“So your enemies will underestimate him.” Layla reached up, smoothing her hand over Adrian’s chest again. “Is it working?”
“So far.” But again, Adrian frowned deeply. “Though I don’t know how much longer we’ll be able to keep all that under wraps.”
Layla was about to say something more, when she suddenly heard a buzzing sound in the room. It was like something vibrating against the stone floor, and as she frowned, Adrian perked, glancing around. In one lithe movement he was up off the bed, striding through the rubble and shuffling away glass with his feet. Lifting an enormous beam from the ruined canopy one-handed, demonstrating a strength in his human form that truly lifted Layla’s eyebrows, he reached down – taking up the remnants of his shredded pants and fishing in one pocket.
It was his cellphone he pulled out, still buzzing. Wiping colored dust from it, he glanced at the number and frowned. “No one has this number but Dusk, Rikyava, Rachida, and Emir, but it’s not a number I recognize. Do you mind if I take this?”
“Go ahead.” Layla waved a hand, knowing it was probably important if either of those four people were calling Adrian right now, in the middle of the night, in the middle of their Assignation. Perhaps Adrian’s aunt and Clan Second Rachida Rhakvir and his Battle-Lord Emir Tousk didn’t know about tonight, but Layla was nearly certain Rikyava had been in on the plan. As Adrian unlocked the phone and tapped the screen, holding it up to his ear, she saw his face brighten.
“Dusk! You bastard.” Adrian chuckled wryly. “You owe me a pile of money from that bidding war you—” But Adrian stopped suddenly, frowning. And then he scowled, a hard, furious energy radiating from him as he lifted his glance, staring at Layla. She felt his magics writhe around the room in a rush of burned jasmine, lifting colored dust and swirling it up into sand-funnels as it raced across the floor. Viciously intense now, Adrian nodded to what he was hearing on the phone.
“Shit.” Adrian spoke darkly, wrath in his posture as he raked a hand through his hair, then set his hand to his hip, gazing up at the midnight sky. “Shit, shit, shit. Uh huh. And Quindici has someone in custody? And you’resurethere’s no vibrational trace of the assailants, or her friends? Fucking hells. Yeah, I hear you. Will Rake and Jenna Ostlheim recover?”
Something dropped inside Layla, and deep within, she felt that black pit yawn wide. Her ecstasy from lovemaking evaporated as her Dragon gave a terrified snarl deep inside her, fraught with pain. She stared at Adrian, feeling through their Bind that something was horribly wrong, knowing the news was bad. Sitting up with alarm racing through every part of her, she held Adrian’s searing aqua gaze as it returned to her. Something terrible was in his eyes as he watched her, then finally turned away, nodding to whatever Dusk was saying on the other end of the phone.
“I got it.” He murmured. “Hold tight, I’m sending her back, and I’m coming with her. Be ready for us in the crystal bath-house. Have some clothes handy. I know it’s not a good idea for me to come. I know, Dusk. Tough, I’m coming. I know. Yes, I’ll wear my talisman. Twenty minutes. Ciao.”
With a hard sigh, Adrian touched the phone to hang up. Turning back to Layla, he let out a long, slow breath. Terror writhed through Layla as Adrian moved back to the bed, then set the phone carefully down. Layla shivered at the set of his jaw, knowing to her bones that something had gone horribly wrong tonight.
But before she could say anything, Adrian reached out, touching her ankle. “Layla, just listen before you say anything. There’s been a development at the Hotel, and you need to go back right away. And I’m coming with you.”
“Why? What’s happened?” Fear drilled through her, every sense heightening in a rush as that black pit raced upward. “Isn’t it dangerous for you to come back to the Hotel right now?”
“Yes, but your friends are missing.” Adrian kept his eye contact, his voice low and calm. “They didn’t make it back to their rooms tonight after the main party wound down in the Diamond Ballroom, so Rikyava sent a few extra Guards to find them. Luke was in his rooms, but not the rest.”
Panic gripped Layla’s chest as her heart dropped through her heels. Her chest tightened until she could barely breathe, and faster than thought, that enormous black pit of horror and darkness was suddenly rushing up, engulfing her. “I thought they were being guarded!”
“They were,” Adrian spoke tensely. “Apparently, all their Guards got drugged. Rikyava found them in the Waterfall Grotto. Rake André, Jenna Ostlheim, Lars Kurs, and Amalia DuFane were there also, all drugged pretty bad but they’ll live. Rake’s woken in the infirmary and Dusk is with him now. Apparently, all your friends except Luke went to an after-party Dusk arranged in the Waterfall Grotto to show them a good time, and a group of unknown Faunus crashed it. They were Smoke Faunus, and they weren’t associated with the Hotel. Quindici is interrogating our only Smoke Faunus on staff now, Imogene Cereste, but we don’t know where your friends were taken; Dusk has been unable to trace their vibrations, and the Intercessoria can’t either.”
Terror froze Layla, gripping her in ice. Deep inside, her Dragon wailed, roaring and gnashing its fangs. Layla could practically feel that black pit sending tentacles out, wrapping its strangling fear and darkness around her Dragon and choking her passions. It sent a deep chill through her entire body, and suddenly everything felt numb, frozen – like everything inside her was somehow going to a dark, empty place.
“Are they…?” She breathed.
“We don’t know.” Adrian spoke quietly, holding her gaze with his strong commander’s presence now. “I need to help Dusk get in touch with the Intercessoria, with Heathren Merkami and Insinio Brandfort. We need to get back to the Hotel to provide any information that might aid Dusk and Rikyava’s search efforts. I know you’re terrified right now, but I need you to take a deep breath and get your head clear so we can handle this situation. Layla? Can you hear me?”
Layla had begun to get lost in her ice-cold darkness, but Adrian’s words suddenly echoed what he’d said when her beast had been trying to take her over. Even though her black despair had roared up, swamping her, Layla suddenly realized her fear was the same as her passions. Her dark obliteration was the same as her bright fury – an animal trying to immobilize her saner mind. And if she was immobile, she was no good to her friends.
If she froze in that utter darkness now, chances were they wouldn’t be found alive.
“Let’s go. Now.” Without thinking, Layla was up from the bed fast. She didn’t even remember rising or moving, and was halfway to the egress of the ruined rotunda before Adrian snagged her arm. Her drakaina growled at him, swiping talons of magic through the air, and Adrian grunted, flinching as if she’d struck him like she’d once done before the Dragon-hunt. Layla turned back, confused at why he would try to stop her helping her friends – barely restraining her drakaina from lashing out at her mate again.
“You need something to wear.” Adrian spoke gently, as if to a person in shock.
Layla blinked. Gazing down, she realized she was still naked and covered in colored dust, and it was then that she realized she was in shock, like a trauma patient after a car accident. The realization calmed her Dragon, though the beast of Layla’s magic merely coiled up again, gnashing its fangs at the abduction of people she loved.
It all seemed like a lifetime ago, the passion Layla had shared with Adrian tonight. Glancing up to the sky, she saw it was lightening into dawn. She missed Adrian going to one of the other sets of double-doors in the ruined rotunda, but when he threw them open with a boom, she nearly jumped out of her skin. Her heartbeat was fast, her breath in her throat as he returned, extending a cobalt-blue silk robe to her and shrugging on a crimson quilted one for himself as he clasped something around his left wrist beneath the robe’s cuff.
Layla hauled on her robe with jerky, shocky movements. Her hands were shaking so hard she couldn’t get the sash tied and Adrian stepped in, doing it for her. Her eyes rose to him, and she knew they were enormous, her breath too fast. Tenderly, he cupped her face in his hands, giving her the full compassion of his deep aqua eyes. “This is all my fault. I’m so sorry, Layla. If I had never provoked the Crimson Circle—”
“It’s not your fault. It’s mine.” Layla hitched a breath, still feeling that black void trying to swallow her. “I encouraged Dusk’s plans to have my friends visit because I was selfish; I wanted to see them. Are you certain the Crimson Circle are behind this?”
“I’m almost certain of it.” Adrian nodded, stroking her neck. “But we need to find out specifically who. When we find them, we’ll find your friends.”
Layla nodded. She still felt cold despite the robe, and reached up, clutching it closed at the collar. But the deep cold wasn’t around her, it was inside her, as if that black pit of despair was empty as the vastness of outer space. Taking her hand, Adrian led them out of the ruined rotunda and back the way they had come, through the quiet palace and gardens. Layla hardly saw any of it. As they gained the front gates and proceeded up the dune, she knew she was still in shock, but couldn’t push through it. All she could think about were her friends being tortured at the hands of faceless Crimson Circle members, laughing in the darkness.
She shuddered in the pre-dawn wind as they gained the top of the dune. Adrian turned to her, rubbing her shoulders through her silk robe, his face deadly serious. “We’ll go back through the crystal bath-house where you came in. Dusk has set up a portal attuned to only you, him, and I. Layla? Are you listening?”
“Dusk can make portals?” She blinked, surfacing from dark thoughts.
