Page 47 of Dark Fae's Destiny

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We have no words after our incredible fuck-lovemaking as we make it up off the floor. As Quinn helps me and Lucca stand, then hands me my robe, he flicks his fingers, summoning a cobalt robe down from his loft to match Lucca’s incredible, dark blue eyes.

Moving slowly, we begin to dress, euphoric after such an amazing threesome. Energy is still thrumming hard between us as I watch Quinn’s lean, ridged sexiness, then Lucca, admiring his broad shoulders and honed warrior’s physique as he pulls on his borrowed robe.

With the exhilaration of what we wrought still rushing through us, Lucca catches me staring at him and gives a sexy smile. Simmering with dark delight as he dresses in his quilted maroon men’s robe, Quinn nods at my blush silk dressing-gown, idle in my fingers.

Entirely forgotten as I watched my men—an incredible afterglow still throbbing through me.

Shivering with aftershocks, I slide my robe on now, moving to the edge of the ebony dining table as I tie the sash. I don my barely there negligee, and Quinn gives me a long, appreciative look, pausing from where he had begun perusing the maps on the table.

Hot tension rolls between us as Lucca comes to the table also, the maps now glowing with a plethora of blistering white lines thanks to our endeavor in the otherworld. As I arrange my thin silk over my still-throbbing breasts and nethers, Quinn gives me a wicked smile.

The deep appreciation in Lucca’s dark blue eyes makes me blush; tension still careens between us as we stand at the map table. Quinn and Lucca move close now, cuddling me between them as we gaze down upon the maps, befuddled. I see now that those bright white lines we created with the Music cascade everywhere, across nearly every map we have.

Insane.

At first, I can’t make heads or tails of them—until Quinn reaches out, pulling certain maps into place. It’s then that I see our Ascendant phrase seek and ye shall find formed a sort of ornate layering effect, as Quinn arranges the maps.

I see now he’s connecting the white lines in a way that makes perfect harmony with the map Iris put in our minds. The way he’s done it, however, also makes little sense.

Because those paths exist nowhere in the Twilight Realm or the human world—at all.

“They jump between worlds.” As Quinn finally settles all the maps, it produces an intense starburst of sigildry with the lines, like an Ascendant mosaic. “That’s why we couldn’t find the pattern before. These paths don’t go through any single physical realm. They connect a vast array of physical realms. They’re portals through several sub-Realm spaces. Nexus Realms—similar to the Twilight Realm, but separate from it.”

“Staphylogenes created dozens of sub-spaces through the weft and weave of worlds that one would have to pass through to find his heart.” Lucca whistles now as he gets it, his blue eyes wide. “Holy shit. That is the work of a god, to do something as audacious as that to hide something.”

“Something extremely precious,” I say, understanding what Iris’ map is—a way to solve the portal-jumping we’ll have to do between worlds to get Staphylogenes’ heart. “It’s all in Florence, but it’s not. It’s in a hundred variations of Florence… all created by Staphylogenes to confuse and waylay anyone who came after his heart.”

“And entrap them.” Quinn’s frown is dark now as he peruses the maps. “I doubt the Gold Eyes did all this just to confuse those who tried to get his heart. He wanted them to become lost in these many-worlds, never to return.”

“Staphylogenes would have set a maze so complex that only a true Master of the Music would be able to solve it,” I say, an intuition striking as my deepest truth-telling power rings inside me.

“Even Staphylogenes himself couldn’t solve this maze, after he set it.” Lucca frowns now, though his look is thoughtful. “He didn’t understand that by cutting out the center of his Light, he would irreparably change himself so he could never solve his own maze again. And never get his heart back.”

“Which is where we have an advantage.” Quinn taps a spot on the maps—a place where the complex sigil of Light begins. “This is our origin. This is where we get in. I say we try to enter it from the Twilight Realm first, because that’s where Staphylogenes lived when he was still an Ascendant, or nearly so, rather than in the human world.”

“Good enough.” Lucca nods. “But I don’t think I can go after the heart tonight, Quinn. If we’re going to use the Music to solve this portal warren, à la Gold Eyes… I think I need at least a nap first.”

“Of course.” Quinn smiles now, then heaves a sigh. “I am getting ahead of myself, like always. Let us rest tonight, and we shall head out first thing in the morning. Some deep, restful sleep will do us good… and strengthen us, for whatever is to come.”

Quinn steps back from the table, extending a hand to me and Lucca. We take them, and he leads us up the corkscrewing stairs to his lofted bedroom beneath the crystal cathedral’s highest vaults. We tumble into bed, grateful and exhausted after such an amazing lovemaking.

I don’t even realize it’s morning until I blink awake.

I feel Quinn moving around the room getting dressed, as if trying not to wake me. I wake anyway, pushing up from the bed as I watch him. Quinn is dressing in black tactical clothes today rather than his usual finery; he looks surprisingly incredible in a simple black v-neck men’s sweater and lightweight down vest, plus tactical pants and cargo boots.

Sitting on the bed, he laces up his boots as he feels me awaken and looks over. Lucca isn’t in the loft, though I feel him moving around downstairs, getting breakfast ready. The smell of coffee wafting up from below awakens me further.

Quinn reaches over, handing me simple tactical clothing like his.

“Here,” he says as he smiles. “We don’t know where we’ll be headed today, bopping through Realms as we probably will be. The trail to finding Staphylogenes’ heart might be very interesting. We dress for success of a different variety today, rather than for any court.”

“Gotcha.” I’m pushing up from bed, thankful my men let me sleep in, though I don’t want to be the one that delays us getting on the trail today. A strange energy rises in me now, as I dress in the lightweight black women’s sweater Quinn gave me, and thin, breathable cargo pants.

My combat boots are Twilight-made as I lace them up, comfortable for any foray; everything I’m wearing is, as I zip up a thin down vest like Quinn’s with more pockets than you can shake a stick at.

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