“My breath-enchantment on the wall and roof scatters the atoms so we can see and move through them,” Rake spoke as he poured water for himself and Layla from a copper pitcher. “They become so porous it makes them seem like they’ve disappeared, though they haven’t. It doesn’t disappear from the other side, so people down in the canyon only see the house’s wall.”
“Shit. You can scatter atoms with your breath?” Layla blinked with amazement.
“What do you think I do all day?” Rake gave her a calm smile, though his gaze was intense. “I scatter my patrons to the universe, Layla. I breathe their molecules and electrons into a different pattern, one that’s more porous so they canfeelhow much they’re a part of the universe, and the universe is a part of them. That’s how Deathkeeper magic works.”
“You said you’re a strong Royal Deathkeeper. Just how powerful are you?” Layla frowned, cocking her head as she recalled some of Rake’s reasons for being at the Paris Hotel – laying low from the Intercessoria. Like a gentleman, Rake had never pried into Layla’s past, and she’d never pried into his. But she was curious now; and it seemed he wanted to tell her as they gazed at each other beneath the wide desert night.
Rake’s gaze went darkly knowing as he watched her, in a way Layla rarely saw from him as he understood what she was getting at. “I’m not just a pretty face, Layla. I can fight with magic, better than you know. Rikyava and I train together nearly as much as she and Dusk. And my drinks aren’t just for eroticism. I can use my breath to put people to sleep, confuse them, drive them insane—”
“Kill them.” Layla spoke, knowing where this was going.
“Yes.” Rake spoke with a knowing look, something dark taking his lovely jade-green eyes. “But Deathkeepers all take a sacred vow when we turn eighteen, to never kill with our power – because a strong Royal Deathkeeper can literally scatter someone to the universe. Long ago, my people learned the ways of peace because if we didn’t, the outcome was carnage. Strong Royals like me could quite literallyvaporizepeople with our breath. It was devastating in war, and one too many young Royal Deathkeepers did it by accident in a rash moment. Could you imagine yelling at your lover in anger and accidentally vaporizing them? Peace was our only option, for survival of our kind. That’s why most of us live in monasteries, and we’re one of the most peaceful Lineages in the entire Twilight Realm. Because our power is so deadly, for those of us who have it in spades.”
“Fuck.” Layla blinked, suddenly understanding Rake in a whole new light. “The Intercessoria once said you were at the Paris Hotel for asylum, as much as Dusk or Reginald.”
“I am. Though part of my deal with the Intercessoria also allows me to caretake this canyon.” Rake spoke without flinching. “I am an immensely strong Royal Deathkeeper, Layla, one of the top five in the world. Like you, I have a dark side I rarely show, and I’ve had to live with it all my life. Why do you think I trained with all the strongest sages in the human and Twilight Realms to perfect my meditative states? Because I had to. Because there were things churning inside me that I didn’t even want to look at. Just like you’re experiencing now.”
“What did you do to catch the Intercessoria’s attention?” Layla asked quietly, intrigued.
“I used to have a temper.” Rake spoke just as quietly back, his gaze calm but still dark. “My power was so strong when I was young that it would breathe out at night, finding those I was angry at and scattering them. For a long while, I didn’t know it was happening. I would just hear screams in my dreams as people vaporized – sometimes nearby, sometimes half a world away. When I finally did it awake, losing my shit and screaming at my uncle so hard I blew him to the universe right before my very eyes… the Intercessoria came knocking. Horrified, I fled to the Himalayas, to learn everything I could about control from accomplished Buddhist sages. Once I was controlled enough in my emotions and breath, I came to the Paris Hotel to do some good in the world, and to be close to my clan in France. And because I enjoy sex, and wasn’t suited to being a monk.”
“I’m surprised the Intercessoria let you go.” Layla spoke, amazed.
“I was only fifteen years old when I scattered my uncle.” Rake smiled, though his smile was wry. “Too young to control my magic properly, and technically all the people I killed were accidents. I got excellent training at the places I studied, so the Intercessoria let me go. But they’ve kept a stern eye on me all my life, making sure I don’t start using my powers for… nefarious things.”
“Nefarious? Like murder?” Layla asked.
“Or seducing people so they become enslaved to me.” Rake spoke with a darker look, simmering with the most dangerous presence Layla had ever seen in him. “Like a Siren or Vampire, a Deathkeeper’s magic has a mind-obliterating ability. I can scatter people’s minds so far out into the universe that they become re-patterned with my will, enslaving them to me. It’s not pretty, and is prohibited by High Court laws. Deathkeepers are not allowed to fully blow a person’s mind – ever – because it’s not reversible, even by the one who did it.”
“Fuck.” Layla blinked, shaking her head as she took a slice of mango and ate thoughtfully.
Rake watched her in the deep of the night, as if evaluating whether Layla was frightened of him now. But she wasn’t, and with a complex smile, Rake at last stood. Stripping away his silk robe and folding it over his chair, he extended a hand to Layla with a deep gaze. He was decadently gorgeous, slim and tall yet exquisitely defined, wearing only a jade and rose quartz mala around his neck, one of rudraksha beads around his left wrist. He was built like a mystic, though Layla could see a fighting passion in his jade eyes now that they’d talked about what he was capable of. Dragon-fire didn’t live in his nature, but something altogether brighter and darker.
Like the Fallen Ephilohim Archangel Heathren Merkami, Layla realized suddenly.
“You have the way of a Fallen Archangel about you…” Layla mused as she rose from the table, mesmerized by Rake’s beauty.
“My Lineage come from the Ascended Realms originally, like the Ephilohim.” Rake spoke with his hand still extended, watching her. “Deathkeepers still retain the light we had in the Ascended Realms, though it’s diminished over time. Once, my people knew how to use our breath to move the entire cosmos to our will. But those arts are long lost.”
Stepping close, Layla took his hand. A strange energy was building between them now; that same vast, cosmic sensation Layla had felt when Rake had kissed her. Pulling her close, Rake lifted his hand, stroking his fingertips over Layla’s face as he exhaled, breathing a deeply erotic light through her. She sighed, closing her eyes, her lips curling up as his fingertips stroked down her neck and collarbones.
“May I undress you?” Rake asked quietly, though there was so much more in him that wasn’t quiet now.
“Yes.” Layla answered at once, feeling what he wanted and wanting it too. The tension between them skyrocketed as Rake slid her silk robe open, easing it off her shoulders with the barest glide of his fingertips across her skin. With a purposeful graze of his fingers down her chest, he slowly pulled the robe’s sash, easing the silk open and shedding it to the floor.
As Layla stood with him naked once more, but in a decidedly more erotic way now, she shivered in the midnight air. Stepping in, Rake pulled her close, and she sighed with pleasure as their bodies came together. Rake’s body was warm like a soothing soak, his skin silken though his muscles were exquisitely hard in a way that made Layla’s breath catch. Taller than her, he breathed down over her face as their bodies touched from chest to hips, causing a waterfall of light to pour over her brow and in her parted lips. His eros was angelic as Layla moved into him.
Drinking him in everywhere their skin touched.
“You feel like an angel should feel. Calm, grounding. Passionate.” Layla breathed, enjoying their blissful touch tonight.
“You need a good angel in your life.” Rake spoke with a mystic smile as he gazed down at her with luminous green eyes. Lacing his fingers into hers, he stepped back, tugging her gently towards the bed. “Come on. Let’s enjoy the night. Before you have to leave tomorrow.”
“Alright.” Layla breathed, feeling like nothing would be more perfect tonight. Rake was beautiful, every bit of his six-foot, lean gorgeousness, and Layla couldn’t help but glance down as he led her up the jade tier to his broad white bed, seeing him deeply erect now in his passion. Laying down beneath the dogwood tree, Layla cuddled close to his incredible body. The pink dogwood blossoms glowed beneath the moon, and she watched the blossoms sway beneath the midnight sky, inhaling their perfume as a wind-chime tinkled from the tree. Rake stroked her shoulder for a moment as they watched the night, his breath smooth and deep as it curled around her. But then he moved – pulling her hips close to his with one hand as he lifted up to his elbow.
Lowering his lips and kissing her neck.
“Come to me, Layla.” He breathed, and Layla felt a deep ardor in him now as if he’d finally made a decision about what he wanted tonight. “I know I’m not a Dragon and I know your life is complicated, but something about tonight is so right. I want you; and I can feel that you want me. We’ve danced around this too long, and my practiced calm around you has at last worn out. I want you, Layla. I desire you; deeply. Come to me tonight, please. And I promise you will not regret it.”
