Power exploded from him; strength like cannons booming on a battlefield as the German Master’s magic blasted through everyone there. Ariana dug deep into Quinn and Lucca’s bond, feeling all that power and sex push her hard. And as the tall, white-haired Winter Fae Master bit the statue next with almost calculating coldness and a dark fury, Ariana shuddered with hate and rage, viciousness and ecstatic chill.
The man roaring like a demon as everyone quailed from his magic.
Proceeding through the semi-circle, the Masters of the Stone continued until only Arturos remained. As nine different flavors of Vampire magic careened through Ariana now in an endless loop, making her shudder with heat and chill, she felt a slow wash of Arturos’ ocean-dark energy ease to the Stone as he approached it. Standing quietly behind it, he inhaled a long breath. Closing his eyes, he reached up, easing one hand around the statue’s throat as he slid the other around its waist.
As Arturos quietly embraced the effigy, nuzzling its neck with his lips, he opened his eyes – pinning Ariana with his drowning blue gaze. She could suddenly feel his lips glide over her own neck as he watched her like she was the only woman in the hall. Biting with a beautiful gentleness into the statue’s neck, his fangs slid in, so easy and pure like it was actually flesh.
And Ariana inhaled, feeling his bite sink deep into her own neck as he mesmerized her.
As he drank, decadent, he watched her; and she shuddered with darkwater eros as she felt him drink her blood. Arturos’ power washed serenely through her as he drank from the effigy like a lover, his soothing tides pulling Ariana under now as if that was exactly where he wanted her to be. But even as she gasped from his unending flow, he released the statue – flooding his vast, beautiful quietude through the entire hall now rather than just into her.
As Ariana sank to it, wondering if he’d done it on purpose to prevent whatever was coming, other Masters moved toward the statue. Suddenly, her pulse hammered, wondering if an attack was imminent. But as Arturos stepped down the dais, removing a navy silk pocket square to wipe a last bit of blood from his lips, Ariana saw he and Quinn were calm.
As if everything were going entirely to plan.
As Quinn beckoned the next wave of petitioners up, Ariana understood these were new Masters trying their fangs at draining the Bloodstone tonight. But out of more than a hundred Masters in the hall, there were only three new challengers. Some looked determined as they surrounded the marble goddess, leaking blood from ten different bite-marks, while others looked wary.
The first Master, a tall ebony-skinned man in a cream British three-piece suit, was successful, roaring his might to the hall. The second Master, a fierce Chinese woman in colorful silks with sharp chopsticks decorating her ornate hair, attacked the statue like a demon, screaming as she drank. The last new Master, a robust Greek with dark ringlets in an all-black tux, wrangled the statue around the neck with one beefy hand. Growling at it like an adversary, he struck hard into the side of the statue’s neck from behind.
And Ariana heard a terriblecrack.
As the Greek Master roared and recoiled with both hands clapped to his mouth, the entire hall cringed. The big man had broken both fangs clean off trying to bite the statue; his blood gushed down his chin from between his fingers. As a terrible hush doused the Master’s frenzy and even Arturos’ deep calm, Ariana stood shocked. At Quinn’s beckon, two servers rushed in to escort the big man away. But with a roar, he shoved them off.
Shouldering his way out of the gala.
A dark energy moved through the hall now, as the Masters faced the Bloodstone’s very real danger. Ariana understood now why only the strongest even dared try draining power from it; but before the evening could sour, Quinn mounted the marble dais.
As he faced off last with the marble statue, Ariana felt his fellow-well-met energy flood the hall. Far stronger than she had ever felt Quinn’s magic before, she watched his beautiful onyx-black aura of living smoke and fire pour through the Masters. Curling around everyone, it soothed them to silence; a deep hush fell now as Quinn showed his true power for the very first time to both his allies and adversaries.
Ariana stood amazed as his swirling nimbus seethed with red-gold fire, completely unrestrained as Quinn stared into the statue’s eyes. As if mesmerizing a real opponent, his dark onyx eyes flared with gold as he began to move his hands in dancelike patterns, swirling his black aura higher around the statue. Those were Summer Fae sigils, Ariana realized; as Quinn made them blaze with a dark-bright flame, tremendous wings of matching black firelight suddenly sprouted from his back. As they surged through the entire hall, Masters pulled back.
Staring at Quinn as if watching a demon come alive.
But Ariana also saw how deeply impressed they were as he enveloped the statue with his tremendous power and those flaming wraith-wings. His aura howled with red-gold fire as he slowly went down on one knee, touching the statue’s outstretched hand.
Descending with a slow, dancelike grace, the goddess’ marble wrist came down to Quinn as everyone gasped. As Quinn moved his lips gently over the statue’s wrist, Ariana actually felt the Bloodstone shudder like a living, breathing person. Opening his lips, Quinn breathed over its wrist; deep inside, Ariana felt his breath. It was like he was inside her very soul with his fire-dark magic and decadent sensuality as his lips smoothed over her skin. And as he bit slowly down into the statue’s wrist now, she felt his fangs slide deep into her own wrist.
As if he’d taken Ariana with his bite – instead of cold, dead marble.
It was her he drank as she shuddered, lost in the night. It was Ariana he devoured as she blazed from the depth of his draining, his dark-light fire possessing her deep inside.
As Quinn swallowed the statue’s energy, it created a massive resonance inside her, surging with music. It wasthe Music, as his power suddenly flared from the Bloodstone and Ariana cried out. Her eyes flew wide – fixing not upon Quinn now, but at something just beyond him. As she gasped, desperately fighting to not let the Music spill out over the entire hall, Ariana saw a whirl of ultra-darkness behind the statue.
That darkness seized the statue’s shoulders with a malevolent glee, pouring its essence deep into the Bloodstone by a thousand tentacles of Night. Ariana saw its eyes blaze gold as that terrible energy hurtled into Quinn, still drinking from the statue’s wrist. And as all of that massive, awful magic was thrust deep inside Ariana’s own body now via their bond, it blasted her wide open. She screamed as magic exploded through her. It was hers and Quinn’s and Lucca’s all at once, bound into a bright-dark trio that blazed like a falling star as the Revenant Gold Eyes triggered it.
Blasting it out into the entire hall.
Black rainbows devoured the gala, careening with silver and gold as Quinn broke from the Bloodstone with a scream. That immense, world-exploding energy made Lucca cry out, slamming him to his knees someplace far away as massive wings of light exploded from his spine. Quinn’s wings of darkness roared to the furthest corners of the hall and Ariana’s own power exploded with them as she screamed with ecstasy, her magic blasting Masters back all around her. Power sang through her with the full resonance of the Music as Quinn and Lucca’s energy smote her like a firestorm falling from the sky.
Even though Lucca wasn’t completely bound into their trio, the angelically beautiful, terrible Music roared through the hall now. It was inside Ariana and all around as she cried out, uplifted and decimated by that sound. She felt Quinn cry out hard against the statue’s wrist, shuddering like a madman as he bit into its marble flesh again, drinking as much as he could possibly stand. As he consumed the statue’s blood, Ariana felt that amazing bright-dark Music seethe through her veins, ringing every basin and spout. Marble was suddenly exploding in deafening retorts as all that tremendous resonance rang the columns and blood-fountains. Ducking, Masters shielded themselves with their magics as the Music vibrated in waves of energy that Ariana could actually see now.
Surging through the underground in floods of blazing light.
But she could not stop the magic Gold Eyes had triggered inside her; her Dark Fae power screamed with Lucca and Quinn’s energy as Quinn drank from the Bloodstone; that deafening, all-consuming Music raging all through Ariana’s bones like a symphony of heavenly hell. Breaking from the Bloodstone with a roar, Quinn rang the underground vaults hard with his triumph. As he did, Lucca screamed someplace far away, blazing all-white with the true might of his Royal Summer Fae magic.
As Ariana’s dark rainbows exploded in the night, her, Quinn, and Lucca’s wild energies twisted suddenly into a massive sigil of power. As the Music devoured them all, she could actually see that sigil manifest between realms in a searing bright-darkness like a black hole, as the Bloodstone rang with their might. Resonating with them in a massive wave of sound and bliss, the statue rang like a gong hammering the deepest bowels of the earth.
As the Bloodstone shattered, marble flung to the furthest reaches of the hall.
