17. Wander
17
WANDER
I understand the man standing before me at Arturos’ party is Quinn’s nemesis as he reaches out, taking up my hand. Since Quinn has made no move to interrupt it, I let this golden-handsome god of a Vampire kiss my hand. Still, he pins me with his sea-green eyes, as if expecting something else to happen as he touches me. I feel a distant thought from Quinn, though he’s mostly shut down our mind-connection now so this Master can’t discover it, that this man is used to everyone around him succumbing to his mighty seductiveness—even other Master Vampires.
His touch isn’t working, however, though I feel him put some power behind it now to mesmerize me. Still nothing. I stand like a rock before him, even though other Master’s powers, like Arturos’, have rolled me before. I see intrigue flash in Florian’s bright gaze.
Along with a terrible darkness—as if I present a challenge to him now.
A challenge he won’t give up until I succumb.
“Well, Quinn’s Dark Fae,” he says, pleasant now and straightening as he releases my hand with a little rub of his thumb, though it still does nothing for me. “My name is Florian Delano, Master of Monaco. The Council has heard so much about you, darling. Welcome to our little fête.”
“The party is lovely, Arturos. Thank you for inviting us.” I turn to our ally, Arturos, and give him my brightest smile. I see it affect him as he beams at me also, something the sober, eons-old Master of the Deeps hardly ever does.
It makes Florian pissed now that I’ve ignored him so completely, when he can sway so many with his power. He simmers before me.
As Quinn’s lips lift in the smallest, pleased smile.
“Wherever did you get your Blood Dragon?” Quinn asks Florian now. I feel him make a note to inform whichever Blood Dragon clan this poor girl was stolen from that she’s been abducted, and tell them where to find Florian’s Dark Haven and how to get in.
I feel his further thought: that Blood Dragons can’t be taken by Vampires when they amass in force for battle. If Quinn tells them one of their own has been stolen by a Vampire, they will bust the door down to reclaim her. Unless she’s an Outcast and clanless; which makes me concerned, realizing now that this poor girl would be Florian’s slave for centuries.
Forced to make blood for him and everyone he treats, forever, until she dies of magical exhaustion.
“Oh, this little thing?” He pets her long blonde hair, like a family dog. Twitching the thin golden chain, he makes her step back, having a prim seat on the stone bench beside him and crossing her ankles like a 1950s housewife as she folds her hands in her lap. “She’s from the USA. Texas, I believe. She has a beautiful drawl when you make her talk dirty to you. Sometimes I make her do it while sucking my cock. Which is exceedingly funny, don’t you think?”
I’m disgusted, and I feel rage roar through Quinn at Florian’s oh-so-casual abuse. It’s the same way Emiliana abused people in her Dark Haven, and anyone else she could seduce with her magic. I feel through Quinn how Emiliana and Florian were like terrible twinsies; one deadly dark and the other carnally bright. Florian’s brightness is still disgustingly dark, however, even though on the surface he looks golden and glorious, just like Lucca.
But his brightness is a farce—unlike Lucca’s true Light.
“Amusing. Indeed.” Quinn looks at Florian with a smile, nodding his head at the joke, though I scowl.
“Her pleasure is nothing compared to how you used to do it, Quinn.” Florian digs into Quinn now as he outs some past they share right in the middle of the party where everyone can hear. “I still remember the feel of those full, red lips latched around my cock. Diabolical. Your technique was ever splendid, Quinn, and your pleasure-inducing magics even better. But nothing can quite compare to a Courtier or Courtesan of the Hotel, can it? Except perhaps a Dark Fae, I’d bet.”
“No one in all the world is better than a Courtier or Courtesan of the Red Letter Hotel, Florian.” Quinn doesn’t take Florian’s bait, even though Florian’s just threatened to make me his bedroom slave if he can get his hands on me.
I feel a thought lance through Quinn then, though he quickly shuts it down.
Something about Florian and Emiliana—and sharing bedroom slaves.
“I suppose not.” Florian grins wickedly back at Quinn, and then I see all the terrible things he does to people in his eyes—which he will do to me if he can take me some deep black night.
Quinn won’t let that happen, though. Even as he raises his dark aura up around me now, flickering with his old Summer Fae fire as a warning to Florian, I feel Lucca’s power flow through our joined bond, bolstering it. It helps Quinn, though he’s still exhausted to his bones and I see him suppress a shudder. Reaching out, I take his hand right there in front of everyone. A steadying flow of power rolls from me into him, and he takes a deep breath, stronger.
Florian’s gaze drills into me, as if he just saw that deep flow of magic.
I raise my inner shields as high as I can get them, so he feels no more .
It’s clear, not just from the conversation and the fury I feel rolling through Quinn now, but the ribald joy I feel from the Master of Monaco, that Quinn was used terribly by this man at Emiliana DiClario’s behest, long ago. It makes everything inside me sear with dark fire as I grip Quinn’s hand, a steadying flow of my power rushing into him. I know then that I will give everything I have to keep him safe from Masters like Florian, as my power floods me. A shimmer of dark rainbows lifts in the midnight air, rising in the night.
As soft gasps ripple through the party.
“Beautiful.” Florian runs a hand through my power now, as I feel Arturos step to my back. The Master of Monaco does nothing else, however, as he plays a hand through my dark-bright waves of magic.
As if he’s mesmerized by them—before his bright gaze snaps back to me.
Before he can say anything else, however, a strange presence reaches us in the night. Like a shimmering wave of mist easing through the garden party, it’s deep green and silver, and all the colors of a midnight forest as it reaches us. Curling around our feet, whispering up into the hedges and trees as it floods the fountains, that power is nothing short of magnificent as it stops all talk in the garden.
If a crowd had been watching our talk with Florian, the entire party turns now to watch whomever approaches us from the garden. Like the deepest forest at midnight, that power begins to slowly bloom night-flowers in a riot all around. Flowers fill the fountains and cascade from their basins, coating the hedge maze with night-blooming jasmine and cereus as everyone turns. From the maze entrance steps a woman, coalesced from that shimmering, silver mist and moonlight.
As the party becomes so quiet, you could hear a pin drop.
She moves towards us. Her flowing garb is made of nothing but delicate vines with white-petaled night flowers as it cascades from her perfect figure, willowy and lovely. She’s even taller than Arturos as she comes to us, like a goddess of the silver moon, the forest, and the night .
A sound like a symphony of night-birds calls in the dark all around her. Vines slither over us, and I brush them from my arms as they blossom in a riot of luminous white flowers. Arturos’ well-trimmed garden is nothing but wildness now from this strange, incredible woman. Pure snow-white, her hair cascades down her back in thick, lustrous waves. Unshod, her high-arched, pale feet walk like she’s dancing, touching only flower petals as she comes to us. A shimmer of pale white rainbows moves in the air around her as she arrives.
Her dark black gaze dives into me, as she extends a long, white hand to Arturos.
“Mistress.” Arturos steps out from behind me, going down on one knee to kiss this wild woman’s outstretched hand. He lets his lips linger, bowing his head and closing his eyes as I realize this is his Sire who has arrived before us.
She who is only known as the Wanderer—her true name lost to time.
“My Siren.” Her lips move, but the sound they create is in the air around us and also deep inside my mind at the same time. A feeling of tens of thousands of years, maybe more, sighs off her.
Ancient and timeless, like the gods themselves.
“Why are you here, Mistress? Why have you come?” The entire party is silent now, waiting with no breath as they strain to hear Arturos’ conversation with his Sire.
Who I’m sure is millennia older than anyone else on the Council, if she’s a day.
“Do I need a reason to Wander, my sweet water-dragon?” she says. The Wanderer smiles benevolently at him now, though something in it is also amused. She reaches out, stroking a hand over his wavy dark hair as he kneels before her, and I see Arturos shiver as she cups his face in her hands.
Then kisses his lips gently, taking his hand and helping him rise.
“Thank you, Mistress,” Arturos says as he shivers again, as if her very touch is orgasmic.
“Your thanks is not needed,” she says with perfect calm now as she turns towards me and Quinn once more. The subtlest smile curls her beautiful lips as she glances between us, like she just got a joke no one else did. Her smile widens as she reaches out, touching my heart with her palm.
A deep wave of the warmest, most pleasurable energy rolls through me. I sink to those incredible midnight flows as I am suddenly settling into a seat in the flowering vines that have sprung up all around me. Quinn goes down behind me, supporting me so I don’t fall over.
I feel high. A decadent sensation like drinking champagne beneath the full moon fills me, and I beam up at the Wanderer, amazed by her magic. Whatever it is, it rolled me in a moment, when I was doing pretty good so far, resisting subtle drives of power from all around the party, and Florian, trying to figure me out tonight and see if I had a weakness.
I am weak before the Wanderer’s magnificent power, though.
I don’t care, as I bask in her endless glory—feeling Quinn do the same behind me.
Everyone at the party is enrapt now, though this goddess of Vampires touches no one else, showing no others her favor. With a beatific smile at me, she turns back to her progeny.
“My Vampire-Siren. Walk with me. Invite your Master of Florence and the one who is a known Dark Fae. We shall speak.”
“Yes, Mistress.” Arturos is quick now as he beckons Quinn and me to rise and accompany him and his Master. He turns, leaving hushed instructions with a man in a black tux who is most likely his butler to continue the party in his absence. All is quickly done, and Arturos strides after his Master, who has danced her way back to the hedge maze’s entrance.
Though the maze is overgrown now with a riot of pale flowers and vines shining beneath the late-summer moon, the Wanderer enters the maze and we follow. I do not know what we’re in for, as I feel Quinn’s quick mind-missive to remain calm at all costs.
To listen to the Wanderer’s words, rather than speak.
We wind deep into the maze now, and the Wanderer stops to wave a hand at a solid section of topiary wall and the hedges part. As if everything in nature does her bidding, they just suddenly grow in a different orientation—almost like she’s Fae, rather than Vampire. I’m astounded by it as she waves again and a shimmering wave glimmers in the air between the hedges.
And where there was only more hedge, there is now a beautiful midnight glade.
That glade blossoms with night flowers, drowning in the scent of jasmine as the Wanderer steps through her spontaneous portal and beckons us to follow. We do. I know I’ve crossed through Realms as a shiver of power flows over my skin; it’s the gentlest crossing of Realms I’ve ever experienced, however, as enormous night-moths flutter up from the forest glade, startled by our arrival.
I wonder if we’re even in the Twilight Realm anymore, as I look up and see nothing but stars with no white nimbus on the horizon. It’s confirmed for me as I see three moons gracing the sky.
All full, as their blessed light beams down upon us.
It invigorates me beyond anything I’ve ever experienced as I revel in it. It stops me right in my tracks as I raise my chin to the sky and extend my arms, basking in that endless white glow that lights the glade.
The Wanderer stops her sojourn as she turns back to me, that I-know-a-joke-others-do-not smile gracing her full lips again. She closes the portal with another wave of her hand and moves into the center of the glade, trees surrounding us now as those big night-moths flutter up all around. Sinking down, she settles in the white flowers.
She is casual as she picks one and plucks its petals, her dark eyes shining.
Arturos, Quinn, and I move forward until we’re near her, but not too close, then settle into the grass and flowers with her. She says nothing for a long while, simply picks all the petals off her blossom like no one is there, then reaches out for another and does it all again. She’s halfway through her third blossom when she looks up .
And pins me with her endless dark eyes.
“So. My progeny desires you, Dark Fae.”
“Your progeny?” I blink, numb from her insane power, but also confused at her words.
“My sweet Siren loves you. Can you not feel his regard?” she says as she smiles beatifically at Arturos.
And all at once, I get it.
“I didn’t mean to! I mean, it’s just—” I blubber now, caught completely off-guard.
“I know. You have love for others.” Her gaze pins Quinn now. “Two others. One so beautifully bright. The other, so decadently dark.”
Her words echo a way I’ve often described Quinn and Lucca to myself after seeing that strange Raphael Vision of a Knight painting Quinn donated to the Pitti Palace’s auction in the human world, that fateful day weeks ago. The Wanderer’s words make Arturos frown, however, as if her spell on him is broken since she just outed his desire for me in front of Quinn. She said love , though, I realize, as I look over at Arturos.
And see him give a wry smile, his deep blue eyes barren.
“I know you don’t love me, Ariana,” Arturos says, his voice quiet as he watches me. “It was just a dream I had, nothing more. You and Quinn are good together, bonded as you are. With Lucca.”
I’m surprised he’s mentioned our trio’s bond in front of she who created him. The Wanderer only smiles her pleasant, beaming smile, however, neither perturbed nor caring that Arturos just outed Quinn’s and my secret before her. I get the sense she doesn’t actually care.
That the movements of planets and stars and millennia are what she cares about, rather than the petty lives and loves of people.
“But the stars shake with alignment at the bonds you form,” the Wanderer says now, pinning me again with her fathomless dark eyes. “He of the Golden Orbs has chosen you for his experiment. You and your two bound Fates.”
“Gold Eyes!” Quinn says, as I feel shock rush through him that the Wanderer has mentioned the mysterious Revenant who plagues us. “What do you know of Gold Eyes and why he’s watching us? What do you mean, experiment ?”
“The Golden Orbs has been with us a long while.” The Wanderer is cryptic as she sighs and picks another flower. “For he was once an angel, most beautiful and compelling of the Thirteenth Vir, Ascended and wise. Ambition is ever stronger than wisdom, however; for he runs a grand experiment on this land and the creatures in it, one that plays with the hearts and minds of Fae and Vampire alike. We do not approve of his experiments. So, we warn you now… that you may change the fate he has written for you. And do something else with it.”
“He’s written our fate? Me, Quinn, and Lucca?” I ask now. “How?”
“For he is like the spider, ever-weaving his web.” The Wanderer gestures to a spiderweb glistening with dew in the grass. “Even we do not know the goal of this experiment, but he pulls the threads of fate, drawing you three together. He places my progeny in harm’s way, which I also do not approve of.”
At this, her dark eyes flick to Arturos, who sits rigid beneath her unfathomable stare. I assume she means that associating with Quinn and me puts Arturos in danger from the Revenant Gold Eyes; he’s already helped save our bacon a few times when Gold Eyes pulled some vicious shenanigans to mess with my power, and Quinn’s.
Arturos and the Wanderer hold their intense stare a moment longer.
He draws a deep breath then. “I will stay my course, Master. Unless you bid me not to.”
“No.” Her smile is sad now. “You shall do as you will, my progeny. For you were ever headstrong and willful of heart, and I would have you no other way. You are lonely; I feel it, deep within my soul. If casting this bargain with your fate gets you what you want… so be it.”
I see Quinn frown now as I do the same, not knowing what the hell Arturos’ Sire is talking about. Arturos seems to, however, as he gives her a deep, almost crestfallen nod. It’s stalwart, and I sense he’s not about to change his mind about something.
Some decision that pierces him and puts him in harm’s way concerning Gold Eyes.
I assume again that it’s his decision to support Quinn through thick and thin, and me as well. As Arturos’ deep blue eyes swing to me, however, they’re so barren they raze my very soul.
Before he takes a deep breath, looking back to his Sire.
“Have you anything more to tell us, Mistress?”
“No. That is all.” She shrugs noncommittally now. That secretive smile graces her lips again as she glances at Quinn. “Beware. For you are not the creature you think you are.”
“Excuse me?” Quinn scowls now, watching her. “And what sort of creature am I?”
“The two-edged kind.” Her laugh is soft, her dark eyes beaming with humor. “But you shall discover how to wield the true blade of your nature, eventually. It is not your fate that I reveal such things to you. I think the time is coming soon. The Golden Orbs will do everything he can to hasten it, however. Beware. Come to your maturation in your own good time… and with your own good ideals in mind. For he does not. His ideals are ever dark, and his mind is ever churning.”
With that, the Wanderer rises from the meadow. As flowering vines blossom all around her, she moves gracefully back towards the spot in the trees where her portal was. She waves her hand, opening the portal-way right back into the hedge maze where we left.
As we all follow her, crossing through back into the Twilight Realm from wherever we were, I see the white-blue nimbus light the rim of the nighttime sky once more. It’s late now; I shiver as we return to the deepest part of the night and smell dawn on the horizon.
But as we return and the Wanderer closes the portal with a wave of her hand, a figure swiftly lunges from the shadows of the hedge. I don’t even see the knife, the shadow moves so fast—until Quinn is before me, blocking that assassin from getting me.
And that knife is buried deep in his chest.
Breath is hammered from Quinn as he jolts; with a roar, Arturos slams the assassin back with a tremendous sea-wave, but the damage has been done. Quinn goes down, falling into my arms as I carry him to the earth. Arturos is shouting; I’m not even sure what, as I see the blade stuck to the hilt in Quinn’s chest.
Black with terrible red runes, writ in a cruel hand, the stiletto knife is twisted and bent as it protrudes from Quinn’s chest. I see why now; it isn’t made of metal but some sort of tree branch. As Quinn touches it, crimson blood seeping from his chest onto his hand in the moonlight, he looks up at me.
“Devilswood!” he says.
And I understand someone has just staked Quinn in the heart—with a devilswood blade.
It’s one of the few things that can kill a Master Vampire; panic rushes through me now as too much blood pours from Quinn, coating his hands, his suit, even me as I hold him. As it pools into the grass, I hastily flip my hair aside, placing my neck to Quinn’s lips. A sigh leaves him now, though, and I feel his life-force flicker disastrously.
His power so extinguished he can’t even grow fangs and bite.
A terrible feeling floods through me, knowing Quinn could die, since he put so much of his power into me earlier rather than keep it against something like this. He doesn’t even have the Dark Haven of Florence to back him up now, as some part of me registers Arturos has contained the assassin with a watery barrier, as if the rogue is no match for a Master at full strength.
The man only got the drop on Quinn because he put so much of his energy in me earlier to stabilize Lucca’s power inside me.
It is then I know someone at the party felt how weak Quinn was this evening.
And decided tonight was their night—to make a hit and take him out.