“Absolutely.” Layla spoke back, though something inside her still worried at both Dusk and Adam’s reaction to their tryst.
But then Adrian lowered his lips and kissed her, and Layla forgot everything else.
CHAPTER 15 – ADRIAN
Adrian escorted Layla back from the hunt. Dusk wasn’t anywhere to be found once they got back to the barn and relinquished their horses, though Adam was standing just inside the open barn-doors flirting with a pretty blonde groomswoman as he helped brush down the horses. He looked up as they arrived and hailed them, then stepped over as they dismounted and turned their horses over to be unsaddled and wiped dry.
“So, any more fun out in the woods, kids?” Adam grinned, his green eyes still dark though the violet ring around them was present now.
“One more word and you are so going to get canned from your position as my Second.” Adrian glanced over with a grin as he turned the reins of his black Friesian over to the groomswoman, still in a soaring mood after he and Layla’s tryst even though they hadn’t been able to finish it. Layla felt herself blush, but Dragons were merciless teases she was learning, especially about sex. She straightened her spine and decided to deal with it without embarrassment as Adam laughed.
“You can’t can me,” he grinned, accompanying them as Layla gave her sleepy bay gelding one last scratch and they turned toward the barn doors.
“I could,” Adrian grinned at his cousin as they reached the sliding-barn doors.
“You wouldn’t.” Adam grinned wickedly. “No one controls your reckless pleasures like I do.”
“I couldn’t have said it better.”
Adrian laughed his infectious, spontaneous laugh, the same as the first day he and Layla had met. Her energy soared to hear it and a feeling of joy spread through her. He glanced over, his eyebrows raised at her wash of sweet bourbon scent. But Layla just shook her head, reaching out and tucking her hand around his elbow. He was soaked, his shirtsleeves rolled up now as Layla still wore his hunting jacket. But Adrian’s skin was scalding, his shirt and vest already drying as Layla cuddled close and they walked away from the barn along the gravel path. She slid her fingers down, stroking the crimson, black, and gold dragon-tattoo that coiled around his left forearm.
He glanced at her, sexy and dark and bright all at once.
The sun was striking through the heavy clouds now as they walked back to the Hotel. Light sparkled from every golden leaf and blade of grass, making the world seem ultra-vibrant. Colors were richer and scents more stunning here in the Twilight Realm – all the senses enhanced. Even though the scenery was ordinary, every play of light on shadow had a clarity and intensity to it that made Layla catch her breath as she gazed around in the aftermath of her and Adrian’s ardor.
And she realized suddenly that she hadn’t seen anything of the Twilight Realm besides the Hotel grounds.
“So, what is the rest of the Twilight Realm like?” She asked Adrian and Adam as they ambled peaceably along the path. It seemed whatever tension had existed between the cousins was over now as both of them looked over at her with surprisingly similar motions. Layla blinked, realizing that Adrian and Adam had a shared way about them, even though Adrian was a searing sand-funnel to Adam’s roguish pastoral orchard.
Dusk didn’t share whatever it was, even though he’d been raised with them, and Layla realized that it was a similar cinnabar-spice scent that lingered around all the Desert Dragons she’d met today. They were more casual than Dusk, more relaxed – and more unpredictable. For all his teasing and sexuality, Dusk was highly predictable, something about his nature almost rigid compared to the chaos Layla felt moving through her own kind. She noted it as Adrian and Adam both opened their mouths to respond at the exact same moment, then Adam grinned, making a conceding gesture to his Clan First.
“The rest of the Twilight Realm is a lot like this,” Adrian answered, glancing down at Layla as they walked through manicured woods, the crystal cathedral up ahead. “Some places seem as ordinary as the human world, though you’ll always have a sense of heightened experience, while other places are about as wild as you can imagine.”
“The heightened experience,” Layla commented, seeing the facets of the crystal cathedral shine with color as they passed the enormous structure. Rain had only accentuated its vividness. “Why is that?”
“This whole realm vibrates at a different frequency than the human world,” Adam chimed in. “It’s sort of like being high. You know that feeling you have when you smoke a lot of weed or do mushrooms? How everything becomes crystalline and enhanced? It’s like that.”
“Do drugs much?” Layla grinned at him.
“As often as I can.” Adam laughed brightly, a rogue to his core. “No, but really. This place is like stepping out of the regular frequency of your brain and all your senses and re-tuning them to a higher functionality. Its not uncommon for humans who spend a lot of time here to become psychic, actually. You know Edgar Cayce? He spent a lot of time in the Twilight Realm when he was young, and it opened up his ability to read people’s bodies and make prognostications about their health. Not magic necessarily, but a different frequency of the body and mind.”
“I wouldn’t think someone like you would be interested in Edgar Cayce,” Layla lifted an eyebrow at Adam as they walked through the manicured gardens now. The lilacs were dead on their trees finally, as if they had given up their last the other night.
“Get to know me a little and you might be surprised, Layla Price.” Adam chuckled.
“Don’t get to know him too well.” Adrian grinned.
“Asshole.” Adam grumped pleasantly.
“Dick.” Adrian grinned back.
“Alright boys,” Layla admonished with a laugh. “No fighting now.”
“Yes, Matron.” Adam sassed her as they stepped over the flagstones that wound through the ponds. “No, but really. Our mothers insisted on Adrian, Dusk, and I having an intelligent upbringing. We studied all the poets, the prophets, mathematics, astrology, classical literature, you name it. People like Edgar Cayce and Ken Kesey and such strike my interest. They’re iconoclasts; they push the envelope and make people see things in a new way.”
“Well, well, the bad boy with the motorcycle thinks.” Layla grinned at him.
“Hey. Don’t knock my bike. It’s pretty badass.” Adam gave her teasing eyes, vibrant with both purple and green now. They had arrived at the Hotel and Adrian held the door open. Layla moved through, drowning in his eyes for a moment as they sparkled like sunlight on the deepest blue of the Mediterranean. He stepped behind her as they moved in, setting a hand to the small of her back and giving her a pleasant shiver. Adam was left to follow as they took a gilded staircase up two levels to Layla’s room.
