“You’re not done finding yourself, buddy.” Layla growled furiously, though her body was still rioting with a disastrous heat to have him.
“No, I’m not.” He spoke with a wry softness, “but it is closer than I have been in millennia. And for that, I am deeply grateful.”
“If you’re grateful, then stop this. Stop manipulating Reginald and Fury into killing each other for the Siren throne.” Layla gestured to the scene beyond the dome as Reginald’s family argued and roared, trying to decide what to do and not having any good options. Beyond the dome, Layla saw Leni had somehow gotten her void-detecting machine up to the hall and was running a scan with a tablet to hand. Glancing at the results, she shook her head.
And the argument began all over again.
“The process of ascension to Kingship is Siren law, Layla, I cannot stop it.” Hunter spoke as he watched also, though Layla heard something sad in his voice now, as if it grieved him that one of his sons had to die. “The future is speeding up now because your own maturing power makes it so. You are growing in your Bind – sharing power with all your men, teaching their magics how to Bind and use each other’s abilities. Which may soon be the least of what you are able to do.”
“So you know.” Layla’s lips fell open, as every advantage she’d thought they had over Hunter went flying away with his last sentence. Glancing over, he held her gaze with a quiet calm, though something in his eyes was still sad.
“Yes, I know of your power-sharing with your men, and among them also,” he spoke. “It is part of the Pattern; part of what a Golden Dragon Bind is supposed to be able to do. It is one of the confirmations I have that you are the individual my enemy’s god promised, Layla, while Dragons like King Falliro Arini were not. The Golden Dragon Bind was supposed to be able to teach others with strong aptitude how to do as she does; how to Bind. How to love deeply – and turn that love into power. It is the reason I pushed all your men, and you, when you were young. It is the reason I challenged your sanity over and over – all of you – to see how much I could get you all to develop in your magic before you began to come together. Though some were not destined to be the Golden Dragon Bind, they have the god’s bloodline and passed my tests, and these are now yours, Layla. Adrian, Dusk, Reginald, Rhennic, and Fury. Some had the god’s bloodline but failed my tests, and those had to die – Dragons you have never met. I did not pull every string and I could not control every outcome, but Patterns have a way of coming true despite twists and turns.”
“So you think you’re some kind of god?” Layla hissed, though she despaired inside. “Pushing and pulling the universe to your will?”
“I am no Ascendant,” Hunter eyed her shrewdly, “if that’s what you mean. But I have learned how to listen to the ether as they do – to feel the patterns of the future as gods can, yes. And move the elements of the present to bring a particular Pattern into being.”
“You’re mad.” Layla breathed, sickened even as she looked upon his beautiful body and felt her Dragon’s arousal.
“Madness, or the purity of focused intent?” Hunter returned calmly, though his dawn-bright eyes glimmered. “One can look much like the other.”
“Is your intent still the same?” Layla asked, suddenly frowning as a flash of insight hit her through her Bind-power. “Do you still want to see your dead third lover resurrected and your Bound trio reunited so you can lead the Binds in some world-dominating takeover?”
That stopped him. With a curious expression on his ever-shifting face, Hunter cocked his head. “I don’t know.” He spoke at last.
“You don’t know?” Layla frowned.
“I don’t know.” Hunter answered again, staring her down with a slight frown and the smallest smile upon his lips, blinking as if something was vastly curious now. “Until you asked me that question, I was certain in what I wanted. But now…”
“You don’t know.” Layla lifted her brows, feeling something new move between her and Hunter suddenly. Like a golden fire, her Bind-magic curled through her and Hunter, pulling him close. But as her power sighed out all around Layla, tasting Hunter and touching him, Layla felt something new rise inside of him. As if her golden power was answered, Layla felt a soft touch ease out from Hunter now – the power of his own Bind curling awake. As if something inside him had suddenly changed because of her question, because she was standing here and asking to know his deepest desires, Layla felt a new pattern to Hunter’s vast weave – a shifting of his deepest heart’s desire as that tentative Bind-energy curled out from him.
Seeking Layla like it had never done before.
Seeking something he actually wanted – rather than what he’d thought he wanted for tens of thousands of years.
Slowly, Layla pulled back, but the sensation of her Bind seeking Hunter’s heart and his seeking hers left her breathless as Hunter’s lips fell open also. His eyes shone brighter as his entire body paused.
And his face became still at last.
CHAPTER 28 – GIFT
Layla’s eyes went wide as she saw Hunter’s face settle to the call of their Binds. Achingly beautiful, Hunter’s true visage was every bit as striking as Reginald or Adrian, yet also strongly handsome like Rhennic or Dusk. With full lips and high cheekbones, a defined jaw and straight nose, he was Northern, he was Egyptian, he was Roman and Mongolian and every other nationality all at once as he stared at her. Layla’s lips fell open as her drakaina roared all through her. She was suddenly in Hunter’s arms as their Binds hauled them together with the strongest pull Layla had ever felt. Gazing up, Layla was breathless as she realized it wasn’t her who had gone to Hunter.
But Hunter who had come to her.
“Layla… what have you done?” Hunter breathed, staring down at her with his luminous eyes on fire now in his own face at last. Flecks of gold shone from their depths where none had been before, though Layla knew she hadn’t Bound him.
“I don’t know.” Layla spoke, reaching up and touching his face in awe. She half expected it to waver back to its flickering madness, but it didn’t. As she touched him, Layla felt a shudder pass through his body as he held her – a wave of burnished light making gold-edged black scales shimmer across his body, then recede.
Every color of the rainbow in them now.
Layla’s eyes widened; Hunter’s Dragon-scales hadn’t looked like that back in Manarola. She swallowed as fear knifed through her, though it only did so because she was uncannily aware how close she was to her enemy now – and that she was touching him of her own accord. Slowly, she drew back and he let her go. But his dawn-bright eyes never left hers as their Binds touched and caressed each other across the distance.
His face never wavering from its aching perfection.
“Who are you?” Layla breathed, watching him with terror and elation both.
“Once I knew,” he breathed back, riveted by her presence. “Then I lost it. But now…”
