and Quinn’s powers were both careening through her now as she swirled with a terrible dark fire, her magics roaring inside the dome. Seething with dangerous oilslick darkness inside Lucca and Alleno’s far brighter power, Ariana slammed a concussion out as she tried to get away from her captors.
Trying to break through Lucca and Alleno’s barrier so she could escape and go wild.
But she didn’t know how to fight two strong Royal Fae with her abilities yet; though her blast strained it, Lucca and Alleno’s magical dome held. Her struggling was strong enough, however, that both of them were having to restrain her bodily in addition to magically – the Life of the Night flowed through her veins harder now that the sun had gone down.
Fangs pierced down from her upper teeth; as Alleno tried to push her lip up to get a look at them, she whipped her head like a snake, scoring his hand. He cussed, withdrawing his hand and shaking it.
But Ariana had gotten a taste of blood now.
And it made her power roar like a demon, hammering through the night like a bomb.
A massive blast from Ariana’s raging Vampire power burst Lucca and Alleno’s protection around her, exploding across the bridge and far out into the night. Vampires and Fae strolling in the darkness heaved back in alarm, the bridge suddenly empty of anyone but their trio as Ariana’s wrathful bloodlust blazed.
As Lucca and Alleno struggled to contain her, trying to wrap their magics around her yet again and seal her off from all the blood-scents issuing from Vampire establishments along the river, Ariana felt someone burst from a restaurant and run towards them. As if the river had come alive suddenly, water was sluicing up in a tidal wave all around them. Surging up over the ancient stone bridge, a maelstrom of water cut them off from the nighttime city as someone dressed in an expensive navy suit raced into their midst.
The Master Vampire-Siren Arturos Morregain sealing them all inside his cocoon of water – and shutting out the night.
“She needs blood! Offer up a vein, Fae lords, and do it fast… because she’s not going to last five minutes before she rips someone’s throat out!” Arturos snarled with a wrathful fury as he arrived. Moving his hands fast, he made coils of river-water surge in from his watery barrier, seizing Ariana by the wrists, neck, and torso, holding her fast.
As Lucca finally had a moment’s respite, he panted hard, his entire body trembling. Shocked into clarity as she stood secured in Arturos’ watery coils, Ariana hadn’t known she’d been fighting Lucca that hard – or bitten Alleno so deeply as he cussed again, wrapping a handkerchief around his profusely bleeding hand.
It left her terrified now that she had raged so suddenly at just a single whiff of blood. But even though Arturos’ quick move had cut Ariana off from scents in the city, Alleno’s blood was fresh; as that red Vampiric rage roared through Ariana again, she struggled anew inside Arturos’ bonds, losing her mind to that mad grip of bloodlust once more.
In her insane, frenzied state, she knew she was a danger to anyone who tried to feed her right now. Whoever offered up a vein might just get that vein torn out.
And a whole lot of flesh with it.
“Fucking hells. I’ll do it, I’ll feed her.” Lucca snarled now as she felt him roll up a sleeve. “Hold her still Alleno, Vampire.”
“Do it fast, Summer Fae. Or she’s going to eat one of us, and it probably won’t be me.” Arturos growled back as his watery bonds tightened around Ariana, holding her as motionless as possible while Alleno used his shimmering silver-green magic to restrain her further. Even so, Ariana was fighting them; not just with physical struggles but metaphysical ones. As her power slammed against Arturos and Alleno’s bonds, she felt how even Arturos’ massive Vampire-Siren strength was barely enough to hold her now.
A very bad thing, if she managed to get free.
“He’s not just any Summer Fae, but the Summer FaePrinceto you, Vampire.” Alleno snarled at Arturos now as Lucca removed the men’s cuff at his wrist, handing it to his cousin.
“I don’t give a rat’s ass who he is.” Arturos shot back, as Ariana saw his dark blue eyes swirl like a hurricane in the night. “Ariana has a connection to him, and short of draining her Master right now to gain his control over her bloodlust, who is not even close to getting here on time, we work with what we have. Blood will soothe her, especially from someone she shares a bond with. Until the lust rises again.”
Something about Arturos’ words made Ariana blink, the barely-sane part of her wondering how he knew that she and Lucca shared a connection, and why he wasn’t offering up his own wrist for her to drink.
But then the power of the Night roared up again and Ariana’s vision washed red as her saner mind vanished. Every sense heightened, she could see through Arturos’ watery barrier like a predator now; everything she focused on was crystal-clear in the darkness, and close like the vision of a raptor. Keening again, she fought the smell of Alleno’s blood still coming to her and lost, snarling and thrashing in Arturos’ bonds.
But then Lucca wrapped around her from behind – embracing her like a lover as he offered his wrist up to her lips.
“Drink, Ariana. Bite me and drink.” He spoke softly by her ear as he held his wrist close to her mouth. “Don’t think about it, just do it. We’ll deal with the fallout later.”
Ariana needed no second urging. As her power roared up again, she struck hard with her fangs – deep into Lucca’s wrist. With a grunt, he shuddered, and she knew she had done him damage. But the Summer Fae Prince was no weakling as Ariana ground her teeth into him, opening the wounds and making his blood truly flow. He did not pull away as she began to drink, gulping the hot spill of his blood into her mouth and down her throat like a mad thing. Time ceased to exist as she drank Lucca’s blood.
