“I was supposed to protect them! I’m supposed to protect you! I have to—!”
Suddenly, Dusk’s vibrating rose to a fever pitch, so hard and fast that if it hadn’t been for his strong grip on Layla, he would have shuddered himself right down through the floor. With a hard jerk, he screamed. The entire bath-house shuddered around them, water sloshing as the rose quartz floor heaved. Layla had to clutch Adrian to keep from falling over as the floor roiled beneath her, but even so, she felt vibrations shuddering from Dusk unlike anything she’d ever felt before. It was enormous, fundamental, and as it built and built inside him, a nimbus of ruby crystals manifested in the air around them.
Alarm raced through Layla as the entire bath-house began to roil like a category 8 earthquake.
“Dusk!” With terror flooding her that Dusk was going to bring the structure down on them, Layla seized his face, forcing him to look at her. But he was gone. His beautiful blue eyes were unfocused, lost somewhere terrible. As the bath-house heaved all around and beneath them, water splashing everywhere, blossoms of crimson began to lance in Dusk’s eyes like a Blood Dragon. But these were terrible spikes of vicious ruby light rather than dark like blood. Fear flooded Layla as she felt a screaming uptick in Dusk’s energy, like he was going to blow an entire fault-line straight to the Atlantic Ocean.
Layla didn’t know what to do. She panicked, her world flashing black like a deep, dark nowhere. Her friends were gone; Dusk was losing it. She was going dark and there was nothing to stop it, Reginald far away in the North Sea with his clan. A devouring terror swamped Layla and she froze.
But in that moment, Adrian moved. Gripping Dusk’s neck, he stepped in fast, holding Layla as he pulled their trio tight together. Hauling Dusk’s lips to his, hard and deep, Adrian forced his lips upon his adopted brother, pouring his magic down Dusk’s throat in a scalding rush of wind. It was like what Adrian had done to Layla when she’d been her Dragon, but rather than coaxing his brother back from the brink, Adrian forced the roar of his Dragon deep inside Dusk, forcing him to listen. In that moment, Layla felt Adrian’s fear through their Bind. He was just as afraid as Dusk and Layla. He was just as annihilated by what had happened. But they had to fix this, and they would.
And Adrian would never give in until they did.
As Layla felt his determination and his strength, as she felt Adrian pour his power down Dusk’s throat to stabilize the fracturing crystal, a golden light opened up inside Layla. And where she’d been afraid her own black fear would devour her, she was suddenly flooding light into Dusk through their Bind, inundating him with it. It was bright and pure, and it held all the love she felt for him and Adrian both.
Dusk broke from Adrian’s kiss with a gasp, like a drowning man suddenly coming up for air as he was flooded with Layla’s light and Adrian’s fierce heat. His lips found hers, and she felt him cry out as she kissed him and he kissed her back, fiercely. Like a quake rippling away through the bowels of the earth, the shuddering in his body finally died, the bath-house around them ceasing to heave.
“Layla! Gods, I’m so sorry!” Dusk gasped as he broke from their kiss, reaching up to clasp her face gently between his hands. “I didn’t mean to lose control!”
“It’s ok. It’s ok.” She spoke, lifting up to kiss him again as Adrian blew a deep exhalation of relief, corralling Dusk’s head and kissing his temple tenderly. Layla hadn’t felt Adrian’s tension until just now – now that Dusk was no longer going to blow the place sky-high.
“I lost your friends!” Dusk choked, clutching Layla close, his beautiful blue eyes so raw that Layla lifted up, kissing his lips.
“Shh, we’ll find them. We’ll find them.” Layla kissed him as he shuddered against her. Tears sprung to her eyes as they clutched each other, and she felt Adrian wrap his arms around her and Dusk both, holding them safe. Dusk’s face was buried in Layla’s shoulder as he suddenly sobbed, and the sound broke Layla’s heart. Running her fingers through his hair, she pressed her cheek to his as Adrian set his lips to Dusk’s temple, heaving a hard sigh.
“We’ll find Layla’s friends, Dusk,” Adrian spoke gently, corralling Dusk’s head with his hand and setting their foreheads together. “I promise.”
It was a long moment before Dusk nodded with a hard sigh, moving his forehead back to Layla’s. She could feel his incredible exhaustion running all through him now like a thousand fractures as Dusk breathed softly. Turning his head, he glanced to Adrian as he massaged a hand at his chest, gripping his heart. “I just – I feel so raw, like all my control has been stripped away by our Bind. But I can’t break down, though god, I want to. Because it would place us all in too much danger.”
“You’re fighting your Dragon.” Adrian spoke in a knowing voice. “My rage, Layla’s passion, Reginald’s situation with his clan, all this stress… you’re feeling all our emotions resonating through the Bind and it’s pushing you towards your first full Dragon-shift, isn’t it?”
“More than ever.” Dusk nodded, closing his eyes as if a great weight rested on his shoulders. “When I joined you and Layla’s Bind, I think it started unleashing my buried rage. I used to be able to just stuff down everything I feel about my situation, my clan… my King. But with all of your emotions flooding me, plus Reginald in the Bind now working with a brand-new ability to shape-shift, it’s pushing my Dragon to surface. Not to mention Layla’s first shift tonight.”
Layla stilled in Dusk and Adrian’s arms at Dusk’s revelation, that he had felt her shift tonight. She suddenly wondered what else he might have felt from her and Adrian’s time together, and how much all of that might have caused his current state. But it was a question for another time, and as Layla reached up, smoothing her fingers through Dusk’s hair again, he sighed heavily with his forehead still resting upon hers.
“Are you still able to fight your first shift, Dusk?” Adrian asked, his gaze intense.
“A little while longer.” Dusk nodded, though it was tired, his voice quiet now. “But I don’t know for how much more. My Dragon’s just beneath the surface now… god, I can feel his breath on my neck…”
“Whose breath?” Layla frowned. “Your Dragon’s?”
“No.” Dusk shook his head quietly. “King Markus.”
“Are you worried about receiving a summons from King Markus Ambrose if you shift?” Layla asked, finally realizing the depth of Dusk’s worries from things he’d told her about his Lineage’s Crystal King.
“Yes.” Dusk spoke, opening his eyes and lifting his head so they could see each other, his gaze bleak. “King Markus already has ten good reasons to kill me to stop me becoming his rival – most of which he knows nothing about yet. If I shift,reallyshift… he’s going to notice. I’ve lived a hundred and fifty years and never allowed myself to fully shift once. The longer a Dragon goes in life without shifting, the stronger their magic becomes when they finally do.”
“By being able to prevent a full shift for so long, Dusk has practically ensured his magic is going to go ballistic once it finally happens, and be an intense challenge to King Markus.” Adrian spoke softly to Layla. “It’s like damming up a geyser. Watch out when it finally blows.”
Layla blinked slowly, finally understanding as she looked back to Dusk. “Our emotions push your magic towards shifting. All of us, though the Bind… we’re putting thousands of tons of pressure behind that trapped geyser, aren’t we?”
“It’s not your fault.” Dusk kissed her lips, though his sigh was tired. “But it is proving tremendously difficult to fight, especially with all this stress right now.” At last, Dusk heaved a sigh, and something in him seemed to clear. “Dammit. We need to get moving. Quindici’s got Imogene down in the Guardhall and he’s interrogating the shit out of her. We need to get Layla there so Imogene can speak to her before she passes out.”
“We will.” Adrian gripped Dusk’s shoulder with a firm camaraderie. “But as soon as we have a moment, we are going to have a serious talk about all of this. It’s long past time we started putting you first, Dusk. I’m sorry I didn’t see it sooner.”
“Is this how you feel, all the time?” Dusk spoke with a wry smile. “This rage like a goddamn volcano?”
“Mostly.” Adrian gave a soft laugh, but there was something sad in his smile. The brothers shared a glance, deep with an understanding Layla didn’t share. She didn’t know the extent of their past hundred and fifty years together, everything they had helped each other with, all the ways they had fought. She suddenly felt like the one on the outside, looking in at something deeply precious.
