“Don’t you?” Lifting a dark eyebrow, surprise flitted across Quinn’s features. “Back when we were together, you could eat six meals of sweet crepes when you were recovering from a wound, and still rail for more.”
“Times change.” Lucca spoke softly, though his gaze was still bright. “I’m not the same idiot Darkwatch warrior you fell in love with all those years ago. I’m a Prince now… or haven’t you heard?”
“You were never an idiot. And being a Prince suits you.” Quinn spoke peaceably as Ariana sat amazed that they were getting along so well this morning.
“This is nice. Sharing breakfast again.” Lucca spoke then, watching Quinn with something almost tender in his bright blue eyes.
“It is.” Quinn spoke softly back, sinking into Lucca’s gaze before inhaling a deep breath and looking to Ariana. “We have Ariana to thank for bringing us back together again. If not for her magic, the truths that split us apart for ages might never have come to light.”
“Only because you’re too damn stubborn to share secrets with people you trust.” Lucca smiled with a twinkle of the rascal in his eyes now as he sipped his coffee.
“I could say the same of you.” Quinn answered with an intense tone suddenly as he set his coffee down, his gaze sharpening upon Lucca. “For when did you ever learn to use Vampire magic, Lucca, like the sigil you scrawled in your own blood the night the Revenants attacked? You and I both know that was not a Faeanic sigil you used, but a Bloodsign. A very dark and dangerous magic you might never have recovered from – since generally only those who wield Night-magic can use them.”
As the two men stared at each other across the table, Ariana realized Quinn was talking about the sigil Lucca had written in the grass the night they had fought the Revenants. It had been powerful magic and had nearly killed him; though Ariana hadn’t considered until just now that it hadn’t been a Fae sigil he’d used, but a Vampire one.
As Lucca gazed at Quinn now, slowly setting down his coffee cup, something in him darkened. It wasn’t just a trick of the light that made his summer-blue eyes deepen six shades as he watched Quinn, intense.
“You’re not the only one who changed after our little trip to become Dark Fae six hundred years ago, Quinn.” Lucca answered now. “Just like you, my power changed after that night, in a way I couldn’t describe but began to notice after a few years of dealing with it. It became darker, more powerful… and harder to control. And from an experiment late one night… I discovered I could use Vampire sigildry. Not much, and not often – but I could.”
“Our bond!” Blinking his long lashes, Quinn set his coffee cup down, staring incredulously at Lucca.
“Our bond.” Lucca nodded soberly back as a long moment stretched between them.
“Bond? What are you talking about?” Ariana frowned as she set her coffee aside. “Did you two have a bond together, like the ritual we performed three nights ago,priorto Quinn becoming a Vampire?”
“Ariana.” Lucca spoke quietly as his gaze flicked to her now. “Something that neither Quinn nor I have told you yet, is that long ago, back when we were both Fae, we made a pact. It was a very powerful blood-pact, honed by an ancient Fae spell that opened our powers to each other’s use and made us one in our magics – for better or for worse. At the time, that intense sharing-bond between our magics made us both tremendously powerful in the War. When we went seeking further power by becoming Dark Fae and Quinn got turned into a Vampire… well, the pact survived.”
Flicking his gaze back to Quinn, Lucca pinned him with his dark blue eyes. “I’ve been able to use Vampire powers ever since you were Sired, Quinn. And I assume you’ve been able to still use Summer Fae magic all these years. Not in a big way… but it’s an element to your magic other Vampires just don’t have.”
“You assume correctly.” Quinn blinked now as he stared at Lucca, amazed. “I have retained far more of my original Summer Fae fire in my magic than even some of the strongest Vampire Masters. I thought it was just an attribute of my Siring to Emiliana, who had once been Summer Fae also. But it was our pact! Surviving all these years…”
“And I used that power, the strength of our original bond renewed through our bond with Ariana, to wield that Bloodsign three nights ago.” Lucca nodded as he took up his fork and began to dive into his breakfast – crepes first, Ariana noted, despite his objection. As Lucca chewed, Quinn sat back in his chair, his gaze deep upon his former lover.
“So the Summer Fae Prince has a secret after all.” Quinn spoke at last, a smile touching his lips.
“I have a lot of secrets, Quinn. And maybe you’ll get to find out about them if you finally start trusting me.” Lucca spoke directly now as he made his true point. “Ariana’s power is pushing us to reunite. It’s pushing us to speak honestly and bare old wounds, and reconcile. I’m tired of fighting, and a large part of me does want to reconcile with you, especially with everything we’re planning for the Vampires and Summer Fae – not to mention that massive display of power we wielded three nights ago. But if you can’t be honest with me, I’ll find a way to break both magical pacts – the one we performed long ago, and the one we just did three days ago – and be finished. You know I will.”
“You are single-minded in your quarry, Lucca.” Quinn spoke quietly back. “I do know that. Quite well.”
As Quinn came to silence, Ariana felt their deep wound stretch between the two men. She could practically feel their energies reach out to each other, trying to heal this old rift and make them whole again. But secrets and lies were a problem between them. Real honesty was difficult for some people, and she saw that knowledge in both Quinn and Lucca as they stared at each other.
Longing, yet wary.
“I have given Ariana a promise.” Quinn spoke at last as he watched Lucca. “A promise I would like to extend to you also, Lucca, if you would accept it. The promise is that I try to be honest with her to the best of my ability, every moment of every day and night. I cannot say this is easy for me; so far, it has proven insurmountably hard, when my natural tendency is to hide information to protect people, or to not display weakness when lives depend upon my strength. But I would give you this promise also now, as I should have done long ago. To always be honest with you to the best of my ability, even if it brings up difficult conversations, even if you hate me for it. For I am easily able to be brutally honest with those I despise… but it comes hard with those I love. Would you accept this promise, Lucca? And would you try to do the same?”
Inhaling, Lucca sat back in his tall ebony chair. Gazing deeply at Quinn, something dark and bright shone from the Summer Prince’s eyes as he took in his old lover. Holding her power back from influencing him, Ariana waited as Lucca decided whether to try healing this old wound between them.
Or not.
“I accept your promise.” Lucca spoke at last as a small smile lifted his lips. “And I give you this promise in return, Quinn: that I will control my temper to the best of my ability, even if I want to rail and rage at you for being murderously decisive or hauntedly aloof. I will try to be honest with you also, for I have held my own secrets close all these years. But I love you, Quinn. Even when I hated you, I still loved you. You make me furious, you make me heat; you make me want to roar and lop your damnable head off with a blade, but always my heart aches when you come around. Call it what it is: I was smitten by my Summer Fae Prince long ago when he finally cast his eye upon me and saw more than just a friend. And I am smitten with you still – even though you carry a darker weight these days.”
As Ariana sat astonished with her lips fallen open now, Quinn slowly rose from his seat. His gaze pinned to Lucca, he rounded the table. Sinking to one knee beside Lucca’s chair, he reached out as if to set his hand on Lucca’s shoulder. But then Ariana felt Quinn’s passions heave as he changed his mind. Seizing Lucca tenderly behind the head, Quinn hauled him in.
Kissing him with a wild abandon that the Summer Fae Prince returned.
Ariana gasped as power suddenly locked home inside her chest – their bonding ritual complete. It was blazing and bright, dark and passionate all at once as rainbows of bright silver and luminous gold came flooding from her, blasting through Lucca and Quinn and it chimed full of beautifully angelic Music.
As it hit them, their hot kiss broke, gasping at each other’s lips as that fiery dark-bright pleasure smote them all. And as Ariana stared, they turned – staring at her scaldingly back. Lucca was too weak right now for them to careen into this passion at the moment, but it was in both their eyes as their twin hungers suddenly devoured her.
