“So this Crystal Highway, what is that?” Layla asked, curious as to what they would experience today on their journey.
“You know how I told you Crystal Dragons make things out of their ancestors’ bones?” Dusk spoke, a glitter of intrigue in his eyes. “Well long ago, my clan built a highway into their territory using the bones of their ancient dead. It used to stretch all the way from the west bank of the Nile at Luxor into my homeland further west. The Nile part of the highway was shattered in a great war a few thousand years back, so now it begins up at the edge of the plateau just beyond the Theban hills, and extends into the citadel.”
“We’ve gotten permission to travel through Djinnic lands in the Theban hills, by the way,” Adrian commented as he ate, “thanks to Yousry and Tarik. And word of your stunt yesterday at the bazaar has probably reached the West Nile Djinn, so I bet they’ll be clearing the road for us.”
“They’d better clear the road for everyone I’ve called,” Dusk spoke, darkening suddenly with the dangerous energy of his Dragon. “Or the Djinn clans and I are going to have words. The road’s span was Crystal Dragon territory until a hundred and fifty years ago, all the way to the river. It should be still, but because the Crystal Highway was busted up and unable to protect it in modern times, we’ve lost some ground.”
“You’ll get it back without a fight.” Adrian spoke, though he’d paused in his meal, frowning as if he wasn’t so sure.
“I hope so.” Dusk responded, frowning also.
But everyone was finished with breakfast now and it was time to get going. Rising briskly from the table, Dusk gave Layla a kiss and Adrian a nod, before striding to his suite still butt-ass nude. It was a great view as he walked away, Layla suddenly feeling hot from watching all the power in his built thighs, back, and ass as he departed. She watched his scintillating midnight Dragon-scales and gold shimmer on his body in the new day, and only finally managed to tear her gaze away when he disappeared from view.
Shaking his head and grinning, Adrian sipped the last of his coffee.
“What?” Layla grumped with a slight grin also, crossing her arms.
“You’re priceless, that’s all.” Adrian spoke as he set his coffee cup down. Rising, he kissed her, letting it linger as a curl of his warm winds eased around Layla, gently stroking her throat. It made her think of how he and Dusk had held her last night, and her drakaina rioted in her veins, sluicing a spicy scent into the air. Adrian chuckled with dark heat, as if he knew what she was thinking. Drawing away, he watched her with his incredible aqua eyes as a smile devoured his perfect lips.
“This is going to be so much fun.” He breathed sexily.
“What is?” Layla asked, her arms still crossed over her chest, though her heart was pounding hard for him now, like it just might leap out.
“You know what.” Adrian spoke with a devilish little grin. And then he was gone, moving out through the adjacent door into his own suite.
CHAPTER 17 – HIGHWAY
Driving out of Luxor in the fully-stocked Jeep, packed with plastic containers of water, oodles of camping supplies, food, and gas, Layla leaned an elbow out the open window, sad to see the city go. It had been a whirlwind twenty-four hours. And though Tarik and Amira had been there to see them off from the guesthouse, Amira expressing her regrets that she and Layla had not been able to have a heart-to-heart, Layla knew she had more to see and do in the Twilight city.
But Dusk’s homeland called, and as they crossed a white bridge over the Nile to the west bank, Layla’s heart soared like the river-birds diving and swooping to catch morning fish below. They were on to a new adventure today, and though some of it worried Layla, the rest was pure elation. She’d never seen a Crystal Dragon clan-home, much less Dusk’s, and his fidgety, eager restlessness this morning was affecting her and Adrian both.
Tapping his fingers in a Middle Eastern rhythm on the sill of his open window, Dusk leaned an elbow out of the Jeep in a similar manner to Layla. His summer-blue eyes were hidden by his chic sunglasses as he stared out over the rugged hills and plateaus rising up out of the desert to the west, beyond the river’s oasis. As Yousry turned onto a rough road, heading out through the last of the greenbelts and palm trees towards the barren hills and arroyos beyond, Adrian sat beside him in the front seat, helping navigate as they both scented the winds.
Dressed in tan linen slacks and a white linen shirt with his sleeves rolled up, Adrian was elegantly casual today. Wearing sunglasses in a classic style, he had an almost 1950’s look about him, whereas Dusk in his usual way had gone ultra-modern. But Dusk’s outfit of a white Cuban shirt and form-fitted jeans plus rugged hiking boots was good for the desert also, as was Layla’s garb.
Wearing a cream silk maxi-dress with a deep v-neck, plus modest gold jewelry, Layla was comfortable in the heat as the sun baked down upon the hills and arroyos past the Nile. Her sable curls were pulled up into a messy bun, out of her face as the wind whipped, their party driving a steady thirty-five away from the river north and west. Just past the last of the green, the road gave out to a plethora of rutted tracks that plowed through the hills in every direction, and Layla soon realized why Adrian and Yousry were scenting the winds to figure out their location.
And though Dusk lounged in back, Layla could tell he was alert also – feeling for the Crystal Highway that would take them into his homeland.
“This one, here.” Dusk spoke suddenly, and Yousry turned the Jeep hard to the left, heading into an arroyo that wound steadily up into the tallest heights, the land around it rising in slow ridges to the west. As they coursed up the arroyo toward a vast, many-tiered plateau in the distance, ledges of sandstone began to hem them in, the bottom of the track becoming stony and peppered with coarse desert brush as if it were a waterway in the spring.
About halfway up the deepening arroyo, which was becoming a proper canyon now, Yousry suddenly became very alert in the front of the Jeep. Adrian did also, and as Yousry slowed, pulling around a blind bend, Layla saw why. An enormous mirage of shimmering wind and swirling sands had been erected like a barrier across the rough road, between the canyon’s walls.
And before the barrier sat three Djinn men and one woman, meditating.
Dressed in white wrapped desert garb with flowing hoods, the Djinn came to alertness as the Jeep pulled up. Though the men rose, the woman remained seated in her lotus position, floating on a cushion of air as she kept her fingers together in a complex mudra in her lap. Yousry halted the Jeep and cut the engine as the men came up to the car, two on his side and one on Adrian’s, walking bare-footed on the air.
“Yousry Haddad!” One man smiled with delight, making a swirl of his hand that Layla was realizing was a welcoming gesture among the Djinn. “Our First told us you might be coming this way in the last few days. Well met, Rogue brother!”
“Emir Khalili!” Yousry laughed, opening his door and sliding out, then embracing the man fiercely. Shaking him by the shoulders as he pulled back, the both of them brightened and faded, then brightened again. “It is good you are expecting us. We have a divine errand, my friend. A divine errand indeed, and must pass quickly.”
“Divine?” The man in white blinked, his gaze perusing the others in the car shrewdly as he faded to edges and came back. “Two Desert Dragons and one… Crystal? You are on a fool’s errand, my friend, if you go trying to breach the borders of Egyptian Crystal Dragon lands. Treasure-hunting there has failed for many a long year. Even the Crystal King could not get through when he brought his horde of wall-breakers years ago. It is a powerful land – and powerfully protected. King Markus was mightily pissed.”
Layla cocked her head, hearing again the story of King Markus and how he couldn’t breach Dusk’s lands. Layla saw Dusk note it also as he frowned beside her, his fingers lifting up to peruse his lips thoughtfully.
“That is where you’re wrong, brother,” Yousry made an elegant gesture to Dusk. “For we bring with us the only heir to that great fortune, the long-lost son of the Crystal Plateau, Dusk Arlohaim. First among them, he has become – and First among them, he will return to his lands.”
The Djinn-man Emir gaped at Dusk. Moving away from Yousry, the man went to Dusk’s door and stared at him like he’d seen a ghost. Blinking, his lips fell open as Dusk reached up, taking down his sunglasses. They stared at each other a long moment before the man finally spoke. “My god!”
