“You speak words of benevolence, but I hear only vigilantism.” Layla breathed. “How long have you been masquerading as Adam Rhakvir? How long have you been deceiving Adrian and Dusk and Rachida?”
“Adam Rhakvir never made it out of his family’s stronghold alive.” For the first time, Layla saw sympathy in the Hunter’s dark eyes. “He died as a child, cowering under a bed as a dog.”
“You killed him?” Layla breathed, horrified, her mind spinning.
“I witnessed his death.” Hunter spoke low. “But it was convenient for my purposes, so I did not stop it. Before Rachida Rhakvir arrived at the fortress in Florence, I had burned Adam’s body and assumed his identity. His adult persona would never be known – only my version of Adam Rhakvir ever truly existed.”
Layla’s world spun. Her breath was stolen as if she’d been punched. “So you’ve been Adam all this time. And what is it that you actually call yourself?”
His smile was wry and Layla saw a moment of confusion there, though it was covered quickly by steadiness. “You may call me Hunter.”
“Is that your real name?”
“No.”
“Will you tell me your real name?”
“Perhaps. Eventually.”
“Will you show me your real face?”
“They are all my real face. Every one of the men I have come to you as.”
But again, Layla saw a deep pain flicker through Hunter’s eyes before it was gone. The conversation paused and Layla breathed into that silence, trying to wrap her head around the depth of Hunter’s lies. If Adrian was difficult with his secrets and other identities, Hunter was a mastermind of manipulation and deceit.
Layla felt sick inside, realizing that it had been Hunter who had mate-tasted her at the Concierge desk. Hunter, who had watched her nearly fuck Adrian from that ridge-line, his eyes dark and full of wrath. Hunter, who had taken Layla to the Gypsun bar in Julis, wooing her with his orchard-blossom scent and trying to align her against Adrian.
Hunter, who had kept her alive when Reginald’s oceanic power had nearly killed her tonight.
As if his very presence was swaying, Layla could feel his magics surrounding her in a wave, easing her worries, convincing her to side with his story. Inhaling a breath, Layla’s left palm flashed up to slam that sensation back, to clear her mind from his subtle influence. With a renegade roar of her Dragon, a wash of furious power suddenly flared from her. It didn’t hammer Hunter back like it had done Adrian, but it whisked away that cloud of convincing orchard-sweet vapor – casting it back like shadows upon the wind.
Hunter’s eyes widened. His green irises sharpened, becoming vertically slit like a cat. And though Layla felt him gather power, a roaring sound in her ears like a forest when a cyclone hits, he did not attack. Instead, he let her blow his scintillating magics away, a slow smile lifting his lips as the shape of his pupils gradually returned to human.
And then he laughed – deep and bright, his green eyes sparkling with colors Layla had never before seen.
With a smooth movement, he rose. Before Layla could do anything, his deft fingers had pulled the pin of her silver wrist-cuff, collecting the cuff into his quick hand so that her magics buffeting him were completely unleashed. Increasing a hundredfold, Layla felt her power roar out as it was freed, felt her Dragon rush outward in a heave of muscled coil and fang, talons of immense power ripping through the crystal cavern. Golden flames of ether surged out from her as a gale surged up inside the cavern while she held her hamsa-ward at Hunter. Smashing the crystal pillars, making a howling sound like a demon as it rushed through the space, hurling the bedding of the nest up and setting it afire in her golden flames.
But Hunter merely stood in her sudden gale, laughing – her winds and sand-funnel heat and flames harming him not at all.
He’d thrown up no shield; he’d used nothing to counter her blistering rage. Though Layla’s power, increased to catastrophic heights by her bonds to Dusk and Adrian, cracked three emerald pillars in a series of hammering blows, and something far up near the staircase burst with a sudden deafening concussion, Hunter merely stood in her cyclone winds and golden fire – unaffected and admiring her with his intensely dark eyes.
“Fight me with your fury, beautiful drakaina,” he spoke, his handsomeness arresting as he stood untouched. “Fight me and feel our truth – know thatthisis what you were meant to be, to the depths of your scalding sinews. This power, this rage, this roar of passion and battle. This iswho you are. Become your truth, Layla. Come with me – and I can teach you how to become everything you should be.”
“You mean a murderer, like you?” Layla seethed as her gale roared, furious that he was trying to seduce her into joining him in some arcane quest against all of the Twilight Realm.
“Become a conqueror.” He spoke back, watching her with level eyes through her gale. “With more right to rule than those who hold thrones in any land. I could show you how to make your gales penetrate my sways, Layla. I could show you so much.”
“I’d rather go back to bartending.” Layla growled, her fury intensifying. She shuddered with it now, both hands up as she held the power of her hamsa-ward. A scalding wrath poured through her, raging around the cavern in a powerful wind.
Now that the silver cuff was gone from her wrist, Layla could feel the full force of her rage, like molten lava and stinging sand in her veins. She had always been passionate; she had always had a temper. She had chosen men in her life who were trouble, and some part of her knew it was because something inside her needed a conflict. Needed to gnash her fangs and spit fire and lash her tail at the world.
But Hunter’s words were poison in her fire. Layla wouldn’t believe that her passion made her a vigilante like him. Or that the world would be a better place if she used her Bind magics to seduce others into submission. As they watched each other through her gale, she saw a slow smile curl Hunter’s lips. As if he could read her mind; as if he knew how much she detested the thought of being like him.
“Very well.” He spoke at last through her storm, still smiling with dark eyes. “I can see you need more time. But know that my offer stands. Watch for me, Layla Price. Watch the shadows, the dark forests and deep places of the world. For the Hunter will come to you again, eager to show you what you truly are. And in the meantime… I require that you never again Bind your glory to the hearts of lesser men.”
Holding up the silver hamsa-cuff, he curled his fingers around it – and it was suddenly seeping with hot red through the silver. As Layla watched, a sensation of horror rising in her, the Hamsa Bind began to melt, smelted into steaming silver and burning gemstones in Hunter’s palm and dripping through his fingers. The bone hamsa-hand stared at Layla a moment longer with its red coral teardrop, as if begging her to stop Hunter’s horror.
And then he curled his hand into a tight fist.
