“I’m fine…” Layla protested, though her own voice sounded faraway to her ears.
“You’re not. Shift-illness isn’t usually this severe when someone is allowed to change fully into their Dragon. Something’s wrong.” Adrian’s gaze was worried as he turned her head to glance in her eyes, one and then the other. “It’s almost like what happened a few months ago when Reginald’s power was flooding me and it swamped her…”
“But he’s all the way up at his clan home in the North Sea, Adrian.” Dusk growled.
“Still.” Adrian’s brows furrowed and then he turned, fetching his cell phone and standing. “I’m calling Deep Harbor, I don’t care what Reginald’s clan thinks. Hang on.”
“Do it.” Dusk agreed with a bolstering rumble through Layla’s body.
But even in the bath, cradled in Dusk’s arms with Adrian’s spiced winds breathing into her lungs as he made his phone call, Layla couldn’t get warm. She knew the bath was hot, but it was like it couldn’t penetrate her flesh. Curling into a ball, Layla pressed to Dusk’s firm chest, feeling like her every breath was ice. Inhaling, he rumbled a deep, warming vibration through the bath. But it was as if his vibrations through the water suddenly made Layla’s connection to Reginald roar. Like sea-chanties calling through the darkest ocean, she was inundated by the sound of oceanic caverns and the deep tones of whale song.
Layla found herself caught in undersea currents, pulling her like a rip-tide as her eyelids fluttered, sinking like a wrecked ship. She didn’t recall fainting until she returned from the deeps, still held in Dusk’s arms. She heard someone say something and leave quickly, but couldn’t make sense of it. Snuggling close to Dusk with her back pressed to his chest, she turned her cheek to his skin. She felt Dusk’s hand settle to her forehead as he spoke by her ear, “Come back, Layla. Talk to me. What’s going on?”
“The sea…” She breathed. The sea rocked her, even as Dusk held her. The sea swirled and breathed with her, making her dive. Layla found her body yoked to the water flowing around the tub and couldn’t separate herself from it.
“I’ve got Caspar Durant on the line, Reginald’s cousin,” she vaguely heard Adrian’s voice say as she dove into dark currents. “He says Reginald is undergoing some kind of trial right now to test him for the position of Clan Second – facing his past. It can’t be interrupted. He has to remain in Siren-form until it’s finished, and he’s currently lodged himself at the bottom of the Norwegian Trench. That’s probably what’s affecting Layla right now. She’s feeling what he’s feeling in the deeps – reliving his nightmares as he processes them in the darkness and cold.”
“Dammit.” Dusk cursed, pressing his hand to Layla’s forehead. “She’s chill as ice. Layla. Talk to me. What are you feeling?”
“Cold…” Layla smelled nothing but a chill all around her, her teeth chattering as the ocean moved in her veins, deep and dark. “Dark…”
“What else? Keep talking.” Dusk urged, something dire in his voice.
“Ice… my blood… ice.” She shivered, feeling the cold slide deeper inside her.
“Fuck.” Dusk cursed, feeling her forehead again. “Was she like this after you two were together?”
“No.” Adrian spoke tersely beside the tub, as he stroked her wet curls. “It’s Reginald’s energy. He’s re-living his worst life-events in these trials, facing them. He’s causing Layla hypothermia through the Bind. If we can’t get Reginald’s Bind with her modified somehow—”
He didn’t have to finish the sentence; Layla already knew. She could feel Reginald’s rage and ice devouring her. Deep inside, it cored her out, made her feel the Siren’s misery and wrath. He was hating himself right now as he relived his nightmarish past in dark solitude at the bottom of the ocean trench in Dragon-form. Layla could feel it going colder inside her, triggering her own dark void and she cried out in pain, shuddering hard. Dusk wrapped her in his arms, shushing her, but he couldn’t heat her up – and he couldn’t break her Bind to the Royal Siren.
And neither could Adrian.
“Go get Luke.” Dusk’s voice was tight as he held her.
“You think he can break her Bind to Reginald?”
“He’s got power, Adrian. Real power. If it’snullax, it might be the only thing that can stop this right now.”
A hard silence filled the bathroom. Layla could practically feel Adrian’s spiced winds swirl through the air, furious and pained. But through her barely-open eyes, she saw him nod quickly.
He was out the door in a flash. Layla’s eyes were clenched tight, her body in rigors by the time Luke arrived. It had only been minutes, but it felt like days. Like Layla’s bones were turning to glass, every sinew ground inside her like icebergs cracking in frozen seas. She smelled lemon-balm and clean soap as Luke hurried in through the bathroom door and rushed to Layla’s side. Cracking her eyelids, Layla saw him still dressed in his suit from the evening, though his jacket was gone. The rest he quickly ruined as he stepped over the side of the tub, settling into the bath and pulling Layla into his arms as Dusk gave her up.
“You know what you’re doing?” Adrian’s voice was tense beside the tub.
“I have no fucking clue. Stand back if you don’t want to get zapped.”
Layla felt Luke rip his shirt open so she’d be pressed to his bare skin; someone must have told him skin contact helped shape-shifters. Luke was in hospital savior mode, holding her tenderly but moving fast as he stripped his bloodstone pendant up over his head and cast it to the floor. As he removed his talisman, his body was suddenly thundering with power. Surges of electricity hammered into Layla and she gave a short scream, but Dusk and Adrian’s hands were there, pouring their twinned powers through her body to hold her steady. Both men grunted, hit by Luke’s unbound abilities, though they held on. Flashes of lightning ripped through Layla’s mind and body as a sound like thunder shuddered her bones, white-capping the water.
“Breathe, Luke!” She heard Dusk admonish urgently. “Slow it down. Panic in your magic will kill her right now. Be the person you are during your rounds in the ER. Slow. Focus.”
“I don’t know what to focus on!” Luke’s voice was tense as he held her. “I don’t know how any of this works yet!”
“Love.” It was Adrian who spoke urgently, his hand gripping Layla’s and draining away some of Luke’s furious energy. “Magic is instinct, not mind, Luke. You love Layla. Feel that now. Take all your rage at me and your fury at her situation and transform it. Your rage holds power, but your love holds more.”
“I hate you. I hate that she chose you. I hate everything about you.” Luke growled, and a vicious spike of his lightning-power made Layla cry out in pain.
“I don’t care.” Adrian growled equally low, a desperate urgency in his manner now. “You love her, so save her. Save her for all of us. Be the man you were born to be, healer. Because Dusk and I can’t help her this time, and you’re the one who can.”
