If Reginald’s lips had fallen open at his father’s nasty play, they had come open thrice as much at Layla’s ridiculously bold words. But as Layla stared the Siren King down, matching Léviathan’s deep fury with one of her own, she finally felt something shift. Lifting his chin, the old King gazed into her eyes, and Layla felt a press of magic swirl inside her. But rather than invasive, it was searching.
Searching for why she held such a furious love for his headstrong youngest son.
He found it. With a roaring snarl, Layla’s inner drakaina coiled around that wave of power, blitzing it with a bite that flashed molten gold into Léviathan’s tentacles. With a flare of his nostrils, the Siren King recoiled, his Arctic eyes flashing and his jaw setting hard. Layla felt his power surge to inundate her and break her – but in that moment, the connection between Reginald and Layla flared. Reginald’s fingers twined through Layla’s, and as they gripped each other, Layla’s rush of molten gold became a tidal wave of golden oceanic power from Reginald. Slamming into Reginald’s father, it staggered him so hard he stumbled.
Gripping one gnarled old hand to his coral throne for support.
“Reginald Durant.” Léviathan’s gaze was furious as it found them again, his voice cold as iron as his white-blue eyes flashed pure rage. “I forbid you this union!”
“I don’t care what you forbid, father.” Reginald snarled back just as coldly, though he glowed with Layla’s Bind-power now, standing strong beside her as his magic surged like the sea. “Layla is mine and I am hers; we need no marriage to solidify what we are to each other. I don’t care that she is a Desert Dragon. I don’t care that she has other lovers through the Bind, other Royal Dragons of rising renown. Layla is my guest, for as long as she wishes to remain here at Deep Harbor. And she is my Partner. Anyone who even so much as attempts to force her to do anything against her will shall answer to me. Including you.”
With that, Reginald turned, holding Layla’s hand aloft now like she was Queen of all the seas as he walked her with a stately grace down the dais. Moving her out of the King’s throne hall, Reginald turned his back on his father’s demands.
Showing King Léviathan Durant that his time at the top was waning – and that Reginald’s had only just begun.
CHAPTER 5 – HISTORY
The doors to the Siren King’s throne hall shut with a boom behind Layla and Reginald, and as they did, relief poured through Layla. She had felt King Léviathan Durant’s furious gaze bearing down upon her the entire walk out, like harpoons digging into her back. But Reginald’s courtly grace had buoyed her as he’d proceeded out with her hand still aloft in his. As the doors shut and Layla breathed a sigh, she realized a small group had followed them out, now standing with them in a knot as Reginald turned to Layla.
Two were the rakishly handsome Vindaris and the consummately elegant Leni. Leni was silent with a pensive frown as she glanced at Reginald, but with an amused chuckle and teasing in his pale grey eyes, Vindaris spoke. “Allllllll righty then. I’d say that went fairly well. Aldo? What say you?”
“Just one more disaster in a long line of them.” Reginald spoke archly, his blue gaze still furious as he glanced back to the throne hall’s doors. Wrapping Layla’s hand around his arm, he stared at the doors a moment longer before she felt him gather his Head Courtier’s grace. Turning to the group, Reginald gave a frigid smile. “Father and I will never see into each other’s hearts, Vin, I gave up hope of it long ago. And though I thought my presence here and all the trials I’ve gone through for him these past months had moved me back into his good graces, I now know it is not so. He can’t help but stick his trident in my back at any juncture. Layla’s presence here only gives him one more cause to prove how much he hates me.”
“He gives you the blackest tidewaters of hell because he loves you, Aldo.” Vindaris spoke, settling a kind hand to Reginald’s shoulder. “I know you don’t see it, but the rest of us do.”
“He wants me to conform to his stubborn will. To be his perfect automaton like Bastien was, or Alexandre.” Reginald spoke with cold disdain.
“He wants to win you to his side, Aldo. Your father has always been proud, and it goads him that his most beloved son will not see life through his eyes.” Leni spoke with direct no-nonsense, her gaze pinned to Reginald.
“I know, Leni. But it makes nothing he puts me through any easier.” Reginald sighed now, as if the fight in him waned. Though Vindaris and Leni spoke with Reginald, Layla noted three others in their group who remained respectfully silent. Two young white-blond Siren men and one woman, they were well-dressed but not as richly arrayed as Reginald’s siblings. As they kept their silence, Layla understood they were servants. Her suspicions were confirmed as Vindaris turned to one of the young men and gave a bright smile.
“Toru. Be a gem and find out if Layla’s rooms are ready in the Forbidden Wing, will you?”
“Yes, my Host.” With a smart bow, the young man took off at a quick clip, summoning plumes of water up from the floor to speed his stride, like surfing down the hall. Turning back to Layla, Vindaris gave a kind smile.
“Well, despite our father’s asinine behavior today, at least he kept his argument with Reginald quiet from the court. He has some brains left in his gnarled old head at least, to not challenge Reginald to a dominance battle in public.”
“Why?” Layla asked, frowning as she glanced to Reginald.
“Because Aldo’s probably the only one of us strong enough to battle him, if it truly came to blows. And father is too proud to even let the hint of such a thing be public. He’s already far too self-conscious about his twisted limbs and sudden outbursts.” Vindaris chuckled, wry humor sparking in his pale grey eyes.
“Outbursts?” Layla cocked her head. “You mean he’s not been this volatile all his life?”
“Far from it.” Leni spoke to Layla. “The King hasn’t been at the top of his game in a while, Layla, but he’s not weak, not by far. His arthritic malady is something that happens to Sirens of greatly advanced age, and like human-world arthritis, it comes with pain so great it makes Léviathan irate. He is more prone to outbursts than he was; he used to be quiet and calculatingly manipulative rather than openly demonstrative. He is losing his cool more often these days, but rather than make him less dangerous, it has made him moreso. Even though his brittle old heart could give out any day, he is still a tower of might, and has not yet been bested from his throne. Though there are perhaps one or two who could. If they tried.”
Leni’s gaze moved to Reginald, weighing him with a purposeful look. As she did, a picture of Reginald’s family began to form for Layla. It was clearly divided into two factions; those who supported their father the King and those who rebelled. Layla realized the cruel Bastien had been one of the most heinously supportive of Léviathan’s edicts, but some of the rest didn’t agree with the old man.
“No.” Reginald sighed abruptly. “Fury isn’t—”
He got no further as Toru suddenly returned, informing them briskly that Layla’s rooms were ready. Closing his lips, Reginald said no more, and with an elegant gesture, Vindaris beckoned for the group to move off down the hall. One side of the hall was open to the air, and Layla admired the view over the white cliffs toward the airstrip as they walked past beautiful archways of red and purple coral flowing with water and sea-life.
“So, what’s the birth-order of your brothers?” Layla asked Reginald as they walked, feeling less tension in him now as they left the throne hall behind.
“Tempeste was the eldest,” Reginald glanced to Layla at the change in conversation. “He was over three thousand years old at the time of his death. Atlantos is second, over two thousand five hundred now. Then came Bastien, Typhos, and Beau, the triplets, though they’re not identical. After that were our strongest fighters, Orlando and Alexandre, both of whom have since died in our war with the Blood Dragons. Father and mother had an enormous spat after those two were born, and she moved her Queendom to the Arctic for a time. That’s when Leni was born, but they made peace and Vindaris was born soon after. Then came Fury and myself, the youngest of our siblings. Mother died after that. She was trapped by a pod of killer whales out on a mission near Newfoundland in my twenty-second year and terminally injured. After her death, father became King.”
“Your mother was killed by orcas?” Layla frowned, recalling that Sirens and killer whales were enemies. “Quindici was telling me that the bite of a killer whale contains a toxin deadly to Sirens.”
“They are our single enemy in all the oceans,” Leni spoke up, glancing to Layla as they walked. “None have yet been able to create an antidote to an orca’s bite. The toxin acts like brown recluse venom in our bodies, eating outward from the bite and digesting our scales and flesh.”
