Page 15 of Dark Master's Redemption

We’re undisturbed as we go about our breakfast routine now, except for Quinn’s Revenant, watching us. Sometimes his eyes swirl red, and sometimes they flash black as he watches our normalcy; each return of those drowning onyx orbs gives us more strength, as we watch Quinn rediscover himself.

Lucca and I rediscover each other, too; we spend the day lounging and reveling in each other, as we revel in all the good things Quinn loves. We pour wine with breakfast; we kiss and touch on a chaise near the enclosure as we feed each other fruit and drink. We have coffee at noon, and even have Curio bring an old-time gramophone of the kind Quinn collects at the Red Letter Hotel Florence, so we can listen to music.

We dance to Ella Fitzgerald and Duke Ellington, then spice things up with Harry Connick Jr. and 80s Michael Jackson. Lucca puts on Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis, Quinn’s favorite piece of classical music, and we cry as our hearts are swept up by that beautiful, intense work of art.

Diving into a tray of chocolates that are from the Red Letter Hotel Florence, we sit on the floor right by Quinn’s enclosure as we eat. The aphrodisiacs hit as we seize each other and kiss, sobbing our hearts out.

It’s a good sobbing, though; cleansing. Quinn’s dark eyes peer out from his Revenant, his roiling black energy swirling lower with each bit of normalcy he sees from us as we notice the heartbeat inside him strengthen, along with his breath.

By mid afternoon, Lucca and I cuddle up on a chaise beside Quinn’s enclosure in silk lounging robes. We nap, holding each other as Quinn watches us. I wake sometime later that evening, still held in Lucca’s arms.

To see a man of swirling night sitting right by us—watching us from inside the enclosure.

I startle at first, thinking it’s the Gold Eyes. Then I realize it’s Quinn, as I see his dark eyes regard me. Those black irises penetrate me, but they’re distant, still mostly lost in his Revenant state as his body still swirls with dark winds. He’s a long way from being Quinn, as those eyes regard me with no more love nor passion than a snake. But it’s a good start, as he begins to remember who he once was.

And all the things he used to love.

“Quinn. Hi,” I say, though I know he’s not quite home inside that swirling man-shape yet. The Revenant regards me, cocking its head like I just did something interesting as Lucca wakes.

He gives a long inhalation; it ends sharply as he notices Quinn sitting a few feet away, near our chaise. Lucca freezes, breathing softly like he’s afraid he might scare it. I stroke his hand draped over my waist.

“Talk to him. Tell him you’re here,” I encourage, so he’ll continue our normalcy from the day.

Lucca nods, but he pauses then. Through our bond, I feel he doesn’t quite know what to say. Because it still isn’t Quinn as it sits there, watching us. But the eyes aren’t insanely red anymore, and that’s something, as Lucca summons his voice.

“Quinn. I’ve missed you.” We both watch the creature. Its dark eyes shift to Lucca; I’m not sure if it understood his words, but there seems to be some recognition in its eyes now.

As Quinn watches his light Fae beloved—so long estranged.

“I hated you for years, you know,” Lucca says now as the creature regards him. As Lucca speaks, his heartbeat rises faster as the creature holds his gaze. But Quinn’s heartbeat has risen, also; I see it, swirling in concentric circles at his chest now, where his actual heart would be had he been human.

“It’s working. Keep going,” I say. I lay on the chaise and Lucca lays behind me, both of us watching Quinn in the deepening twilight.

“I hated you, and I missed you.” Lucca’s breath sighs on my neck now, his hand gripping my waist. “Yet through it all, through all the centuries of you being a Vampire, I still loved you. It wasn’t just you pining for me all those years. I was pining for you, too. Filling my empty heart with dalliances, hoping someday one of them might stick.”

As Quinn’s Revenant watches us, its presence seems to intensify. Its gaze fixed on Lucca, I see a real glimmer of recognition in those dark eyes.

As it waits for Lucca’s confession to come tumbling out.

“You were everything to me, Valerio.” Lucca’s voice is soft now as he strokes my waist, as if touching me right now gives him confidence. “You were my night, my stars, and my moon. You were my brother in arms, my comrade, and my warrior in bed. You were the one I was supposed to follow, that I had to be so careful not to fall in love with. Yet I could not. I loved you from the moment I first laid eyes on you, my Prince. So blazing, like a tempest inside a firestorm. You were darkly unholy in your wrath even as a Fae, though you always held the most beautiful Light.”

Something inside Quinn stirs. I see it then as the creature seems to inhale, personality coming to its eyes at last. It shifts its posture. Moving down to lounge along the floor, propped up by one elbow, it assumes a pose very much like Quinn.

Lucca and I catch our breath, watching it in the night.

It does nothing else. Like a marble statue of swirling black mist, it moves no more. And yet, even something about that ancient, marble-like stillness is so Quinn that it makes my heart grip. Lucca feels it. He kisses my neck, his soft lips whispering over my skin. The creature surges up with attention as Lucca kisses me there.

Coming right to us and standing before the enclosure’s barrier in the night.

“Quinn!” Lucca almost sits up, but I trap his hand to my waist to restrain him.

“No. Just keep going,” I say, certain to my bones what’s happening. “He wants to see us. He wants to watch us be intimate. He wants to remember how it feels to be with us…”

As Lucca nods, I feel his lips whisper over my neck again. He kisses me for real now, working his way up my skin as we recline on the chaise. I see Quinn’s eyes watch those kisses. As Lucca gets to a certain spot, kneading my waist with his hand, his lips press my jugular.

Quinn’s Revenant comes to full attention. Something inside him is riveted at the thought of blood; as Lucca kisses me there again, slower, Quinn’s lips fall open. Swirling black magic gives way now as two fangs pierce down.

Blinding white in that mouth of darkness.

---