“Thank god.” Adrian kissed her fast; then he was watching the battle. Across the hall, Dusk was vibrating with power; he’d stepped out from behind his column, white crystals spiking up through the seawater all around him. Layla saw him close his eyes; his lovely dark eyelashes fluttered as he gathered power. Spreading his hands, Dusk gripped them into talons, shuddering the crystals around him higher. As Layla watched, light began refracting through him, blistering along his serrated midnight scales and golden lines. Lengthening his fingers into cruel diamond talons, that light heaved an enormous double-set of corkscrewing horns from his temples as giant armored spikes sprouted from his shoulder-blades, ripping through his tux.
“Jesus,” Adrian swore softly by her side. “I’ve never seen Dusk shift this much. We don’t have any time, Layla. Feel my energy; follow my lead. Raise your power to scorching, and keep it as high as you can.”
“I don’t know how!” Layla panicked suddenly, fear driving through her as she watched Dusk’s power escalate. He had so much power, so much control, but Layla had never been a warrior like he was…
Hauling her close, Adrian kissed her, roughly. With a growl, he poured his energy down her throat, roaring at her inner Dragon in a challenge. She felt her Dragon roar back. Suddenly, her power was spiraling up through her throat, chasing Adrian’s as he pulled away with aqua-gold fire in his eyes.
As he gave a hard smile, whirling and stepping out from behind the column, Layla felt her bones thunder with power; Adrian’s power and hers, chasing each other in an enormous figure-eight of play and danger. Like Adrian had reached inside and bitten her, hauling the power out for her to use, Layla’s body was suddenly on fire.
As she stepped to Adrian’s side, she wasn’t afraid anymore. Curls of real flame were in her hands now, swirling in a blistering wind. The same were in Adrian’s hands, as their twinned magics created an enormous heat-mirage before them, ringing them in a wide arc. As Adrian moved forward, Layla moved with him in perfect synch. She knew what he was about to do; feeling everything he’d ever learned about fighting with magic. As Adrian breathed deep, she felt him haul all that tremendous blister of their Bound magics deep into his lungs. And as he roared it out in one long breath, that vicious mirage before them suddenly caught fire.
Igniting a gargantuan wall of flame all along its length.
Layla moved as Adrian did, the both of them gripping their hands like talons into that enormous wall of flame. They spun in synch, hurling that flame at Reginald, causing a barrier of fire to rise up between the Sirens. Roaring with affront, the fighting Sirens were forced back from each other. Writhing from countless injuries, Reginald heaved back from the fire.
And was trapped as Dusk shot his crystals at the Siren.
White crystals ripped across the wet floor, plowing a path through the water and surrounding Reginald. He screamed as they encased him; a roar of rage. Reginald thrashed and fought Dusk’s containment as the crystals towered, building into a jagged ring up over Reginald’s hulking shoulders. Reginald shrieked like the ocean heaving, and it was all Layla could do to not release her hands from her and Adrian’s barrier to cover her ears.
But as they caught their friend, Bastien was suddenly loose. Though bleeding from countless punctures and a number of ripped fins, he’d taken less damage than Reginald. With a quick sidewinding movement like a cottonmouth through the water, he came for Adrian and Layla. But in that moment, Rikyava gave the signal for attack. As her Forbidden Spears rushed in, six Harpies and five Furies flying in while the rest rushed through the water, they surrounded Bastien nearly a hundred to one.
Rikyava held point, transformed now into a blood-red Dragon with black geodesic lines running through her scales. Though huge, Rikyava’s Dragon looked positively tiny compared to Bastien, like a sparrow-hawk facing down a condor. Raising red and black-tattooed wings, Rikyava launched into the air like a falcon. Gripping a black spear in either taloned grip, she hounded Bastien’s head, whirling and diving as rivulets of blood shed off her into the air; the power of her magic as she spun and dove, slashing for his eyes.
It was working. As Dusk shuddered the entire Hotel, stacking his crystal barrier up around the thrashing Reginald, Layla and Adrian changed their postures to sweep their barrier of fire around the snarling Bastien. The Guards rushed in. Though Bastien smacked them from the air and gouged them with massive talons, hammering others back with his tail, Layla saw one Werewolf Guardsman hurl a Forbidden Spear. It stuck between two of Bastien’s glossy back-plates and he roared in pain. Poison-bright violet sigils careened out from the injury, devouring their way across Bastien’s scales.
But there was a lot of Siren to devour. And plenty of Bastien was still furious, even as Layla saw that section of his back become paralyzed. Hammering Guards away, he whipped his body in a fast flail; sending those nearby scattering like bowling pins. Rikyava shrieked as more than half her Guards fell motionless in the water. She dove fast, anticipating where Bastien’s head would be.
And thrust one of those cruel black spears right through his left eye.
Bastien roared. He surged forward, hammering Rikyava with his broad, viper-flat skull even as he rolled his snout around in a fast movement. In a one-two devastation, Rikyava was stunned, then seized in Bastien’s jaws. Layla heard Adrian roar beside her. Their barrier of fire was suddenly whirling as Adrian shifted. Swept up in a massive funnel of wind and crimson-aqua fire, Adrian thrust Layla back as he careened out from that funnel.
A fully-formed Desert Dragon.
As serpentine as the Sirens, Adrian’s crimson and aqua Dragon had no wings but flew through the air in a rippling of coils and barbs upon a wind of his own power. Stripes of gold and black cascaded down his back with rippling spines, a double-row of horns arching from his skull like Dusk’s. Larger than Rikyava but still only a third as big as Bastien, Adrian shot like his own kind of spear through the air, coiling around Bastien’s neck like a viper, strangling him. Savaging Bastien’s throat with enormous fangs, Adrian whipped Bastien’s underbelly with a powerful spiked tail – digging in with massive black talons at Bastien’s heart.
As Adrian attacked, Layla felt his and her magic diverted. With powerful mastery, Adrian took their barrier of flame – and poured it down Bastien’s throat like molten lava as he savaged the enormous grey and white Siren. The Siren choked and roared in pain, dropping Rikyava from its jaws like sticking fingers down the throat of a mauling cat.
And though Adrian couldn’t bite all the way through the Siren’s scaled throat, he and Layla’s fire could. Layla felt her and Adrian’s combined power pour down the Siren’s gullet, deep into its body. The Siren burned from the inside, screaming now – and as Adrian bit deep into its throat, silver blood gushed crimson-gold like the Siren’s veins had caught fire.
It was the end. Five more Guards got in. Black spears were thrust. Violet death-sigils spiraled deep into the Siren’s flesh.
And with a last shudder and howl, it went limp – dead.
An answering howl came from Reginald’s crystal prison. But as Layla gasped on her hands and knees in the flooding seawater, she heard that howl drowned out as Dusk’s dome finally encased Reginald. As Dusk slammed his hands together over his head in a thundering clap, a massive tone rang through the ballroom, knocking Reginald unconscious. But Dusk’s blast exploded what was left of the ceiling and marble pillars, and Layla thrust her hands up, unfurling an enormous screen of wind with her last bit of power.
As the entirety of the ballroom came crashing down, Layla’s barrier held – casting away falling crystal shards and marble and steel and keeping everyone below safe.
Layla heaved with shock as the dust settled and she finally released her barrier, only the night sky with stars above her now. By their light and the glancing glow still coming from the Hotel proper, she saw her hands had transformed; gold seethed through her veins from her chest into her fingertips, her fingers now cruel golden talons. Spines had thrust from her back; her head dragged from the weight of long corkscrewing horns. As Layla sobbed from pain, power still seething through her, she saw that Adrian had fallen away from the dead Bastien, gasping in the water butt-ass naked and back in human form. Crawling to the motionless Rikyava, also human again, he checked her pulse. Adrian heaved in relief as Guards stumbled up from the wreckage, blinking in astonishment at the wide sky above as they realized the battle was over.
But something was wrong inside Layla. The fight was finished, but she was still vibrating with power, and couldn’t stop it. She could feel a thread of her Bind remaining to the unconscious Reginald, but it wasn’t enough to control whatever was happening inside her. Her entire body was thrumming with power, surging with it. Gasping with pain, her panicked eyes found Dusk’s as he stumbled to her side. She saw him understand what was wrong – in an instant, he knew her problem and how to solve it.
Hauling her into his arms, Dusk wrapped his naked body around her. Cradling her close in the seawater that still flooded the now-quiet ballroom, he cupped the back of her skull and the back of her heart with his hands. Though breathing hard from exhaustion, Layla felt his power thrum through her in the most soothing shower of sound she’d ever felt – to stop her beast from rising.
It did.
As her Dragon roared one last time and gave up, settling back down inside Layla’s veins, she felt those enormous spines from her back resorb into her body. As the burning gold inside her veins retreated, Layla fell limp. And as Dusk used the last of his power to put hers away, he collapsed on top of her – passed out cold.
CHAPTER 29 – GONE
