“That is precisely what I’m saying.” King Durant spoke back with quiet mercilessness. “And I will not have my strongest son aligned with such a creature, not when he has so much to lose.”
“That is not your decision, father.” Reginald spoke, and Layla felt his fury now, churning like a maelstrom from hell.
“It is my decision, Reginald Durant. Am I not your King?” King Léviathan’s words hung in the air, cold and calculating, and Layla suddenly saw the brilliance of his manipulation. He couldn’t make his son obey him by pulling the father card, or the friend card, or even the wise mentor card. He couldn’t make his son respect him after everything that had happened between them over the years. But he could pull the King card to make his subject obey.
And he just had.
As Reginald and Léviathan stared at each other, Layla felt something huge and terrible swirl between them. Like she was suddenly choking on power too vast to swallow, Layla felt the enormity of the sea rush up fast through the hall, viciously thick between the Siren King and his most wayward son. As they locked into motionless battle right there in front of everyone, Leni, Atlantos, and Vindaris hauled Layla back to the edge of the dome. And she knew why. Already, she could taste saltwater in her mouth; she could feel a heavy pressure in her chest like she’d been cast far beneath the sea. She could feel a thickness in her lungs like the ocean was about to boil up within her and fill her to the brim like some terrible cup.
Fill her up – and drown her.
Layla saw a thick wall of water go up all around her from the three siblings. She watched as Reginald and his King locked their magics in a furious wrath now, surges of water manifesting in the air and whipping around them in a maelstrom as massive pearl-white harpoons from Reginald and watery black ones from Léviathan readied to thrust in and attack each other viciously. But as soon as it began, Reginald glanced to Layla. A terrible heartbreak devoured his eyes, as if he didn’t want her to see him like this against his own father. Returning his gaze to his father’s massive dominance, Reginald allowed his power to suddenly swirl out, his weaves of water crashing to the floor of the hall and flowing over it, resorbing down through the pearls, abalone, and corals.
Watching him with a deep triumph, King Léviathan allowed his power to flow away also – though with a slower, far grander crash of surf than Reginald’s.
“You will need more courage than that if you wish to take me down someday,sirion.” Léviathan spoke coldly to his son.
“Courage is not what I lack.” Reginald growled as he stood facing his father, a terrible hatred upon his face. “I simply do not wish my Bound beloved to see me behave like a tyrant.”
“Are you saying I’m a tyrant?” Léviathan spoke, deceptively soft as he stared his youngest son down.
“You may stop pretending you have any love for me, father, or I for you.” Reginald spoke with cold wrath. “You know what you are; what you have allowed yourself to become since mother’s death – and really, what you were long before that. Stop pretending you care for me. You’re not mother. And you never will be.”
A terrible silence engulfed the hall as everyone stared at the duo with wide eyes. All but the boldest shrank back from the magic still subtly flowing in a wrathful tide around Reginald and the King. None held any doubt that Reginald was the most dominant power among them, besides the King himself. And Layla saw it break King Léviathan at last, as he clutched one gnarled old hand, rubbing his knuckles with his thumb as if his son’s words had struck him deeply.
“All I do, I do for you, Reginald.” Léviathan rasped. “To prepare you. To protect you. To make you strong, so you may become King in my place as you should be. Just as your mother wished for you with her last failing breath upon her deathbed.”
“Stop.” Reginald spoke, his voice like iron. “Don’t bring mother into this. I don’t want your throne. I never did – I have told you that a thousand times. Interfere with my life again and I will not hesitate next time. I will kill you and leave your Kingship to be fought over by the strongest warriors of all the seas while I walk away and let the sharks come. Try to rope me into your dynasty one more time, and I will decimate it. Interfere with Layla… and watch how hard I interfere with you.”
Standing one more moment before his father, Reginald stared the Siren King down with the coldest cruelty Layla had ever seen in his pure blue eyes – before turning and extending his hand to Layla. “Layla?”
Her heart leapt to her throat. The barrier of water dropped all around her, though she didn’t turn to see Leni, Atlantos, and Vindaris’ expressions. She could feel them, hardly daring to breathe at what they had just witnessed. And Layla understood the gravity of it as she watched the furiously calm Reginald, as he kept his hand outstretched, waiting for her. He had just faced off with their King in public. He had just shown the world he was strong enough to battle for the throne.
Though who might win was a question to be answered another day.
“Layla?” Reginald asked again, softly. She saw his gaze become uncertain as she hesitated, his beautiful golden brows knit. Inhaling a deep breath, Layla drew up tall.
And then walked to him, taking his hand and letting him guide her out of the hall.
CHAPTER 9 – BLACK
As Reginald escorted Layla from the Siren party, a deep silence stretched between them. After everything that had happened with his family, Layla was shocked, both feeling for Reginald at his sudden dominance challenge against his father, and incensed that Léviathan had implied such horrible things about her. Lost in thought, Layla startled as Reginald paused at a set of waterfall doors, setting a hand to them and making them flow apart. Layla had been buried so deep in her emotions – and Reginald’s through their Bind – that she didn’t even recall approaching them.
But as Reginald ushered Layla into a vaulted atrium far beneath the harbor, which she realized was a massive swimming hall, she felt Reginald suddenly ease beside her. As if the sight of an olympic-sized swimming pool beneath the quiet, dark sea called to him in a primal way, he seemed calmer as he closed the gilded coral doors behind them. The swimming-hall was enormous, tiers of pearl and gold spreading out from the pool with lounging-chaises of lacquered corals, green walls of anemones, and branched coral dressing-screens for privacy.
High above, the ocean moved beyond the waterfall dome in dark, endless currents.
As Layla stepped inside, she could feel the space was empty. Steam curled up lazily from the pool, tracing patterns in the air as it rose to the gables far above. The subtly-illuminated saltwater pool was a comfortable temperature as Layla moved forward and crouched in her cocktail dress, dipping her fingers in. Standing at a group of white-padded coral chaises, Reginald watched her as he unbuttoned his dinner jacket.
“Are you alright?” It was the first thing Reginald had said since they’d left the party.
“Honestly?” Layla glanced at him. “I don’t know. That was a hell of a thing for your father to say back there. And you challenging him… I never expected any of this, coming here.”
“Would you like to talk about it?”
It was the first time Reginald had ever offered to simply be Layla’s sounding-board and she blinked at him, frowning. “I feel like that’s something Dusk would ask me, not you.”
Reginald gave an elegant shrug, which said everything and nothing as he laid his dinner jacket aside upon the chaise. But his blue-grey eyes were weighing tonight, holding a piercing attention through his nonchalance. In some ways, Reginald was more watchful than Dusk, and more keen than Adrian at reading people. But he used none of his mind-magics now, simply watching Layla and letting her decide what she wanted to do with everything she had discovered about his family.
