As she crashed back into her human mind at last.
“Quinn!” Ariana gasped, terrified. “What’s happening to me?!”
“Lucca’s influence in your blood has worn off rather suddenly.” Quinn heaved as he pushed up shakily to standing, expending energy to hold her still. “Your bloodlust is raging like a demon, Ariana, in a way I’ve never seen. Except in—”
“Revenants.” Lady Eiseth spoke with a deep look at Ariana, like Ariana’s power was both curious and terrifying as it went wild. As her magic tried to heave again, Arturos crooned by her ear, oceanic harmonies flooding the room. She both felt and heard Arturos’ voice inside her veins as his sea poured through her. She was a ship on his vast ocean as he gradually eased her bloodlust with the help of Quinn’s determined fire and Eiseth’s wraithlike mist.
At last, Ariana became still where she knelt upon the bed, trapped in Arturos’ arms. As Quinn heaved a sigh of relief and finally approached, Lady Eiseth kept her distance, and Ariana felt Arturos nuzzle her ear in a strangely intimate gesture.
But as Quinn neared and his darkfire energy curled harder over her, Ariana shuddered, her power leaping to him like a furious lance and the animal inside her surging. She could practically taste Quinn’s own need for her blood and sex rush through her as her eyelashes fluttered. But as all three Masters wrangled her magical outburst once more, even she felt the danger that shocked through them all. She was a vastly powerful Dark Fae who couldn’t control her rioting bloodlust. Eiseth’s magic poured all around Ariana now as Arturos’ flowed deep within her. But like an endless fire of darkness, Quinn’s magic flowed beneath them all.
Powerful – but not powerful enough to control his rising Dark Fae.
“Careful, Quinn. Unless you want to raise her bloodlust again.” Arturos breathed, in a way that kept Ariana calm as the trio controlled her. Quinn stared at her from the edge of the bed now, agony in his beautiful dark eyes as he left off trying to touch her. As the Mistress of Britain watched Quinn intently now, he heaved a hard breath, his dark lashes blinking back unshed tears. “Eiseth. Please assess her.” Quinn spoke quietly as he stepped resolutely back, putting distance between himself and Ariana.
“Of course.” Sidling forward with a cautious maneuver, Lady Eiseth set a cool hand to Ariana’s wrist as Arturos held her. Eiseth’s ancient British Isles magic was like a balm of mist pouring through Ariana’s veins – before a sword-bright rush of energy thrust right through her. Efficient and strong, that thrust wasn’t painful; the Vampiress was merely figuring out what was going on with Ariana’s rioting power. And as Lady Eiseth lifted an intrigued eyebrow, releasing Ariana’s wrist, she glanced to Quinn.
“The Vampiric side of her power is cresting hard, Quinn, like nothing I’ve ever felt from a Dark Fae before, or even a young Vampire.” Lady Eiseth spoke now as her grey eyes glanced between Quinn and Ariana. “Is her Summer Fae family lineage Royal? What about her Vampire sire?”
“Her true Fae family were Royal, yes,” Quinn breathed now, though his eyes remained pinned to Ariana and she noticed he did not mention her real family’s name. “But the strength of the Vampire who turned her is unknown.”
“Ancient British Isles legends say that Royal Dark Fae break hard when they finally snap to a rising bloodlust, and need their own kind around them to tame it.” Lady Eiseth continued as she glanced back to Ariana, pensive. “In these situations, Dark Fae would do a ceremony to open a new one’s powers and let them flow through the entire community, dissipated by all. But you don’t have any other Dark Fae here, and not even I know of any still surviving in the world after the Summer King’s purges… so she needs something else.”
“She needs both the Night and the Light flowing through her veins to balance her. Being bound to my Vampire powers right now is pushing her Night too strongly.” Quinn spoke as his eyes sparked with a ring of crimson, his body marble-still. “But even drinking blood from the Summer Fae Prince tonight has not given her the lasting balance she needs. What do you suggest, Eiseth?”
“In Britain, we had a long association with the Dark Fae of the Isles, until King Archivolio Bellari’s forces came hunting them.” Lady Eiseth spoke seriously as her opal grey gaze pinned Quinn, though Ariana read shock in Eiseth now, having not known Ariana had bitten Lucca earlier. “Dark Fae cannot remain too long surrounded by either side of their power, Quinn, or they become unstable. You are a very strong Master Vampire, and Ariana is a vastly strong Royal Dark Fae… and thus my guess is that she needs a very strong Royal Summer Fae bound to her to gain balance over her opening magic.”
“Eiseth is right – Ariana is heinously strong, Quinn.” Arturos’ dark voice came from behind Ariana as he cradled her in his firm arms, still soothing her magic. His pressure had eased now that she was starting to stabilize – though he kept his arms around her as if not trusting it. “I know you had hoped to control her rising power on your own, but I think that time is passed. Even now, I feel her battering at my seas like a leviathan, trying to break through. She’s trying to break through to you… and to someone else. The Summer Fae Prince from the bridge who gave her his wrist earlier.”
“Lucca.” Quinn’s dark eyes fixed upon Ariana. “Your power has already chosen Lucca to balance it towards the Light, and no one else will do.”
“Quinn. There is an ancient ritual, one my Vampires have long held sacred in the Isles.” Lady Eiseth spoke again as she regarded Ariana. “Similar to a Master’s Kiss, it binds a powerful Dark Fae between two people who can match her opening powers in strength, and thus balance her between the Light and the Night. If a Dark Fae cannot live among her own kind, it is the best way to ensure she does not go insane from her opening abilities, and seriously harm those around her from her magic going too powerfully Light or Dark.”
“What might my magic do if it goes too Light or Dark?” Ariana gasped, needing answers.
“Imagine yourself like a prism.” Lady Eiseth spoke to her with dire warning now. “Then imagine someone pouring light into that prism and millions of rainbows flooding out. Except that Light is coming from inside you, and those rainbows burn everything around you to ashes, like a sun going supernova. Angelics are thus, when their wrathful power explodes. And powerful Dark Fae can do it, too. Your Vampire side is the reverse. If it truly becomes unleashed, it will rage in darkness and devouring until every drop of life is drained from the world and everyone around you. And they fall like stones to the barren earth.”
“Fuck me.” Ariana breathed in real terror now. “So how do we do this ritual?”
“You will do exactly as I will tell you.” Eiseth stared her down hard now before looking to Quinn. “But for those becoming bound to the Dark Fae, Quinn… it is a very deep sacrament. And balance in her powers canonlybe achieved by bonding two people she feels safe with. And whose powers rage as strongly as her own.”
“You know the details of this sacrament? Every step?” Quinn stared hard at Eiseth now.
“Burned into my bones,” she nodded, “from my old Master before he died. It could help her, if your Summer Fae Prince is strong enough. And if she trusts him enough.”
“I trust Lucca.” Ariana spoke now, though she had to swallow hard past an animal need to do it. “And Quinn. I trust them both.”
“Let us hope so.” Eiseth spoke back with a dire look. “Because if the ritual fails… all three of you will die. And there is no stopping it once it has begun.”
As Ariana inhaled, she saw Quinn go very dark. His nimbus of shadows swirled around him as he went to that impeccably still place, and Ariana felt him think deeply about their predicament. If Ariana’s rising Vampire passions could not be tamed, she understood suddenly though their mind-link that she would have to be locked in a heavily warded cell with immensely strong Masters like Arturos around day and night to corral her energy. Clearly, Quinn was not enough, and he didn’t dare draw on his Dark Haven to soothe her.
Lest his Vampires become infected by her powerful bloodlust and go on rampage.
It was an impossible situation, and at last Quinn roused himself. Standing tall, he closed his eyes as Ariana felt him mind-summon Curio and Devi. Nodding to Arturos and Lady Eiseth, he jutted his chin towards an alcove in Ariana’s rooms framed by royal blue drapes. “I have sent Curio to summon the Summer Fae Prince immediately, and for Devi to come help keep Ariana calm until Lucca arrives. This way, all of you. Better to do this now, even with the risk of death, than to risk a magical blowout of this magnitude. Come. And we shall see what we shall see.”
As Arturos nodded and Lady Eiseth’s gaze became steel, Quinn swept briskly towards the alcove, only pausing to whisk a quilted maroon men’s robe from Ariana’s closet that she hadn’t even known was in there. Arturos had liberated Ariana’s rose silk and cream lace robe from her bedpost and helped her into it now, though he made sure to not relinquish his touch from her skin. She was grateful to belt the silk close around her even though it was thin; the cascading robe went all the way to the floor, and Ariana felt less vulnerable with everything they were facing.
As Quinn moved into the alcove and everyone followed, he monitored the Hotel with his magics – and Ariana could suddenly feel power all around as the Masters there for the upcoming Meeting of the Havens sent their energy to Ariana’s suite like sharks. She understood in a wave of worry from Quinn that sexual metaphysics were deeply warded from spilling out in the Hotel, as they happened so often here – but a spike in bloodlust was not. The Hotel Guard and Quinn himself needed to know if any Vampire was going rampant within the Hotel’s halls.
