Moving to the walk-in on her fine stiletto heels, Davira flipped on the lights to a massive overhead chandelier. She glanced at Layla, then chose an off-the-shoulder green and azure lace gown with a slim trumpet skirt and stunning train that would look amazing with Layla’s desert tan and green-gold eyes. Selecting lace heels and a choker of sapphires and emeralds with a matching tennis bracelet, she held them out. Layla took the items, shedding her dressing-robe and sliding on the gown.
Davira’s gaze following her every move as she dressed.
“You really are a Royal Dragon Bind, aren’t you?” She spoke suddenly as Layla sat on a velvet pouf to don her high heels. “I can feel you resonating all through me, like a crystal waterfall of fire, wind, and lightning…”
Layla blinked, storing that information as she affixed her sable curls into a loose chignon at the side of her neck, then donned the choker and bracelet. Bending to do some quick smoky makeup in a gilded mirror, she glanced up at Davira as she worked. “You’re a strong Royal, aren’t you? My power calls to strong Royal Dragons.”
“Only the strongest of our Lineage have the privilege of serving King Markus.” Davira spoke, though she watched Layla with intense fascination now. Taking a deep breath, she blinked as if she had been in a trance – and for the first time, Layla wondered how much of an effect she might be having on other Royal Dragons in Markus’ palace besides Davira.
“I interest you, don’t I? You want me, don’t you?” Layla asked, rising with stately grace and staring Davira down, using every bit of Courtesan’s allure drilled into her by Reginald.
“Yes.” The woman murmured as she watched Layla. “I can’t deny it. I feel your call.”
Holding Davira’s gaze, Layla moved forward, wanting to test her theory – that she was fascinating to the Royal Crystal Dragons here in Prague. Layla wasn’t generally hot for women, but her Dragon didn’t care, and stepping close to Davira, she eased her fingers over Davira’s wrist, then set her lips gently to Davira’s. Their kiss was tasteful, small and sensual, but as Layla tested out her theory, her drakaina rose in her veins with a slow, dominant roil. Shedding a golden fire up through Layla’s throat, her Dragon pressed it in through Davira’s lips as they kissed. It was a thick, hot power, something both Adrian and Reginald could do, and as it spilled from Layla’s lips, it pressed back into Davira’s throat, forcing the emissary to swallow it.
With a sigh, Davira trembled from head to heels, falling into Layla’s kiss, hard. But just as suddenly as she had succumbed, Davira jerked away, breathing fast. With wide eyes she stepped back, out of the walk-in as she wiped her lips subtly with her manicured fingertips. As Layla exited the closet also, she saw Davira step quickly to the dining table, drinking deep from a glass of red wine. Flicking her gaze at Layla then away as she flushed hard, the woman gestured to the doors.
“Come. We must go.”
Layla went. But her theory was partially confirmed now, and the rest was confirmed as they exited her rooms – the guards on her doors staring as she came out in her trailing lace gown, as if they too had felt what had happened with Davira just now. Davira scowled at them and they snapped to attention, but Layla could feel her drakaina reaching out to taste them, flowing with golden eroticism as she licked and caressed them, trying to find another mate. Though both guards tried to stand rigid, they shuddered, gasping with pleasure as Layla’s drakaina stroked them with her massive golden coils.
But what Layla knew as she stepped from her suite was that all three of these Royal Crystal Dragons had felt her caress.
Escorting her through the twists and turns of the palace, Davira did not look at Layla again as they hastened to Layla’s audience with the Crystal King. Layla was confident now as she walked with her head high, spreading her golden coils through the halls to lick at everyone she passed. Dishes were dropped from servers taking trays to rooms. Ladies in 1600’s attire sighed with open lips, staring at Layla as she passed. Men stumbled, trailing her with fascinated desire in their gemstone eyes, one even growling with white-hot passion as Layla passed, his citrine eyes flashing sex as a hard wave of light refracted through his scales and hair.
Passing them all, Layla let her drakaina growl in her veins, knowing now that she had something King Markus didn’t. She didn’t quite know what she was going to do with it yet, but it was an unknown advantage, and Reginald had told her to look for her advantages, no matter how small. As Davira came to a massive set of diamond doors flanked by two enormous emerald-green Crystal Dragons as big as houses, she nodded. As one, the Dragons rumbled a vibration through the doors, opening them and admitting Layla to a tremendously opulent suite decorated entirely in diamonds, white crystal, royal blue velvet, and gold brocade.
The boudoir of the King, she realized too late – as Davira and the emerald Dragons swiftly shut the doors behind her.
A hard spike of fear rushed through Layla, sluicing away her elation as she took in the royal suite. She had stupidly assumed she would be having an audience in the King’s throne hall again, but as she took in the ornate sitting-foyer before her, complete with old-world European chaises and rugs and lit by gargantuan chandeliers, she realized her vast mistake. A banquet of delicacies was set at a long table, massive crystal fireplaces and candelabra lit around the room. To the right was a white bathroom with a crystal sitting-solar full of orchids and ferns. Adjacent to the bathroom was a steam room with a tub set into the floor, surrounded by greenery and crystal bathing-screens. To the left of the main room was the King’s massive canopied bed of blue, gold, and diamonds, inset into a niche in the wall with towering blue velvet drapes.
Directly ahead stood King Markus Ambrose, swirling bourbon in a crystal glass at a truly opulent bar of white topaz and black obsidian. Staring her down with his piercing diamond eyes, he was alone except for Layla, now in his private bedrooms with him. Resplendent, the King was dressed in a modern charcoal vest and trousers with a paisley blue pocket square. A diamond-crystal watch graced his wrist with matching cufflinks.
As Layla entered, he beckoned to her as he poured a second bourbon. The smell of whatever he had in his decanters was like caramel, and it drew Layla in even as part of her wanted to just stay the fuck away from the deeply enigmatic – and dangerous – Crystal Dragon King. But as he extended the bourbon, waiting patiently with a bemused expression on his face, Layla at last moved forward. Crossing the sitting-parlor and passing the dining table with its candelabra, Layla went to the bar. Though she accepted the bourbon from King Markus, she was careful to not touch him, and as he sipped, she did also.
Though his piercing diamond-eyes never left hers.
“So. You’re seducing my Royals.” He spoke at last, setting his bourbon down on the glossy obsidian bar-top and giving her an amused lift of one eyebrow.
“I’ve got nothing better to do. It seemed a fair distraction.” Layla spoke, her drakaina hijacking her mouth yet again even though her saner self tensed, knowing now that King Markus could feel the effect her Bind was having on his people.
He laughed. He actually laughed, in a rolling baritone that thundered through the floor, then dissolved into chuckles that shuddered straight though Layla so hard she had to reach out and grip the bar to steady herself. “You are a breath of fresh air, Dragon Bind. It’s been many a long year since anyone was quite so determinedly impudent with me. I believe the last person to do so was another lover of yours, Reginald Durant. You remind me of him. Fierce, protective, ruthless. Attributes we all share, I believe.” Raising his glass, he saluted her as he pinned her with those gloriously deadly eyes, then sipped again.
“You think I’m as ruthless as you are?” Layla’s brows actually rose as she cradled her glass.
“I know you are.” Markus spoke with a dark simmer now, his lips curling into a subtle smile. “Who else could possibly rope some of the most powerful Dragons to themselves that this millennia has ever seen? Reginald Durant and Rhennic Erdhelm; sons of Kings. The young business tycoon Adrian Rhakvir. Dusk Arlohaim, descendant of two of the most powerful Crystal Dragons that ever lived. He bears his mother’s name, but his father’s line was no less Royal, or did you not know?”
“I didn’t know.” Layla spoke, though she cradled her bourbon now, frowning and wondering what was going on. This meeting wasn’t going at all like she’d expected, and Layla wondered what King Markus was getting at. “What’s this all about?”
“Nomy King, no respect when you address me.” His eyes flashed, something in them both furious and intrigued at the same time. “You believe you are my equal, Dragon Bind?”
“Hey buddy, I was raised in the human world. We don’t tend to cower before power, not readily.” Layla spoke firmly, setting her bourbon aside on the bar now, even though it was delicious. “Besides, subtlety has never been my style. So tell me what I’m doing here, or I’d thank you to let me go back to seducing your Royals in my rooms.”
“So beautifully impertinent,” King Markus smiled, and there was something deadly in his smile now. Reaching out, he caressed his fingertips over Layla’s chest above her lace gown. The movement was so unexpected that Layla almost pulled away. But in that moment, she suddenly found her body riveted beneath King Markus’ touch. Shivering like a blown horse, she couldn’t pull away from him as he stroked her skin, and Layla’s eyes fluttered wide. With shock spiking her, her drakaina roiled with pure fury inside her veins. But despite all that, only the tiniest scorched-bourbon scent curled from Layla’s skin.
Her entire body still unable to move.
“So beautiful.” King Markus murmured, watching her in a way that said he knew exactly what Layla was experiencing. “So powerful. But all of it is reduced to so much nothing if you can’t use your magic on me. Or your body.”
