Or raise hell with all it could unleash.
“Brother.” Reginald spoke, watching Fury as he held Layla close. “It’s been a while.”
“Too long.” Fury spoke softly, and though his voice was low and smooth, Layla felt a cutting intensity to it like a thousand decadent harpoons digging into her flesh. It made her shiver all over, even as she stood more strongly now from her fire-furious drakaina rising in her veins. Gradually, her power was learning to adjust to Fury’s overwhelming presence, but it was like trying to manage a horde of live eels by their tails. Layla felt Fury’s power twisting, flowing quickly away from her as her power touched it – then just as fast back in like a sneaker wave. It swamped her again, and she felt her drakaina rolled under his waves, her lungs and mouth filling with the taste of seawater.
Layla coughed, and actually felt moisture clear from her lungs.
“Apologies, drakaina.” Fury spoke softly as he watched her. “I do not mean to harm you.”
“I can tell.” Layla coughed again, clearing the briny taste in her mouth as she shivered. “Your power is just that immense, isn’t it?”
“It is.” He spoke quietly, still watching her with his disastrously dark blue eyes. “Can you feel my Dragon?”
Frowning, Layla reached out with her drakaina’s fire-bright coils, searching for the coils of Fury’s Royal Siren-drake. She could usually feel another Dragon’s metaphysical beast now when she met them, but it was like everything around her was simply flow and tide as she searched out and further out for the shape of scales and the sensation of fangs and talons.
Lifting her brows in surprise, Layla expanded her drakaina’s aura to a massive extent, pushing its boundaries hard to the far reaches of the island. At the very limits of her power, she began to feel Fury’s drake. Pouring all around them, they were actually inside its vast coils where they stood in the ice-hall’s foyer. Like a creature of forgotten legend, Fury’s Siren-Dragon surged all around the island. He used it to sculpt his masterpiece in the ocean, and as Layla felt the truly enormous pressure of all that power around her, she felt how Fury had to keep his Dragon active. He made it sculpt those enormous floes; he made it work to move such a vast amount of ocean constantly to keep it occupied.
Because if it wasn’t occupied, it did terrible things.
“You make your Dragon sculpt the sea so it doesn’t hurt people.” Layla spoke with awe, amazed even as her drakaina roiled inside her veins with utter terror to be faced with such a hugely powerful drake. “That’s why you have to live out here all alone. So you can focus your power on the water, and not get distracted.”
“Yes.” Fury spoke simply, watching her with his terribly beautiful blue eyes. “It is the only way to calm my beast. Come. Welcome to my home. And your name is, drakaina?”
“Layla. Layla Price.” She blinked, realizing that Fury had kept his power intentionally away from reading her. He was actually controlling himself right now, not reading her mind with his mesmeric abilities – he was just so massively powerful that she was feeling the residual. “Royal Dragon Bind of the Desert Dragons of Morocco and the Mediterranean.”
“And my brother’s chosen mate.” Fury smiled with pleasure now as his gaze alighted on the pearls she wore, though it was just a subtle curl of his full lips like Reginald. “Welcome, beloved.”
“Beloved?” Layla blinked, though Reginald held his silence, watching his twin carefully.
“She who is beloved to my twin is also beloved to me.” Fury smiled more genially now, though with a subtle mystery. “Come. I sense you both have devoured a noon meal already, but—”
Suddenly, Fury turned with a movement so fast and dangerous, Layla actually jolted back into Reginald. Her Bound lover was like a wall of iron as he suddenly enclosed Layla’s mind and body in a shield of seawater as his twin whirled faster than thought – roaring the most massive Dragon-call at the sea that Layla had ever heard. It was like drowning under the wave to end all waves as Layla screamed inside Reginald’s enclosure to feel that sound hit her, though most of it was turned aside by Reginald’s shield. Reginald gripped her close as Fury’s face contorted into the most frightening visage Layla had ever seen, his whole body arching with the force of his roar.
Blasting the ocean back in a hundred-foot wave beyond the harbor – hammering out into the vast embrace of the sea.
Layla’s breaths came in terrified sips as Reginald slowly lowered his watery shield. Heaving hard breaths, Fury’s irises had gone a vicious, sparkling silver with no blue left to them. Gradually, the blue swirled back as he closed his eyes a long moment, his silver-dark eyelashes fluttering. At last, his eyes opened, and Layla saw sanity in them once more.
But there had been no one home for a long moment, and it frightened Layla to her core that Fury could so completely become his Dragon in human form that he forgot how to evenbehuman. It was the closest thing to insane that Layla had ever seen in the Twilight Realm; possibly excepting Hunter with his confusion of multiple personalities. And suddenly, Layla understood Reginald’s stiff watchfulness around his twin.
And the vast sadness she could feel flowing through her Royal Siren.
“Forgive me.” Fury spoke shakily, shuddering as he smoothed his palm over his temple to pull back a few silver strands of hair around his face. It was a gesture Reginald also made when he was shaken, and the motion pulled at Layla, deeply. Glancing up, Fury met Layla’s gaze and for a moment, his visage was so vulnerable, so beautiful that Layla felt her heart break for him. “My drake… feels you.” He spoke with another deep shudder. “More than other drakainas.”
“She is the Royal Dragon Bind.” Reginald spoke quietly. “You will feel her, brother. Guard your drake better, if you can, while we are here.”
“Of course.” But Fury’s gaze flicked back to Layla again, and she felt the dark interest of his Dragon in those eyes now as they shimmered silver for a moment. Fury was a kind person, Layla could feel – but his Dragon was another thing entirely. It was a wild animal, more wild than anything Layla had met yet.
And Fury barely had control of it, despite all his channeling of its power into the vast ocean.
“Come.” Turning, Fury led Reginald and Layla into the hall of blue ice with its writhing seawater porticos. The hall was sheer art, containing no furniture, and seemed to serve no purpose other than its own grand beauty. As they proceeded over the glassy blue floor, Layla could see veins of water glimmering beneath the surface, their artful channels braided into the floor and columns, making them shine as sunlight sliced in from skylights far above.
It was hauntingly beautiful – just like Fury’s personality.
Moving through the main hall, they descended a flight of stairs into a much warmer hall below. The ice-vaults were deeply blue now like a star-studded twilight beneath the glacier, columns ringing the round hall and embedded in the ice-walls. This hall was clearly Fury’s living-space, decorated with elegant Victorian furniture in royal purples, blues, and greens, everything chased with silver thread. Pewter lamps like 1800’s gaslights ringed the space; massive Persian rugs were scattered over every inch of the icy floor. Through the vaults, Layla could see bedrooms with canopied beds, dining-parlors, even a massively ornate bathroom with what looked like natural hot springs steaming up into the air.
As if Fury entertained in his isolation occasionally, he had a sumptuous spread of food set on a table in the living area. Gesturing to the Victorian settees, he took up an already-open bottle of red wine, as if he’d known they were arriving, and poured three large glasses. Handing them around, he was careful to not touch Layla, though she felt his Dragon surge towards her again with its massive energy. But Fury was able to wrestle it back now, as if he, too was adjusting to Layla’s presence as much as she was adjusting to his. With only a subtle flash of silver in his eyes, he claimed a seat as Reginald and Layla settled also.
Sipping their wine, everyone was silent a moment, before Reginald spoke. “Fury. Did Leni tell you why we’re here?”
