Rhennic had protection against Siren-magic also; his pearl and diamond ring channeling Reginald’s power and turning away darker tides. Layla wondered if Reginald had fashioned it for Rhennic in the same manner as her pearls, when Reginald’s siblings were suddenly sweeping in. Laughing brightly, Leni was resplendent in a khaki-olive gown that clung to her sculpted frame like seaweed, swirling with hidden pearls in the gossamer fabric and wearing an olive seaweed Siren-masque to match. Plucking Layla from Reginald and Rhennic, Leni embraced her like a sister, and Layla beamed as Leni beamed back. Typhos was next, wearing a sober, classic black tux and a plain black satin masque in all the opulence, moving forward and sinking to a knee before Layla dramatically – as he kissed her hand, showing the entire court they’d made peace.
Atlantos moved in last, taking up Layla’s hand and kissing it with debonair restraint. But as Reginald’s eldest living brother touched her, Layla felt a deeply intrigued swirl of his magics, as if Atlantos couldn’t help himself. Wearing no masque but dressed in a slate-grey three piece suit the same arresting color as his eyes, Atlantos watched Layla through his square-framed Clark Kent glasses as his power subtly licked and caressed hers. Besides Reginald and Leni, Atlantos’ magic was the strongest in the ballroom, and Reginald’s pearls could not entirely turn him away. But as his power stroked Layla, she felt Fury suddenly rise up inside her like a silver wraith. As if daring Atlantos to try joining the Bind, Fury’s silver-dark drake stared out at Atlantos coldly, flushing a shuddering wave of power through Layla from afar. Closing his eyes with a shiver, Atlantos felt Fury’s deep, ultra-possessive power hit him.
The message was clear: two Royal Sirens had already claimed a place in the Bind – and there was not room for a third.
With a wry smile, Atlantos pulled back, lowering his magics with a conceding nod. Layla watched an interesting moment pass between Atlantos and Reginald as they stared at each other. Layla felt Reginald’s brighter power corral Fury’s possessive darkness back, though not all the way. And Layla realized in that moment that Reginald was in agreement with his twin.
Atlantos would never be part of the Bind, no matter if Layla’s drakaina wanted him or not.
It was the first time Layla realized her men had a say in who she Bound, and with a blink, a number of things suddenly fell into place for her. Dusk and Adrian were adopted brothers, close since they were small. Reginald and Rhennic had been lovers for centuries, and Reginald and Fury were inseparable as twins from birth. Though Reginald didn’t get along with Adrian, Reginald, Adrian, and Dusk shared a love of the Hotel and its egalitarian principles. As Layla wondered whether her Bound men had been subtly sculpting the Bind with their own smaller Bind-powers all along, a shock passed through her, feeling how all her men’s energies worked together inside the Bind. Even Fury with all his tempestuous darkness had come to them for a reason.
A reason Layla didn’t know yet – but somehow, their Dragons did.
But it was a conundrum for another time as Reginald took up Layla’s hand and guided her to a gilded pearl dais at the edge of the hall that hosted the orchestra. They mounted the steps and Rhennic hung back as Reginald kept Layla on his arm. Vindaris nodded and Reginald stepped forward as Sirens gathered all around, the orchestra’s music flowing away to nothing. Layla hardly heard him as Reginald gave a speech about passion and depth, water and love for Beltane. Her focus was on the hall as everyone’s powers began to rise.
Sirens all around transforming from beautiful to glorious as their features were enhanced by their mesmeric powers.
What Layla saw as that vast wave of mind-magic hit her was beyond incredible. She suddenly believed mariner’s tales of Sirens as she felt herself slide into a vastly altered state, finally seeing Reginald’s people as they truly were. Wearing gossamer or courtly-fae garb with their demi-masques, everything shone with pearls and diamonds in the night, bright-dark with luminous edges. Sleek and sinuous, the Sirens flowed around her like an opal sea, elegantly tall and slender, their faces utter perfection to make angels weep. Through her time on the island, Layla had seen how graceful and compelling Sirens were, but now their unleashed power compounded that a hundredfold. They had been beautiful as Layla wandered the palace; haunting as they’d slipped into the water of the harbor in their powerful sea-Dragon forms.
But now, they were ruinous as Layla stared from face to masqued face, feeling their mind-crushing magics drown her as if from a thousand oceans. One Siren was tough to fight, but thousands of their Royals in one hall was pulling Layla down fast – when Rhennic’s warm fingers slipped up her back and Reginald’s tightened upon her hand, and Fury’s power flooded into Layla from somewhere far away.
Without missing a beat, her Bound lovers poured their passion and strength into Layla, flooding her with carnal lust for them alone in the middle of that rising tide. And as Reginald finished his speech and that tide crested, breaking over the hall in a rush of hedonism for Beltane, Layla and her men were at the crest of that wave.
Thundering with their own eros in the night.
CHAPTER 26 – SILVER
Abandon rushed through Layla as the North Sea Sirens’ power crested in the night. She had never felt so heady, so drowned yet tremendously buoyant as that vast wave swept her away. It was better than sex, better than drugs, better than anything she had ever experienced as it surged through her, pulling her out of Reginald and Rhennic’s arms and into Leni’s as Reginald’s half-sister darted in.
Hauling Layla away from the men with a bubbling laugh and eyes gone wild.
Layla felt drunk as she and Leni ran away, darting like minnows through sharks to the dance floor. Already, a vibrant dance was beginning and Leni hauled Layla in; a women’s-only dance of power and flowing scintillation that Layla already knew the steps to as Leni flooded them into her mind. They were moving and weaving together, diving and whirling in the women’s lines like fish in a stream before they peeled away.
Darting through the crowd to find a man and haul him into the dance with them.
Layla found Vindaris in his flame Siren masque, who laughed with jubilant delight as she dragged him in, though his eyes kept tracking to the men all around him. Before long, he had spun away, replaced by the sexily debonair Atlantos. Seizing Layla around the waist, he hauled her close to his lean, elegant body, breathing in her scent of oranges and bourbon as they moved. She could feel his pleasure to be with her as their Dragons gripped each other tight. But just as it began, Layla felt a strong hand on Atlantos’ shoulder.
And there was Rhennic with his pearl-white demi-masque and flashing violet eyes.
As Rhennic hauled her almost roughly against him, Layla was a leaf on his winds, flowing effortlessly upon his storms as he danced with her, growling with passion as he kissed her again and again. But his possession of her was not his alone, and suddenly Reginald stepped to her back, gripping Layla around the neck and waist and making her cry out with a heady flare through the Bind. Her drakaina’s tempestuous eroticism staggered everyone nearby, pushing them harder into the dance.
As Layla surrendered to her Royal Golden Siren.
Reginald did not so much dance as move her upon his tides, and Layla was weightless in his arms as they whirled and spun together. As she gazed up at his haughty, beautiful face, his eyes were pure grey with gold behind his half-masque as he gripped her tight and dipped her. Brushing his lips over her breasts, he bit her nipple subtly through her gown, thrilling Layla with passion. Whirling with him, breathing him in, Layla lost time, she lost her body, she lost everything in his flowing, commanding power.
Until she was nothing but the sea.
All around, the dance was hot, clothing and masques being shed as inhibitions were lost for Beltane. Flooded by the power of the deeps, carnal sex heaved all around Layla now; up against columns of water, on the dance floor; the balconies full of couples, threesomes, and more fornicating with ruinous abandon. Around the edges of the hall, Sirens rutted as their beasts, coiling and sliding off into the deeps through the harbor-access to continue their revelry elsewhere. Layla didn’t even know how the night had fallen so hard as she gazed up at the highest vaults of the hall and saw only blackness and diamond stars far above its watery reaches. Somehow, it was midnight already, yet as she spun and spun again – from Reginald’s arms to Atlantos’, from Atlantos’ to Typhos, from Typhos to Rhennic – she suddenly wound up with a new partner.
Stepping in, the man was impressively tall as he caught Layla, corralling her close to his iron-wrought body. With long silver hair like Fury’s and wearing a full face masque like a Silver Siren weeping blood, a gossamer robe with a high collar like scales flowed down his body. The man was silent as he caught her – though his massive energy roared in Layla’s ears. At first she thought it was Fury, but he was taller than Fury by a hand, tall like Rhennic though deliciously slender like Adrian. A gigantic tide pulled at Layla, devouring her as they moved together. And though he did nothing to drown her as they danced, the way he moved his graceful, lean body pressed close to hers made Layla succumb anyway.
Beautiful in his floes.
She danced with the unknown Silver Siren, she flowed with her mysterious partner like seafoam in his arms. He wasn’t Fury, yet he was so much like Fury that Layla felt herself suddenly entraining to him as he moved her. But his power demanded nothing as it subtly caressed hers, lulling her Dragon into its deepest fall yet. His eyes were like the dawn behind the holes in his masque, rose and gold with a hint of sky-blue.
And then he spun her away – right to the edge of the deeps.
As Layla heaved with passionate madness, clutching the low retaining wall with both hands to keep from falling into the black water of the harbor, she felt a vast eros build inside her. The grace of her previous partner was banished as she felt someone coming like a kraken in the deeps, speeding towards her like a comet through the harbor. He was a surge of silver-black and vibrant gold as he rushed through the sea – other Sirens flashing away in the black waters as he raced towards the underwater hall. As the Siren-drake broke the surface, coiling up hard and heaving his truly enormous body out of the water, surrounding Layla and half the near part of the hall, he roared. Shuddering, Layla fell back upon his black, silver, and gold coils.
