“I know, Layla.” He spoke calmly, not smiling now but concerned as if he was hurt she didn’t like his new beau. “But Giselle… she just strikes my heart. In a way I haven’t felt in a long while. Please, try to accept this.”
“No.” Layla shook her head in a fast, shocky movement as Luke came to her side, scowling at Arron also.
“Arron, this isn’t you,” Luke argued low. “She’s fucking with your head. We are leaving. Now. And your newgirlfriendisn’t coming with you.”
“I don’t want to leave.” Arron blinked at them, pulling back with a frown as if offended they would even suggest it. Interlacing his fingers through Giselle’s, he glanced to her. “This is where I belong now, here with my family. And my wife.”
“Yourwife?” Layla hissed.
“These people are not your family.” Luke growled, and Layla felt a crisp wave of power flow from him like a building thunderstorm. “We are. And you are not fucking marrying a woman, Arron, you didn’t even like girls when you were twelve. Don’t you remember any of that?”
“But we like it here, Luke.” Celia had stepped over to them now, trailed by Charlie, and the recognition of what Layla saw in their eyes made her blood run cold – the sweet shine of brainwashing. “High Priest Lodrian even gave us White Chalice membership so we can feel more at home here. We had a ceremony and everything.”
“A ceremony.” Layla’s Dragon snarled hard in her veins, bristling all through her in a furious wave. Turning to the High Priest, she focused her wrath upon him, even as she felt Luke do the same.
“What the fuck did you do to them?!” Luke snarled, a crackle of lightning blistering from his skin with a low roll of thunder.
“Nothing that can’t be easily undone.” The High Priest’s dark blue gaze flickered with lightning now as he gave the tiniest smile. “If you both are strong enough.”
And there it was. Layla saw the cold darkness inside the High Priest as he stared her and Luke down. This was a test, to see if they had the ability to break the Chalice’s hold over their friends. Suddenly, Layla realized what a dangerous game they were playing. The Storm Queen had said the Chalice used theirnullaxto break anyone they deemed too powerful, and now Layla knew how they dragged a person into a battle of wits with them. They stole someone who was innocent and weaker than the person they wished to break – and used them as bait.
As Luke and Layla both surged with magic, furious, she felt Luke reach out and clasp her hand. Twining his fingers through hers, Layla felt Luke’s power roar like a mad thing, bolstered by their touch. She felt his magic leap to her, wanting to be Bound yet hating it at the same time – a surging conflict deep inside Luke that only pushed his magic higher. As a hard wave of thunder boomed from him, echoing high into the vaults and startling birds far above, Layla saw Luke’s eyes flash with a horrible power.
“You’re on, fucko.” Luke snarled in the coldest voice Layla had ever heard from him. “I am going to wipe this hall with your blood. May the best Dragon win.”
CHAPTER 23 – BONFIRE
As Luke and Layla gripped hands, facing down the High Priest, Layla felt people’s positions change throughout the hall. She thought the Chalice were only the handful who had initially shown themselves, but as Luke and Layla bristled with power and Adrian, Dusk, Rhennic, and Rikyava stepped up quickly to defend their backs, Layla felt a mass of people suddenly move in the hall. As if they’d been disguised by the mind-befuddling powers of the Smoke Faunus, over two hundred White Chalice members now stepped from the vine-woven walls and tree-trunk columns – even soared down from the upper vaults like they danced upon air.
Smoke Faunus were suddenly pouring their poisonous charms into the air from every direction, and Layla reeled, feeling that smoke hit her system like a massive dose of Rohypnol. A blaze of storm-lightning suddenly seared to life all around them, hemming them in from escape. Flashing in every vault, flickering in every window, Layla realized the vast magic that had grown the cathedral into such beauty was also a terrible protection for the White Chalice’s last stronghold.
Their only stronghold that had survived Queen Justine’s purges – for thousands of years.
Layla heard Adrian’s snarl behind her as a searing ring of protective fire flared to life around their group, and she felt Dusk’s low, ground-shaking tremors spike hard as he thrust white crystals up through the floor in a barrier that twined into Adrian’s fire. Rhennic’s vicious storms flashed into Adrian’s and Dusk’s to form a boundary of plasma-lighting around their group, even though Rhennic wasn’t part of their Bind. Rikyava was similarly intent, whirling a tempest of blood through it all, flooding it out over the mossy floor and making Smoke Faunus step back warily.
But Luke’s rage was focused on the High Priest, and Layla saw a deadly white mist of flowing lightning manifest from Luke now, easing beyond their group’s protection. Seeping like a nightmare, Luke’snullaxlicked out far further than Rikyava’s blood-pool. It reached Charlie and Celia, and as it touched them, Layla saw them startle as if they’d been zapped, clearing whatever magical taint had held them. Glancing around, shock was in their eyes as they suddenly realized they were standing in the middle of a war-zone.
“Whoa, shit!” Charlie moved fast with his buff brawn, whisking tiny Celia up in his big arms as he sprinted through the ring of protection, which parted quickly to allow them in. Moving back from Luke’s seeping mist, the Smoke Faunus Giselle gave a nasty snarl, twining Arron into her branch-like arms as she poured smoke into him from her lips. But Luke was faster, roaring as he shoved a wave ofnullaxat Arron, who cried out as Luke’s power found him. Layla saw Arron’s grey eyes clear; she saw him panic that he was being held captive. Arron’s lean height was scrappy and he struggled, heaving an elbow into the woman’s middle and sending her sprawling to her hands and knees as he sprinted for the group’s protection.
Layla saw Luke’snullaxflow over the Faunus woman. With a shriek, it was suddenly diving in her nose, her eyes – everywhere. As she shuddered, screaming like something was being ripped from her very soul, Luke staggered, faltering. Layla gripped his hand with hers, pouring the wrathful heat of her Dragon deep inside him. Pouring her passion into him, and her anger at everything that had been done to their friends.
Pouring into him all the rage they shared – and their mutual fury.
Layla felt Luke’s Dragon rise within him to the call of her Bind, white like a demon of emptiness and mist with flickering lightning-void eyes. It was the most terrifying thing she had ever seen in her mind-sight and as she cried out in horror, Luke cried out also from the devouring presence of hisnullax. Bolstered by Layla’s passion, it took him, and as it did, it took the Faunus woman on the floor. Though their connection, Layla felt the Faunus’ magic devoured. She felt the woman’s life-force being not just ripped away, but consumed by thenullaxthat lived inside Luke. It didn’t feed like a Vampire, only dissolved the woman’s magical essence until there was nothing left to devour. Like mist blowing away on a vast storm-wind, Layla felt that essence flow back to the universe from whence it came.
As the Faunus woman passed out cold – smoke no longer issuing from her nose and mouth.
“Impressive,nullax.” The High Priest’s voice was suddenly pummeling all around them like thunder through the cathedral. “But you know nothing of wielding your power, child of my bloodline. It is a wild thing, untamed and raw.”
“Fuck you.” Luke snarled as he looked up, pinning the High Priest with his furious gaze, emerald lightning flickering as his irises swirled with white mists. His hand was still clamped to Layla’s, even though she felt a tremor of fatigue rush through Luke now. He wasn’t Bound to her yet, even though her passion had been able to give him strength. Something inside him was still resisting, and with a sudden intuition, she knew the High Priest was right.
Without the Bind, Luke didn’t know how to push his power to its true heights.
“Is this what you wanted?” Layla called out to the High Priest, watching him over the seething protection that curled around her friends. “To just see what we can do?”
“I know what you can do, Layla. I have always known it. But you have yet to believe me.” All of a sudden, the timbre of the High Priest’s voice changed. From its honey-smooth tones, it had gone darker, deeper, and as Layla watched, she saw the man’s posture subtly change. Suddenly, he was less holy yet more elegant, more brutal as he gazed upon her from where he stood within the flow of the river.
As if it was enchanted somehow, the river washed away Luke’s mist as it seeped to him, washing away Rikyava’s blood-pool also. As the High Priest’s piercing gaze held Layla’s, she watched a tall, slender woman step to his side in the river. A Faunus, her corkscrewing gazelle antlers were twined with golden torques, the same coiling around her upper arms and wrists. Coming to the High Priest’s side, her doe-eyes were haughty as she stared the group down. As her gaze pinned Adrian, her perfect lips lifted in a cold disdain, her graciousness obliterated.
