“Almost. Your Bind calls me nearly as hard.” Dusk spoke sweetly, impressing his point on Layla with a wry curl of lips. “But I’m at war inside, Layla. My saner mind says,what about the Crimson Circle and Hunter and my life at the Hotel and everything I’ve been building for years?But my instinct only says,Go home. Fight for Egypt.”
“We’ll go.” Layla spoke, tracing the gold at his cheekbones with her fingertips. “If you need to go home, if you have no other choice, we’ll support you, Dusk. You know that.”
“Thank you. I just… I hate that I’m putting us all in this position.” Closing his eyes and resting his forehead against hers, Dusk breathed a hard sigh as if the tension inside him would never ease. Rising also, Adrian stepped to them, but hesitated as he reached out to touch Dusk. Dusk turned his head, regarding Adrian with a complex look, and Layla wondered at their relationship. Their history was all coming home now as Dusk’s Dragon gave him no options – raising its brutal, uncompromising head in Dusk’s life. It was casting a monkey-wrench in everything Dusk and Adrian had built these past hundred years.
And everything they had avoided building.
As Layla clasped Dusk’s hand, twining her fingers through his, he glanced back to her, a deep vulnerability in his gaze. But as Adrian tried to touch him, the power leapt between them once more. Adrian pulled his hand back as if he’d been shocked, his eyes wide as he gave a shaky exhalation.
Dusk pulled back also, shaking his head.
“I can’t be here right now. I need to go. I’m sorry. Forgive me.”
Turning towards the doors, Dusk couldn’t even meet Layla’s gaze as he departed, so much conflict warring within him. He ducked out so fast that Layla and Adrian were left blinking at each other in the sudden hush. Adrian’s brows had knit with a deep concern, but though he gave a hard sigh, his eyes were clear. Glancing at Layla, he gave a sad quirk of his lips. “Would you go after him, Layla? Dusk needs a friend right now… but I don’t think that friend is me.”
“Of course.” Moving to Adrian, Layla gave him a sweet kiss, then sighed as she leaned into him, resting her forehead on his lips. “This is shitsnacks complicated, Batman.”
“I know what you mean.” Adrian sighed, his lips warm on her skin as he smiled sadly. “Dusk and I have shared so much over the years. Though we’re not romantically inclined, we have a certain… understanding in our warring opposition and brotherly love. It’s competitive and it’s like a fight in the bedroom when we have a woman between us. And it’s powerful.”
“I can’t believe the two of you have been… what?” Layla shook her head. “I mean, what do you even call that?”
“I have no clue.” Adrian smiled. Kissing her forehead again, Adrian lifted her chin to kiss her lips. When he pulled back, his eyes were intense with aqua-gold fire. “Go after him. Please. Give him support tonight. For both of us.”
“Of course.” Drawing back, Layla held Adrian’s hand a moment, gazing at him. He seemed so tired, as if this night was somehow more exhausting than everything they had dealt with earlier. With a sad smile, Adrian nodded his chin at the doors. With an answering smile, Layla moved to the egress and pushed out.
Following Dusk’s vibrations through their Bind, she moved off, deep into the night.
CHAPTER 9 – MIDNIGHT
Layla followed Dusk through their Bind, feeling her way out into the night. Heading into the moonlit darkness, she traced his winding course through the gardens. Flickering lights in Moroccan glass votives held a deep peace in the stillness, fireflies swirling all around as Layla moved through unoccupied sections of the palace. The complex was enormous, and as she arrived at an area where no one generally came, she finally felt Dusk halt.
Rounding some potted orange trees, she saw him sitting up on a high veranda, alone. Lit by blue glass votives on wrought-iron stands, the veranda was ringed by dense gardens, alabaster steps leading up to the solitary spot. Moving up, Layla watched gauzy white veils on the veranda’s ebony day-bed move like ghosts in the midnight breeze. Laying on the bed with his bare feet dangling off the side, Dusk was on his back with his hands laced behind his head.
Still wearing his jeans and white t-shirt, Dusk glanced up at Layla’s arrival, the beautiful muscles in his biceps and abdomen tensing. But his soft smile was welcoming as she stepped up. Sliding onto the bed’s white mattress, Layla stretched out on her side next to him with her hand propping up her head. The gauzy canopy was open above, permitting a glorious view of the night as a breeze blew the aromas of night-blooming jasmine and honeysuckle through the bower.
“I thought you might come after me.” Dusk spoke, his smooth baritone soft in the night as he watched her rather than the stars now. His blue eyes were almost cobalt by the light of the votives, though they caught the glimmer of the moon high above.
“Do you want company?” Layla asked, not offended if he wanted to be alone.
“I wantyourcompany.” Dusk gave a smile, rolling to his side so he could slide a hand out and touch her. A thrill passed through Layla as he stroked her fingers. Even though he wasn’t using his magic, he’d changed since he’d fully shifted, and Layla felt it like a pull deep inside her as they touched. Her Dragon quickened in her veins with a wave of heat and Dusk’s full lips quirked, a dark knowing taking his eyes. “Your drakaina likes what I’m becoming.”
“She does.” Layla agreed. “She feels the danger and passion in you, and she wants it more than ever before. You’re not hiding what you are anymore. And it’s like she’s encouraging it.”
“I feel it.” Dusk spoke, still caressing her fingers. “Ever since you Bound me, Layla, I felt your magic pushing me. Like it wanted me to find my real self. To stop hiding and to blow every fault line that had ever gotten stuck in my life. I can’t stop it. I can’t resist it. And I don’t want to.”
“I like this new side of you.” Reaching out, Layla caressed his chest where the stark muscles of his pecs met the edge of his v-neck. “It’s like you’re becoming whole, stepping into who you’re supposed to be. You have all the makings of an incredible Clan First, Dusk. The way you make friends, the way you hold space for people. The way you solve problems and face everything with courage and heart – and now with the fight of your Dragon. You’re the kind of leader we need in the world.”
Taking a deep breath, Dusk sighed. Reaching out, he began to stroke Layla’s collarbones above her gold caftan-dress, mirroring her touch. “It’s more than that, Layla. The dreams I saw when I was in stasis, the path I felt unfolding before me… it’s more than just re-starting my clan. Adrian knows it; that’s why he’s so upset with me right now. He thinks I’m throwing my life away. But for the first time… I actually feel I have a shot.”
“A shot at what?” Layla frowned.
“At taking the throne from my King.” Dusk’s eyes were piercing in the night as his gaze found hers, solid and terrible. Layla felt a tremor shudder all through her as he said it, but it wasn’t from his magics. It was because of her sudden understanding that Dusk didn’t just wish to re-start his clan and hope his Crystal King would leave him alone. He was going back to Egypt and would re-take his land as a deliberate challenge. Dusk wanted King Markus Ambrose to notice hisfuck youmove.
And then he wanted to go to the palace and face his King.
“Youwantto challenge your King.” Layla breathed, feeling the enormous weight of everything that meant for Dusk, Adrian, and for the Bind. “You want to take him down.”
“King Markus Ambrose has held my Lineage in terror for too many years,” Dusk spoke darkly, the vicious gaze of his Dragon in his eyes, though he wasn’t angry at Layla. “Anyone with even an iota of power is terrified of him. Anyone with even a little bit more power than that gets invited to his palace in Prague and is never seen again. He’s not been directly challenged for over a thousand years because he’s preemptively killed off anyone whocouldchallenge him. He’s killing my people. And I want it to stop.”
