“Do you need anything, my First? Layla?” He spoke, his gaze deeply hot as it moved to Adrian, then Layla, then Dusk. As he stared at Dusk with obvious entrancement, it hit Layla suddenly that Soukos was bisexual. Dusk lifted a smoldering eyebrow at the Greek, though he kept gathering foodstuffs for their trio onto two big silver trays.
“No Soukos.” Adrian gave the young man a smile, shaking his head. “We’re just grabbing a bite of dinner and heading back to my rooms for the night.”
“I could deliver it for you, give you all the best bites…” The way the young Greek said it made Layla shiver, and as the young man stared at Adrian, then Dusk, practically trembling for both men to take him six ways to sundown, Layla knew something was different about their Bind tonight.
Very different, since Dusk had come into his full Dragon-power.
“We’ve got everything we need, thank you.” Adrian spoke kindly but firmly as Dusk finished piling the trays. Tucking bottles of champagne under his arm, Dusk nodded at Layla to pick up a silver Moroccan coffee pot with three glasses. She did, trying to focus on not dropping anything in her heightened erotic state. The temperature of the Bind scorched between them, even as everyone focused on getting what they needed while Soukos looked on, basically frozen with desire.
“Soukos. As you were.” Adrian spoke, nodding the young man back to his dishwashing.
Soukos shuddered, blinking his dark lashes as if coming out of a trance. He took a deep breath, then gave a small bow to Adrian. “My First. Please excuse me.”
As Soukos turned back to his dishes, Adrian nodded his chin at the door. And as Layla took up the coffee pot and exited the kitchen first, still feeling the subtly-fighting passions of her Bound men coiling all around her, she wondered just what kind of conversation they might be in for tonight.
Maybe all night long.
CHAPTER 8 – LOVE
Having gathered everything they needed from the kitchens, Layla and her men departed down the adjacent hall back to Adrian’s rooms. Though she could hear raucous talk and music in the Gaming Hall now, this wing of royal suites was empty, only Emir and Rachida having rooms down this corridor other than Adrian, Layla, and Dusk. Moving far down the ornately tiled Moroccan hall of vaulted arches and filigreed stone to one of the last rooms on the left, Adrian opened a set of tall ebony double-doors, ushering everyone in.
Stepping inside Adrian’s suite, Layla felt instant relief. Like a low-level hum inside her body, she could generally feel the passions of everyone within a thousand-foot radius with her Bind-magic. But it ceased humming with the imprints of everyone else in the palace as Adrian locked the ebony doors. Adrian had had this suite magically insulated after he’d taken it for his quarters, and the way all vibrations suddenly ceased as Layla walked in was a blessing. Dusk looked similarly relieved, and heaved a sigh as he moved towards Adrian’s breakfast table with his big silver tray of food and drink.
But as if the cutting-off of outside energy made the connection between the three of them ratchet up a hundredfold, the hunger of Layla’s Bind-energy for her two men was suddenly screaming. It hit her so hard and fast she actually sank into the nearest chair, re-learning how to breathe as her Dragon scalded her veins with wave after wave of eros. It was as delicious as it was disorienting, and as her head spun, Layla heard Dusk grunt like he’d been punched. Staggering to set a hand to the wall, Dusk barely got his silver tray onto a nearby table before he dropped it. Adrian had made it to his breakfasting table, but stumbled against it – and did drop his tray with a hard clatter, scattering dishes upon the table as they jumped the tray’s boundaries.
All three looked up at the same moment, meeting each other’s gazes. As they did, a hot spike of golden energy went racing between them. Though Layla could barely keep from falling out of her chair, she felt something open between Adrian and Dusk as that energy raged. As she watched, a mirage of energy shivered the air, flashing like smelted golden diamond-fire between the two men before it was gone.
With a blink, Layla knew what she had seen. The Bind was trying to make a new connection – directly between Adrian and Dusk.
“What the hell?” Layla’s lips fell open as she watched that gold dissipate. She saw Dusk and Adrian stare at the place it had been also, their eyes wide. Inhaling a deep breath as she gazed from one man to the other, Layla suddenly understood something was happening between them, but didn’t know what it was.
“Adrian… Dusk…” She spoke softly, looking to them both. “What is going on?”
“Power-up.” Dusk breathed hard, though he wasn’t looking at Layla. His gaze was pinned to Adrian, who had straightened now at the table as he let out a long, slow breath.
“Shit.” Adrian growled, rubbing his chest as if it hurt from whatever had just happened. As Layla watched, Adrian held a hand out palm-first toward Dusk. As if the two were twins, Dusk extended a palm out toward Adrian. It almost looked like an Egyptian tableau on a temple wall as they stood there a moment, paused. Suddenly, a diaphanous curl of smelted diamond-fire simmered into the air between them. Stronger than before, a flash of fire-bright color went flowing through Dusk’s scales and hair as Adrian’s eyes changed also, so fast Layla might have missed it had she not been looking right at him. But all of a sudden, Adrian’s eyes swirled into Dusk’s perfectly clear, sapphire blue color.
Before the mirage of power disappeared between them.
“What in the actual fuck?” Layla asked with awe as she watched. Holding each other’s eye contact, her men lowered their palms, clearly understanding something important she wasn’t party to. Dusk’s blue gaze flicked to Layla, then returned to Adrian. Both hesitated, as if neither exactly wanted to talk about whatever was happening.
At last, Dusk gave a nod, and Adrian glanced to Layla.
“Layla. You know how I told you Dusk and I fought over a woman back in our early twenties, and it drove us apart for decades?” Adrian spoke with a tired sigh. Pulling out a chair at the table and angling it so he faced both her and Dusk, he sat heavily.
“Yeah?” Layla frowned, confused at where this was going.
“I lied. And Dusk lied about it, too.” Adrian spoke carefully, as if expecting wrath from Layla. “In fact, we lied to everyone in our lives about that summer in Julis. And everything that occurred afterwards.”
“What do you mean?” Layla asked, feeling unease to hear about another of Adrian’s lies, which she thought they were past now with how much they had opened up to each other recently.
“Adrian means that he and I share a lot, and have ever since we were very young.” Dusk spoke quietly as he came to the table also, pulling out a chair and joining them. “In our childhood, we fought as brothers, but also supported each other. In our teens, we fought over women, but also shared them. He and I have shared a woman between us numerous times. But one summer when we were both in Julis, sharing a French Storm Dragon woman named Emilie Garnier in a wild three months of sex, hedonism, and general debauchery, something happened.”
“You two have been a threesome?” Layla’s mouth dropped open; she couldn’t help it.
Dusk and Adrian exchanged a glance, but it was Dusk who answered. “With a woman between us, Layla. Not together. I’m bisexual, but Adrian’s not.”
Layla felt a long pause stretch between Adrian and Dusk. She sat very still, suddenly wondering if they were going to fight as that simmering fire-bright tension suddenly swirled through the air between them again. It was contentious and pleasurable all at once, as if their Dragons fought to create a dark-bright heat between them, sexual and powerful. As Layla watched, that fire-diamond energy manifested between them again, though it was only a flicker this time.
