Ms. Lulu Duvall.
“The Hunter sends his regards, Layla,” she spoke, her words like poison as they flowed from her lips in her purring French accent. “He is impressed that you have managed to push your aims so deeply into his organization.”
“What do you mean? What does Hunter have to do with any of this?” Layla growled, blistering with fury now as Adrian and Dusk stepped up beside her with twin snarls, though she still held Luke’s hand.
“I have everything to do with this.” The High Priest spoke in his strangely elegant, dark voice as he gestured around the cathedral. “This is my Chalice, Layla. And those who keep it for me are my most dedicated servants.”
“Hunter!” Layla snarled, though even as she watched the High Priest, she recognized something was wrong. Whenever Hunter had outed himself to her before, his irises had always swirled to their dark forest green and black. But now, the High Priest merely held her gaze, his eyes their regular storm-blue. This body wasn’t Hunter, not like the last times he had come to her. The High Priest was merely possessed by Hunter somehow, talking with his voice and seeing with his eyes.
“Yes, you know I am not here in the flesh,” he answered, as if feeling her thoughts. “I merely hold sway over my most trusted from long ago, those who accepted my Bind in their bodies. Lodrian was one of the first to come to me in ages long past. He believes in my aims, and has kept the strength of my Chalice, acting as the backbone of my Crimson Circle all these years.”
“YourCrimson Circle?” Adrian snarled at Layla’s side, bristling with a dire heat. “Are you telling us you sit at the pinnacle of the Red Letter Hotel’s leadership, Hunter?”
“I am the Hotel’s leadership, for the Hotel is mine.” The High Priest’s gaze pinned Adrian, and Layla felt Hunter’s talons in that steely gaze, though Lodrian’s irises still didn’t change. “I began the Red Letter Hotel long ago. I started its ancient precepts and laid down its laws. I sequestered its first houses and participants, like Lodrian here, and told them of my designs. I shared with them the future of peace I envisioned, and from that vision, two organizations were born, one secular and one sacred. But to me, both are sacred, the Crimson and the White. For me, passion and holy benevolence are as one. And thus, function as one.”
Layla reeled, taking it all in as she felt Adrian and Dusk shake hard at this revelation beside her. She suddenly felt sick that she’d been unknowingly working for Hunter all this time; that he probably had methods of spying and infiltration all through every Hotel that no one knew about. Not only had he started the Crimson Circle, hewasthe Crimson Circle. The Hotel and all its egalitarian principles and the utter corruption at its uppermost levels had been Hunter’s from the very first – and Layla felt that knowledge shudder through her bones as she stared at Lodrian.
He watched her back, calm and composed as Lulu Duvall stood at his side. Layla saw suddenly why Lulu was the Hotel Board’s mouthpiece. Because Lodrian had long stood at their lead just beneath Hunter, guiding the Crimson Circle and White Chalice both – and using the Chalice to do a large part of Hunter’s most vicious dirty-work. Quelling opposition. Breaking strong clans, especially Dragon-clans who opposed Hunter’s great vision ofpeace.Breaking Royal Dragons and Royal Dragon Binds who would not join him. And Lulu had been Lodrian’s lover for eons, working with him to enact Hunter’s precepts.
As Hunter remained quietly in the shadows above it all.
Layla felt a deep horror open inside her, blacker than the night was deep. It was a cold, cold place, and she staggered suddenly as it roared up fast to take her. It was only by Luke and Adrian’s quick hands that she didn’t sink to the floor, as Dusk stepped fast to her back, curling her in his arms. Pouring a bolstering rumble through her as Adrian and Luke growled murderously at Hunter, Dusk set his smooth lips to her temple. Breathing deep, Dusk poured his grounding energy into Layla, and she felt him holding her back from diving all the way into that dark, empty blackness.
And yet, she still felt it devouring her. Despite Dusk’s strong grounding and Adrian’s bright fury, Layla felt her Dragon swallowed by that vast black nothing inside her, and suddenly her beast went calm rather than furious. Horribly, terribly calm as her drakaina now turned her head towards Hunter – her scales not fiery gold but utterly black, her eyes empty as the endless night. She had no passion as she stared Hunter down where he stood possessing Lodrian’s body.
She had no passion now – and it was a terrible, dead thing.
“You and I will never come to accord, Hunter.” Layla spoke in a cold, dead voice. “Not now, not ever. No matter how many trials you send my way to shape me, or break me.”
“I do not need to shape you,” Hunter spoke softly through Lodrian’s lips as his gaze became deep upon her. “You are doing it yourself. Your tremendous passion is burning black, Layla, just like mine did long ago. I can feel it in you, staring at me. Your love is turning dark and there is no stopping it now that it has begun. For as a Royal Dragon Bind can burn oh-so-bright, they can also darken oh-so-deep. You will become like me. And then you will understand my aims, and they will be one with yours. I don’t fight alone, Layla. There are more people than you’ve ever imagined who feel as I do. More people who have loved and lost, who understand that the peace of the universe isn’t in the passion, but the quiet. Become quiet with me, Layla. Become quiet and understand how strong you truly are – and how far your power can truly go.”
As he spoke, Layla knew he was right. Deep inside her soul, she knew it as she stared into the uncaring void-black eyes of her Dragon now. When Hunter imitated someone, or possessed or Bound them, he felt their loves and losses deep inside his soul. Hunter felt their every hardship, fury, and bright loves gone dark – and Layla was the same. As she stared at him, she felt their inner darknesses resonate like harpstrings, entraining with a vast devouring. Even though they weren’t Bound, she could suddenly feel Hunter’s black coils sliding through hers, moving with her, feeling her. The sensation caught Layla’s breath as a dark eroticism slid slowly through her, a deep quiet which had no presence, only void.
She knew then, why Hunter didn’t need to Bind her; because his same darkness already lived in her, the flipside to the hot passion of the Bind. It was why Binds had historically turned dark when exposed to too much hardship in their lives; because this inner darkness was always behind the light of their passions. As Layla felt it now, devouring her, she understood that she and Hunter were already Bound. His magic had never taken her and hers had never taken his, but they were Bound all the same. Bound because of what they were.
And how that darkness always lived just behind the light.
“Layla will never be like you, asshole. Not while I’m around.”
Luke’s snarl was suddenly in Layla’s ears, and something about it pushed her terrible emptiness back. As he gripped her hand, digging his nails into her skin like talons, he flooded his power into her through their touch. Hunter’s dark coils were pushed back as Layla gasped, as Luke’s caustic bright mist seared into that seductive black quietude. As he flooded her with the intensity of his loving fury, Layla suddenly felt his Dragon rear high inside him. Gazing at her, it paused, seeing what was happening as she was inundated by Hunter’s black influence.
Luke’s mist-white drake lashed out, biting Layla’s drakaina through their touch.
And that bite was gasoline on a bonfire as Layla’s Bind suddenly opened – and devoured Luke entirely.
CHAPTER 24 – PASSION
Luke’s mist-white drake roared all through Layla as her Bind rushed into him, taking what he offered. She felt her magic smash through Luke’s last resistance, shrieking like a harpy of golden light as it swept him up. Like a leviathan, Layla’s bright Dragon roared up hard from her inner darkness as Luke’s whitenullaxscalded Hunter’s influence back. Gold and crimson rather than void-black now, the light of the cosmos flooded her drakaina as Layla screamed in ecstasy – all of that terrible power rushing into her men.
She felt Luke’s Dragon roar as he screamed, his hand spasming upon hers in a taloned grip as he half-shifted, his body rippling with light. Shuddering in ecstasy, Layla’s hand gripped just as tight to Luke’s, her body surging with heat and passion. Bent into a bow, she roared with the overtones of her Dragon’s voice as the Bind went wild, flooding into Rhennic behind her; shattering any barrier he might have had as it raced into him with soul-shredding heat and sexual winds. Pouring through her already-Bound Royal Dragons, it staggered Dusk and Adrian with the force of Layla’s righteous energy. As Reginald’s power joined them like a deep, dark wave from far away, Layla felt the Bind respond. Hauling them all close with massive coils of golden light that actually manifested in the air like liquid fire, it flooded deep into their bodies.
Staggering them all as it Bound them fast together.
As Layla’s power pushed her men’s magic to catastrophic heights, flooding their protective barrier, she felt Luke snarl like a wraith on the winds as hisnullaxexpanded tenfold. Like a massive white wave, Luke’snullaxflooded the cathedral, devouring Storm Dragons and Smoke Faunus on all sides. But though dozens were taken, hundreds remained, shifting fast into enormous storm-colored Dragons and hurtling into the river near the High Priest, using the river’s protection to drive Luke’s attack back as they funneled up spouts of water to drive off thenullax.
Like a hurricane, the High Priest shifted into the most massive Dragon Layla had ever seen. Black-violet with lines of jet running through his scales, he was serrated with nasty ridges as he roared to the cathedral’s vaults, tornadoes of lightning shedding from him. He was like a serrated black mamba as he arched above them, pinning them with eyes black as death. As he roared, Layla felt the White Chalice join their searing lightning-power in a vast ring around their High Priest. The energy of a hundred thunderstorms and the poison of a hundred exhalations went pouring in through Lodrian’s serrated scales, channeled from his Chalice. As Layla felt that enormous power flare inside Lodrian’s black Dragon, she felt her men shift into their own Dragons to do battle against the darkness.
Adrian shifted into his aqua and crimson Dragon at Layla’s side, snarling as he sent gouts of white-hot flame out to char enemies, raking talons of tornado-fast power through the air. Like a demon, Rhennic was unleashed into Dragon-form also, a massive creature of white, red, and storm-blue fractal scales thrice Adrian’s size, devastating their foes with rolling waves of plasma-lightning and deafening concussions of thunder. Though not part of the Bind, Rikyava had transformed also, flashing through the air in crimson and black geodesic glory, strangling foes with lassos of pure blood.
