She felt it take them, locking deep inside their bodies with a sensation that flooded fulfillment through Layla’s entire life. As she came in a rush of heat and golden light, screaming with the overtones of her Dragon, both men cried out as they came also. Their twin voices roared with sub-basso sounds and inhuman overtones as Adrian spilled deep inside her and Dusk spilled hot upon her back.
As Layla’s Bind-power surged into them all, an enormous golden coil suddenly opened between Adrian and Dusk. As had nearly happened before at Riad Rhakvir, Layla felt that coil twist out, seeking to make its own Bind directly between her two men. Dusk didn’t shut it down this time, actually pushing it hard towards Adrian with a flare of incredible light through his entire body – Adrian screaming beneath Layla as it took him.
In a bright flash of heat and wind and light, something exploded between Adrian and Dusk, and Layla was caught in the middle. As power devoured her, banishing her mind to the stars far beyond the world, she felt Dusk heave with a massive vibration, unlike anything she had ever felt. Coring into the earth, that rush of power drilled into the deepest caverns at the center of the planet. And then in one massive concussion, shuddered the entire earth in a shockwave that heaved the guesthouse.
And rolled out deep into the night.
Shock smote Layla as her mind returned, as she collapsed between her spent men, trapped between their bodies and deliciously crushed as Dusk fell upon her. As they all panted, sweat-drenched and glorious, their bodies and hearts heaving hard, Layla gasped from their lovemaking, from their first time together as a trio. Even as she lay there, spent and glorious, she knew what had happened. Dusk had not held back this time. He’d not stopped their trio from being as close and powerful as they could be tonight, and as her men collapsed in a glorious, endless mess, the Dragon inside Layla roared in bliss.
Waves of light still shed through Dusk as he refracted again and again. With a shaky exhalation, Adrian turned Layla, sliding her sweetly to his side as Dusk collapsed to her other side upon the bed. Laying between them, Adrian at her back now and Dusk before her, her thigh slung up sweetly over Dusk’s hip, Layla could feel the new Bind formed directly between Dusk and Adrian in the power of tonight. As the last glorious waves of light cooled to vague sapphire shimmers in Dusk’s skin, Layla reached out, tracing the fractals of golden power etched into her Royal Crystal Dragon.
“My god,” she murmured softly, watching the last light die in Dusk’s skin as Adrian cuddled close to her back, kissing her neck sweetly as he drew her hips to him.
“My goddess.” Dusk murmured back, sliding his firm body closer as his oh-so-soft lips found hers, kissing her sensually and slow.
As Dusk kissed her in the peaceful aftermath of their trio’s lovemaking and Adrian breathed his sweet magic around them all, warming and cuddling them in the night, Layla listened to a deep silence devour the world. As if all peoples everywhere had felt that pulse, had devoured it inside their bones and flesh, she felt the entire world pause as she and Dusk kissed. And then, with a sensation like a leviathan waking, Layla felt bright diamonds open up through the night, thousands of them, all across the world.
With a deep understanding, Layla knew what she was feeling; what Dusk had done. The power of their lovemaking and his new Bind with Adrian had sent Dusk’s pulse out to Crystal Dragons all around the globe. Using the trio’s full power, unleashed at last, Dusk had called Crystal Dragons to himself from all across the earth.
And they were coming to his call – to Egypt.
CHAPTER 16 – CALLED
Layla slept like the dead in Dusk and Adrian’s arms, curled close between them all night long. Sometime in the deep of the night, Adrian retrieved the duvet from the floor where it had fallen in their heady passion, pulling it back up over them all. For the first time since Dusk had gone into his crystal sarcophagus at Yule, Layla had no dreams. And as birdsong trilled through her room with the splashing of the fountain and the soft clink of a breakfast tray being placed outside the door, she yawned, blinking her eyes open to a new dawn.
Still sleeping soundly, Dusk breathed deep beside her, dead to the world. He’d cuddled around her during the night, his strong hands at her waist with his lips at her neck as his solid body curled around hers. But as Layla stretched in the covers, she felt Adrian was already up and out of bed. Blinking around, she saw him dressed in a pair of cinnamon silk sleep pants, opening her suite door quietly as he retrieved the breakfast tray from a teak hutch outside. Closing the door, he glanced up with the tray balanced on one hand – an incredible smile brightening his face to see Layla awake.
Moving over to set the tray on the breakfast table, he came to the bed, sitting on the edge and stroking Layla’s sex-mussed curls back from her face. “Good morning.”
“Morning.” Layla smiled, enjoying Adrian’s attentions. Still sleeping deep, Dusk didn’t even stir beside her, breathing gently as Layla carefully extracted herself from his arms and sat up. Stroking her collarbones and chest, Adrian’s aqua eyes lit with a deep fire as he traced her skin. Layla shivered beneath his touch, still feeling everything they’d shared last night. As if it had somehow opened a new dimension between them, she could feel Adrian’s emotions even stronger than usual as he touched her. As if Dusk’s cavern-deep energy breathed through him, Adrian’s touch held a grounded heat this morning, his eyes bright yet dark with sex in a way Dusk normally had. Layla’s lips fell open as Adrian stroked her with his knuckle, smiling mystically.
Leaning in, he kissed her, lingering before he pulled away. “You taste like the both of us this morning. I like it.”
“You do?” Layla blinked. “I thought you might be… I don’t know. Angry? Jealous?”
“The opposite, actually.” Adrian gave a low chuckle, and it was sexy as hell as his intense blue-green eyes flashed, gold heat in their depths. “For decades, I tried to forget how good it was, being in bed with a woman and Dusk as a trio. As if his power and mine were made to stir each other up, I feel him like a volcano in my veins when we’re sharing someone. It’s amazing, and makes my Dragon roar like a mad thing when we fuck someone between us. That’s what I felt last night, with you.”
“But what about—” Layla began, recalling the golden Bind that had formed directly between Adrian and Dusk last night.
“The new Bind?” Adrian spoke with a knowing look as if reading her thoughts, which he probably had. “I don’t know. I don’t know how it’s possible for Dusk and me to resonate with each other’s powers. The only thing I could think of this morning as I got up, was that long ago, perhaps Dusk and I started to learn Bind magicde novofrom being around your mother Mimi. She was a fixture at Riad Rhakvir. She’d Bound my mother Juliette, and even when I was little, I could feel its effects. Even as children, Dusk and I had an intense connection, like true brothers born worlds apart. I wonder if somehow, because Mimi was a resurgence of the Bind Lineage from centuries gone, that… her magic taught itself how to open. And could also teach others with aptitude.”
“So you’re saying maybe the intensity of you and Dusk’s connection to each other formed a Bind through your own magics, learning from Mimi’s example.” Layla blinked, her lips falling open in astonishment.
“That’s what I’ve been thinking.” Adrian spoke quietly as he smoothed a hand over hers upon the coverlet. “Dusk and I put our connection away for a long while, but when we met you and you bound both of us, it came roaring back. Have you ever wondered why your magic chose Dusk and me? Or even Reginald and Rhennic? Not just Royal Dragons, but Royal Dragons with astonishingly intense and surprising abilities. I have a theory in light of everything that happened last night… that perhaps your magic chose the four of us because we each have a latent ability to Bind. Probably weaker than yours by a lot, but I think our group is doing something unprecedented, something other Bound groups have never done. We’re all starting to Bind each other, so we can use each other’s magics. Either that… or your Bind is somehow workingthroughus to Bind us tighter as a group and give us more power, which is also an interesting thought.”
“Either way your theory works out, Dusk used that power last night to call his new clan.” Glancing back at their Crystal Dragon, Layla saw he was well and truly out. Sleeping hard, Dusk hadn’t even moved from where his limbs had settled when Layla extracted herself. Reaching out, she combed her fingers gently through his dark brown waves, soft and perfectly coiffed even in sleep. Dusk never used styling products; he never needed any. But as she touched him he gave a sleepy growl, his lips turning up at the corners as he curled her hand into his strong chest. Layla thought he might wake, but instead he returned to the deep, slow breaths of sleep, twitching with a wave of light through his hair as he fell again, hard.
“I’ve only ever seen Dusk sleep like this when he was sick,” Layla spoke, caressing her fingers over his strong chest while he slept on. “It’s strange, seeing so many new sides to him in such a short time. The passion of his Dragon, the rage and fury. The danger and heartbreak in him, and now perhaps an ability to Bind, even if it’s mostly latent. So much was living beneath the surface all this time, yet he hardly ever showed it to me.”
“He never showed anyone those things,” Adrian spoke quietly, curling around Layla from behind and setting his chin on her shoulder, watching Dusk also. “Dusk has always had a public persona and a private one, Layla. With the true awakening of his Dragon, he’s simply unable to keep the two sides of himself separate anymore. It makes him raw but powerful, to embrace both sides of himself and become whole. I know he’s scared of what he might become, but I believe in him. Dusk has a heart as wide as the sky, and I trust it. I trust him to do what’s right no matter how much power he eventually grows into.”
“With great power comes great responsibility.” Layla quoted absently, still stroking Dusk’s chest.
“Spider-man?” Adrian chuckled, winding Layla closer in his arms. “So I’m Batman, you’re Wonder Woman, and now he’s Spider-man?”
“Something like that. Though I think maybe he’s more like Superman mixed with Deadpool.” Layla grinned.
“Accurate.” Adrian chuckled again. “Dusk’s irreverent as shit, but he always does what’s right.”
