“I remember that time in our seventh year, when everything changed.” Reginald spoke quietly. “Father had always been cruel, but he became unbearable that summer, though only towards you and I. Bastien also became inordinately cruel then, and rose to a higher position working closely with Léviathan. It was Tempeste who protected us… took us away from court to live here at the White Deeps and learn his duties as a political emissary to the Blood Dragons.”
“Before Tempeste was outcast by Léviathan for hiding us, and joined the Intercessoria.” Fury nodded, sitting quietly in his chair with his fingers splayed now over its armrests, though his posture was still rigidly intense. “It was that same summer in which Léviathan gave over his positions in the Red Letter Hotel and the Crimson Circle to Bastien. Léviathan and Hunter parted ways then, but Hunter believed Léviathan’s parenting of you and I to be imperative to the Pattern. Hunter told mother that Léviathan’s cruelty towards us was necessary, to make you and I grow exponentially in our powers; and he bade her allow Léviathan to be as cruel as he wished with us, and Bastien also. It was then that mother began to doubt. She loved her gold and silver babies more than she loved Hunter, and she began to resist him. But you and I had already been triggered, and continued to be triggered by Léviathan’s wrath when we were returned to court.”
“He was merciless,” Reginald spoke softly. “I wish I could forget all those countless hours being tortured by his power in the deeps, in the name of making usstrong warriors.”
“Scars that will never heal,” Fury agreed soberly. “Léviathan tested us so terribly not just because he was furious at Hunter, but because he had an agenda also; he wanted to make us strong enough to be wieldedagainstHunter someday. Mother saw it; she despaired. And when Hunter bade her make you the foreign ambassador to the Blood Dragons of Norway in our twenty-second year, she knew something terrible was about to happen. You fell in love with the Blood Dragon girl, and the aftermath was everything Hunter had seen in the Pattern as your power went wild. But Auriana saw how it damaged you. And she did something then that Hunter did not expect.”
“She allowed me to banish myself from Deep Harbor.” Reginald spoke with a terrible knowing. “As my atonement to King Huttr Erdhelm for the carnage I’d caused. But she agreed to it because it actually placed me in the perfect position to save me from father and Hunter.”
“She did.” Fury spoke, sadness in his gaze. “She regretted it unto her final hour, but she did what she had to, letting you go to the Hotel to heal your wounded heart. She had plans to banish me shortly thereafter to save me also, but they were never enacted. Hunter discovered what she’d allowed, and sent ten pods of orcas after her while she was out on a mission. He meant to kill her, but she struggled her way back, poisoned by many bites – telling me everything on her deathbed and bidding me to silence until someday we had an advantage over Hunter.”
“Which was why you never told me anything,” Reginald spoke quietly. “You were waiting until you had an advantage over Hunter that might prove useful to us.”
“Yes.” Fury spoke simply, holding his twin’s gaze with a deep sadness. “Long have I experimented with my magics, Aldo, here in solitude. After I went mad and was banished from Deep Harbor, I spent my time searching for the precise waves of power that could find our odious father Hunter. Mother told me he would haunt the island, watching us as an anonymous Siren. Though she couldn’t feel it, she had spoken with King Falliro Arini of the Phoenix and heard of the void-shadow Hunter produced when he changed faces. She told me. I have been experimenting all my life, to find a flow between worlds that would locate him. It seems I have done so.”
“You really can feel the flow between worlds?” Reginald spoke, awe in his voice as he cradled Layla close. “You can feel the places that are thin where people can cross over between Realms?”
“Enough.” Fury spoke quietly. “I have been close to madness and death so many times, Aldo, it is second nature to me now to pass between the weaves. As I pass, I feel their flow with my power. I feel where the holes are now; places where the worlds are thin. I can feel the void that travels. Though I don’t know how he does it, I can feel Hunter manifesting that anomaly when I’m close to it. So I worked with Leni to figure out how to map that aspect of my power into the tech we created. I never told her about Hunter; she thought the technology was only for mapping thin places in the oceans. Until Adrian spoke with her, and asked her to be one of his scientists.”
“So Hunter has been stalking us all our lives.” Reginald spoke quietly.
“He has.” Fury spoke simply. “Since our birth, Hunter has pushed us to mature fast and hard in our powers. Why? Because he sees us as part of a Pattern towards a pinnacle achievement he strives for. And though all her Bound men are major players in that game, it seems Layla is the lodestone, brother. I feel her pull in my veins unlike any ocean I’ve ever known. And though everyone is a pawn in Hunter’s game, I fear Layla is the deepest pawn of all. The one upon which he places the most stress… to pull his great net tight around us all.”
But Fury’s gaze went to Layla as he said it – and deep inside, Layla felt her blood called to his vast pull, even as Reginald cuddled her closer to protect her.
CHAPTER 17 – DEEP
Fury had shown Layla and Reginald to one of the bedrooms inside the glacier, then left a tray of food from the sitting area and departed to let them settle in. Going at once to the pearl and abalone bed, Reginald flopped down on the mattress with little grace, falling back with his hands laced behind his head and his elegant men’s boots up on the coverlet. Layla had never seen him do anything like it, and moving over, she reached out to touch his ankle, feeling how much he was still guarding his emotions and magic.
After being told by Fury that Hunter was his father.
“Are you all right?” Layla asked, watching him as she stroked his ankle.
“I’ve just learned I’m the son of one of the most insane beings in the Twilight Realm. Do I look alright?” Reginald spoke with a harsher tone than he’d used with Layla in a long while. Pulling her touch away, Layla hesitated, feeling Reginald’s energy swirl in a dark maelstrom. But as he realized his tone, Reginald drew a deep breath. His energy suddenly flowed sweeter around Layla as he sighed, then patted the white silk coverlet. “Come here, Layla.”
With anyone else, Layla would have felt ire at being summoned in such a way, but it was simply Reginald, so Layla unzipped her winter boots and climbed up on the bed beside him. Sitting on her knees, she smoothed a hand over his chest, and he trapped it to his heart over his tan and gold pinstriped vest, closing his eyes.
Opening his power, Reginald finally let Layla feel his emotions through their Bind. He was swirling deep inside, alternately crashing and roaring and crashing again. An image flooded Layla of Reginald standing naked out on a rocky coast, screaming his all into the ocean as he made it surge in a terrible rage of water and wind. It wasn’t his younger self she saw in the vision but Reginald as he was now – and Layla understood that was what he wanted to be doing right now to process this information.
But he was too controlled for that.
“Thank you,” Layla spoke as she caressed his fingers with hers, “for trusting me with your emotions.”
“Thank you,” Reginald answered, his eyes still closed as he lay on the bed, “for not running away screaming to feel it.”
His statement needed no comment and Layla waited, stroking his fingers. At last, he gave a deep sigh. Moving like slow tides, he began to stroke her fingers back as his austere face smoothed in contemplation.Stroking his thumb over hers, Reginald used Layla’s hand to pull her in close. Coming to lay beside him, Layla let Reginald cradle her.
Though she didn’t know if it was more for his comfort or hers.
“Something inside me always knew he wasn’t my father.” Reginald spoke at length.
“King Léviathan?” Layla asked, knowing Reginald needed to talk but not knowing how far he would go in his current pain.
“Yes.” Reginald drew a breath and sighed again, and this time Layla heard the rush of the ocean, his passionate magics coming out now as he finally began to show her how he felt. “Even before he began treating Fury and I so badly our seventh summer, Léviathan and I never saw eye-to-eye. I would often fantasize that he wasn’t my real father. Now I wish I hadn’t.”
“Your childhood fantasies didn’t make this happen, Reginald.” Layla chastised gently, and she felt his full lips quirk.
“No. But between the greater monster and the lesser, I might have chosen more wisely.”
