Without warning, the horror of memories Hunter had shared with Layla in the Phoenix King’s bower suddenly opened inside Layla’s mind. The combined darkness was disastrous, and Layla was down on her knees without knowing she had fallen, flooded with obliterating terror. Gasping for air, she felt like she was choking on seawater, being ripped apart by talons, and stabbed through the heart all at the same time.
As an enormous black void opened up inside her, cavernous and horrible.
Her chest was spasming as she hyperventilated, trying to escape that devouring blackness. Fire ripped along her spine in a burning wave of heat, fighting the darkness that wanted to consume her, and Layla screamed, shuddering. But the wave only spread as her Dragon thrashed against the grips of the cold terror, fighting it with everything she had. Washing through every limb, the ferocious power of Layla’s beast devoured her all the way to the ends of her fingers and toes as pain roared through every nerve.
Layla screamed again, feeling like she was blazing with fire even as she was held suspended above that cavernous black hole inside her. Spines shot from her back, tearing the fabric of her gown and Layla screamed – her voice now roaring with impossible overtones. Talons shot from her fingertips in a wave of light and she roared again, the agony excruciating. Collapsed to the floor, she shuddered like she was going to shake apart, though she knew what was happening. She’d gone through a partial Dragon-shift twice before, but Dusk wasn’t here to control her this time – and as she glanced up at Adrian with panic, she saw his fury evaporate.
Adrian went to her fast. Kneeling over her and wrapping her in his arms with her back to his front, he crushed her to his body even as she struggled and surged, fighting him, fighting the pain and darkness – fighting the change. She felt Adrian’s energy expand around her, enormous, his Dragon coiling around her from head to heels, pulsing like a bellows. He was breathing in her power with his magic, breathing in her scalding waves of heat – taking them into himself and forestalling her change.
“Adrian!” Layla gasped, in a brief moment of clarity. “Help me!”
“Breathe, Layla.” He spoke low by her ear, his voice a growl of sub-basso Dragon tones also now. “Let the shift wash through you; let it happen. I’ll keep you safe, I promise.”
“But I can’t shift tonight!” She struggled, still fighting the ripping heat flooding through her, along with the crushing sensations of darkness. “You and I… we have to—!”
“Sex can wait; it’ll have to.” Adrian growled by her ear, still cradling her close, his body a scalding fire now to match hers as his power struggled to siphon her change away for a few moments. “Be the wind, Layla; be the fire. Let the pain of the memories you’re feeling from Dusk and Reginald and I wash through you, but don’t just be that. Be our joys also. Be our love for you, and your love for us – all of us. We’re not just darkness, not like Hunter. And neither are you.”
Some part of Layla registered that Adrian was usingweto mean himself, Reginald, and Dusk. Somehow, he had seen what was happening to her through their Bind; seen the horror of Hunter’s darkness opening up inside her as a reaction to her bound men’s painful memories. But comprehension was pushed aside as Layla’s Dragon rose again inside her, thundering back Adrian’s winds at last. Hot like lava, furious like tornadoes, her inner Dragon raised its head high – and Layla’s flesh was an obstacle.
She screamed as the beast inside her roared, spilling out her throat. She spasmed as it stretched muscled coils, pressing up against every last inch of her skin from the inside like a burning fire, swirling her up and devouring her. The fury of Layla’s Dragon was suddenly pouring down every limb with a crash like asteroids hitting the earth.
And Layla’s flesh gave in.
Layla’s entire body was suddenly splitting. She screamed, feeling her skin shred and roil. She roared, feeling every limb surge outward, bones snapping and sinews remaking. Her chest scorched, and as she stretched her long neck up to the high vaults, she roared, a gout of furious red-gold flame heaving through the filigreed walls of the dome.
Coiling with pain, Layla surged and roiled, flailing. Her coils hit the walls and columns, not strong enough to crack them, but strong enough to scatter Moroccan lanterns across the room. She felt like fire-ants devoured her as pain burned in and in – scales blossoming out and out. Golden spines shot from her serpentine back, her head suddenly heavy with a corkscrewing mantle of horns. She flailed again, massive gold-red talons punching into the agate floor, her head whipping and her long, corkscrewing golden horns getting stuck in the upper frame of the canopied bed.
She screamed, her head now trapped. She heaved her body to get free and the entire bed frame lifted up from the floor – but it didn’t shatter to her weak, newly-changed muscles. She heard another roar in the room. Big, male, that roar was all power and it made her panic even as she felt a blistering wind whirl around her. Suddenly, an enormous drake was coiled around her – crimson and aqua with a row of massive black spines protruding from his back. His burning aqua eyes pierced her as his head snaked high above hers, his snout full of enormous black fangs.
She panicked, flailing, straining the muscles of her neck as she shrieked in terror. She was caught. She was caught and he was going to eat her. As his jaws opened, baring those enormous, cruel fangs, she snarled at him, heaving a gout of fire from her lungs. With an agile side-winding movement, he dodged it, flowing around her flames. And then those enormous jaws were descending. She shrieked like a harpy, trying to split his ears with her power, but his jaws were were on her. Biting, crunching – cracking through the stout canopy of the bed.
Freeing her.
She heaved free with a scathing roar. It was so foolish of him to break her prison! But even as she roiled, she felt how uncoordinated her muscles were. Roaring in frustration, she tried to rake him with her talons; tried to whip her head and butt him with her stout skull. But her body was too weak, too new. She flailed and he was suddenly coiling around her, securing her with his massive strength. Fury coursed through her to be restrained. But even as her head whipped again and her talons tried to rip chunks from him, he pinned her talons beneath his, wrapping his serpentine body tight around hers.
She whipped her head to hammer him, but he was too fast. His enormous jaws seized her by the back of her neck, pinning her, letting her feel his strength. She felt him gather his formidable power with an enormous inhalation.
And then all that power was pouring into her through his bite – deep into her body.
CHAPTER 8 – MATE
The drakaina shuddered under the drake’s wave of power, flowing into her armored neck through his bite. His fangs hadn’t pierced deep, and at his basso growl, the sensation surging through her changed suddenly from terror to a vast pleasure. She roiled in his grip, feeling his ironbound strength and nearness. Feeling his powerful muscles holding her, adjusting to her every move. She felt their scales slide against each other, silken and scalding, as his wind of hot power poured through her body. Shuddering, she slid her body against his, purposefully this time.
And felt him shudder also.
His breath was suddenly hotter on her neck. His fangs ground delicately into his bite and he growled; a sensation that poured through her with a cascading scent of cinnamon and jasmine. She made a sound, but not one of fear as she writhed beneath him, a sweet smell of oranges and bourbon flowing out around her. As he began to move, sliding his enormous, strong coils over her, she understood he was letting her feel him. Letting her feel how strong he was, how dominant, how much he boiled with heat. The drakaina snarled, feeling him, wanting him – but in that moment, Layla’s human mind suddenly snapped back.
Her breathing changed from the slow roil of the beast’s to a fast pant of terror and amazement as she came partially back into her human mind. Layla’s body felt enormous; coiling around half the room before the mangled bed, she realized she had arms but no legs anymore, her legs somehow all one long serpentine appendage now. A tail. She had a tail. As she realized it, it roiled, and she felt Adrian’s enormous body pin her solidly yet again, holding her tight.
Adrian.
The thought of him rose and she was suddenly hot, pressed up against him. She was trapped beneath Adrian’s armored, powerful body, his talons and bite sinking into her – deliciously. There was pain as he held her, as he bit his fangs into her neck, but it wasn’t the kind of pain that made her shriek anymore. It was a soothing, delicious pain, and as Layla had that thought, she arched back against him – feeling him press his jaws deeper upon her, holding her still.
Suddenly, a long tongue licked up her neck between his fangs. Layla shuddered, feeling him lick her with sensual strokes, raspy like a cat’s tongue. She surrendered to it, bending her neck so he licked her deeper, slower. Stronger. She heaved against his coils, but it wasn’t to get away now. Adrian felt it, moving with her. They were suddenly coiling together, braiding around and through each other, sliding all those hot scales and strong muscles against each other. Slithering over the damaged bed; draping themselves around the frame as they coiled together.
With a powerful stroke, Adrian somehow rolled Layla over to her back, draping her over the damaged bed. Releasing her neck, he ran his smooth-scaled cheek over hers as they slid against each other belly to belly now. Layla heaved, pressing up against him as he pressed her down, draping his strong coils over her and pinning her again. But this pinning had motion to it; undulating waves that reminded Layla’s human mind of sex. As if Adrian was heaving his coils against her to fuck her deep and slow, it was an inescapable sensation, and Layla shuddered all along the length of her new body.
As Adrian pulled back, gazing deep into her eyes from his beautiful aqua-gold ones in a Dragon’s face, she suddenly heard his voice in her mind.Layla? Are you in there?
