“Partly,” Adrian breathed at her cheek, “the other part is all the investments I hold, and being an owner in the Red Letter Hotel. But the void-shadow is why I’ve been a madman about building my empire these past twenty-eight years. Especially after all the things Arini’s told me.”
Layla glanced up. Adrian still held her close, but she pulled away slightly, needing to read the truth in his face. It was there in his eyes; plain and honest. “All this time, you’ve been building your wealth to be able to find this thing?”
“Why do you think I invest in all the newest tech, both Twilight and human?” Adrian watched her, something careful on his face though he was relaxed now, relieved to be telling her the truth. “New tech, brilliant inventors, tracking down ancient artifacts in lost ruins – that yes, I do protect with Twilight mercenaries who will keep those discoveries safe with lethal force. I deal with mafia, I steal and smuggle anything illegal that my inventors need. I build my empire just so I can pay all those people, Layla. People who are trying to find something – anything – that will be able to track this void-shadow. Or capture it.”
“Why?” Layla breathed, the scope of Adrian’s machinations boggling her mind.
“To turn us into the hunters rather than it.” Adrian’s eyes flashed, the gold in them molten. “King Arini asserts that it’s a visage-shifting Royal Dragon like me, but I can sense others with my ability when they’re around, even when they try to shift to escape my notice. It’s something I’m trying to achieve – shifting without betraying my scent, or the power of the shift – but it’s goddamn impossible. Even so, I only use my alter-egos for low-level work. As myself, I have the status and power to infiltrate the highest echelons of Twilight and human society, and I do. So I can find this thing.”
“Like being a part-owner of the Red Letter Hotel,” Layla murmured, understanding so much at last. “It gives you access behind closed doors.”
“And I put up with the Hotel Board’s vicious dealings – most of which are ten times more illegal than mine,” Adrian agreed with a nod, “to pump the elite for any information they have on this thing. Casually and discreetly, of course. If one of them is the void-shadow, if it masquerades as someone at the very top – and I have the feeling it might – I will find it, Layla. I will find it and so help me, I will bring it down in flames before it harms you or Dusk or anyone else I love. It’s already taken too many.”
“Your lovers,” Layla breathed, everything finally making sense. “It wasn’t just your mother it killed. It’s not just targeting me… it’s targeting you. By killing people you love, over the years.”
“Yes.” Adrian spoke softly, with wrath in his voice. “I’ve discovered from some of the patterns in the deaths that have surrounded my life, that it was targeting me long before you arrived, all the way back to my early twenties. But its efforts have become worse now. And that is why I have to bring it down.”
Vehemence was in Adrian’s eyes. Cold, hard ruin, and Layla saw the brutal grace she’d glimpsed when he’d commanded at her Hotel interview. Adrian was a force of nature, and Layla saw it burning from his eyes as he stood strong in his determination. Heat blossomed from him – enormous coils curling around Layla in a protective shield. She actually saw it: a shimmering mirage that coiled around her in the solar, made of wind and heat and curls of aqua and crimson flame that burst suddenly upon the air. Layla’s breath caught as that simmering magic encased her, licks of etheric, unburning flame easing up her skin as Adrian held her.
He stared down at her, something fierce upon his face and in his eyes.
And then he bent, pressing his lips to hers.
His kiss was gentle. And like it had been in the forest, Layla’s heat leapt to his, surging up her throat, twining with his. Layla felt herself swallow him like liquid flame upon her tongue, as if the Mediterranean Sea could be made into nectar. She made a sound as she felt him inhale her upon his tongue also; shuddering as he twined her closer in his arms and magic. His magic licked across her skin like a thousand caresses now, touching her everywhere. Layla gasped in his arms and Adrian shuddered hard – devouring her deeper.
Desert fire surged down Layla’s throat, deep into her body as Adrian poured himself into their kiss. Caresses slipped up her thighs as his magics slid between her legs, buckling her knees as he caught her. Layla cried into his mouth as his magics slipped inside her; delving deep, hard. Plunging in, Adrian was suddenly inside her without any clothing shed; driven into her as deep as he could go. Layla cried out, breaking from their kiss and screaming her pleasure into his neck. She shuddered as he hardened within her, so wild – feeling him so deep, needing him to finish what he’d started.
But a brisk knock at the locked door suddenly interrupted them, Dusk’s diamond-hard voice coring through the wood. “Whatever you two are doing in there, stop it! The entire Bartending staff is waiting out here to use this meeting room, and though Head Bartender Rake André is polite, I am far from it. Break it up or take it upstairs to Adrian’s suite, but for god’s sake get the fuck out of this room,clothed, and don’t make me bust the door down!”
Adrian pulled back from Layla with a gasp. The sensation of his body plunging inside her released and Layla gave a hard shudder and a cry. Cradled against his chest and weak with tremors, her body was a tower of heat, wetness thick in the wake of Adrian’s ecstatic plunge. He shuddered against her in an answering annihilation. But though he was as shaken as she, his smile was enormous as he turned toward the door, raising his voice. “I’m Head of this Hotel, not you, Dusk. I can do as I like in its rooms.”
“Testthattheory and get banned, I don’t care who the fuck you think you are, Adrian!” Dusk’s voice was still hard as diamonds and thrice as cold in his ire. But Adrian’s gaze was scaldingly brilliant as he turned away from the door and kissed Layla lips again. She breathed him in and he breathed her, and Dusk’s voice came through the door again.
“I mean it, Adrian. Layla.”
With a wry smile, Adrian finally let her go, though his gaze scalded her with all the passion of everything they still had yet to consummate properly. Layla breathed unsteadily, Adrian’s hand at the small of her back. But she was smiling, beaming even though they had been interrupted yet again. Some truth was finally out between her and Adrian, at last. A truth that made them stronger together, rather than weaker. It was real intimacy, the kind that Layla had been looking for with him.
Which they were truly finding now.
Though now Layla had a million questions for Dusk, which she was going to make him answer come hell or high water. He’d not been lying to her exactly, just holding out, and to Layla they were basically the same thing. Steadying herself with one final out-breath, she moved to the door and unlocked it. The room hadn’t been disturbed except for two cups of coffee, and though Layla and Adrian were flushed from the magics that had poured through them, Layla was learning that metaphysical sex wasn’t nearly as messy as the real thing.
Magic had its advantages.
Dressed in an impeccable dove-grey Italian suit, Dusk gave her a withering stare as she opened the door, probably the coldest she had ever gotten from him. Layla could feel his crystal wall firmly in place against her and Adrian’s involvement, and he raised a dark eyebrow as his gaze pinned her, merciless.
“Layla Price. You are needed back at the main Concierge desk, if you arequitefinished?”
Dressed in a smart black vest, emerald shirt, and trousers, Head Bartender Rake André stood beside Dusk with his emerald eyes sparkling and amused, not something Layla normally saw from him. The other members of the Bartending staff had made the most of their time, pulling one of the mobile copper bars close and having an impromptu mix-off. Layla stepped out and Rake ducked in with a wink, summoning his staff. They poured into the room after him – leaving Adrian, Layla, and Dusk out in the hall.
“Try to be a little more discreet with your sexcapades, will you?” Dusk lifted a dark eyebrow at Layla and Adrian, his jaw set and his lips in a furious line. “I could feel that ten rooms down and on the first floor.”
“I can’t promise anything.” Adrian’s gaze was simmering as he took up Layla’s hand and kissed it, making her flush. “Layla and I came to an understanding just now.”
“Adrian, goddammit!” Dusk made a hard scoff in his throat, his gaze hot like sapphires in a volcano. “Half the Dragons have rooms down this hall right now! You invited the clans here for a reason, and that reason isnotstirring them all up by making them feel you and Layla’s Bind at all hours!”
“I know.” Adrian sobered, giving Layla’s fingers a squeeze. “Layla and I were talking about King Falliro, and things Adam told her last night. I came clean with her, about why you and I are guarding her, Dusk. So you can leave off being a judgemental asshole and start thinking about how we’re going to move forward now that she knows. Take Layla off Concierge until Samhain. This takes priority. Say she’s sick, say anything to the rest of the Hotel, but you and she need to talk – and then we need to strategize. Layla wants to be in, and I’m not going to hold her back from it. Not anymore.”
Dusk was gaping at Adrian. His sapphire eyes were wide, his beautiful lips fallen open. He blinked at Adrian, then his gaze swung to Layla. “So you know.”
