Through her shuddering screams, her body still trying to tear itself apart, Layla saw shock devour Hunter’s face at everything that was happening. Shuddering, sobbing, Layla was losing her sanity as her drakaina raged and clawed up her insides, desperate to escape Fury’s power. Layla couldn’t even shift, her drakaina had gone that mad, molten and blistering with a terrible light. Sobbing, convulsing, one moment Layla was trying to stay sane as everything flooded black inside her – and the next she was quiet as her drakaina toppled into that endless darkness.
And became thefinal strike.
There was no emotion inside Layla now; no hurt, rage, or terror as she focused with a clear mind at last – and knew what she had to do. Moving on instinct, Layla knew there was only one way to master Fury’s power. There was only one way to get the control they needed in the Bind to stop everyone crashing into madness. Ignoring her pain even as talon-rips heaved through her flesh, fang-punctures tearing out as her drakaina went utterly mad inside her now, Layla crawled to the silver pearl Reginald had shed from his fist. Taking it up from the floor, Layla gripped it. It was like liquid nitrogen in her hand, burning so cold she nearly lost consciousness as that enormous energy seared into her from Fury’s Dragon bound to the pearl. But holding it did no good; no one could wield this power.
Except Fury himself.
Cold with purpose even as her Dragon tore her apart from the inside out, Layla crawled to Fury’s body with the silver pearl clenched in her fist. Crawling through the golden pool, now slick with blood from Fury’s lifeless form, she straddled him as Reginald and Rhennic, Adrian and Dusk continued to assault Hunter’s shield. Gripping the pearl, Layla roared with the overtones of her Dragon now as she shoved that silver pearl into Fury’s chest, right into his open heart. Covering the wound with her hands, trapping his pearl inside him, Layla screamed as lances of dark-light tinged with gold shot from her shoulders and spine, flowing to every corner of the hall.
Roaring, shuddering with power shedding off her in dark-light golden waves now, Layla came up to her hands atop Fury’s body. Heaving down into him like doing CPR, she shoved all of her Bind-power deep inside him, pouring it into his mangled body and coalescing in his heart around the silver pearl. In that empty space of the void, there was only one thought that manifested. Only one command that went heaving through Layla with the entirety of thefinal strikebehind it, down into Fury’s body and the silver pearl.
You have to come back. Youwillcome back – and take back what is yours.
Roaring into his slack face like a mad thing, Layla locked her lips to Fury’s. In one massive exhalation, she poured all of his Siren-Dragon right down his throat – and back inside the silver pearl. Fury’s flesh split and roiled beneath her. His body jerked, shuddering up fast into his enormous Siren-drake as he suddenly shifted. As Layla was knocked to the floor, his coils surged around her with a terrible twitching, silver-black with golden lines. But as the dead drake took a huge inhalation, drawing all of his power out of the pearl and coursing it back through his flesh, drawing it out of the entire Bind also, Layla felt his heart slam a huge, concussive beat. His irises lit with silver fire. And like a mad creature unleashed, Fury roared to the high coral dome, alive.
Entirely Dragon with no man left.
As all that oceanic power flooded back into the flesh meant to contain it, Fury turned in a flash. Sidewinding fast to Hunter’s dome, he assaulted the barrier; heaving, thrashing, unhinged as he attacked. Reginald and Rhennic had flowed back down to human, both on their hands and knees dry-retching as they shed the last of Fury’s power from their bodies. Far away, Layla could feel Adrian and Dusk do the same. But Fury never for one second left off assaulting the dome, as Hunter stared out with tremendous shock upon his face to watch the dead drake come alive.
And now give its all to kill him.
As Layla watched, Reginald and Rhennic crawled to her, clutching her as they stared at the scene. As all three of them came together, Adrian and Dusk’s love flooding through the Bind now also, Fury paused, looking back at them. Their togetherness had affected the enormous beast. It had calmed him for just a moment, to feel the love flowing between Layla, Rhennic, Reginald, Dusk and Adrian. And in that calm space, the Siren-drake suddenly had Fury’s mind. Layla felt the human part of him flicker back, his beautiful dark blue eyes appearing in the Siren’s face. Deep inside, Layla felt Fury’s soft lips come to hers in a deep, loving kiss as the Siren watched her.
And then she heard him in her mind.
For you.
Turning back to Hunter’s dome, the silver-black drake inhaled a tremendous breath. And then roared it out in a world-shattering blast of bright-dark energy – driving cracks all through Hunter’s dome and blasting it apart.
Hunter roared as his space between worlds shattered. Hurling up a hand even as the tremendous drake struck down with his fangs, Hunter had Fury arrested in an instant with unseen mind-powers, though Layla saw how he strained to do it. Still, Fury heaved, thrashing and fighting to get through Hunter’s mind-block and eat him alive. But with the creature pinned by his outstretched hand, Hunter glanced at Layla.
“Though things have not turned out as I had hoped,” Hunter spoke through Fury’s roaring, “I must keep my original plans. Your next trial is a gift, Layla. The next step in your maturation is to re-discover your Binds – stronger than ever before. Begin that journey now. I will be waiting for you when you have solved it.”
Keeping one hand up to ward off the massive Siren-drake still trying to eat him, Hunter lifted his other hand. As he gripped his fingers, a black spear suddenly flowed to life in his hand, swirling with a darkness Layla recognized. It was the same void-dark Hunter carried deep inside, the same darkness Layla had fallen to earlier. It was the emptiness of the night when all emotion has passed, leaving only a blank space deep inside. It was nothing, and it was a nothing, and as Hunter locked eyes with Layla, his irises suddenly burned dark.
Burning with his ownfinal strike.
Hunter hurled that lance with the calmest look Layla had ever seen. It smote Layla through the heart, and she felt it as her body was devoured by his intention. As Hunter’sfinal strikepoured through her, Layla understood it was an undoing of her Bind-power – like anullax-strike but a thousand times worse. Layla felt it as her Bind was ripped apart; as every connection to her Bound men was eaten away. It burned, oh how it burned, and as Layla screamed, clutching her heart, she felt her Binds devoured.
Leaving nothing behind.
She fought it. Layla and her drakaina fought that burn with everything they had, and she felt Rhennic, Reginald, Fury, Adrian, and Dusk all scream as she did, thrusting everything they had back down through their failing Binds with her to try and bring them back. Her veins scalded with fire and wind, they flooded with the ocean. Her sinews blistered with lightning and spiked with crystal as her men gave their all to save the Bind. Blasted by their power, Layla was suddenly up from her knees, hurling everything flowing through her in one final attack to end Hunter. In a sublimated ball of white-gold everything, Layla hurled her all from the Bind – all of her Bound men’s powers and her own, at Hunter.
Everything she had.
It burned him. With a roaring scream, Layla watched as the last of her power devoured Hunter’s perfect body, pouring all over him like golden lava, burning his beautiful flesh. In a flash of light, Hunter swirled away through the weave between worlds, even as Layla felt the last of her Bind flow away.
Her lastfinal strike –and there would never be any more.
Layla screamed as the last of her power left her, but it held no overtones of her Dragon in it now, her drakaina gone with the last of her Bind-power. Her body shuddered with a terrible seizure, but it was not the feeling of being about to split and shift from her beast anymore. As the Bind left, Layla’s men passed out all around the world. As Fury’s scaled body hit the floor last, unconscious, Layla knew her own Dragon was gone.
There was no more fire-bright passion left inside her.
And it was never coming back.
CHAPTER 29 – LOST
Curled up in a wool blanket up on the high veranda, Layla stared out over the nighttime Moroccan desert. Her feet tucked up on the rattan chaise beneath an awning of jasmine vines, she gazed out from the balcony to the east of Riad Rhakvir. Dawn was rising, the first blush of light flowing through the sky as she waited for the sun. The color of the sky over the sands was the same as Hunter’s eyes, and as Layla had that thought, she felt him seek her from somewhere far away. His eyes rose in her mind, and Layla banished them. She had waited up all night, through the darkness and the emptiness of the cold stars over the softly-blowing desert sands.
