Page 18 of Dark Master's Redemption

But Quinn’s not a Vampire, he’s Dark Fae like me and Ariana; that knowledge fills me now as I lay in bed with my beloveds, feeling our togetherness. Because we’re all the same, though Quinn is the most dark and I’m the most bright. We’re all Dark Fae, devouring and reveling in the world simultaneously as our magic comes together, to form something ancient, like the Ascendants of old.

As I ponder our unknown fate, considering what we now know we are, sunlight streams in all around, shining through the high vaults of the Moon Dome. It lights our trio up in the big bed we had brought in here. Sunlight has never bothered Quinn, nor fire, and now I know why. The fire of his own Summer Fae nature still fills him.

Dark though it is, shining deep through his vast Night.

We’ve saved him now from the utter madness that diving too far into his blackest Night can bring. I’m not naïve, though, and know there will be repercussions; I’m ready to face them, and help Quinn with whatever he needs to be sane again, as I carefully free my arm from falling asleep again beneath his head.

Quinn shifts as he feels me move, liberating himself from the sleeping Ariana and rolling over until he faces me. He draws a deep breath but doesn’t wake, sleeping hard as Ariana sleeps just as deeply behind him.

I can’t help it; I stroke his face with my fingertips. Though Fae, Dark Fae, and Vampires are all descended from Archangels, angels have nothing on Quinn’s haunting, austere beauty. It’s always compelled me; as I touch him now, his eyes snap open.

Blazing with his Dark Summer Fae fire as he comes awake.

My breath catches as Quinn’s searing eyes fix on me—and I hesitate from his sudden waking. But as I watch his old Summer Fae cinnabar and gold sear through his eyes, hardly a trace of onyx anywhere in them now, I’m emboldened.

As I ease my knuckles over his cheek, Quinn shudders. I drown in his fire now, knowing my blue eyes have darkened to a deep midnight hue that happens when I feel intense emotions. I know now it’s my Dark Fae nature. Quinn stares at me, his long dark lashes blinking.

Before his eyes fill with unshed tears.

“I love you, Lucca,” Quinn whispers roughly then, as if finding his mortal voice from an eon of screaming inside his Revenant darkness is difficult. “I heard you when you spoke to me, inside my Revenant. I love you, too… just as much as you do. I want you to know that.”

“I’m glad,” I whisper back, as I watch my beautiful Valerio’s eyes fill with tears. Even back when we were young, crying was a rarity for him. And though his tears don’t fall, I’m crying too now, to feel us coming back together.

Once in pain from hating each other, now in pain because we fear losing each other again, we’ve spent too many centuries apart. It’s unforgivable now, as I let my tears drip down my blond lashes, hating how many centuries I wasted being apart from him, letting myself only drown in my unfathomable rage.

Quinn’s tears aren’t shed, but he reaches up, tracing the passage of my tears with his fingertips, brushing them away with his thumb. “You mean more to me than anything, Lucca. You and Ariana,” Quinn says as we lay there, our faces only inches away as we bare our truest hearts to each other. He speaks quietly so we don’t wake Ariana.

Sharing this deep moment as just us.

“I didn’t know what I was going to do without you, Valerio.” I speak my deepest truth to him now in our shared moment. “When you became your Revenant, I felt lost that you were no longer in my world with me… even hating me, like we did for all those years. Somehow, even being enemies and rivals for centuries, I felt comforted that your diabolical mind and intense fire were still in Florence with me, still goading me from the shadows. But to lose you to your Revenant… I couldn’t feel you, couldn’t sense you through our bonds. You were just… gone, to that intense darkness. And I despaired, even as Ariana held out hope that you could still be returned to the Light.”

“I don’t blame you for despairing.” Quinn cups my cheek, running his thumb over my lips. “I despaired also, deep inside the darkness that devoured me. I felt there was no light. I felt that everything Light I had once been, however little of it remained after I became Dark Fae, was gone. Everywhere I turned was darkness… endless.”

“Were you trapped in memories of Emiliana?” I ask, though I fear the answer.

“Worse.” Quinn sighs, as if his Revenant still plagues him like a wound, deep. “I was lost in memories of myself, Lucca; memories of me I hated, yet felt so very good. It was like being in my Revenant was condemning myself to the same torture I had given others, for the rest of my quasi-immortal life. When everything exploded into disaster from me mishandling the Music of the Spheres, and the Gold Eyes intervening in our showing before the Vampire Council… something inside me decided I wasn’t fit to live in the light anymore, even a small part of it. I fell into my inner darkness, completely, and got lost in my self-blame, self-hate, and self-punishment… until you and Ariana showed me the way out.”

“We still love you, no matter how dark you become.” My voice is firm as I lift up now, spontaneously kissing his lips. I don’t apologize for it as I grip his hip with my hand and shake him a little. “We love you, Valerio. To all the stars and back. We will never give up on you. Ever. I swear it.”

“My white knight,” Quinn says, as something in him becomes beautifully wistful and sad. “Now a Fae prince; whereas I never will be again. I’m not even a Master Vampire anymore, because I never was a Vampire to begin with.”

“You’ll always be a prince to me.” I hold his gaze. “I may be your knight in shining armor, bold and courageous to a fault, but you are my Machiavellian prince, resilient and cunning when backed into any corner. You’ll always be that to me—I’ll always believe in you. Even if you don’t believe in yourself.”

“Who are we now, Lucca, when we are neither Vampire nor Summer Fae?” Quinn asks with a wry twist to his lips, as his gaze darkens. I feel him read my mind, from my mulling over of our situation before he woke. “You and I both know we no longer have any true standing amongst our people, now that we’re aware we are Dark Fae. Like Ariana, we are adrift, belonging nowhere, though we thought we were still Vampire and Summer Fae until a scant week ago.”

“We are still leaders of our kind, Quinn.” I use his adopted name now as I impress my point. “Even though our magic is Dark Fae, riddled through by the will of our Maker the Gold Eyes, we shall not give in. We help, love, and support our people in whatever manner we can. You and I have always been thus… even before we were marked by the Gold Eyes’ taint.”

“Marked by its taint?” Quinn frowns at me.

I realize then that he’s not been party to the terrible training sessions Ariana and I had with Master Vasily Ilyov this past week. As if I somehow summoned the devil himself by thinking about him, Master Ilyov swirls into being now, just inside the doors of the dome. As his wintery winds settle from their flurry of deadly snow and ice, he stares at our trio cuddled close upon the bed.

Inhaling, Quinn sits up quickly; but he’s too weak and buckles. I catch him, shoring him up as I move to sit behind him, propping him up as he leans back on me. As Ariana wakes also, blinking out of dreams and sitting up, she hauls the covers up over her chest. As she reaches out to touch Quinn’s chest over his heart, the Dark Winter Fae Master stares us down. Chill dispassion is in Ilyov’s cold, white-blue eyes.

As he finally nods.

“So. The prodigal Mentale returns.”

“No thanks to you,” I bite before I can stop myself. My temper seethes at Vasily Ilyov’s arrival, and his interruption of our close, intimate moment.

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