Surging with heat, an electric sensation filled Layla at that searing glance from Adrian’s beautiful eyes. Dusk gave her a squeeze around the waist, as if encouraging her to get moving and Layla startled, realizing this was really happening. Stepping away from Dusk, though he continued to hold her hand, grounding her, Layla started along the gravel path after Adrian, back toward the Hotel.
As she caught up, Adrian gave her a hot sidelong glance. The three of them walked in silence through the midnight grounds. Crunching along the path, most of the rooms on the second and third stories of the palace quadrangle were dark now, though the lower halls still held light from the chandeliers. Skirting the fountains, they made their way to a side-door and entered the Hotel. Moving up the nearest staircase, it was a short minute until they were all up to the fourth floor and past the twin Sphinx guardians – facing the snarling red Dragons at Adrian’s door.
Lifting Layla’s hand, Dusk kissed her knuckles. “Are you certain you want this, Layla?”
He looked at her, the real question in his summer-blue eyes.Are you ok doing a threesome?
Layla paused, glancing from one man to the other. They both watched her, something dark simmering from each of them, though in a slightly different way. Layla had never been with two men before. She didn’t know how it would go, what tempers or awkwardness might arise, or uncomfortableness. Dusk and Adrian had a history of fighting over women, and watching them both now, that history was still there, reflected in the tension in each of their bodies. Their jealousy and wrath with each other hadn’t gone away; it hadn’t gotten any easier just because Layla had bound them together into some strange sort of moebius with her. If they were going to fight and bicker, two adopted brothers raised under the same roof, they were going to do it in bed, Layla was almost certain of it.
And yet.
Layla thought back to when she’d nearly died after Hunter’s abduction. Adrian and Dusk had worked together to revive her, sleeping with her, holding her close, pouring their magics through her body – both at the same time. They’d been almost civil with each other the morning she’d woken, and had eaten breakfast together almost like all tensions between them had been absolved. They hadn’t, but Layla’d had a glimpse of how dynamic the brothers could be when working with one another rather than in opposition.
And watching them both now, she could feel how much power the three of them could have – if they could get it right.
“I want this,” Layla murmured, shivering with a deep arousal. “I want to try.”
It was enough for Dusk. He nodded, stepping close to bring her his body heat, kissing her. Layla let herself sink into it; let herself be held by his strong arms. Dusk was real and he was here; he wasn’t afraid of her or intimidated by what she might become. Andtryingwas something he understood – something Layla needed right now.
But then Adrian reached out for her. Twining his fingers through hers, a searing, delicious heat went rolling through Layla’s body and she shuddered from the vastness of Adrian’s power. It lifted hers, mixed with hers, teased hers to come out and be inundated with glory from that subtle twining of his fingertips. Layla turned, feeling Adrian’s pull like a sand-funnel – inescapable. Their gazes connected and heat roared between their bodies, leaving Layla without air as Adrian burned it all up with his dark, sexy intensity.
Calling to her through his touch like a night on fire.
She came. Adrian led, opening one double-door, and Layla stepped into his apartment after him – leading Dusk by her other hand. Adrian shut the doors, locking them as Dusk pulled Layla back against the gilded paneling and his hot, firm body – kissing her neck, cupping a hand beneath her wet curls as he pulled her back to his front. Before her, Adrian stepped in. Staring her down with aqua-gold fire blistering in his eyes, there was something eager there and something mean as he lifted Layla’s hands – and then pinned them above her head upon the paneled wall to either side of Dusk.
With a sub-human growl that seared fire all through Layla’s body, Adrian let her writhe – and then dove in, kissing her hard.
Layla succumbed to him in a rush, devouring the heat of Adrian’s lips and body as he devoured hers. It wasn’t slow and it wasn’t kind – and it was everything Layla wanted. Heat roared between them as their Dragons feasted; tearing at each other, roiling through each other with a raw passion and an indescribable bliss. She wanted to pour herself through him; to pour herself around him. She wanted him to grip her and carry her to bed, to throw her down and fuck her hard – and make her forget everything but his terrible, incredible heat.
Her eyes rolled up as Adrian kissed her, as she writhed and bucked against him, pinned,decadently unkind. Fever blistered Layla’s veins. As Adrian thrust his hips against hers, making her feel how hot he was for her, how hard, she gasped, one hand spasming out of his grip – and slapping to Dusk’s, there to ground her as Adrian devoured her.
Magic poured through Layla – blistering winds and cool underground rivers. She screamed as Adrian slammed her and Dusk back into the wall as he thrust his body hard against hers, hauling her yoga pants down so she could feel every inch of him pressed against her lace thong now. Layla’s legs locked around his hips; they weren’t going to make it to the bed. But then Adrian hauled her up with his hands beneath her ass and with a growl turned, still kissing her as he moved them to his massive four-post bed.
With a roar, he threw Layla down to the duvet, fire in his eyes with what he was about to do to her. But as Layla landed, she gasped suddenly. She’d landed in a puddle of wet. Adrian saw her face and halted, as Layla lifted her hand from the soaking duvet. There was something beneath the feather comforter, and she’d landed right next to it. Looking at her hand, she saw it had come up coated in something silver and wet, like mercury.
“What the hell?” Layla’s passion broke as she stared at her hand. Adrian was frowning, glancing at the slender lump that had been outlined beside Layla as she was thrown down.
But Dusk was sweeping forward, horror on his face as he cast back the duvet and sheets next to Layla – and uncovered the Head Courtesan Sylvania Eroganis. Beautiful as moonlight but pale as death, an enormous puddle of silver starlight soaked all through the canopied bed.
Sylvania’s blood.
CHAPTER 9 – PAIN
Layla gasped at the pool of silver starlight blood on Adrian’s bed, her eyes wide. Adrian shouted as Dusk flung himself to Sylvania’s body with a cry, putting his fingers to the Head Courtesan’s throat, feeling for a pulse. Her ardor forgotten, her Dragon coiling in a black terror, Layla was up fast, hauling the duvet and top sheet from the bed but not seeing where to staunch the bleeding. The Head Courtesan was naked in the sheets and rivers of silver moonlight gushed from her ears and nose, from the corners of her mouth and from between her legs, staining the bed.
Dusk’s fingers fell from Sylvania’s white throat. His head whipped up, fury in his clear blue gaze as he roared, “Rikyava! Rikyava!!” shuddering the heavy wooden bed and every pane of glass in Adrian’s apartment. Layla felt a thundering spike rush through the air, and then she felt a searing response back – fevered like brimstone and burning battlefields.
She felt the Guard coming, racing toward Adrian’s apartment. Rikyava came from her own quarters on the fourth floor, the rest of the Guards rushing up from the lower levels. As they came, Dusk lifted Sylvania off the bed to the floor, placing one palm on her chest, the other over her pierced navel. A harmonic surged through the room, rushing deep into Sylvania’s body like an orchestra of light as Dusk worked his healing energy. Adrian went to the Courtesan’s head, leaning over her and sliding his hand beneath her neck – pouring his life-giving heat down the Courtesan’s throat like giving magical CPR.
But it wasn’t having any effect on the pale Silver Passion.
“Come on…!” Dusk growled.
His hands doubled their efforts at Sylvania’s heart, then tripled them, a symphony of music cascading through Adrian’s apartments with a thousand impossible harmonies. It flooded Layla, making her tremble and shake as Dusk tried to revive the Head Courtesan. With a florid curse, he pushed furious vibrations through Sylvania, wrenching his efforts up so fast they set a pair of two-ton Moroccan vases beside the doors rattling. Setting his hands to the wooden floor, Dusk roared, blasting the wood apart with his frustration before placing his palms upon Sylvania once more.
Adrian was doing no less at Sylvania’s beautiful, pale lips. But even his sandstorm of heat and power was having no effect. As Rikyava and the rest of her Guardsmen dashed in with pikes brandished, a hurricane of blood droplets surging around the wrathful Rikyava, Layla could see what Dusk and Adrian didn’t want to acknowledge.
That it was too late.
