Page 12 of Light Fae's Love
“Here, where?” I ask, even as delight fills me to realize this waterfall-surrounded glade is our destination. I inhale the smell of hot summer grass and ozone from the falls. Every scent is super-saturated, every color vivid. Jewel-toned dragonflies flit by in colors not found in the human world, the place I was raised.
The air here in the waterfall glade is cooler than the rest of the countryside; I inhale with pleasure as I dismount, feeling energy invigorate me as I revel in the burbling roar of the thirty-foot falls all around. Lucca turns our beasts free, unbridling them so they can graze and wander. But not before taking the embroidered silk saddlebags from their backs.
He whips out an enormous blue silk blanket, settling it in the tall grass.
“A picnic?” I smile, loving Lucca’s impromptu outings in nature.
“To start.” He lifts a sexy eyebrow as he grins like a ruffian.
Then opens a hand, inviting me to the blanket to dine.
5
SECRETS
No one does enigmatic like a Master Vampire—and the Barone Quindici DaPonti’s mind-missive is certainly that, as he calls Ariana and me back to the Red Letter Hotel Florence.
Promptly.
Ariana, Lucca. Get back to the Hotel. We need to talk.
Ariana and I had been eating a glorious picnic in our waterfall field, chit-chatting about our day and the ramifications it has for the Summer Fae society. I curse internally now as I hear Quinn’s curt mind-sending. I was having a very enjoyable afternoon and was hoping we’d get to quite a lot more, as the afternoon stretches long beneath the white oak trees and flowering ash.
But that’s all trashed now.
“Did you just get what I did?” I darken as I regroup from Quinn’s summons, and Ariana returns my tight frown. I give a wry chuckle, tense now from that damnable Master Vampire and his mysterious ways, when I had just been so relaxed.
“Quinn just summoned us back to the Red Letter Hotel Florence. Pronto,” she says. I feel through our bond now how much Ariana also hates that our day has come to such an abrupt end. Quinn is the third of our bound trio, however, and the mastermind of all our plans to better our world and the creatures who live in it.
Plans that are very much in motion and need constant attention right now.
“Should I live a thousand years, I’ll never get used to Quindici DaPonti summoning me like a peon.” I feel my aura darken, irritation lancing through me. I drain my glass of white wine and set it aside on the picnic blanket.
“You’ve already lived six hundred years enduring Quinn’s attitude. What’s four hundred more?” Ariana says, trying to recapture our blithe afternoon with a smile. Once friends, comrades, even lovers, Quinn and I have been at-odds for centuries until Ariana’s Dark Fae magic drew us back together. Bonded now by ancient Fae magics, we might almost become a true trio if we play our cards right.
And don’t step all over each other’s big egos.
“Yes, but you recall, I didn’t have to deal with Quinn’s attitude for the vast majority of those six hundred years,” I say with a sardonic chuckle. “Still, I can’t say being bonded to him hasn’t been useful. This is the glade where I made that Vampire Bloodsign that almost killed me last week, but saved us when we were fighting those Revenants. Look over there.”
I nod towards one cascading waterfall where a dark sigil stands out, thirty paces from us in the grass. Large and hastily scrawled, the complex Vampire blood-rune I made that night is black, burned into the glade where it’s killed all life. Though my blood has absorbed into the greenery now, spilled Summer Fae blood always causing tremendous growth in nature, the rune stands out in the bright summer day.
A reminder of the wildly powerful—and dangerous—magic we unleashed that night.
“I still can’t believe you wielded Vampire magic from your old bond to Quinn,” Ariana says. I feel how impressed she is at what I did to save all our asses. The Vampire community learned you don’t mess with our trio that night.
Quinn’s enemies quiet ever since.
“I still can’t believe it didn’t kill me.” I chuckle with dire wit now as I rub my left forearm, the arm I slashed open with my blazing longsword to work the magic that saved us. Though it’s healed, a long, ugly scar still shows below my rolled shirtsleeve in the hot summer afternoon. “I am quite respectful of what Vampire magic can do now—I don’t think I’ll be trying anything like that again soon.”
I shake my head; since Ariana arrived in the Twilight Realm a few months ago, I’ve learned that the interplay of Fae, Dark Fae, and Vampire magic is far more complex than I was ever taught. The lines between them are deeply blurry, thanks to our common ancestry from fallen Ascendants.
I feel both Quinn’s and Ariana’s presences inside me at all times now, via our bond. They’re not dissimilar, though we are all a spectrum of Night and Light with Quinn at one end, Ariana in the middle, and my power the furthest towards the Light.
Dark like midnight suns scorching through my veins, Quinn’s power is a sensual, delicious counterpoint to my rainbow-prism glory. Ariana’s power surges now as I note our connection—her beautiful, bright-dark rainbow aura swirling around me in the hot summer day.
“I’m glad you’ve recovered; in record time, too,” Ariana says, smiling as she scoots closer on the blanket. “And that we’re getting to spend some time together. Even though it still has to be political, pretending we’re talking up your father’s agenda when we’re really bolstering yours.”
“Until Quinn summons us for some insane plan of his yet again.” I feel thoughtful now rather than angry, though. “Sometimes Quinn is a secretive ass, Ariana, but sometimes he’s right about things. The fact is, my endeavors among my people have been successful this past week not just because of your Dark Fae presence and how your truth-uncovering ability sways folk, but also because of Quinn’s deeply convincing magic running through me now since our new bond. I’ve been eloquent in a way I never was before; for the first time, my Summer Fae are questioning my father’s rule from the things you and I have said with Quinn’s and your magic pouring through my veins. And that is a good thing.”