“I… um…” Layla’s mind still wasn’t working right. She didn’t know if it was Siren’s powers or just the severe hotness of the Head Courtier, but it had blindsided her. “Thanks for saving me at the Aviary.”
Reginald stepped in, his hands around her waist, pressing her close to his sleek clothes and the hard, exquisite body underneath. His eyes were luminous as he gazed down, a small smile lighting his perfectly sculpted lips. “Thank you for wearing my gifts so I could find you in your time of need.”
“Sure.” Layla still felt stupid to his beauty. She blinked hard, but her Dragon roared inside her, as if ceasing looking at Reginald was not what it wanted. Her beast slid through her veins with a restless heat, coiling in a slow, sinuous motion. She felt it surge up, eager to try its heat against the Siren’s – and felt it sluiced back by a wave of Reginald’s cool power.
“Sorry.” Layla breathed. “My Dragon’s restless.”
“Magic does as it will.” Reaching up, Reginald brushed his knuckles across Layla’s cheek. Their gazes locked and with their bodies pressed close, his grey-gold eyes pierced her to the quick. “We learn to control it, but sometimes it controls us.”
“Is your magic controlling this, our attraction?” Layla breathed. “Those dreams we had when I was in Manarola?”
“No.” Stroking her cheek, Reginald gazed deep into her eyes. “I felt those dreams just as much as you did. And our resonance is not happening just because of your magic or mine, but because of a connection between us.”
“I feel it,” Layla breathed, feeling him so near. “It’s been like this for weeks, hasn’t it?”
“Months.” He spoke quietly, his gaze wistful. “I felt it the first day you arrived at the Hotel. When I stepped out onto the promenade to greet you with the Madame, I felt this attraction hit me like a forge-fire, making my seas boil. Iwantedyou, unlike I had wanted anyone in so very long. It made me fear you – and made me doubly cold in our subsequent interactions. Forgive me.”
“You were trying to deny it.” Layla swallowed, knowing she’d been trying to do the same for a while now.
“I was trying to deny what was happening, yes.” He nodded. “I was trying to avoid what I felt, just like I’ve been trying to avoid facing my true power for centuries. But you felt me, the real me, the first time we danced. I didn’t mean for you to, but you fell into my eyes and my body – and I saw you recognize the man beneath the mask. I spoke long hours with Sylvania about it. She urged me to embrace it, but still I resisted. But now, because of my Dragon’s response when your life was in danger, I know how I feel about you. And I will never deny it again.”
“You give me strength.” Layla spoke before she knew what she was saying. But as her words tumbled out, she knew the answer to the riddle between them, and why they were calling each other – why her Bind magic was calling him.
“I give you strength?” Reginald spoke quietly. Reaching up, he smoothed his knuckles over her cheek, his sea-grey eyes deep. “Whatever do you mean?”
“When I met with King Arini, he helped me realize that each Royal my Bind-magic calls gives me something.” Layla spoke, knowing she had to face it at last, this formidable attraction between them. Taking a breath, she firmed her courage and continued. “Your control, your austere impeccability – it gives me strength, Reginald. Adrian gives me challenge and passion. Dusk gives me safety and clear problem-solving. But you give me cold, raw power. You have the ability to control my raging magic. The way it wants to wreck ruin and Bind every Royal in sight – whether I want it to or not. And I value that, Reginald. I value you. I think that’s why my magic has been seeking you out. Because without you… I’m less than I could be. And without me… you’re less than you might be, also.”
“Less than I might be…” Reginald Durant breathed, his sea-grey eyes infinite.
And then he cupped Layla’s face in his palm, lifting his lips and kissing her, deep and strong.
CHAPTER 25 – POWER
At last, Reginald released their kiss. Gazing down, his look was so breathtaking, so fiercely tender, that Layla’s chest caught as he slid his hand back to cradle her neck. Silence breathed around them in the vaulted hall of the Crystal Cathedral, and as they watched each other, Layla saw that memory again in her mind, of Reginald’s Blood Dragon lover.
Before he washed it away in a wave of white sea-foam.
“Why do you hide that memory from me?” She asked, knowing now that when she saw someone else’s memories through her magic, that they experienced them also.
“Because it was my power that ruined everything, back then.” Pain lay in Reginald’s eyes as he gazed down, still stroking her neck. “A power I couldn’t control at the time – my rage. Even though you’ve heard about my past, Layla, it is not something I wish you to see. I lost control back then. I did not have the strength you feel in me now, not like I have learned over the years. And the result of my lack of control – was terrible.”
“That’s why you insisted I become your Partner, isn’t it?” Layla searched his eyes. “Because you knew that only you had the control I needed, over catastrophic, unpredictable magic like mine.”
“Like ours.” Reginald’s smile was wry as he gazed down, his body quiet with intensity as his fingers continued stroking her. “I became what I am because of that terrible day. Just as you will come into your power more fully because of what happened at the Aviary, disastrous though it was. I thank Ummo and all the gods that your lesson did not come with such a high death toll as mine. Not all Twilight Lineages have the power you and I possess, Layla. When I lose control, my passion goes cold. And then it does not just kill, it wrecks ruin. I ruined that day – hundreds of people who did not deserve it. I have had to live with my terrible deed ever since.”
Layla saw it then, her magic viewing the memory as Reginald finally released it. A young Reginald, furious with grief and rage, standing on a haystack rock in the harbor with his eyes red-rimmed, his hair whipping long and glorious in the brisk sea-wind. A sound flooding the harbor, like a cacophony of reed flutes being smashed in a storm as Reginald screamed. And then a true storm whipping the cove; swamping boats, driving people inland – called by Reginald’s power and the dark fury of his voice.
Layla thought she might see a tidal wave then, but what she actually saw was far worse. An image of the Blood Dragons in the village came, clutching at their throats. All throughout the cove, they fell to their knees with eyes bulging as seawater rushed up from inside them; flooding them. They twitched like fish out of water in the stony fields, in farm-houses of wood beam and thatch, in their lodge-houses of worship and gathering.
Drowning – dying.
It was only then that Reginald had pummeled the cove with tidal wave after tidal wave in his horror, washing their corpses out to sea to hide what he had done. But Layla had seen the truth. Everyone thought he’d killed the village with his tidal waves, but the terrible truth was that he had caused seawater to bubble up inside those Blood Dragons – killing them where they stood long before he’d summoned any ocean waves at all.
Tears stood out bright in Layla’s eyes. Staring down at her as she watched the memory, Reginald’s eyes tightened though he shed no tears. Reaching up, Layla cupped his face in her hands, even as she gasped with agony from the vision. She could feel Reginald’s woe; so impossibly deep. He’d not meant to kill them, only to destroy their ships and pummel their harbor. But he’d been furious with grief and his magic had raged, doing for him what he could not – taking retribution.
Drowning them from the inside out by the sheer power of his wrath.
“It wasn’t your fault!” Layla gasped as she cradled his face. “Gods! It wasn’t your fault,Sivvir!”
