“What about this chamber?” Layla asked, glancing around.
“Hunter cannot enter here.” King Arini’s smile was smug now. “It may be the only place he is truly not permitted. He imitated my magics hundreds of years ago, and since then, my imprint has changed with every new body. I cannot undo the spells laid upon the fortress that his imitation of my old magic can access, but I can create a new bower free of that imprint. This bower was begun only seventy years ago. The magics laid into it are only my most recent.”
“That’s a small comfort.” Layla chuckled wryly, though she wasn’t smiling.
“Indeed.” Taking a deep breath, King Arini rose elegantly to standing, then held out a hand. Layla took it, rising also, and together they stepped from the nest’s soft confines back to solid stone.
“I have more that I wish to relate about Hunter while you are here,” Arini spoke, cradling her hand in his. “We could speak of him for days and still not tell everything, and perhaps we should. I know your time here is limited, but my time is precious also; I have a Lineage to rule and many issues must be attended today. Take your rest a while; I will have one of my most trusted bring up food and leave it just beyond the doors. I must have audience with my generals now. If you need anything, set your hand to that stone there,” Arini nodded to a large ruby set into the wall of the bower, gleaming with sunlight, “and someone will arrive to attend you.”
“Thank you.” Layla spoke. “When will you return?”
“This evening, as the sun sets.” Reaching out, the Phoenix King cradled Layla’s face in his leathery palm, his black talons tickling her jaw as his gold eyes pierced her to the quick. A small smile lifted his lips, and Layla heard his beautiful birdsong wash through her mind once more as they gazed at each other. It made her heat, feeling a deep pull between them. She could feel her Bind-magic struggling beneath Reginald’s gifts as it tried to reach out to Arini, wanting him for her own. He was a powerful man and a powerful Royal, and as Layla watched him in their quiet moment of mutual understanding, she also knew he was a powerful heart.
She saw him realize what was happening. A wry understanding filled his eyes as he stepped in close, taking both her hands in his. She thought he might kiss her, the pull between them strengthened so much, but then Layla felt King Arini ease back from that intense, carnal attraction with a soft chuckle. Lifting her hands to his lips, he gave them each a kiss, brushing the cobalt down of his cheeks across her hands and making her sigh with gentle pleasure instead of hot lust.
“You are an amazing woman, Layla Price.” He spoke softly. “I have no doubt you will do tremendous things in your lifetime. Though I feel us pulling together by your magics, I wish to give you the power of choice in Binding me. I am content to wait, and not come to you until the time is right, if it is ever so. Until then, know that you have a friend in me, and Adrian Rhakvir and Dusk Arlohaim do also, this I swear until the end of my days.”
“Thank you.” Layla reached up, setting her hand to his cheek, feeling the beautiful softness of his cobalt down beneath her fingers.
“You are welcome.”
With that, King Arini stroked her face gently with one taloned hand, then turned, walking gracefully out through the silk-hung doorway. Leaving Layla alone in the bower, with more questions than she had answers.
CHAPTER 21 – GOLDEN
Layla gazed around King Arini’s bower after he left, restless. She hadn’t counted on him having duties while she was visiting, but of course he did. Moving about the elegant space, Layla examined its details to pass the time. The nest took up the greater part of the bower, but along one wicker wall, a gilded Italianate armoire held long frock coats of cascading feathers and soft silk. An ancient writing desk from the 1700’s held court by the vaulted windows, and behind a set of hand-painted Italian bathing screens decorated with birds, Layla found a bathing pool set into the stone floor, with crystal phials of oils lined up on a gilded stand. The water was cold, and though there was a gilded mirror, there was no toilet in the bathing area.
“Maybe he just perches his ass out the window?” Layla mused.
But just as she spied a clever hole in the floor covered by a round slab of stone with a foot-pedal next to it, she heard King Arini return in a wash of birdsong. Frowning, Layla wondered if he’d changed his mind about his duties or if they were already complete. Stepping back around the bathing-screen, she opened her mouth to speak – and stopped dead in her tracks. Tempeste Durant stood just inside the central silk-hung doorway, watching her. Or at first glance it seemed like Tempeste Durant.
Only the eyes were different – that terrible dark hunter-green color that seemed to devour all of time.
In an instant, Layla’s magic seared up to roaring, her Dragon screeching with fury inside her veins. Layla burned like an inferno, everything inside her snarling to fight. A wind whipped deep inside her as her Dragon roiled, lashing its tail and baring fangs at her enemy. At the trickster; the impostor wearing the face and skin of Tempeste Durant – and the same navy suit Tempeste had been in when Layla had seen him just this morning.
But with Reginald’s pearl bracelet and earrings on, all that happened was a blistering scent of burned orange peels that roared up around Layla. Her magic was still contained enough that if she wanted to fight Hunter, she’d have to shed Reginald’s jewelry. She saw the impostor note it. She saw Hunter’s black-green eyes flick to the pearl bracelet still at her wrist, before his gaze returned to hers.
“There’s no need to scream.” Hunter spoke quietly, calm. “Arini’s magics have made this chamber soundproof.”
“Did you kill him?!” Layla hissed, prickling with heat all through her body. “Did you kill Tempeste Durant, you bastard?!”
“I’ve been the one traveling with you these past days, Layla.” Hunter held her gaze steadily from Tempeste Durant’s haughty, beautiful face. “I found out about your plans and decided it was time to speak with you again. It’s why I had to interrupt your phone call with Dusk on the apartment balcony. Because Reginald’s eldest brother was killed on an Intercessoria job five years ago, and Dusk knows that.”
“You killed Tempeste Durant, didn’t you?!” Layla seethed, ferocious power ripping through her as her mind spiraled at how Hunter had tricked her – yet again. It made Layla feel sick inside, knowing this killer could so easily show her faces and personalities that made her feel compassion, just like he had done as Adam Rhakvir. As the extent of Hunter’s deceptions staggered her, Layla felt her blistering red rage darken to something impossibly black. She felt her horror and fear and fury coalesce – into a pit so dark that demons and cold wrath roared in those depths like a nest of poisonous snakes.
A feeling unlike anything she’d ever had before.
“Yes, I killed Tempeste Durant five years ago.” Hunter held her gaze, calm before her fury, his posture at ease inside Tempeste’s tall, lean body. “He was getting too close to me with one of his investigations. I couldn’t allow that; not with the Intercessoria. I assume Falliro Arini has told you something about me by now. I tried to get in sooner, but even I have to be cautious with the faces I take around Arini’s security personnel.”
“At least you have some limitations,” Layla growled, feeling a biting wind stir around her, though it was still somewhat tamed with Reginald’s jewelry still on.
Carefully, she slipped the earrings out of her ears, then unfastened the bracelet. Watching her, Hunter let her do it. Layla stuffed them into a zipper pocket of her jeans, keeping her eyes on him. Scorching power surged from her now, liberated by Reginald’s gifts. A crimson and gold ring of fire burst into the air around her – her fighting fire. As she squared off with Hunter, humming with tension now, she felt her Dragon roar inside her veins. The fire around Layla brightened, singeing feathers of Arini’s nest and fetishes dangling above. Hunter watched her, calmly. Just as before, her wrathful power didn’t touch him – as if he had some invisible barrier all around him, or could simply negate Layla’s power.
Layla balled a fist, sliding a foot back into a fighting-stance like Rikyava and Dusk had been teaching her. She had no idea if she could hit Hunter with her power, but damned if she wasn’t about to try. But without Reginald’s pearls on, she knew he couldn’t feel what was happening with her right now, or pinpoint her.
Hopefully, her shock at Hunter’s arrival had been enough to alert him that something was wrong.
Bad wrong.
