“Haranguing me about my choices again, Bastien?” Reginald had gone icy at Bastien’s words, his voice soft and terrible. “For last I recall, they are mine to make.”
“They arefather’sto make.” Bastien’s white eyes flashed with wrath. “He is your King and you defy him, playing the fop for rich matrons and denying your place at his side. You are aRoyal Siren, Reginald. Your power is the duty of your clan.”
“My power was not made for war.” Reginald went very still beside Layla.
“That ispreciselywhat your power was made for.” Bastien’s gaze was terrible as he stared his brother down. “And yet you deny father your talents during this conflict that has lasted so very long, while the rest of your brothers play their part. We are doing what needs to be done to end a blood-feudyoustarted. While you run like a cowardly eel, hiding here in silks and lace.”
“Last I heard, you were nowhere near the North Sea,” Reginald retorted, scathing. “Fucking your way through the wealthiest Siren-clans of the Mediterranean gains father little.”
“It gains father much.” Bastien Durant swigged back his martini and set it decisively upon a side-table. “My actions gain our King allies. Far more than could ever be said of you.”
“I send our King a generous tithe of my quarterly earnings for his sorties.”
“Money isn’t power, Reginald.” Bastien’s perfect lips lifted in a mean snarl. “Magic is power. And father needs yours at home.”
“My magic is needed here.” Reginald lifted his chin, his ice-blue eyes flashing fury. “My self-banishment contained the event that sparked this conflict, Bastien. Removing myself from the North Sea and swearing to the Blood Dragons that I would never return to their shores was good enough for King Huttr Erdhelm. The truce was written. But father broke that budding accord when he attacked Frostjavin. He saw an opportunity to invade the Norwegian fjords while they were weak from what I’d done. His actions caused the war. And only his actions provoke it.”
Layla blinked at this astounding information seething between the two brothers. This was news, that Reginald had somehow started an entire war between the North Sea Sirens and the Blood Dragons of Sweden and Norway. It was something that had never been mentioned at the Hotel – not by Dusk, or Adrian, and not even by Rikyava Andersen, the Blood Dragon Head Guardswoman whose uncle was King Huttr Erdhelm.
But before Reginald and Bastien’s argument could inflate more, a stir occurred near the doors – as Layla’s bound Royal Desert Dragon Adrian Rhakvir came striding into the pavilion.
Layla’s breath stopped as she felt Adrian arrive, his desert-jasmine energy swirling through the room in a hot wave of power. Tall and striking, Adrian had an intensity that other Owners in the room simply couldn’t match. His lean physique was honed, his shoulders sculpted and strong. His cheekbones were beautifully high, his jaw sharp with a soft black stubble, his thick black hair rakishly styled. Wearing a navy three-piece suit that caught the light, his royal plum shirt was open at the collar, matched by a silk pocket square. A gold pocketwatch on a chain was tucked into his waistcoat, a ruby and platinum ring flashing on his index finger with a snarling dragon.
But it wasn’t Adrian’s striking good looks or his heady cinnamon-jasmine scent that arrested Layla as he entered the pavilion, giving effortless greetings and clasping hands as he beamed his perfectly intriguing smile. It wasn’t his swirl of desert wind that caught her as his intense Mediterranean-blue eyes found hers, piercing her and making her catch her breath. It was the way she could feel him, like a golden cord of heat and passion bound them together through the very depths of their souls.
Like they were a part of each other – and always would be.
Layla and Adrian’s magics rushed out, greeting each other in a sensual slide of heat and coils and muscled power. Layla could feel him through her every sinew, and she knew Adrian felt her too, his aqua eyes blazing even as he kept making his greetings. Layla’s magics weren’t bound by her talisman anymore, and they wanted to devour Adrian. To revel in him. To writhe inside his body and haul him close.
Her Dragon surged forward to try and catch him; to make him enter a heated dance with her. But cool fingers stole around Layla’s wrist and she closed her eyes, feeling Reginald’s Siren corralling her back. He was more gentle about it than he’d been with Dusk, and Layla steadied, feeling her Bind with Adrian sluiced under a deep white wave. Her Dragon calmed beneath that oceanic power, but it left her feeling barren as she opened her eyes – finding Adrian’s face fallen into hurt as he felt their Bind washed away also.
Which he had to cover quickly as a group of Hotel Owners came over to speak with him.
Layla understood Adrian’s bleak look; she felt that way, too. It had been nearly a month since they had last been alone, courtesy of Reginald’s strict limitation of Layla’s exposure to her Bound men while she trained. Not to mention the fact that Adrian was always traveling for his numerous business ventures. She’d been allowed to train in fighting-magics down in the Guardhall with Dusk these past weeks, but not to see Dusk or Adrian in any kind of intimate setting.
And feeling her Bind with Adrian washed away now was torture.
“My, my.” Layla had forgotten they were still engaged in conversation with Reginald’s brother Bastien, until his ocean-smooth voice suddenly grated upon her ears. “The Royal Dragon Bind is causing trouble at the Paris Hotel, I see.”
“That’s none of your concern, Bastien.” Reginald gave his brother a frigid look.
“As a Hotel Owner, it is my concern, actually.” Bastien Durant had claimed a new martini and now sipped with a cruelly teasing glint in his eyes, flaunting what he was and what Reginald was not. “Adrian Rhakvir is under a lot of scrutiny. Everyone smiles to his face, but many of the Owners are talking behind his back; that perhaps Adrian has lost his ability to control this establishment, and thecreaturesemployed in it – if he had any control over them at all.” Bastien gave a pointed glance to Layla. “Depending on how things go, someone else may be appointed to Adrian’s position here, soon.”
“Not something you would ever want, when you haveIbiza.” Reginald spoke frigidly.
“Oh, I don’t know.” Bastien sipped his martini with a cruel smile. “Paris has its charms.”
Bastien had opened his lips to bait Reginald more, when a series of gamelan-style gongs sounded in the pavilion. Over near the garden entrance, a trio of gilded screens had been erected, and as everyone turned, the Madame took center stage, beckoning people to gather. It seemed they were to have some kind of entertainment, and as Reginald guided Layla over to a good viewing spot by a cobalt column with white trumpet-flower vines crawling up it, Layla felt Adrian step to her other side.
He glanced over at her, a wry smile curling his beautiful lips. Layla sensed Adrian wasn’t about to do anything rash tonight, but though he didn’t reach out to touch her, he did move close to her side as the crowd thickened before the gilded screens. The Madame was saying something about the entertainment, but Layla wasn’t listening. All she could feel was Adrian’s hot, sensual energy curling around her; stroking her neck and collarbones, kissing her lips. Tucking his hands in his pockets beside her, Adrian gave a clever, renegade smile – watching the speech even as he stole kisses from Layla on the sly with his magics.
Layla’s eyelashes fluttered as her lips fell open. Delight rushed through her as Adrian’s magics pressed her lips, licking softly, exploring. She could feel him as if he stood before her, cradling her neck with one hand and sliding the other around her waist to draw her close. It was all Layla could do to not moan as he kissed her, as he touched her deep and slow all the while standing perfectly at ease right beside her.
Feeling what was going on, Reginald stiffened, sliding a hand around Layla’s waist as the gilded screens were pulled back. The view before them opened to two Courtiers and one Courtesan lounging in a group of antique crimson chaises. Dressed in draping black lace that covered little – her in a tight-corseted gown, them in men’s Victorian dressing-robes and all wearing lace demi-masques – the trio began to engage in what Layla realized was to be a public Assignation for the Owners.
It was the best of what their Hotel had to offer, the tryst elegantly Parisian as it began with slow titillation and sexy foreplay, the men two of Reginald’s best Courtiers and the woman Sylvania Eroganis’ own protégé. But as it began, decadent and sensual, all Layla could feel was Adrian’s hands stroking her. Adrian’s lips kissing hers gently, teasing her, seeing how much she could keep her composure as they stood side-by-side and watched the show.
Layla could feel Reginald’s energy rising, washing away Adrian’s touches in a stealthy way that affected no one else around them. Adrian fought Reginald, licking in with his hot power to take Layla again and again. Eros was building inside her, and before her as the Assignation participant’s clothing was shed. As hands started to play harder in the scene, and the two Royal Dragons fought subtly for possession of her, Layla could feel the temperature of the room heat, the Owners riveted as they watched the show. And as Adrian kissed her, Reginald trying to wash his attentions away in a scintillating game that left Layla burning up between them, she felt the entire situation pushing her over the edge.
