Page 59 of Dark Master's Redemption

At last, we head down into the underground. Though Florian can daywalk, most Vampires still feel safer living beneath the earth; it doesn’t surprise me he’s taken my grand cathedral suite, as I’m led inside the towering ebony doors and am instructed to wait within. I see all the warding sigils used to contain my mad Revenant have been scrubbed from the space; my rooms look more or less how they did when I still lived here.

Except for a distinct, flowery perfume that pervades the air.

Florian’s cologne, it has my lips curling with distaste. Terrible memories flood me as I inhale that scent; I push them away now as I wait with Julian, standing inside the closed doors of my suite. Two of the massive fireplaces are lit; it’s becoming autumn in the Twilight Realm, and even here in Florence, the nights are now brisk.

It’s a long while before Florian arrives, as if he wanted to make me twist, having to wait for him. At last, he pushes in through the double doors at the rear of the space where my study is.

Dressed in a long, emerald green men’s dressing gown of quilted silk, Florian looks like a French billionaire bachelor as he comes towards me. His chiseled face is tan even in the blazing firelight; his sea-green eyes sparkle from his golden-stubbled face as he beams his ultra-white smile to see me.

Florian’s short, tawny gold hair is rucked up into an artful mess like he just fucked someone, and he swirls a glass of prosecco in one hand as he gloats that I’ve come to him. It’s my finest prosecco, I can tell with one inhalation. The bastard’s opened a bottle I was saving for Lucca and Ariana, as something dark grinds inside me.

That Florian gets to enjoy the benefits of everything I’ve built in this place.

“Quindici DaPonti. Well.” Florian’s surprise is both genuine and a sham as he beams at me; he’s goading me by his show of innocence, like he hasn’t a clue why I’m here. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Can’t a man just come for the pleasure of your company, Florian?” I play his little game, acting nonchalant as I adopt my best sexy slouch against a side table behind me. I grip it with my hands, letting Florian watch my tendons flex and think of sex.

Which is what I want him to be thinking about, as his sea-green eyes twinkle with disaster now, watching me.

“Your company is very pleasurable indeed.” A smirking smile takes Florian’s full lips, making his golden beauty wicked as his ultra-smooth voice moves in a touchable, silken sensation all around me. He chuckles, and it’s as if he’s touched me with that smooth-as-butter sound, though it makes me shiver. “But that’s not why you’re here.”

“I hear you have some of my Vampires under your thrall, Florian. I’d like them released. Immediately,” I say now, dispensing with games as I get right to it, though I keep my tone light as I examine my recently manicured nails.

“What do you have to trade that you would bargain for their release?” Florian asks with veiled danger in his eyes as he watches me.

Though he can’t disguise how hungry he is, for me.

“I have me.” I look at him now—scalding him with the full force of my dark onyx eyes and letting him feel, once again, how much I can do for him. He plays it cool, but I can feel how aroused he suddenly is, playing this game with me once more.

“My, my,” he says as he takes me in. “Hungry for my bed, are we, Quinn?”

“You are hungry for mine,” I say with hot force now as I stare him down. “Or am I wrong about what the release deal was? My Vampires… for me.”

Florian has nothing to say for a long moment. His green eyes rove me now, however, scalding with need as they drink me in with my sexy Armani attire and my perfectly honed body slouching just so against the table.

I see his ardor roar at last—a furious fire, scalding through his veins just like his daywalking power. Because once upon a time, I was Head Courtier of this place under Emiliana DiClario, and she did not allow me to pick my assignations for deals she wanted to seal.

Many of those deals were made with Florian, securing relationships between Monaco and Florence for centuries. But I was never subservient to Florian in the bedchamber when Emiliana forced me to take his pleasure.

I was his dominant—something he loved to the depths of his vastly maligned soul.

“That was the deal, yes.” Florian watches me, needful but also wary of whatever game I’m playing. He knows I’m playing one; he just doesn’t know what it is yet, and it keeps him guessing as we stare at each other. “But why are you here, Quinn… unarmed and alone?”

“My Vampires mean much to me.” I am blunt as I stare him down with a not-nice heat in my eyes now, letting him see how much I care for my people. “To have them enthralled to you for any length of time is a death sentence I would not wish upon anyone. Ever.”

“Always the bleeding heart.” Something softens in Florian then, away from wariness—even as something else in him becomes more cruel. “Did you never enjoy your time with me, Quinn, when you were under my thrall?”

“I took my pleasure when I needed it.” I stay evasive now. Florian does not need to know how much I hate him, though he probably already does.

“But you dominated me.” Florian’s gaze is wicked. “Don’t you like that?”

“When I’m not being forced to, yes.” I give him something carnal in my eyes now, to see how he likes it. “I might even dominate you without being forced, Florian. But you never gave me that opportunity.”

“Because you would tie me to a rack, flay me alive, and laugh until you put a torch to me and I met my true death,” Florian says with a knowing look as he shakes his head. “I know you, Quinn; you were the most ruthless torturer Emiliana ever had. Both in and out of the bedchamber.”

“Just say the word, and I’ll torture you for free,” I say with dark venom now, because I’m tired of this game. “Show me to my Vampires, Florian. Let me watch you release them from your thrall and let them walk out of this establishment unharmed, right now. That, and I require a blood-oath from you that you won’t take any of my other previous Dark Haven Vampires under your thrall, even though they’re yours to command now as Master of this place. Give me those things, and I’ll let you bind me again in your slim golden manacles… just as you did of old.”

“A tempting offer.” Florian’s gaze is hot. “And if I refuse?”

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