Page 76 of Light Fae's Love
Sunset. Where are you, Lucca? I hear Quinn say clearly in my mind now, his Night magic repaired today from all the sex, reveling, and donated blood. Quinn and I are alone in the house, all our allies elsewhere as our plans begin.
In the catacombs under the central citadel, almost in position. You were right, Quinn, there were no Vampire guards in the city center during the day, only wards and Rock Giants. We got past them easily with Eiseth’s abilities. Lucca’s response is nearly as clear, since he’s only a few miles away now in the center of Rome.
Eiseth and Alleno are with him; Eiseth was the one who broke the Council’s daytime wards in the city-center, getting them past the guards with her impressive mesmeric mind-abilities. Our allies and Lucca are deep beneath Rome now, in the same Ascendant catacombs Quinn, Arturos, and I caught that Revenant in a few nights ago. Arturos will be inside the Council hall, having begged his Sire, the Wanderer, to give him her seat tonight, which she agreed to.
Our plan is in motion, to give the Vampire Council our surprise once they summon us tonight.
It happens faster than I might have thought. One moment, Quinn and I are on the porch alone; the next, three Council representatives are swirling in through a dark portal of Vampire smoke, standing before us. I’d not seen how they arrived before; these three are not the three who Summoned us previously, however.
Those three having gone to dust when their Council sent us an actual message of their power.
Master Quindici DaPonti and his Kissed Dark Fae Ariana Summers, they say as one now in that terrible voice as they raise their arms and open their mouths. Are you ready to appear before the Vampire Council of Rome and demonstrate your Revenant-returning power?
“We are,” Quinn says as he nods. “Name the place, and we shall be there an hour after sunset, as agreed.”
The agreement is sound. The place… is the Old Council Chamber. Be there with your captured Revenant and your Dark Fae. None other may stand at your side as you demonstrate your power tonight. That is all.
With that, the three disappear in a whirl of dark Vampire smoke.
Quinn and I heave twin sighs—relieved but also vastly tense now that we know the location of our trial tonight.
Lucca. I feel Quinn mind-send to Lucca again. The site of our trial is confirmed. It is as we thought. Go there and wait for us. We shall be there an hour after sunset. Guard your Light as much as you can, so none can sense you until it is time.
I’ll be there, Quinn. Lucca sends back to us, ready. I love you both. Stay strong, no matter what they throw at you. We’ve got this.
With that, Lucca’s gone, all of us needing to save even our regenerated energy for the big show in an hour. I turn to Quinn and he brushes down the shoulders of his ornate, modern Victorian tux. It’s utterly black; black like the cosmos, as it seems to eat all light in the evening. Studded from top to bottom with onyx gems and black diamonds, it shimmers in a flame-like pattern.
The ancient pattern of House Incendari—the Summer Fae House of Righteous Fire.
I’m wearing modern Victorian couture tonight also, in a stark black-and-white pattern of onyx and diamonds that seems to move and shift like shimmering shadows beneath a high midsummer moon. It’s a design from my Summer Fae house, House Altvie, the House of Shadow Truth.
My gown is corseted with a bustle in the back plus a train; the long sleeves stop short from covering my hands where they end in jeweled hoops for my middle fingers. The neck is high, my red hair done up in a design of sheer elegance, set with slender knives of bone and ebony that are functional should I need them.
Quinn showed me how to etch my knives with runes of my design today; they wield Faeanic sigils for death, destruction, and woe now. I have my Faeanic spear also, in its short form, tucked up under my skirts and held in place on my thigh by a modern knife-sheath.
Quinn has one of his Vampire blades inside his jacket that will lengthen into a spear. Lucca has weapons on him also tonight, and wears a matching suit to Quinn’s, though his is made of a white fabric so angelic it almost beams with light. Not to mention the wealth of diamonds upon his suit, set in the growing vine pattern of House Bellari, the House of Blazing Heart. I only got to glimpse him before he, Alleno, and Eiseth left.
It was a beautiful ensemble, though, and made my heart soar for him.
“You have your weapons?” Quinn asks me now as he lifts an eyebrow and sets my hand on his arm. It was Quinn who got these garments made for us at the Hotel on such brief notice, plus the weapons.
I pat my thigh and the shortened spear hidden there. “All set. You have the box?”
“I never leave home without it.” Quinn’s smile is briefly humorous as he pats his jacket pocket, where the Florentine Box has been shrunk down to the size of a sugar cube and stashed inside a velvet ring case. The Fae amulet is around his neck, tucked behind the black silk cravat he has on, nestled inside the high collar of his shirt.
As he escorts me down the front steps of Arturos’ manor to his black Maserati in the driveway, I inhale a deep breath. Because tonight, we’re going to either do the impossible with what our trio’s attempting from a distance.
Or we’re going to be up shit creek and the Vampire Council is going to eat us alive.
Quinn steadies me, though, as I feel his heart beat and he holds my gaze. He lowers me by the hand, letting me slide into the passenger seat of the car in my tight Vampire couture. As he shuts the door, rounding to the driver’s side and firing it up, I feel ready for whatever we’ll face tonight.
To fight—come hell or high water—and hope we win.
Quinn is silent, listening for any complications with Lucca and his group as we drive. I’m silent too, running through the many outcomes for tonight. I can’t be ready for them all, though, and will probably have to fly by the seat of my pants with whatever’s coming.
Before I know it, Quinn’s flashing his Vampire ID at the central city’s guards and we’re being ushered into a parking garage again. This one, however, is in a place that is infamous in both the human world Rome and the Twilight Realm city.
The Colosseum.