Sliding a finger down beneath the edge of her dress, King Markus caressed Layla’s breast. His eyes were diabolical as he watched her shiver, feeling her roar at him deep inside but holding her body and magic immobile somehow with his. It was the worst thing Layla had ever felt – a combination of terror, rage, and helplessness as he touched her. Removing his fingers, he slid them up her neck, stroking her hammering pulse.
But his magic did allow Layla to speak, and as her body strangely desired his touch and hated it at the same time, Layla let her furious drakaina speak for her. “You could take my body, but you would never take my heart. And that’s the problem, isn’t it? You can make your Royals do your bidding with your resonance, you can make their bodies stay here in your palace, and you can make their magic obey you. But you can’t make them love you; you can’t control their hearts. In all this opulence, among all these people… nobody loves you. All those concubines and children – some part of them screams in horror when they see you. Because they all know what you really are. A monster.”
King Markus inhaled like he’d been slapped. His eyes flared like a viper as he removed his hand from Layla’s skin, a blistering wave of diamond-light flowing through his scales and blond hair. She knew she’d hit his pain as they stared at each other, him breathing hard, Layla celebrating inside with a triumphant roar though she still couldn’t move.
Narrowing his eyes on her with a blistering intensity, King Markus suddenly snarled, ugly as his entire face contorted in rage. Gone was the enigmatically sexy King, replaced by a livid monster, and Layla felt herself quail suddenly at her vast mistake in being so blunt and aggressive with him.
Before she knew it, Markus had seized her wrist, hauling her along behind him with a terrible force as his furious magic pummeled the room, making everything shudder and chime. With a nasty strength, he yanked her towards the doors of his suite, hauling her around in front of him and roaring at the doors so hard they shuddered in their frames. Holding Layla in an iron grip with his magics, he seized her throat with one hand as the doors opened and a man was permitted to enter by the green Dragons, rolling in a cart of coffee.
The tall serving man with grey eyes – whose eyes flared hot with gold as he saw Layla pinned in the Crystal King’s arms.
Adrian was a mirage of scalding heat and wind as his body shifted back fast to his usual self. But even as he hurled up both hands to blast King Markus’ ass with fire so hot it twisted like white plasma in his hands, Markus thrust up a hand like talons, gripping his fingers at Adrian. Layla felt a sub-sonic resonance blast from the King, devouring Adrian right to his bones. As Adrian’s attack was throttled by King Markus’ blast, he screamed in rage, roaring with the vast overtones of his Dragon now in pure fury.
As the doors boomed shut, Adrian whirled up fast into his Desert drake within the King’s chamber, massive spines of red and turquoise shooting from his elegantly fire-bright body. Coiling up like a viper, he opened his great maw of fangs at King Markus, roaring as a white-hot heat flared deep in his throat to blast the Crystal King from here to Timbuktu.
But even as Adrian roared that white fire at Markus, the Crystal King roared back, gripping his hand into a fist and hammering it like a punch at Adrian’s Dragon. That punch hit Adrian so hard it flung him back into the diamond doors, knocking him out instantly. Gripping his hand into a claw again, his fingers now actually manifesting into cruel diamond-talons, King Markus growled with bass notes so low they were like boulders cracking in an earthquake at the center of the planet. Massaging those terrible talons at Adrian even as Adrian came to, King Markus vibrated a pulse so intense into Adrian’s entire body that he shifted back down instantly into human. Thrust to his knees by King Markus’ power, Adrian’s eyes widened in comprehension even as he was caught by the same reason Layla had been – because of Dusk’s crystal magic flowing through him now with their Bind.
Leaving Adrian on his knees, his seething white fire flashed out, his body unable to shift or move, Adrian became as helpless as Layla in the grips of the Crystal Dragon King.
“Cur!” King Markus snarled, still gripping Layla’s neck with a hand like talons as he lowered the other. “Did you think I would not feel through your disguise, Desert whelp? I tolerated it the first time you infiltrated my palace because I was curious about you, but now with Dusk’s energy shuddering through your bones, I am less patient. Your Bind with Dusk is unique and strange, but because of it, I could stop your heart right in your chest for daring to spy on me. Maybe I should.”
Raising his hand again, King Markus gripped his fingers into their massively cruel diamond talons again, enormous knives of light that terrified Layla to her very core. As King Markus pinned Adrian with his power, making Adrian gasp with shock and throw a hand up to his heart, roaring in pain, everything inside Layla screamed. Blossoming up through her in a tremendous wash of golden-bright rage, her drakaina’s scream flooded out from her, scorching through the room despite King Markus’ grip on her neck. Toppling crystal candelabra, Layla’s vast rage threw plates of foodstuffs at the walls and hurled every decanter from King Markus’ ornate bar to dash upon the floor in a terrible shattering of crystal and alcohol.
As Adrian gasped for his very life on his knees before her, his aqua eyes desperate as he struggled to not die while King Markus crushed Adrian’s heart with his might.
“Silence!” King Markus roared at Layla, thundering his terrible power through her very bones from his hand still gripped around her neck. The force of it drove Layla to her knees also, all her screaming rage thrust back down inside her body as her drakaina writhed, trying to escape. But King Markus’ power was the thunder of the cosmos, and he seized her chin now, thrusting her head up so hard she cried out as he roared down into her face like a mad thing. Seizing her hair, he hauled her head to the side, straining her neck.
And bit her.
It was not nice, and it was not sexy. It was the bite of an enraged beast dominating a difficult mate, and Layla screamed as Markus bit her, breaking her skin and drawing blood. He growled like thunder of the mountains as he ground his teeth into the bite, biting her harder and flooding wave after wave of power through her until her body and magics were entirely subdued beneath him. Breathing hard, Layla felt her drakaina shoved into a dark crystal box deep inside, as Markus growled his terrible, tremendous power into her.
And that crystal box was tinged with Dusk’s magic – the very Bind between them now acting as their undoing as King Markus took control of it by his resonance.
Breathing hard, Markus released Layla, her Dragon terribly quiet now as she breathed hard also. His breath was hot on her damaged skin as he heaved, as if he’d had to work harder at putting Layla’s drakaina away than Adrian’s drake. It was yet another thing Layla noted, but it didn’t do her or Adrian much good as Markus slowly pulled back, locking eyes with her, his irises gone a terrible, blazing white. Still breathing hard, he glowered down at her, releasing her hair as he straightened.
“I willmakeyou obey me, drakaina.” He heaved as he stood, a blistering scent like super-heated diamonds in a forge-fire cascading off him. “I will make you do my will, no matter how much you roar and gnash your fangs at me.”
“What do you want from me?” Layla hissed, finding she at least had possession of her tongue even as a black pit of terror opened up inside her. “You want to rape me? Fine. Do it.”
“I could.” Markus spoke back, something diabolical simmering in his ultra-white eyes. “I can feel Dusk’s power thundering through your every sinew through your Bind – and whatever Royal Crystal Dragon resonance touches, I can control. I could make your body want me,” Markus continued, and deep inside, Layla felt her most intimate places grip, every last inch of her suddenly on fire with heat. “I can resonate your flesh to produce hormones of passion so you desire me, just like I’ve done for thousands of other women. I can ring your DNA like a bell and make it shift you into your Dragon, and we could fuck like that, furious and barbed and deep right before your mate, as I hold him here on his knees a talon’s squeeze from death. I could make you feel things for me you’ve never even felt with any of your lovers, and I could make you want it all again a second after it was done. And yet, you were right in your assessment of my power. I am not a Siren or a Vampire – I cannot make you love me. And it is that power I seek, vicious drakaina. A power thatyouhave inside the Bind. And which I now have access to, thanks to Dusk.”
Setting his palm to her chest, King Markus gripped his diamond-talons in at her sternum. Something vast shuddered inside Layla as he touched her with his incredible power, ringing that part of her which loved so deeply like a well-tuned bell. It was then that Layla felt it, like a talon of pure diamond light reaching into her from King Markus. As she gasped, she felt it resonate with Dusk’s similar sapphire-diamond light inside her. And then the golden sensation of the Bind rose up through her to that talon’s call – flooding her like a tidal wave as the Bind cascaded out, crashing over everything in the room.
As it crashed through King Markus, his eyes lit with diamond-fire, and resonating with him now, Layla felt hers do the same. Staring up at him, she breathed gently; watching him, wanting him. Feeling that golden-diamond sensation curl all through her, her drakaina was released from its crystal box, coiling up so high inside Layla’s body that she cried out softly, but not from pain. It was pure ecstasy as the golden glow of her Bind-magic combined with the diamond brilliance of King Markus’. And it was the same diamond brilliance she usually felt with Dusk, now harnessed by the Crystal Dragon King.
Because Dusk’s resonance had changed Layla’s magic enough to give Markus access to the Bind.
“There.” King Markus crooned, watching her first in one eye, then the other. “I was right. Dusk’s power has given you enough crystal in your magic and body that I can make your power resonate with mine – controlling your Bind.”
“What are you going to do?” Layla breathed, terrified, elated, wanting him yet still hating him. She could feel him inside her now; that vast talon of diamond-light caressing her power deep within. As he touched her, as he stroked and coaxed her with his magic, Layla shuddered hard. But it wasn’t a shudder of fury anymore, it was one of need as he pressed his power deeply inside her, letting her feel how much he could control her Bind with his tremendous resonance.
And how much he could make her love him because of it.
“Layla… no…!” Adrian gasped, fallen down to one hand now upon the floor as he cried out softly in pain and heartbreak. But Layla couldn’t even glance at him, flooded with this new feeling of love she shared now with the Crystal Dragon King.
“That is how I want you to be, drakaina.” King Markus spoke as he gently kissed her lips. “That is how I want you to feel for me when Dusk comes for you and realizes your love for him has been stolen by me. I will never let you Bind me. But what I want you to do is to Bind others with your power,forme. Bind others into this golden-diamond sensation you feel for me now, and I will wield that tremendous might. Together, we will make the whole world love what we are, and serve our aims as one.”
“And what are we?” Layla asked, licking her lips as her drakaina surged up through her to taste him, not just her body but her heart needing to consummate this incredible sensation she was feeling with him now.
