The power to say yes or no, and to what extent she would go.
“Layla Price, Royal Dragon Bind,” Reginald spoke quietly, watching her. “Do you accept my gift, and the heart that goes with it?”
“I do.” She spoke quietly back, feeling a beautiful eternity stretch between them.
“Good.” He spoke back, with the slightest smile curling his perfect lips. “I’m glad.”
Slowly, Reginald rose from his seat. Moving to her, he pulled out her chair graciously and helped her up by one hand. Corralling her close in his arms, he pressed their bodies together. As he gazed down, a deep tenderness was in his eyes.
“I love you, Layla Price.” He murmured. “You have power you do not even fathom yet, and if we had more time, I would train you in it, but we do not and so I can’t. But what I have given you is more than patience, or subterfuge, or deviousness. I have given you the power of my heart, to use when you will. For through our Bind, believe me when I say I will be with you, offering you the power of my Royal Siren in any situation you may face. When you go into battle in the boardroom, or in my father’s hall, or in Hunter’s lair wherever it lies, you do not go alone. The moment you open your body and your heart, I will be there, guarding it for you, helping you ride those waves or smash them into your enemies if need be. I am already here, Layla, with you. And here I will stay, for you to use whenever you wish.”
With that, Reginald settled a warm hand over Layla’s heart, pressing his palm in so she could feel it. The strength of him; the sureness of him. As he did, Layla could feel their Bind like a living thing connecting their magics. Like the slow roll of the ocean, Reginald’s Siren coiled around her Dragon, white and gold and strong. Baring fangs to the world, she felt him snarl, tightening his coils around her in protection.
The sensation caught Layla’s breath.
And then she was lifting up, kissing him – tasting the furious power of the ocean as he kissed her back.
CHAPTER 12 – TECH
Moving down through the levels of Deep Harbor, Reginald and Layla took a meandering path through the palace’s elegant courtyards and watery halls. Layla hummed with energy, sneaking glances at Reginald as they descended to the Under Harbor to visit Leni today in her lab. She and Reginald had had another fast, furious lovemaking after he’d given her his gifts, which had ended in a sweet time cuddling on Layla’s bed, followed by a chime at the door and Vindaris delivering Reginald a fresh suit with a knowing grin.
While Layla dressed in a casual outfit of jeans and tall boots, a cream sweater and her navy peacoat for a day in the Siren citadel, Reginald had changed into a fresh white shirt, a darker tan vest with gold pinstripes, and trousers. He’d bound his hair half-back again, and Layla noticed the clip he used had the same design as her gifts. Her new pearls were too fancy for the daytime, so she wore only the bracelet now. But as she watched Reginald use the clip to pull back his hair, he gave her a deep gaze.
Letting her know how much it meant to him that they both wore his gifts today.
Moving down through the palace, they walked through halls full of anemone fountains, to massive portrait galleries of long-ago Siren rulers done from pearls embedded in the walls. Near the harbor, Layla saw there were both outdoor and indoor entries to the water; and at the indoor ones, Sirens dove under a watery partition that kept air inside the hall while the harbor’s water made a pool within. Shifting with ultra-smooth ability, the Sirens glided away, off about their underwater business. Though all were opalescent, some were pale or white, while others were dark purple and blacks that shone with rainbows in the deep. A few had silver in their scales, though Layla saw none with the bright gold lines Reginald had acquired since their Bind.
“Your coloring, your hair in human form and your scales in Siren-form,” Layla asked as Reginald escorted her. “It is unique?”
“You mean the gold?” Reginald glanced at her as he led the way out of the underwater hall and down another set of coral stairs, deeper beneath the harbor. “It is unique. My mother had golden hair and scales, but few Sirens have such. We are often very dark-haired or light with little in-between; seldom redheads, brunettes, or golden. Our scales are the same.”
“It makes you stand out, doesn’t it?” Layla asked as they proceeded down a helical water-spout, descending into a hall of blue pearls far below the surface.
“It is a Royal trait.” Reginald glanced at her as they continued down the blue hall, a lovely dome above to watch the ocean as they walked into the harbor along the sea floor. “Only the strongest Royal Sirens have golden hair and scales, or actual silver – what we call a true Golden Siren, or a Silver Siren. Of my brothers, only Tempeste, Bastien, and I were born with golden hair, and only Fury was born with silver hair. But neither Bastien nor Tempeste ever manifested gold in their scales, Layla. My first full shift was late in life, at Manarola to save you, but even though it gained me tremendous power to have been so delayed, even I did not have any gold in my scales until you Bound me. Just like I did not have gold in my eyes, either. Sirens with golden hair are rare. Sirens with golden hair and golden scales… nearly non-existent.”
“Has Adrian told you he and Dusk’s theory about us all being able to share power now? And borrow each other’s abilities?” Layla commented.
“He has.” Reginald nodded as they turned, taking a side-branch off the blue hall. “He believes the gold showing up in all our eyes now is yours, Layla. It’s the same as the feel of our Bind – a molten gold sensation that flows through us. Which is showing up in my scales, now that I can become my true Siren-form at last. Ah. Here we are. Leni’s lab.”
Gesturing to a vaulted double-doorway of grey pearls inset into blue coral, Reginald set a palm to the doors. They parted to his touch, and beyond Layla saw a sprawling science lab. Modern equipment like sonar arrays, radar units, and electric generators were packed side-by-side with massive pearl-abalone contraptions containing huge orbs of swirling white light. Glowing red pincers like scorpion tails mated with a crab-trap were stacked atop one another in every corner. Enormous crates of swirling silver buoys like liquid mercury pulsed with a watery light, generating a low-level hum Layla could feel shivering all through her. And sitting on a stool at a counter in the middle of it all, her workspace cluttered with printouts, topographic maps of the sea-floor, and a truly massive bank of computers with three large monitors behind her, was Leni.
Dressed in a white silk blouse and tan cargo pants with a high belted waist, Leni looked like she was about to go on an elegant safari, perched on her work stool with blush stiletto heels trapped in the rungs. Glancing up at their arrival, her sleek black hair was pulled back in a long ponytail, and she blinked her cobalt eyes at them from behind square-framed glasses like Atlantos’. She had a pen in her mouth, chewing on the end, and one shoved behind her ear as she startled from whatever she’d been engrossed in on the laptop. With a smile of delight, Leni pushed back the stool, tossing down her chewed pen to greet Layla and Reginald.
“There you are! Come in!” She laughed in her luscious alto as she put her glasses up on her head. “I’m afraid my underwater domain looks a travesty right now. Fury and I are just about to launch another series of buoys along the floor of the Norwegian Trench to evaluate a volcanic vent that’s opened up. Mind your step, or the buoys will swallow you alive.”
She gestured to the masses of ruby scorpion-traps all around, and the mercurial pulsating things, and Layla smiled. “I’ve never seen buoys like those.”
“The ruby ones are my design, the silver are Fury’s.” Leni spoke brightly, and now that she was here in her domain, Layla could finally see the science-girl in the supermodel. “Between them, they track all the usual information oceanographers and vulcanologists want from the sea-floor and also a number of micro-particles and magical nano-creatures us Sirens use to study the oceans and evaluate their health.”
“Leni’s specialty is combining Siren magic and our methods of monitoring and cultivating the oceans with the best of modern human technology.” Reginald spoke with a smile. “Fury’s is generating new ways of using Siren-powers to track patterns in the oceans. The information gathered by their combined efforts goes into the High Council’s records, along with our own databases, and the Intercessoria’s.”
“Do Sirens cultivate the world’s oceans?” Layla blinked. “Like gardening?”
“We do, more or less.” Leni spoke with eagerness. “It’s a wild garden, to be sure, but for eons both Sirens and Mermaids have taken a stance on protection and cultivation of our oceans here in the Twilight Realm, and to some degree in the human world, as much as we can do and still remain hidden from human eyes. Our planet is delicate, and if we Sirens want to hunt in Dragon-form, we have to be careful how much we take, and where, and in what way. Hence, my research.”
“Monitoring the health of our oceans in both the Twilight and Human realms is of vast benefit to all, and Leni is always figuring out new ways to get better data. Speaking of.” Reginald turned to his half-sister with his eyebrows raised. “Layla tells me you got ahold of Adrian, telling him you have some new invention you think may help us locate our elusive nemesis Hunter?”
“Fury and I do, or at least, we think we do.” Leni nodded briskly, her gaze moving from Reginald to Layla. “Adrian’s kept me apprised of all the latest developments in the Hunter saga, since I’m one of his scientists working on possible solutions. Until recently, I didn’t think Fury’s and my work was going to be of any help with Hunter. But then I stumbled on something when we were working on one of our pet projects I callsonar-mindthe other day. Come see.”
