“Good.” Leni smiled, but it was tight as if Reginald’s agreement wasn’t really a win.
“What if it is Hunter?” Layla asked, feeling a dark void try to open up inside her at this news. “What if he comes for me?”
“I will feel you if you wear my pearls,” Reginald spoke with a dire calm, holding Layla’s gaze as he corralled her around the waist. “No matter where you go in the world, I can find you – in the Twilight Realm or beyond it. Hunter has proven he wants you alive and on his side; play to that if he catches you alone anywhere. Until he makes a move or we can, he is most likely only watching us. Spill no information about this to anyone outside this room just yet. If Hunter knew we had this advantage, he would try to sabotage it, and we cannot let that happen. I will protect you, Layla. I promise.”
With those words, Reginald stared her down, impressing his point.
And then kissed her, pouring his heart into her along with his fierce love.
CHAPTER 13 – TIDES
As soon as they left Leni’s lab, Reginald had gotten on his cell phone, making calls as he walked Layla back to her room. His golden brows were knit in a tight line as he arranged a boat and some provisions for them to leave the island at once and go to wherever Fury was. Reginald spent time arguing with Atlantos on the phone, saying he had to make a sudden trip out to the White Deeps and that whatever his father wanted could wait. It was a tense twenty minutes until they were back up in Layla’s suite, the waterfall doors closing behind them.
As soon as they arrived, Reginald turned to her, covering his phone as he spoke to Atlantos and saying to Layla, “Your current outfit will do for today, but bring a thick winter jacket, a hat, and gloves. Put on my pearls also, the full set.”
Turning away and stepping out to the balcony, Reginald’s argument with Atlantos was heating up yet again, and Layla saw frustrated tics in Reginald that he never showed at the Hotel. Setting his hand on his hip, he walked in a tight circle, then scuffed one well-polished boot on the driftwood rail of Layla’s balcony. Making a swift gesture of frustration, almost Italianate in its cutting intensity, he glanced up, saw Layla watching, and turned away to face the ocean.
Feeling Reginald’s worry course through her along with her own that Hunter might be somewhere on the island stalking them, Layla turned to her closet. Her tall boots, jeans, sweater, and navy peacoat were good for wandering the island with its brisk springtime winds. But she frowned, wondering where they were headed as she collected her white knit hat, scarf, and gloves, then bundled them into the pockets of the apple-green ski jacket she’d brought for colder weather.
Stepping to the place she’d hidden Reginald’s new pearl set – under a bunch of sweaters in a drawer in her closet – Layla pulled out the white silk jewelry case. Taking out the champagne and blush pearl necklace with the platinum fleur-de-lis, Layla clasped it on. At once, she felt a raging blast of Reginald’s tides hit her, his gifts enhancing their Bind and magnifying his current mood. As Layla donned the earrings, she felt even more of Reginald’s fear, rage, and frustration heave through her. Some of his dark mood was about Hunter, yet there was also quite a lot in there about his father, and also the mysterious brother Fury she’d not met yet, whom Reginald seemed to have a tense past with.
And the arguments Reginald was having with Atlantos – about Fury.
Shoving her jacket into a canvas beach bag from her closet, Layla slung it over her shoulder as she returned to the balcony. Reginald was still on the phone, but turned as she arrived, frowning irately at whomever he was talking to now on the other line. Layla could sense he wasn’t speaking with Atlantos anymore, but he was blocking his thoughts from her, and the majority of his emotions and magic; she could still feel them but they were distant like a raging ocean past a dense fog. His eyes pierced her in his strikingly handsome face – fiercely Arctic blue right now rather than his softer grey-gold.
It was a look like he’d had when they’d first met, ferocious and dominant, and Layla heard him say softly into the phone, “I am not arguing this with you any longer, father. I need to go speak with Fury today and it can’t wait. I will attend to my duties for the Beltane celebrations and for our clan as soon as Layla and I return. Yes, she’s coming with me. Yes, I can handle my brother. I will return tomorrow, before the Beltane Bacchanalia begins.”
Reginald didn’t say goodbye to his father, merely hung up the phone with a tense finality. It was clear there was absolutely no love lost between father and son as Reginald tucked the phone into an inner pocket of his vest, closing his eyes in the scudding spring sunshine as if counting to ten. By the time he opened them, his austere face had eased. As he held a hand out to Layla, his eyes were thawing back to grey-gold, a wry smile touching his full lips.
“I’m sorry you had to feel all that. If I had a better alternative through this mess than you wearing my pearls while I’m raging, I would take it.”
“I don’t mind.” Layla spoke, moving forward and cuddling close to him as he slipped her bag from her shoulder and set it upon the balcony. “We go through this together, remember?”
“I’ve never been very good at doing things in togetherness.” Reginald smiled with self-chastisement as he gazed down at her, winding his arms around her waist.
“Says the Head Courtier whose job isliterallytogetherness.” Layla smiled, joking lightly despite all the tension rioting through them both.
“Perhaps my job is togetherness,” Reginald spoke, caressing a wind-blown curl back from her face, “but that doesn’t mean I let people get close to what I’m really feeling, Layla. Around my family and the drama here, plus Hunter possibly being on the island stalking us…”
“I get it. Hunter’s a pain in the ass – and family makes even the best of us go crazy.” Layla smiled, reaching up and cupping his cheek.
“My family makes even the daytime television showDynastylook sane.” Reginald spoke wryly, bitter regret in his voice.
“Maybe together you and I can teach them some manners.”
“I’d like that, if it were possible.” But Reginald’s voice was sad, as if he’d given up hope long ago of ever seeing eye-to-eye with his father. Layla could feel the regret in him; how much he wanted to be a part of his clan but felt like he didn’t fit in. She suddenly saw into him deeply as he let his guard down – how he only felt close to Leni and Fury, now that Tempeste was gone.
Layla wondered why Reginald felt close to Fury, knowing almost nothing about his elusive second-youngest sibling. But Reginald washed that sentiment away as he felt her pry into his private matters. He replaced it with the sensation of being with her, of how it made him gentle and warm inside, and suddenly Layla was flooded with that feeling. Every touch as they held each other was heightened now by his gifts and the Bind as Layla gazed up into his beautiful eyes, seeing grey mist and gold sunlight in them. Reginald’s short stubble was soft like buttercream, and Layla was mesmerized for a moment as the sun made the silken strands blaze.
Lifting an eyebrow, Reginald’s smile softened, and then his lips descended. He kissed her, slowly, drawing it out until every part of Layla ached. Time faded as sunlight filled her, with the sound of spray dashing against rocks. Her sigh was barely a breath as they parted, and Reginald’s was the same.
“I wish we had a better alternative to finding Hunter than visiting my brother Fury.” He spoke as his long fingers stroked her back.
“Why? I thought you felt close to Fury?” Layla asked, frowning with confusion.
“Once. Once I did. But he’s changed over the years, into someone I’d rather not… associate with.” Reginald sighed, a hard devastation in his eyes.
“Why? What’s wrong with him?” Pulling back, Layla watched Reginald, and saw the sadness and frustration in him, though he was trying to not spill it all over her.
