The tension suddenly reminded Layla of the time Adrian had discovered her and Dusk at the crystal bath-house at the Red Letter Hotel Paris. That night, they’d almost had a threesome, but it had gone horribly wrong when they’d discovered Sylvania Eroganis’ body in Adrian’s bed. Even though the three of them had shared a bed together for closeness since then, they’d never come back around to the threesome idea. But as they sat now with that strange power rioting between them, Layla was about to speak, when Adrian got to it first.
“Our first lovemaking with Emilie began just like our threesomes with others.” Adrian’s gaze held no bullshit as he glanced to Layla from where he’d settled at the table. “It was the Victorian Era in the Twilight Realm, and every night was a party in the city of Julis. Drugs, absinthe, dancing, much like it was at the time in Paris also. Dusk and I have always been competitive, and we both became intrigued with Emilie. Wooing her started like all the rest, as a game where we tried to out-compete each other for her attention. But what we really enjoyed, was competing in the bedroom.”
“But that’s when things got… complicated.” Dusk spoke, and he and Adrian exchanged a glance.
“What do you meancomplicated?”Layla blew out a slow breath as her world reeled, though she was trying to handle it. It was basically her wet dream to have both Adrian and Dusk at the same time, and Layla tried to still her Dragon’s hot surge of passion as she waited, knowing there was more to the story.
“That night, when the three of us were… going at it for the first time,” Dusk took up the narrative, “I started to refract with light and pulse with incredible vibrations. Nothing like it had ever happened to me before, and it was like an aphrodisiac in the bedroom. You’ve felt my refractions, Layla, when you and I are together, but this was when it started. My vibrations went wild, and it pushed us all into an orgiastic state – and suddenly, in that crazy overwhelm of pleasure, Adrian’s and my magic skipped Emilie completely and began… well, twining together for lack of a better word.”
“It was good, Layla,” Adrian spoke quietly as he continued the story. “And it was so good, that Dusk, Emilie, and I fell into it again the next night, and the next. It was like an extra dimension to our magics that Dusk and I never knew we had. As Dusk’s power increased from it, so did mine – a lot. Though it was like fighting in the bedroom, our Drakes increased each other’s power exponentially, and it’s why both of us were able to gain so much power in our magics so young. Strange phenomena began to happen between us, like what you just witnessed. Coils of power forming; cascades of fire-diamonds bursting across the room. Before we ever had a Bind between us, we had… our own Bind, I guess. Even though neither of us has ever exhibited Bind powers before or since.”
“You two had a Bind back in your twenties? Long before I was born?” Layla’s lips were still open in shock.
“Of a kind.” Adrian spoke quietly, holding Layla’s gaze before his eyes shifted back to Dusk. “We weren’t certain that’s what it was, as it didn’t match stories of Binds. But magic can mutate, Layla, and both Dusk and I are Royals with strangely strong abilities. We were experimenting with what was happening, living night after night of passion unlike anything either of us had ever felt, until late one night, we got a visitor. A friend of my mother’s in King Markus Ambrose’s court in Prague, a Crystal Dragon named Marlise Czerny came to us with a dire warning. That King Markus was feeling our new ability in his dreams at night – every night. Feeling Dusk, specifically. Because of our trysts and the strange power it was producing, Dusk had suddenly been moved up from a long list of possible threats to a very short one – whose names were being crossed off as King Markus invited them to court.”
“King Markus’most wantedlist.” Layla spoke softly, understanding. “Crystal Dragons he saw as threats to his rule.”
“Understandably, it terrified us.” Dusk continued, glancing to Adrian. “We took Marlise’s warning to heart and ceased our experimentation that same night. And have been careful to remain predominantly apart ever since.”
Layla blinked hard, finally seeing what had happened long ago. “You broke up your magical Bind, to protect Dusk from getting a summons to King Markus Ambrose’s palace. The one-way ticket.”
“We did.” Adrian spoke, pausing as he looked to Dusk, his Mediterranean-blue eyes bright with gold though they were clear. “The story we told everyone was a lie, that we had fought over Emilie and it was our fight that had split us apart. We couldn’t tell anyone the truth about the resonance that had begun between us. And we couldn’t stay together, it was too dangerous for Dusk. I took off around the world, while Dusk remained in Julis. But there were… consequences to breaking apart that budding magic.”
“Consequences?” Layla lifted an eyebrow, glancing to Dusk.
“I went into magical withdrawal when Adrian left,” Dusk spoke darkly, watching Layla. “Something about me having such an immense ability awaken, then be interrupted caused a vicious magical illness in me, like heroin withdrawal times a thousand. It was only because I went to see Sylvania Eroganis at the Paris Hotel that I found my solution. Sylvania found the energy of my new magic was devouring me from the inside out and needed to be expressed, sexually. Numerous times a day, with as many partners as I could give it. And so began my career at the Red Letter Hotel – where I’ve had to be ever since, to keep my magic sated enough to save my life. And keep me off the watch list of my King.”
A wave of knowing rolled through Layla as she glanced from one man to the other. “So you began your career in Concierge Services because you needed sex constantly, and had to remain where it was easily obtainable. And once the dust settled, Adrian bought his way into the Hotel and became Hotel Head so he could be close to you. Adrian, you feel guilty that Dusk had to remain permanently at the Hotel to calm his magic – because of you. That’s what this is really about. Why you feel you owe him.”
“We had been rash, Layla, experimenting so heavily with a power we didn’t understand. And when I left, even though we’d agreed upon it, my leaving almost killed Dusk.” Adrian nodded, his face grave. “It confined him to the Paris Hotel for decades. Though I had my own problems from our experiment. I wasn’t able to visage-shift prior to that summer, but when I left… I couldn’t get control of my body’s sudden, uncontrollable shifts unless I changed it to become someone new every few days.”
“Which didn’t end until you both met me.” Layla blinked, seeing the entire pattern. “Until I Bound you both. Dusk, you still needed multiple partners every day, to keep from getting sick. And Adrian, you still needed to be alter-egos constantly, to stop your body from spontaneously shifting. Until both your powers had somewhere to go through our Bind… they had to be discharged.”
“Don’t get me wrong,” Dusk spoke as he watched Layla. “I love sex, Layla. But do you think I would naturally choose to have such an obscene number of partners? Or do you think Adrian would have chosen to be so many alter-egos constantly?”
“Wow.” Layla couldn’t even say more, her head was spinning so hard. “You two are Binds.”
“I don’t think we are,” Adrian spoke quietly, “but we can manifest something unique between the two of us, yes. And you are augmenting that phenomenon, waking it up, Layla. By being the third between us, bringing us back together and also a Bind for real… our magics are re-discovering what they could once do.”
“Big time.” Dusk breathed, and it came with a shudder as his gaze pinned Adrian’s.
“So what does it all mean?” Layla asked, glancing from one man to the other.
“It means Dusk and I already know we can create something unique out of our combined magics,” Adrian looked back to her, “we just don’t know the extent of it yet. Combined with you, Reginald, and Rhennic, with Dusk’s and my intensely dominant drakes fighting each other and the other men bound to you – neither he nor I have any idea how big this could get.”
“And if it gets big,” Dusk spoke softly, “King Markus notices.”
“And if King Markus notices and kills Dusk,” Adrian continued, “our Bind breaks. Maybe leaving the rest of us mad, maybe dead. Maybe some other combination we don’t want to have any part of.”
“Like what happened to Hunter when his Bind broke.” Layla finished with a black sensation in her gut. “So you’re worried that if Dusk goes to Egypt, all of this will fall like Dominoes.”
“Yes.” Adrian’s gaze was level with her, dire.
“I’m going to Egypt, Adrian.” Dusk spoke softly, watching them both. “I’ve been running from King Markus a long time, hiding my true self. I don’t want to abandon either of you; I want my life at the Hotel to continue. But this feeling… I don’t know how I can possibly describe it to anyone who’s not a Crystal Dragon. I have to go home to Egypt. I have to call my clan. I have to.”
Dusk’s words were firm with the determination of his Dragon, but even as he said them, Layla saw a bleak agony roil through his eyes. Layla felt his energy become jangled in a similar way to how he’d been at Yule prior to his shift. It made alarm rise inside her as she rose from the table. Seeing her get up, Dusk rose also. As Layla reached out, pulling him close, he gave a deep sigh, corralling her around the waist. Reaching up, Layla touched his face, searching his lovely blue eyes and seeing all the pain he’d been covering for years.
“You really don’t have any other choice, do you?” She spoke quietly. “This call is stronger than anything you’ve ever felt, isn’t it?”
