Page 61 of Dark Master's Redemption

Understanding floods their eyes. Horror at the trade I’m making as they all help each other to their feet. The biggest thing I see is gratefulness, however, that I didn’t abandon them to this ruthless Master.

With a nod, Florian breaks all his last mind-snares inside them, jutting his chin at the vaulted main doors.

“You may go.”

They do. They glance at me first, though, which steels my heart; I nod as well, gesturing them out the front main doors of the Red Letter Hotel Florence. “Devi is waiting for you. She will take you someplace safe.”

“Quinn…” The man who had been on his knees, Truvio, gives me a rough growl.

“Go,” I say gently as I nod to him it’s alright. “You shall be part of the Dark Haven of Florence again soon. The real Dark Haven of Florence, where I am Master… and no one else.”

He nods. I see all my Vampires stand taller now as they feel my strength bolster them. With one last glance, they turn and head out the main doors of the Hotel. Florian and his guards let them go, as promised, and I glimpse Devi now as she helps them across the street, everyone unaccosted.

It’s enough. I take a deep breath, steeling myself for what’s about to happen. But this was the plan, and I was the maker of that plan, as I turn back to Florian now.

“The blood-oath?” I insist, before I let him take me.

“Oh, very well.” Throwing up his hands, Florian shakes his head as he beams at my stubbornness. He takes a slender golden pin from his lapel, then pricks his finger with it rather than bite his hand, as is traditional. But it’s enough, as his blood spills to the floor and Florian reaches under his shirt to set his bleeding hand to his heart.

Marking his dead heart with blood, to seal his oath.

“I blood-oath this day, that I shall take none of Quindici DaPonti’s former Vampires under my thrall, so long as Quinn himself remains bound to me via my golden accoutrement. Satisfied?”

As I feel a dark wind of magic seal Florian’s blood-oath, I nod. Blood-oaths are an ancient and little-understood art. Though nobody enforces them, they enforce themselves somehow among Vampires, by the mystery of their magic alone.

Extending my hands, I wait as Julian moves in, affixing one pair of Florian’s golden bracelets around my wrists. The gold burns like cold fire with Florian’s power, but soon turns a comfortable temperature as I feel my mind cloud with a soft haze.

Florian moves forward, staring into my eyes. I feel his full power steal into me, then, as we watch each other. I don’t blink, or fight it with my own magic, lest he feel the trio I am bound to, or my other Dark Fae.

Waiting in the human world to make their move, as soon as I say so.

25

FIGHT

Peering into my eyes as his slim golden manacles are bound around my wrists, Florian Delano watches one of my eyes then the other, to make sure I’m his. The coldest, most pleased smile takes his lips as he sees me give in to his power—and that I was telling the truth about the trade of my life for my Vampires.

He gloats now as he watches me. As Florian fastens the final, slim golden torque around my neck, I don’t fight it. I feel his deepest power steal over me like a vast opium haze; shivering, my chin lifts as that incredible pleasure floods me, just as full and inundating as it ever was. Florian can make his servitude feel so very good when he wants to. Or he can make it feel wrathful, as he sends a spike of pure torture right into my groin now.

I gasp as I slam hard to one knee in the foyer.

“Not going to fight it at all, are you, Quindici?” Florian smiles with odious glee as he watches me twist. “As good as your word, right down to your noble, bleeding heart. I applaud that; indeed, some part of me even respects it. But you will soon come to love me, even though you have resisted me so much in the past. I will make sure of it, as you become my favorite toy. Come, let us head down to my new rooms. And play a little… until I tire of you for the night.”

As Florian nods for Julian to heft me to my feet, he turns and moves back into the Hotel without me. His abrupt departure makes me die a little, deep inside, because everything I am wants me to be his now—to pleasure him and please him in just the way he likes it, for the rest of my days.

Ariana’s and Lucca’s voices, Devi’s and Curio’s, and my entire Dark Fae Haven, rival it inside me now, screaming, Fight! I can feel their energies, dark like the deepest river and bright like the strongest sun, blazing through me now as I’m tempted to succumb.

Because Florian’s never held me captive when I had this much firepower bound to me. I make use of it now, knowing the game has begun. I’m going to go through hell in the next few days, until I can somehow contact all the former Revenants Ariana, Lucca, and I returned at the Bloodstone event who are still here and bound now to Florian’s command.

I have to wait until I can get them to fight for me—which was the plan, right from the start.

But first, I have to endure Florian’s torment, as I know is about to happen. Because he’s never felt me bonded to such powerful adjuvants when he held me in his thrall before. Emiliana wasn’t Dark Fae and had very few of them in her Dark Haven, only excepting me and Curio, who was a plant there to keep tabs on her for his father.

I have over a hundred Dark Fae bound to me now, however, plus Ariana, Lucca, Curio, and Devi, who are the cream of the crop. Not only that, but Arturos’ Siren energy flows through me also, alive like a riptide now in a way I’ve never felt him before. Though I’ve only ever fallen to Florian’s seductive torment before, I can resist it now—in a way that stops me from following him.

Unlike ever before.

I halt in the foyer, standing my ground now as I breathe hard. I feel my Dark Fae fire flare all around me, as seething currents of fiery black light surge through my living veins, fighting to escape Florian’s bonds. Ariana’s and Lucca’s powers flare within me; I feel Devi and Curio and all my Dark Fae bolster us now, as I hold my head high and draw a deep breath. I stare in defiance at Florian as he turns.

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