Page 59 of Light Fae's Love
“Condolences.” I snort as something utterly dark churns inside me. “You’d think my father would have more care for his only legitimate son. I suppose I should know better, after everything we’ve been through.”
“You remind him too much of Lauria,” Alleno says as he watches me. “Your mother was everything good that you are also, which Archivolio hates. I never knew what she saw in him, or why they married.”
“Strong bloodlines,” I say, having heard it from both my mother and father separately, before he killed her. “Both their families had strong Royal magic, and they wanted a son who could combine those magics and rule. My father realized, though, that I was not controllable the way he wanted me to be; that I would not betray Quinn or his father, the old King, and put myself in that high seat. I would not be a puppet for Archivolio, so he took the throne instead. It was a moot point then, however, since Quinn’s father was already dead in the war and Quinn was Sired to the Vampires.”
“And here you are, bound yet again to Valerio and all his schemes and problems,” Alleno says with a snort, though something in his green eyes sparkles. Though he gives me hell about Quinn, Alleno has always liked him, despite everything. My cousin has always been comfortable among Quinn’s Vampires, though he’s alert around them.
I eye Alleno now, knowing he’s been holding out on me.
“Tell me, when did you and Devina Scarlotti become a thing?” I ask him now, since I didn’t miss that detail during the phone call earlier.
“Since ages ago.” It’s Devi’s brisk alto that answers, however, as she pushes in through Quinn’s ebony doors and enters his apartment. Dressed in one of her tight little black dresses with lipstick-red stiletto heels, perfectly coiffed, she doesn’t look like she’s been marshaling an army for days as she waves a dismissive hand. “You’re just too self-involved with your entire situation to notice, Fae Prince.”
“Devi and I have… been acquainted a while, Lucca. We just kept it exceptionally quiet. And we’re not, by any means, exclusive.” Though Alleno gives it to me straight, two spots of color bloom on his cheeks like he’s been caught with his pants down.
“It comes in handy when either of us needs to pass information along about the other’s domain, or learn information,” Devi says as she arrives at the foot of the staircase and Alleno and I come down from the loft. “Right now, we all need to figure out what the hell is happening in Rome, and if Ariana and Quinn are likely to survive it.”
Just then, the Lady Eiseth Pendragon pushes into Quinn’s suite, closing the tall doors behind her. Dressed in a grey silk Arthurian gown with a long skirt and draping sleeves, she wears her silver breastplate and gauntlets, her boots tall and functional for fighting. Her silver-white hair is braided half back in an ancient British warrior fashion. An aura of mist like the lost Autumn Fae isles of Britannia seethes all around her. Her pearl-grey eyes are dire as she arrives, pinning us.
Then they dig into me, as if reading my very soul with her power.
“Summer Fae Prince Lucca Bellari. You are needed in Rome. Be damned what the Vampire Council says.”
Lady Eiseth doesn’t mince words as she confirms what I already know, what I’ve felt happening with Quinn and Ariana these past twenty-four hours. I should have gone to Rome with them in the first place, but I let the threat from their Vampire Council sway me.
Not anymore.
“I’m going to Rome as soon as I can get there. I need information from you, though, milady, on what I might encounter when I arrive,” I say now, readiness firming in my heart to save Ariana and Quinn from what is shaping up to be certain death if they face it alone.
“You’re not going by yourself.” She lifts an eyebrow at me as the strangest smile curls her lips. “I’m going with you. Because you and your liege-man will never be able to help in time, if I don’t.”
“You don’t need to—” I begin, but she cuts me off.
“I know Rome,” she says, as her mist-grey eyes sear me to my bones. “I know the best ways into the inner citadel now that it’s under Vampire rule, and you don’t. I have the right papers to get us past the outer guards and into a place where we can access the city’s underways, and get to the Council hall where Quinn and Ariana are likely to face their doom once the Council truly test them. The city has changed since your people lost it to ours six hundred years ago, bright Fae. I will be your roadmap and your guide, and you will bring all the magic you have to save our friends. Are we agreed?”
“We are.” I nod now. Everything she said fills my heart with a sudden hope, though I’m still wary of fully making her my ally, not knowing her motives. “Why help us, though, and put yourself so much at risk?”
“Because…” Something comes into her eyes now as she pins me with her gaze, then takes a brief look around our comrades. “It is time to tell him, I think.”
“Be my guest,” Alleno says, languid as he gives a welcoming gesture, as if he’s had a long association with the Vampiress that I know nothing about. “Lucca likes to dig into things. He’ll find out about it someday. Better now, then to be going into the Vampire’s den unprepared.”
“What do you know that I don’t?” I glare at Alleno now, wondering what the fuck he’s talking about.
“I know about Dark Fae, Lucca,” Alleno says as his emerald eyes stare me down, “because I am one.”
Everything I’ve ever known drops out from underneath me as Alleno makes his sudden admission. My world spins too fast, as I’m suddenly fighting for breath like my cousin sucker-punched me.
“What?!”
“We’re all Dark Fae, like Ariana.” Alleno lifts his chin as he nods to those standing with us. “Me, Devi, Eiseth, and Curio, even though he’s busy elsewhere. You. And Quinn.”
“Excuse me?” My mouth is hanging open and I can’t shut it, as something horribly dark whirls through my aura. “This isn’t the time to fuck with me, Alleno. That isn’t funny.”
“It’s not a joke.” He is restrained as he steps towards me now. His green eyes are cautious, like I’m an untrained horse who might bite or kick him. “You’re a Dark Fae, Lucca. I am, too. It’s why I was assigned to be your Darkwatch protector way back when. Because the Darkwatch’s former Tempest Adicus Briarwick knew you and Quinn were looking for the Dark Fae to try to become one. He thought it was possible you’d succeed, so he assigned me to protect you. That we were already cousins and knew each other as family was a bonus.”
“You’re a Dark Fae.” My mind is broken as I stare at Alleno, shocked, then gaze around the group. “Everyone here is a Dark Fae. How is that possible? Two of you are definitely Vampires… and Alleno is Summer Fae, through and through.”
“Listen closely, and listen well, Fae Prince, for we have little time to discuss this before we need to move into action tonight.” Lady Eiseth cuts in now as I feel her pearl-grey mist ease around me, her smooth grey eyes mesmerizing me lightly so I’ll understand. “The Dark Fae are far more prominent in our modern era than anyone would ever believe—but we keep ourselves hidden in plain sight because of your father’s pogroms against us. And how he nearly destroyed every one of our beloved citadels, along with most of our kin.”