“You make me lose my sanity.” Layla spoke back, feeling the dream-like moment stretch between them.
“I’ve already lost mine. There isn’t any further I can go.” Hunter returned, something sad in his gaze now as the both of them finally managed to wrangle their Dragons back from each other. It was the deepest mate-taste Layla had ever experienced, and she felt how much her drakaina cried out for more as she held her power sternly back. She suddenly recalled how she and Hunter had pulled so deeply towards each other when he’d been Adam Rhakvir – and she experienced that memory now as she felt her drakaina desire him. Hunter’s drake was just as mournful as he held it back from her, struggling to be free of Hunter’s iron grip so it could coil around Layla’s power again.
But Hunter didn’t allow it to. As he held his Dragon’s passions back, Layla inhaled slow and deep – though the air was entirely perfumed with the dawn-star scent of those little flowers, which she realized was Hunter’s true scent now. He’d once smelled like gin and lemons to her, and Layla had thought that was his real scent – but she now knew that like his true face, Hunter had forgotten his actual scent over the eons, and replaced it with something else. Now, he smelled like a creature of the heavens, and while Layla’s scent still smelled of bourbon and orange groves, it held a starlight clarity since she’d begun to understand etheric magic – a clarity like Hunter’s. As they watched each other, she saw Hunter slowly breathe in her scent as much as she did his.
Both of them lost in each other.
Closing her eyes, Layla pulled her energy back. It was with a will that she did it, but was able to. She felt something burn hot and bright all through her veins as her power finally accepted being put away, and part of Layla was amazed she’d managed it – the most control over her abilities that she’d ever displayed. She was glad though; she didn’t want to know what might happen if she lost control of her Dragon’s ardor around Hunter. Especially alone with him right now.
Or for however long she’d be with him until they got shit straight between them.
“We do have much reckoning to accomplish between us, yes.” Hunter spoke softly as he watched her, as if he’d read her mind as easily as breathing. “But before we go any further…”
Watching her, Hunter suddenly sank to one knee upon the carpet of flowering moss. Reaching one hand down, his fingers plucked a white blossom, tiny like a fallen star in his big hands. Smiling at it with a terrible sadness, he raised it to his lips and inhaled its fragrance for a moment. Looking at Layla with his vivid dawn-sky eyes, he extended it.
Layla’s eyebrows rose, the gesture strangely reminiscent of when Hunter had offered her his blood upon a silver knife as Adam Rhakvir, making formal apology to her in front of the Dragon clans. But as Hunter watched her now, Layla could feel actual apology sighing from him, rather than Adam’s cheeky insincerity. Like Adrian, Hunter had learned how to become the roles he played with his many faces, but now he had his own face back. Layla felt a vast sincerity pour from Hunter now.
And realized that this clear, luminous self he showed her was his own.
“I’m sorry.” Hunter breathed as he held his position of genuflection. “I have done you wrong, Layla Price. And I regret it… to the depths of my being.”
Swallowing hard, Layla regarded him. Deep inside, her drakaina leapt to his apology, her heart hammering in her chest as surprised waves of golden energy flowed from her. Her breath was high and she couldn’t deepen it, so stunned was she by his sudden contrition. The was no duplicity in Hunter’s eyes as he held his kneeling position.
Only sorrow.
“Another trick?” Layla asked, biting humor her only defense against such a powerful creature baring his heart to her.
“No. Just the truth.” Layla hadn’t taken the flower from Hunter and he gently pushed up from the moss now as if he’d not expected her to. She hadn’t forgiven him from everything he’d done to her and her men, her friends, and to countless others she’d never met over his long eons of war and manipulations. His smile was awful as he rose; so understanding of Layla’s lack of forgiveness that it made her heart twist. Stepping within touching distance now, he reached out with the little white flower, then tucked it quietly behind her left ear.
“Come.” He spoke gently. “We have much to talk about. I don’t expect you to forgive me, Layla. But know that there are no words for how terrible I felt, compelling you to cast your last lance at me in Deep Harbor. Your burn-mark I carry gladly now… for it reminds me of how I must sit with my pain, to pull the poison of everything I have done to you.”
Hunter’s hand raised to his chest, and Layla could see the edge of the burn-scar she’d dealt him as he rubbed his skin beneath the open collar of his white shirt. Most of it was covered by his buckled vest, but she could still see how angry the scar was from her blistering magic; as if her fire and rage had embedded itself in his heart and seared him now from the inside. Hunter’s lips quirked as if he knew what she was thinking as his dawn-star eyes pierced her.
“Does your mark upon me please you?”
“Maybe.” Layla sassed to cover her strange attraction to him. “Those clothes are atrociously out of date, though.”
“Perhaps this would be better?” Swirling the ether around him, Hunter held his true form as the clothing around his body suddenly swirled to something more modern, a stylish black blazer with no shirt on underneath, dark jeans, and expensive men’s loafers with no socks. The ensemble showed more of his beautiful chest and scar – and Layla’s breath caught as her drakaina leapt through her veins with a hard rush of fire at his beauty. Watching her, his blazing eyes were knowing, as his drake tried to leap to her drakaina again and he hauled it back. Beckoning for her to follow, he turned, heading for the broken vault he’d initially come through.
But even though Layla wanted to follow him, she held her ground, needing one more thing from him before they could continue.
“I want safe passage.” She spoke with strength now, though her drakaina mourned in her veins to even think about leaving him. “I want you to promise me that when we’re done talking, you’ll put me back somewhere safe. Somewhere I can return to my world and my men easily.”
Halting, Hunter turned, his golden eyebrows rising with something astonished in his eyes, as if stunned. “Of course. Have I ever once moved to harm you, Layla? I value you – tremendously. I give you my most solemn promise that once we are finished taking each other’s measure and you have heard my side of things, that I will send you back to a safe place. I do not wish to incarcerate you here in my home. I wish for you to hear me… and when you have, you may decide what to do next.”
“Fair enough.” Layla nodded, still watching him. She didn’t have Heathren’s ability to read a person’s heart and soul for duplicity, but she had her own bullshit-meter, and Hunter’s words had a ring of truth to them. He was right; he’d not moved to harm her all the times they’d been alone together, and Layla sensed he didn’t want to harm her now. As his drake reached out again, coiling sweetly around her drakaina, Layla gave a small shiver. Watching her, Hunter wrangled his Dragon back yet again, though Layla could feel how much control it took him. Both beasts wanted each other – deeply. As Layla took a steadying breath, Hunter gave her a wry smile.
“My drake has a formidable will, Layla,” he spoke softly as he watched her. “Neither he nor I wish to harm you – someone we respect as an equal now. Your power is magnificent, and your control grows exponentially, in a vastly short amount of time. You have no idea how much we respect that; and how much it pains us to have put you in a position of hating us over and over. But those events were necessary to make your power blossom to the fullness that it has. Now, I feel such a deep maturation in you that I think perhaps my time serving you trials has come to an end. Please. Talk with me. If you wish to consider me your enemy still, then come parlay with your foe. If you wish to hear me with an open mind, then come speak with me like monarchs deciding what is mutually best for their nations. But if you really wish to hear me… come speak to me with an open heart. And we shall truly understand each other at last.”
As Hunter spoke, Layla felt her drakaina move through her veins with a deep heat. Her drakaina wanted to talk with him; she wanted to hear what he had to say and feel the sincerity of his admissions. She wanted to find out where the madness still was and open her heart to him, and heal him if she could. Layla wasn’t certain she wanted any of those things, but Hunter was at least right on one account.
She could sit and parlay with her enemy – and then decide what happened next between them.
Drawing a deep breath, Layla at last nodded. Watching her, Hunter turned, waiting for her to step to his side. Wordlessly, Layla came to him, walking slowly over the flowering moss. They continued on, walking silently side-by-side until they reached the enormous arch, moving out from the vast hall into one that had been a corridor long ago.
The corridor was as broken as the hall had been, trees growing up through the smashed gilded tiles, entire sections of wall and Dragon-frescoes blasted-out so Layla could see into vast entertaining halls and bedchambers as they walked. All of it was ornate in an ancient Medieval style; though as if Medieval Europe architecture had met a beautiful elven delicacy that humans simply couldn’t match. It was strong and haunting and exquisitely lovely all at once, even in its half-ruined state. Through the silent halls, Layla could hear fountains burbling as birds winged through, darting through the sunlit canopy and clouds.
“What is this place?” Layla asked at last, nodding at a half-ruined fresco of what looked like Sirens battling Phoenix as she adjusted her silk shawl around her chest and shoulders to get more air in the pleasantly muggy space.
