“So why are you wearing it?” Layla sassed, still shocked and uncertain about him.
“Because I’m aRoyalSiren, darling.” His gaze was impeccably withering as he stared her down. “Do you want an orgy to happen on this plane? No? Well then, I suppose I have to leave it on. Tempeste Durant, of the North Sea Sirens. And you must be the infamous Layla Price.”
“How do you know me?” Layla crossed her arms, raising an eyebrow and trying to still the roil of furiously alarmed energy that roared through her Dragon.
“Intercessoria files, my dear.” He gave a cold smile, his husky-blue eyes penetrating. “Plus, you were raised human, so your image is all over the human internet and social media.”
“You’re Intercessoria?” Layla’s heart gripped with severe alarm now, knowing her and Dusk’s plan had somehow been found out by Heathren and Insinio.
“Yes.” Tempeste Durant’s gaze went two shades of cold and colder. “And you are lucky I am. I’m here for two reasons. One, because my youngest brother asked for my help, and I have a soft spot for my headstrong little Siro. And two, because Heathren Merkami and Insinio Brandfort couldn’t be here at the moment. Rather than clap you in irons for this stunt when he specifically told you to stay put, Heathren would like a man protecting you as you travel to King Falliro Arini. You neglected to tell Heathren about your connection to the Phoenix King during your interrogation, by the way.”
Layla rubbed her arms, feeling a cold breeze move through her area. She looked up, seeing if the plane’s air blowers were active, but it was just a chill wind easing off the pissed Siren next to her. “I didn’tneglectanything. I’d been up for over thirty-six hours and was out of my mind from exhaustion when they interrogated me. I tried to tell Heathren Merkami everything I knew about Hunter, I really did. I want Adrian released. And I will doanythingto make that happen.”
Tempeste’s gaze softened on her. At last he drew a deep breath and something seemed to smooth in his prickly energy. “Forgive me. I’ve been callous. This missive interrupted my vacation with my husband and children in Paris. It’s made me irate. Intercessoria don’t get much time away, and when I do, I like to spend it with my family. May we start our acquaintance again?”
“You’re… a gay Siren?” Layla blinked.
“That’s very rude.” He gave rueful smile. “Not all Sirenni are heterosexual.”
“Sorry…” Layla found herself flushing three shades of red as a whiff of orange-bourbon scent rose up around her.
But the tall silver-haired Siren just smiled, reaching to the inner pocket of his elegant suit jacket and pulling out an alligator-skin wallet. Opening it, he took out a photograph of quite possibly the sexiest Greek man Layla had ever seen, plus two gorgeous young women in their mid-twenties; one with golden hair, one with sleek black ringlets. They were at Disneyland in California, dressed in American clothes, each with a silver and pearl bracelet at their wrist. Taking a group photo with Mickey, the silver-haired Tempeste laughed in the photo with them.
“This is Giro, my husband from the Mediterranean Sirens. And our two girls, Julia and Salina.”
“Your daughters are beautiful. Are they adopted?” Layla glanced up at him.
Tempeste chuckled with a kinder nature now, putting the photo back in his wallet and tucking it away inside his jacket. “No, my daughters are not adopted. All Sirens have both sets of anatomy in their Dragon form. Giro and I wanted children, so I spent three years in Dragon form during an estrus cycle, mating with him and waiting to see if I became pregnant. I did, twice. Which is very lucky for a male Siren. Though spending three years as my Dragon, and pregnant, was a special kind of hell.”
“Wow.” Layla blinked, realizing that she still knew so little about different Dragon Lineages, especially the offshoots like Sirens and Phoenix. “So you really are Reginald’s eldest brother?”
“Fortunately or unfortunately.” Tempeste’s face softened, his gaze straying to the pearls around Layla’s neck. “I helped him hunt those pearls, you know. He was so very determined to wed Avri. Our father was against it, but he eventually came around. He’d given them his blessing at last, but then Avri became pregnant. Her clan found out. The rest was tragic.”
“Reginald hasn’t told me the story,” Layla reached up, touching the pearl choker. “I’ve only seen visions of Avri, briefly.”
“Ah, yes, the Royal Dragon Bind.” A deep wisdom came into Tempeste’s eyes. “You would be able to read Reginald’s thoughts. He’s a powerful Royal; even a rival to our father. Though Reginald would refute that. He has a very negative opinion of his power, drowning an entire Blood Dragon village as he did when he was young.”
“What happened with that whole situation?” Layla asked, intrigued. “Reginald hasn’t told me hardly anything about it, only that he remains at the Hotel partly because of amnesty from the Intercessoria.”
“Do you recall the tale of the Little Mermaid?” Tempeste asked, as he signaled the flight attendant and ordered a martini. The attendant raised her eyebrows at Layla also, and she ordered a Jack and Coke, the fixings for an Old Fashioned not available on flights.
“Of course.” Layla spoke as the flight attendant moved away. “I think every girl knows that story since Disney made a mockery out of the Hans Christian Andersen original tale.”
Tempeste’s smile was amused but there was something deeper beneath it; a tired kind of sadness. “Imagine the Little Mermaid, except set it off the southern coast of Norway and change the handsome human prince to a beautiful Blood Dragon peasant girl, and the role of the mermaid is now the youngest of ten Siren brothers, the son of a powerful King. Now imagine that their romance happened without any sea-witch taking the young Siren’s voice – the only instrument he had to woo his beloved. And now imagine that she came to him, and they were forbidden to be together when her clan found out. And because she was found pregnant by him, her clan deemed it better to put her to death with the child still in her womb rather than create an impure cross-bred Lineage of Blood and Sea.”
“Oh my god,” Layla breathed, horrified as the memory of the beautiful raven-haired woman with lavender eyes surfaced again in her mind.
“And now imagine that when the young Siren prince found out his beloved had been put to death, drowned in the very ocean in which he lived while he was away, that his voice became the wrath of the sea-witch and King Titan both,” Tempeste spoke darkly, “and pummeled the headland of that Blood Dragon clan until they were all drowned to every last man, woman, and child.”
“Reginald.” Layla breathed. “His actions started an all-out war between the Blood Dragons of Norway and Sweden and your North Sea Sirens.”
“It did.” Tempeste nodded sadly. “As Clan First and King of the Sirens, my father Léviathan Durant has been waging that war ever since, along with my brothers. Reginald went into voluntary exile, coming to the Hotel to train with someone who could help him contain his terrible gift – and eventually rising to the position of Head Courtier because of the control it gained him.”
His story finished, Tempeste drew in a deep sigh and let it out like a rip-tide. The flight attendant returned with their drinks and Tempeste thanked her. The attendant bustled away as the doors were closed and the safety demonstration began. Layla sipped her drink as the instruction finished, and then the plane began to rev its engines and taxi.
“So what’s your story?” She glanced over at Tempeste.
“What do you mean?” He eyeballed her, taking a sip of his beverage, then cradling it as he crossed his long legs at the knee.
