Page 71 of Dark Fae's Destiny

“I am mortal!” he cries, as a terrible sensation consumes him—thundering in his new heart, which I feel constrict in pain now as I watch.

“You are mortal.” I know with my deepest truth-reading power as I go to one knee before him. Reaching out, I gently touch his face, because that perfection is just too much to resist.

He flinches back from me, scuttling back on hands and knees until he is a decent way away. Rising to his full, incredible height, he stares me down, raising one hand.

And clenching his fist to kill me.

Nothing happens. As he blinks those beautiful golden eyes at me, his eyes snap to his fist, and he cries out in agony. I understand then what my power’s done to him; it’s given him a human heart, and human abilities, to replace what he once had.

No longer Ascendant, nor ever Descendant, Vampire, Fae, or Dark Fae, Staphylogenes is truly mortal now, without magic. I feel him try to weave the ancient harmonies of the Music around himself, but he can’t. The Music no longer responds to him, as it does nothing in this ancient space of his creation.

Gone.

“You—!” He seethes at me now, livid.

“The Music chose this form for you, not I,” I tell him now as I look upon this beautiful—and beautifully human—man. “You made your choice when you came to take my heart. I gave it… and gave you a new life with it. You’re welcome.”

“Bitch!” He snarls at me, as all his raw ugliness finally comes out. “I should have killed you when I?—”

“No.” I hold my hand up, as my wings of true Light seethe from me again, thundering through the space. “That time has passed; a new era has begun. Come back with me to live as a human mortal in the newest Florence you’ve created, or stay here in this endlessly ruined place. You have your choice. But I’m going back to my beloveds. Right now.”

As I say it, I suddenly rip a portal open through space—right back to the battlefield I left. I can see Quinn and Lucca as they both surge to their feet where they had been sitting on a broken column; as I see them, I feel their hearts blaze for me, and me for them, through our restored connections.

I look at Staphylogenes one last time, before I head on through.

One last thing needing to be said before I depart.

“You can regain your Ascendant nature, you know,” I say to him, as the deepest truth-reading of my life sings all through me. “You can regain your Ascendant heart and the fullness of all your power. You could have done it all along, without this endless maneuvering and manipulation. All you had to do was forgive yourself for doing what you did to your daughter and that beautiful world you had been building, and to your own most beautiful heart. All you had to do was forgive yourself for what you did… and accept her, and the world you’d created, for what it was. And your own heart would have been restored.”

Though I’ve just given him the key to regaining his Ascendant’s endlessness, the Gold Eyes only sneers at me, vicious in his contempt.

“Go,” he says as he draws up tall in his mortal man form. “I shall rediscover my Music and all my power in time, without your help. I assure you of it.”

“Not before I am dead and gone, content to have lived a long and happy life with my beloveds for centuries.” I smile at him now, feeling in my deepest heart it’s true.

A truth-knell goes off inside my very soul, knowing Staphylogenes will never forgive himself in his hubris and will be stuck here, mortal and human, until the end of time.

And then I’m headed home, as my portal closes behind me.

Leaving the Gold Eyes in his ruin.

26

DEPART

Devina and I sit in the Glass Bar overlooking the city of Florence and the Red Letter Hotel as I sip a dirty martini. She knows what it signifies and smiles slyly at me as she flicks back a lock of her perfectly curled, supermodel dark hair; Devi knows I’m anticipating fucking hard all night, and am gaming up to do it. She lifts an eyebrow at me now as I set my cocktail down. As she drums her perfectly manicured crimson nails on the glass table, I sit back in the padded velvet booth.

Reveling in the world around me.

Twilight is descending in the city of Florence; I watch the white rim of the sky emerge now as the sun sinks low, dropping beneath the horizon. Blue shadows spread long over my beloved city. It is my city now, no longer Staphylogenes’—and I have a feeling we won’t be hearing from him for a long time, if ever, in our mortal lifetimes.

It gives me a satisfied feeling beyond ease or even pleasure, as something warm fills me. Incredible, it beams softly from me as it fills my chest.

My natural Light, devoid of darkness now, though flickers of fire move through it.

“You’re shining again, Quinn,” Devi says as she cocks her head at me, a bemused smile on her crimson lips. “What’s going on? Why this sudden, clandestine meeting at the Glass Bar when we have a million things to do, setting up the Hotel for business again and getting everything ready for the grand re-opening gala later this evening?”

“This meeting is sudden, because I will not be attending said gala, Devi,” I say to her now as I sip my martini, then set it down. “And the Glass Bar is hardly a clandestine location for anyone to meet.”

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