“Done!” Dusk laughed as he clapped Rake on the shoulder. Then with a rumble, he pulled Rake in for another hot kiss. “I can smell her all over you, by the way.” Dusk grinned at Rake’s lips. “Don’t worry, I don’t mind. I’ll get you both down to the Crystal Plateau one day so we can all do it in style. Together.”
At Dusk’s ribald and entirely sexy words, Rake flushed deeply, something Layla had never seen him do, and Dusk laughed. Hauling Layla around so she faced Rake, Dusk said, “Kiss your pretty boy goodbye. And then we’re off for some fun in the sun!”
Like Rake, Layla flushed hard to be so blatantly faced with their recent passion while she was in Dusk’s arms. But with the sweetest smile, Rake stepped forward. Layla felt how he nearly slid his hands around her, then stopped himself with a beautiful chagrin. Shaking his head with a wry lift of one blond eyebrow, Rake reached out, stroking Layla’s cheek instead. A beautiful warmth flowed between them as his eyes shone upon her, and Layla reached up, trapping his hand to her cheek. He sighed as she pressed into his hand, turning her lips into his palm and kissing him.
With a sad but sweet chuckle, Rake turned his hand over, taking hers up and moving it to his lips. Like a gentleman, he kissed her fingers as he lifted his beautiful jade-green eyes to hers. “I had a wonderful time with you this past week, Layla, no matter where our friendship goes from here. My offer to help you anytime still stands. Call me, if you ever need a friend again.”
“I will.” Layla murmured, smiling as her heart warmed for Rake André.
Stepping in, Rake pressed the softest kiss to Layla’s lips, as she felt one last curl of breath pass between them. And then he stepped back, relinquishing her to Dusk. “Enjoy the beach.”
“We aresogoing to.” Dusk rumbled in a sexy chuckle. With a laugh and one last wink to Rake, he turned, corralling Layla under his arm and walking them to Adrian’s jet. Trotting briskly up the stairs, they were soon inside, and Layla turned, watching Rake move back to the Range Rover. He looked back as he opened the Range Rover’s door, his gaze deep but kind as he blew her a kiss. Layla caught it and Rake laughed, shaking his head as he slid into the vehicle. But Dusk was already mixing drinks at Adrian’s bar inside the jet, and with one last smile, Layla turned away from her beautiful Deathkeeper.
Returning to her Bound Dragons at last.
CHAPTER 5 – REVELATION
As Adrian’s French co-pilot stowed Layla’s bags and closed the Learjet’s door, Layla came to Dusk. With a knowing look, he passed over the drink he’d mixed at the bar and Layla smiled, sipping his creation. It was decidedly strong, consisting of mostly dark rum, pineapple juice, and little else, and Layla gave a cough with a wry smile as she and Dusk settled in at the jet’s glossy wooden table with its four leather seats. As the jet’s engines revved and they gazed at each other across the table, Layla thought Dusk might be jealous of her time spent with Rake. But it seemed her Royal Crystal Dragon was in fact the complete opposite – positively glowing as he sipped his drink.
His sapphire eyes on fire with humor as he regarded her with a teasing grin.
“So. Ready for a little adventure, sexy woman?” Dusk lifted a dark eyebrow at her as he sipped his rum. “More adventure than you had with Rake, though I can tell that was a good time, too.”
“It was a good time.” Layla quipped back, feeling amazingly light since her night with Rake, not to mention Dusk’s fantastic surprise this morning. “I can see why you and he have been lovers for such a long time. Though he and I ultimately decided we’re better as friends.”
“Felt that, too.” Leaning in across the table, Dusk kissed her until Layla was entirely flushed with pleasure, though he didn’t pour his rumbles through her this time. Settling back, he sipped, regarding her frankly now with his bright sapphire eyes as the jet’s engines revved hard, taxiing them along the airstrip. “You feel a lot brighter this morning, like you figured a few things out with Rake these past five days. Learn anything about your Dragon?”
“I did, actually.” Layla nodded, sipping her drink as she settled back into her leather chair. As the jet heaved into takeoff, for the first time she didn’t feel anxious, and that realization made her smile. “We did a series of meditations over the past five days, meant to make me relax and see into myself, review the battle, that sort of thing. Everything finished with a day-long fast yesterday, and I finally opened up last night. I learned my Dragon’s not gone – just like you, Adrian, Rhennic, and Reginald surmised. She’s coiled up inside me, hiding ever since I threw that last strike at Hunter during our fight. Hunter’s burning of the Bind was a trick; an illusion meant to make us throw everything we had at him. We did, and I freaked out after I saw what happened. I coiled my magic up so tight inside me that I couldn’t use it; couldn’t even feel it. So that’s where we are now.”
“I wondered if it was something like that.” Dusk nodded as he watched Layla intently. “So Hunter played us – yet again. To get our power as a Bind to level-up even more than before.”
“Yes, although I don’t think he knew my strike would hurt him so badly.” Layla spoke thoughtfully as she sipped her drink, recalling the memories she’d reviewed in meditation this week. “A lot of things went down at Deep Harbor that surprised him. Fury threw an enormous monkey-wrench in Hunter’sPattern, and I think his added strength in the Bind when I hurled myfinal strikewas a lot more than Hunter bargained for.”
“Good.” Dusk lifted an eyebrow with a hard anger now as he set his drink down upon the table. Diamond-bright wrath flashed in his sapphire eyes, something Layla rarely saw from him. “Hunter deserved the way your magic fucked him at Deep Harbor, Layla – for how he’s fucked us for so many years. I don’t care if our combined strike on him was monstrous. Maybe it’ll make him stop and think before he messes with us again. In any case, everything on the Hunter front has been quiet since you scorched him. Maybe he’s dead. And if he is, I say good riddance.”
But though Dusk was righteous in his fury, Layla found herself frowning as she twisted her drink upon the table. Suddenly, her memory of Hunter from last night resurfaced. She could feel his dawn-bright eyes as he gazed down at her when their Dragons had pulled them close at Deep Harbor. She could feel the beautiful strength of his body and how it had felt to be held in his arms. As she thought about it, Layla felt a stir of her drakaina deep inside, as if her drakaina condoned these thoughts. With a blink, Layla suddenly realized part of why her drakaina was coiled up so tight right now was because she had hurt Hunter.
She had attacked him – and her drakaina hadn’t liked that.
Frowning more, Layla took a deep drink of her rum as the jet leveled off into cruising. As Dusk met her gaze, he frowned, a question in his eyes at what she was thinking. But with a shake of her head, Layla set her drink down, not ready to talk about what was truly on her mind just yet. She felt deeply conflicted about Hunter; and with a dark roil inside her, Layla realized her drakaina was in conflict because she wasn’t entirely certain Hunter was an enemy. As Layla sat with that, she realized Dusk was watching her deeply.
Blinking back to the present, she met his gaze.
“Layla?” Dusk asked quietly. “Where did you just go?”
“I was thinking about some of the revelations I got last night.” She shook her head with a wry smile. “It’s nothing. But I think my drakaina and I are having a spat about something. Something we’re disagreeing on, and it’s part of why I locked her away.”
“A spat?” Dusk’s gaze was penetrating now as he read her emotions through his magic. “Feels more like a drag-out knock-down fight, Layla, for you to have locked her up so hard inside you. Disagreements with our inner beast are never pretty, but this goes far beyond a simple beast-versus-human-mind argument. What is it that you’re fighting about?”
“I’m not… sure exactly. Just yet.” Layla spoke with hesitation, still churning inside and not entirely certain what it was her Dragon wanted concerning Hunter. “I think it still goes below my conscious mind. Rake and I made progress – we found out a few points of why I’m hiding my drakaina’s power right now, but I don’t think that’s all of it.”
“What did you find out?” Dusk asked, watching her with his keen gaze.
“Well, the first point was that I’m not entirely certain I want to have magic.” Layla spoke thoughtfully, swirling her drink. “My life was a lot easier and less dangerous before I opened up to my drakaina, and part of me wants that life again.”
“It’s far more simple,” Dusk nodded deeply, a knowing look in his gaze. “Living with a big power is never easy. Sometimes I feel like my life has taken far more insane twists and turns than anyone else I know, simply because my power is as large as it is. The rest of your Bound drakes could probably say the same. What’s the next point?”
“That I don’t want Hunter to manipulate my power.” Layla spoke plainly, knowing this was a big point for her, though again, her drakaina stirred inside her veins at the mention of Hunter. “Now that it’s gotten this big, and can do as much damage as we saw at Deep Harbor, I don’t want to let that get into Hunter’s hands. I don’t want to become some weapon for him to use. I hate to think of what he might do with all of our power Bound together. Especially once Fury recovers.”
