“I guess so.”
“Interesting.” Dusk’s brows narrowed and he slung his arms around his knees, thoughtful. “It sounds like you’re starting to experience my magic like I do – you’re resonating with it just like you do with Adrian’s magic.”
“Great, awesome. Now I get to have vertigo a lot in addition to feeling like a raging sandstorm all the time.” Layla’s mouth felt dry and she suddenly wished she had brought a water bottle. Listening to the stream somewhere in the cavern, she looked at Dusk. “Hey, is that water I hear drinkable?”
“It’s a wellspring, comes up from deep beneath the Hotel. It’s clean. Knock yourself out.” Dusk nodded to a location behind a trio of sapphire pillars thirty paces away. But as Layla stood to get a drink, he rose in a fluid movement. “Actually, I could use some too. Shall we?”
He gestured and Layla took the lead, stepping off the rose quartz and winding through stalagmites until they reached the sapphire pillars. They were enormous, tall as trees, and just beyond them Layla saw a stream curling around their roots, flowing down over a drop into a small waterfall. Stepping down carefully on the slick rock, Layla knelt at the base of the falls and cupped her hands. The water was cool and sweet as she drank, reminding her of Dusk’s scent. She eyeballed him as he knelt beside her, drinking also. Her Dragon stirred despite Dusk’s firm wall between them, sending licks of deep heat in his direction.
Dusk shivered at Layla’s side. Currying water through his elegant dark hair, he gave her a sidelong smile. “I felt that.”
“Sorry.” Layla blushed, internally exacerbated with her Dragon. For hours, Dusk had been trying to teach her how to focus her energy and throw up a shield, any kind of shield, but the only thing her Dragon had been interested in doing was trying to break through Dusk’s diamond-hard wall and fuck him.
As Layla blushed, heating again, her magic licked out, finding chinks in Dusk’s barrier and seeping in like a determined wind through a fortress wall. Dusk shivered, his lips falling open as his head tilted back, his eyes closed. He took deep breaths and Layla felt him try to firm that invisible barrier between them – and fail. With a slow out-breath, Dusk opened his eyes and looked at her. The sapphire in them was hot with flecks of diamond, as if gems could burn like phosphorus.
“You don’t even know how hard it is to resist that,” he growled, and Layla felt a dark rumble of his magics shudder the air. The water in the falls rippled as she felt the first teasing edge of those dark, delicious magics.
“Sorry.” Layla spoke again, softer now.
But she really wasn’t sorry as she stared at him, at how impossibly handsome he was. She wanted to touch him. She wanted to stroke her fingers over every inch of that body, to feel every ridged scale and smooth contour, every hard crevasse. She wanted to lick all that delicious skin, exploring it with lips and teeth and tongue.
As she had that thought, a languid stroke of heat rolled out from her, sliding over Dusk’s barrier like a snake’s coils trying to find purchase on stone. A tongue of hot energy licked from those coils, finding a weak spot in his barrier – licking deep into that crevasse. As if her tongue had found his actual skin, she could suddenly feel him and taste him; a delicious spot where his abdomen delved into the edge of his hip, where a scintillating line of midnight-blue scales rode his hipbone down beneath his pants. Layla rode that energy, licking along that ridge; feeling like her tongue was actually touching Dusk’s skin. She could taste him as she licked along the serrated hardness of his scales and into the smooth hollow that delved towards his groin.
Dusk cried out softly, shuddering, the skin and muscles in his lower abdomen shivering as if she’d actually licked him. He breathed hard and Layla felt his barrier become spiderwebbed with cracks. As if his resolve to resist her had been hit with a bomb, those cracks rushed out, consuming the barrier. Dusk cried out again as Layla’s energy sent eager talons into those cracks, tearing at them with a fast, passionate wind.
“Layla, stop! I can’t…!” He shuddered, his hands gripping into fists as if it was the only thing that could stop him from reaching out and seizing her.
But Layla didn’t know how to stop, as she became swept away in her Dragon’s passions. Freed from her hamsa-cuff while they were practicing, her Dragon knew what it wanted. It was riding her and she couldn’t stop it; every sinew alight, every muscle trembling. Layla fell to her back upon the crystal floes, writhing with pleasure and need. As her Dragon stretched its coils, she wrestled with the enormous energy pouring from her, surging against Dusk’s barrier like a roaring ocean.
Wanting to tear down his limitations.
With a deep shudder, Dusk suddenly heaved up from his knees. Lurching across the cavern, he moved quickly to the central area and snatched up something. And then he heaved his way back, trembling as if every movement was a struggle.
A broad mirage of heat curling with golden flames surged around Layla as Dusk came staggering back. She felt him come, as if he pushed through a sea of hot wind and drowning citrus scent to reach her. His eyes were wild, his irises entirely taken by diamond-light as he fell to his knees beside her inside that ring of etheric golden fire.
His body was refracting again, light pouring through his Dragon-scales. Layla’s body was not her own, surging and arching with passion, everything that was human inside her obliterated by how much she needed him – needed to mate with him. Moving over her, Dusk braced himself on trembling arms to either side of her ecstatic roiling. Layla could feel him, so cool and clear to her desperate heat.
But he was breaking, his crystal wall fracturing. And as it burst, as the dam broke and Layla’s raging heat swept through his wall, Dusk seized her left hand – clapping the Moroccan cuff upon her wrist and binding her magics tight.
Something screamed inside Layla as he set the silver pin – as all that blissful heat was suddenly slammed into a cage. She cried out in pain and frustration as her Dragon roared inside her, furious. Thrashing with claws and fangs, raking her insides, her Dragon cut her up in its fury and Layla cried out in terrible pain, thrashing against the stone.
Dusk recovered quickly, now that he was no longer under assault from Layla’s magics. Hauling her up from the crystal floor, he held her close, pouring a cooling vibration like a river into her until her Dragon quieted. Layla breathed hard, tears leaking from her eyes as her body shuddered with a morass of pain and heat and desire.
“How am I ever going to control this?!” She gasped, feeling wretched.
“I’m so sorry, Layla,” Dusk gasped as he cradled her. “If it’s any consolation, wrangling our Dragons is not any easier for Adrian and I. We just have more practice.”
His words made Layla set her jaw against the tears, feeling awful that controlling her Dragon’s passions might never get any easier. Rage and fury, heat and sex still ripped through her, her scent turned to scorch though the majority of her magic had been stuffed away again.
At last, Layla was able to re-gain some modicum of control. She still felt wild, but it was more manageable as she wiped tears away with the heels of her hands. Reaching up, she wound her hands around Dusk’s neck as he held her. Breathing at his bare chest, she inhaled his cool scent, relaxing.
Dusk pulled back a little. Nuzzling her lips, he sighed and Layla drank his sigh. She inhaled it, touching her lips to his again – so impossibly silken. Closing her eyes, she felt his breath fill her as he smiled now, kissing her more.
It was smooth and kind, soothing vibrations easing from his lips down into Layla’s tortured body. Her Dragon stirred in long, languid movements as Dusk kissed her and she kissed him back; a thing of slow fire and deep rushing rivers as their lips pressed, as their tongues explored. As they kissed, Layla felt his heart; as if it spilled up through his body like a crystal river, passing in through hers. Layla felt a golden pleasure fill her like her Dragon was beaming, like its scales could shine with glory to feel the tenderness and purity of everything Dusk was.
At last, they parted. Opening their eyes, they stared at each other, and it seemed to Layla as if she could see inside Dusk’s soul, crystalline and perfect – and he could see into hers, luminous and golden. Dusk breathed hard as he stared down at her in amazement, his blue eyes alight. A soft smile touched his lips as he reached up, stroking back one of Layla’s wayward curls.
“I could kiss you like that forever, Layla Price.” He spoke quietly.
