“I don’t know if I can sleep tonight after all that drama.” Layla spoke at last. “Today’s been a hell of a first meet-and-greet.”
“That’s not what I asked, Layla.” A hint of Reginald’s haughty Courtier’s manner peeked through now as he chastised her, his full lips curling into a slight smile.
“Fine.” Layla spoke, drawing up tall. “Yes. Yes, I would like to talk about everything you just manipulated me into with your family today. I mean seriously. Abridaldress?”
“Yes. A bridal dress.” Reginald gave an elegant nod, though his lips still smiled. Layla scoffed and rolled her eyes, then moved over to the chaise, flopping down to a seat ungraciously. She half-expected Reginald to chastise her more, but he only sat beside her on the chaise with regal grace.
“Aren’t you going to scold me for losing my temper tonight with your brothers and father?” Layla glanced at him.
“No.” Reginald chuckled with his subtle, complex smile.
“Why not?” Layla frowned, tucking her ankles up on the chaise with her high heels on. “I basically just lost my shit with your family back there.”
“Not as much as I lost mine.” Reginald commented, setting his elbows on his knees and lacing his long fingers together as he sighed. Looking over at Layla, he gave her a frank gaze, piercing her with his sea-grey eyes. “You are a formidable drakaina, Layla. You have the makings of one of the finest Dragons of the millennia, brave and honest and commanding. Though I drilled political niceties into you over and over when we were Partnered, you were never cut out to be a Courtesan. You haven’t the subtlety for it, nor the grace. What you have is power – a power my family, and my father, are all feeling now.”
“Then why bother training me to become a Courtesan at all?” Layla frowned, still feeling irate as she set her elbow on the back of the chaise and propped up her head with her hand.
“Because like me when I was young, you needed it.” Reginald spoke, giving her the full force of his piercing gaze now as he faced her on the chaise. “Because you needed to be whipped by someone with uncompromising dominance until your rage doubled, tripled, and quadrupled. Until your power grew so great from your fury that you realized youhadpower. You are no wilting flower to be intimidated by people like my father. You never were. And neither was I.”
“Your father dominated you into growing exponentially in your power when you were young.” Layla suddenly understood, realizing why Reginald was bringing all this up tonight. “Long before you met Quindici at the Florence Hotel and he taught you control. Long before you met me, and shifted for the first time at Manarola.”
“Yes.” Reginald went utterly still, watching her. “My father dominated all my siblings, Leni included. We grew so fast in our abilities, and so strong, because of his unrelenting cruelty and dastardly games. Why are the Durant Sirens the strongest in all the world? It is only partly because of our bloodlines. Though I have many of my mother’s traits, like patience and shrewd negotiation, I also inherited my father’s attributes. Darkness. Wrath. Ruthlessness. Dominance. Cruelty. War. All those things that I perfected control over with my training as a Courtier are still inside me. You got to see some of it tonight. The blacker side of me that lives beneath the light.”
“You sought out training as a Courtier to help control the side of you that’s like your father?” Layla asked, frowning.
“I did.” Reginald spoke, his eyes bled to a pale ice-blue now like Léviathan’s, a vicious, cruel color like when he and Layla had first met. “Some part of me enjoys being dominant and ruthless like him – in the bedroom and out of it. Some part of me truly enjoyed it when I drowned that Blood Dragon village after my first lover’s death. I trained with Quinn at the Florence Hotel to become a Courtier with mastery over the darker pleasures so I could understand that part of myself. And I insisted that I train you, not just because your power concerned eros, but because your other Bound lovers didn’t understand the darkness inside you. But I do. Because it also lives in me. The darkness of thefinal strikeis always there, waiting inside me – just like you saw tonight when I raised my magic against my father. And you have it, too.”
Layla was sober as she watched him, a shiver running up her spine at his words. Yet she knew that was why she had been drawn to Reginald, because he held that darkness deep inside; the vast power and cruel dominance she’d seen in action today against his father. Layla felt the black void inside her try to rise, try to snake up and seize her fire-bright Dragon as she communed with the darkness, even for the briefest moment.
It shuddered her as she put it away with a deep breath.
“What do you mean,final strike?” Layla spoke, lifting an eyebrow.
“Don’t be coy, Layla.” Reginald gave a dark chuckle, his eyes penetrating. “You know what it means. The final strike is the final word in any argument. It is the final blow to end a sparring match. It is the final hit when a fight turns nasty, and it is the final barb to end a lover’s quarrel. Deep inside, your drakaina has a darkness. A form so black you don’t even want to look at it, because to look is to acknowledge it is there, and to acknowledge it is to run screaming from the horror of what lives inside you. Your rage doesn’t just have a righteous brightness; it has the darkest chill, too. It has a version so black, there is no love, no emotion, only finality. It is that place you draw from when you lambaste foes like you did Typhos just now, drawing upon your innate knowledge about him through your Bind-power to deliver him the most caustically damaging words. Thefinal strike.Typhos did not wish to fight you, but if he had, your Bind-power would have risen like a black maelstrom to face off with him, drawing upon anyone Bound to you and summoning them to do your will. I protected you from my father tonight because I love you, Layla. But I also protected you—”
“Because my Bind-power compelled you to do it.” Layla blinked, horrified.
“Precisely.” Reginald spoke, holding her gaze and impressing his point. “Your darkness knows how to kill, Layla. It would do anything to protect those you love. And because you are a Royal Dragon Bind, it draws upon any resource it is Bound to, to make its aims happen. I might have killed my father tonight, had you pushed me. I might have killed any of my siblings had you asked me to, though even surly Typhos is beloved to me. Andthatis your true power, which the whole world is beginning to see, Layla – which my father noted tonight. You Bind Royal Dragons to you that surpass all others. And weave their powers together into an unholy maelstrom that has only one purpose. The final strike.”
“I’m not a cold-blooded killer, Reginald.” His insinuation was not lost on Layla as she drew a deep breath. “I wouldn’t let my Bind yoke you and Adrian, Dusk and Rhennic into some kind of unholy strike-team like that.”
“Wouldn’t you?” That terrible, knowing darkness devoured Reginald’s gaze. “If Adrian was caught by Hunter and you had the power to stop it by rising up at the lead of your other men and chaining us all into one mind and purpose with your power – are you telling me you would stand by and accept his fate?”
Everything inside Layla halted, thinking about it. As she imagined the scene, she could feel that enormous, dark wrath rising up inside her. Like a leviathan it surfaced, far stronger than her regular Dragon, not bright red and gold with passionate rage, but dark and black with cold vengeance. It was so terrifying Layla shuddered, raising a hand to her heart to try and push back the sensation. But it wouldn’t go. The thought of Adrian about to be killed didn’t terrify her – it made her unhinged. And she felt that disaster inside her now, something she had buried so deep she’d been in denial about its existence. But Hunter had known it was there.
And Reginald did, too.
And so did his father.
Glancing up at Reginald, she found him watching her, though he was not smiling now. “What would you do to protect your Bound mate, Layla?” He spoke softly.
“Anything.” She spoke back, knowing with a terrible shudder that it was true. Layla shivered, feeling that blackwater sensation creeping up her insides, cold as the night was long. She tried to breathe through it, hating that she was discovering this about herself but unable to deny it.
“Anything, to save your primary mate from harm. What about me, Dusk, or Rhennic?” Reginald’s ice-blue gaze was utterly dark now as he watched her, but also level.
“Anything.” Layla whispered again, horrified.
“Anything.” Reginald returned, dire. “So would I. You and I would kill without a moment’s thought if it meant saving someone we loved. We would utilize all the resources at our command to make it so – just like my father, an old Battle-Lord. Ask me again why I changed into my Dragon so suddenly when my brother Bastien threatened you back at the Hotel Owner’s Ball. The only thought in my mind wasn’t that I was fighting my elder brother to the death. It was that I would doanythingto protect the woman I loved. I do not regret my actions, despite the serious repercussions it has had for me both at the Hotel and here among my clan.”
