Cupping her scaled cheeks in his hands.
“Fucking hells!” Dusk breathed softly as he stared into her eyes. “Layla?”
Hi, baby.Layla spoke to him mind-to-mind, as relief washed through her.Did you miss me?
With a blink, Dusk choked a startled laugh. And then he was laughing for real as he flooded Layla with a deep rumble, soothing her from the tips of her corkscrewing horns all the way to the end of her long, coiling tail. His rumble uncurled something that had been tight within her, and Layla was suddenly flowing down, returning to human in a wave of golden light. Winds of ether blew around them as Layla was suddenly held close in Dusk’s arms.
His beautiful sapphire gaze bright beneath the midnight desert sky.
“My god!” Dusk exclaimed, astounded as he reached up to cup her cheeks, staring into her new golden eyes. “Layla! What the fuck happened to you these past two weeks?! And how… how are you so changed?!”
“What? Two weeks?” Layla blinked, befuddled as he spoke. “But I left you all only three days ago at the Red Letter Hotel Antigua!”
“The last we heard of you was four days out of Antigua,” Dusk frowned at her now, “when Heathren contacted Adrian saying you had gone to a Dragon bone-yard to speak with Nadia’s Ascendant. We’ve been waiting here ever since, with no word except Heathren’s report that you’d vanished from the bone-yard and he couldn’t trace you through the ether. Nadia couldn’t trace you; even your father couldn’t, Layla. It was like you’d been wiped off the face of the planet… until you suddenly arrived just now looking like a completely different drakaina!”
The rest of her drakes had flowed back to human now, Adrian the last to do so. As Layla’s friends gave relieved smiles and joined Dusk, her men moved forward, stark naked and staring at Layla like they’d seen a ghost.
“What’s wrong?” Layla asked as she glanced from one face to the next, feeling like there was something terribly amiss.
“We thought you were dead.” Reginald spoke at last, his golden brows frowning and his grey-gold eyes deeply troubled, though he was also amazed like Dusk. “All trace of you was gone from our Binds, Layla, wherever you’ve been. We still had our Binds to each other, but they were vastly weakened – not even Dusk could feel you through the earth. Rake communed with Ascendants he knows, but they couldn’t find you. Heathren has been using Intercessoria Resonance-Points to flare his angelic senses through the ether, and Nadia and your father have been doing so from their stronghold, without success. You were gone, Layla. Just… gone.”
“What do you mean, gone?” Layla asked, a sinking sensation gripping her.
“Like you were dead.” Rhennic spoke then, a frown knitting his blond brows. His lavender eyes were dark beneath the high moon as he stared her down, and Layla saw the deep pain in his eyes as he spoke again. “Where did you go, Layla, once you left the Dragon sacred site? Alone. Again.”
Layla could feel Rhennic’s scathing criticism sear all through her, as a flicker of lightning flashed around him now. Lightning was in his eyes as he stared her down, and Layla knew the deep shit she was in with him, having taken off without protection yet again and not told him. But drawing a deep breath, Layla stood tall; and she felt her drakaina stare Rhennic down without apology. She knew she’d made the right decisions all the way through her travels – even her final decision to travel alone to Hunter’s realm. Facing off with her Storm Dragon, Layla felt a flicker of lightning flash through her own eyes as she held her ground.
And she saw Rhennic blink – his eyes going wide as he saw it, too.
“I did what I had to, when I had to.” Layla spoke solemnly, still looking at Rhennic. “And I figured out what I needed to, to get my drakaina back.”
“You went to the source of the conflict between yourself and your drakaina. You went to the heart of the problem… and spent time with it, didn’t you?”
It was Adrian who had spoken, and as Layla looked at him, she noticed Adrian still stood distant, watching her as if his heart had been pulled right from his chest. His gaze was terrible as it bored into her. Watching him, Layla suddenly realized that out of all her men, he was the only one who knew where she’d been during her missing time. He’d figured it out – and she saw that awful knowledge in his furious, devastated gaze. Even though his Bind to her was not yet repaired, he understood the situation as if he’d crawled right inside her mind. A curl of superheated fire sparked around Adrian in the desert night.
And Layla knew she had to tell him the truth – she had to tell them all the truth.
“I went to see Hunter.” She spoke, loud enough for everyone to hear. “It was him I needed to see to get my Dragon back. So I did.”
A shocked silence devoured the night as everyone stared at her.
And then a roar of rage surged from her men – as they all ripped into Layla at once.
CHAPTER 27 – UNDONE
Layla had never experienced what it felt like to be roared at by seven people with truly formidable magic, but she was feeling it now. Even though her Binds still weren’t active between herself and her men, their combined rage plus her friends was like a million searing brands being thrust through her all at once. The only one who wasn’t yelling at her was Rake André, who watched with a calm but ready presence, as if he might have to jump in and stop a fight again soon. Adrian wasn’t yelling either, but his energy whirled around Layla like a maelstrom as if he was, his fury unleashed. Though Layla’s drakaina roared inside her, telling her to shift and fight everyone beneath the desert night, Layla held firm beneath the onslaught, weathering their rage.
They had a right to be angry.
Even though she knew that choosing to go to Hunter had been the right move.
Layla endured the cacophony ofwhat the fuck?andhow could you?andwhat were you thinking?for a long moment as everyone shouted all at once. She could feel the combined power of her men’s magics in their own Bind, as an unholy rage of water-fire-lightning-earth power flooded over her, biting and stinging and inundating. But after a moment of her men lambasting her in every way they knew how, Layla felt a trio of protection suddenly form around her. With deeply concerned frowns, Rikyava, Luke, and Rake stepped in.
Cutting Layla off from her raging men with a barrier of magic.
“Stand down!” Rikyava barked clearly through the din, accompanied by a slap of forge-hot power from her Blood Dragon magic. “Have you all gone fucking insane?! Layla’s not your enemy here, boys! If she went to Hunter without any of us to get her Dragon back, I’m sure she had a damn good reason. Just like everything else she’s done since we all met.”
“Or she simply disrespects our concern for her.” Rhennic growled darkly back, blitzing with incensed flashes of lightning as his furious dark purple gaze shifted from his cousin back to Layla. “Promises weacutelyasked she make because of these exact same issues!”
