“It is.” Layla breathed, terrified of him but standing her ground as she felt the Dragon-auras of her men crank up to the screaming point around her, ready to fight. “Nimir’s alive inside his sarcophagus, where I put him, safe. We could go there, Hunter. We could go and wake him… and see if he still loves you. If he does, if he can embrace you and forgive you for everything you’ve done and get Nadia to love you again… then I won’t Bind him against you, Hunter. I swear it.”
“Fool. You will tell me Nimir’s location now or I will wrench it from your ruined mind as I turn each of your men into ashes while you watch.” Rising from his ruby bench, Hunter was suddenly all menace as his face and body flickered through numerous personalities again. The effect was disorienting but Layla held her ground, her drakaina cranked high inside her veins as her body boiled with heat, ready to shift.
“Threaten me again and lose your chance at finding Nimir.” She spoke as calmly as she could. “But if you come with me… you might just have a chance at forgiveness. From all of us.”
Hunter snarled softly then, as a terrible smile curled his lips. “I don’t need any of you to forgive me. I need to wrench Nimir’s location from your shattered mind, Layla, and then unite him and Nadia back with me under my Bind. You have him, and you know he is precious to me, but I have something equally precious to you. I have Nadia – your ancestor. And soon I will have you too, Golden Dragon Bind. Dying in my clutches as your men fall all around you – begging to share Nimir’s location with me before I kill them all.”
As Hunter suddenly shifted up into his towering dawn-bright Dragon, devouring the night sky above, he snapped open tremendous seven-layer wings festooned with spears – searing bright starfire wings like an Ephilohim that he’d never had before. Though Layla and her drakes shifted up fast, they were no match for Hunter’s speed as he suddenly used those massive wings to cast up an enormous dome of every-magic power all around himself – shimmering through with tremendous etheric magic now just like an Archangel could create. As Layla watched, she saw that dome flicker, ready to take Hunter half-out of this realm and hide him in one of his nexus-spaces so he’d be invisible, to battle them from it as he liked. Desperation careened inside Layla as she saw that flicker; if Hunter disappeared from their senses, there was no telling how he would attack them.
And decimate Layla’s Bind – once and for all.
Layla screamed to her men just as Hunter flickered out behind his etheric dome. As she flooded a command into all of them to give this fight everything they had, Layla felt them understand. As Hunter disappeared, Layla’s mates threw their all at that etheric barrier.
And the battle to save their Bind began.
CHAPTER 24 – FIGHT
As Hunter disappeared beneath his etheric dome in the crystal forest of Vittria, Layla and her mates surged up fast into their Dragons to take that dome out. Though his massive dawn-bright Dragon had vanished to a nexus-realm so he could attack them and remain invisible, Nadia’s ornate diamond sarcophagus with him, it left an unmistakable barrenness in the valley; a blank space in the gemstone biers that Layla and her Bound mates could now strike. Joining their powers with a deeper intent than they’d ever had, Layla felt the Bind scream with a terrible unity.
As Rhennic’s massive storm-blue and red drake roared and snapped his wings wide – blitzing a command through all of them to attack.
Rhennic’s strikes were first – harnessing the entire energy of the Bind and pummeling Hunter’s now-invisible dome with wave after wave of insane plasma-lightning as he beat his wings and careened in towards that blank spot. Balls of plasma-lightning shed from the spear-tips on his wings as sheet-waves of it spewed from his maw; seething all over Hunter’s invisible dome and defining their target. As he heaved out his terrible power, Rhennic’s lightning shimmered with ether also, and Layla felt how he’d overcome his fear of using all their magics to fight their foe at last. As his torrential lightning devoured Hunter’s massive dome, Layla saw how it struck with white lances of ether deep into the dome itself, piercing holes in Hunter’s barrier. As it did, Layla saw the nexus-dome waver, unstable.
Before a heave from inside it blasted all of Rhennic’s lighting right back – inundating Layla and her Bind-mates.
As Rhennic was hit bodily with all that terrible lightning, Layla and the rest barely got a shield up in time. Layla roared as Rhennic was knocked out by that awful rebound of power, his scales blackened and smoking as he skidded across the valley floor, smashing sarcophagi as he went. Layla both felt and heard Dusk ring the entire valley like a gong as he used his tremendous magic to thrust up pillars of sapphire-diamond between their Bind and Hunter’s rebounding attack. As Dusk’s massive crystal spikes shot up, he slammed a thick crystal dome up around the fallen Rhennic also, to protect him from damage. Still, some of Rhennic’s rebounding lightning struck them, and Layla heard roars of pain from her drakes as she roared also, one foreleg lanced and ripping through with agony.
But even as Rhennic’s terrible attack was thrust back by Hunter’s realm-crossing barrier and deflected by Dusk, Layla saw how Hunter’s dome swirled through with an unsteady energy now like it had been damaged. It allowed them brief views of the mad dawn Dragon within and his prize of Nadia’s sarcophagus, and as Layla saw it, she felt the rest of her Bind-mates see it, too.
Fury was the one who took point next with the Bind’s power, as he suddenly washed his tremendous silver-black Siren-drake right up over Dusk’s spikes, crashing into Hunter’s barrier. Fury was a mad thing as he assaulted Hunter’s barrier physically now; using talons and fangs and huge, hammering strikes of his coils and silver-black fins to slam and rip that protective dome apart. Conjuring silver water-lances full of shimmering ether as he slammed and bit Hunter’s dome, Fury skewered the nexus-barrier with hundreds of watery strikes as his silver-black fangs and talons gripped into a visible weak spot. Roaring with insanity, Fury’s massive drake put everything he had into that fissure now, wrapping itself around the dome like a boa constrictor of power and violence. Crushing Hunter’s dome while also skewering it and ripping it apart, Layla saw huge shimmering cracks sunder all through the dome as Fury dug in. Whipping his long tail with its flowing filaments stiffened into spears, he cracked that dome like an Easter egg as he crushed and pulled it apart with his tremendous strength.
And Layla watched the dome come crashing down.
Hunter was exposed then in all his dawn-star madness, returned to the Vittrian realm as he roared a shockwave of pure etheric energy at Fury – hammering Layla’s Royal Silver Siren from the broken dome and launching him through the air to smash into the crystal pillars at the edge of the valley. Layla shrieked as she felt Fury fall unconscious now too, in addition to Rhennic. As Reginald roared, manifesting a huge barrier of gilded water and washing it over the unconscious Fury in a cocoon, protecting him, the rest of the Bind joined the fight. Because now they could locate Hunter, returned as his realm-crossing barrier came down. Roaring at them with insane star-bright power smelting inside his fanged maw, he whipped his seven-layer wings in a vicious attack.
Throwing his own magic directly at them now.
It was a terror of star-bright insanity as Hunter’s every-magic power blasted them from his roaring maw. Light consumed Layla’s vision, everything searing white like they were crossing realms as that universe-destroying power came at them with the fury of a thousand suns heaving their energy through the cosmos. But even as it came at them, Layla and her Bind were ready. As Dusk slammed up crystal pillars to deflect that gargantuan strike, Adrian manifested a tremendous rift through the ether, for Hunter’s starfire attack to blast off into who-knew-where. As it did, Layla felt the furious Reginald suddenly wrangle all their Bind’s might and take point in the melee.
Focusing all his terrible intent on the very blood inside Hunter’s body.
Layla had never felt anything like it, as every artery and vein inside her suddenly stiffened like it had coagulated; then rushed on again, her heart pumping in terror as Reginald used the deepest part of his magic to attack their enemy. Not roaring at all, Reginald’s massive opal-gold Siren-drake was utterly still as his long white and gold undersea filaments swirled in an ocean of power now, as Reginald stared their enemy down. Layla felt how he used his mind-magics, along with his Siren’s furious control over everything water-related, and the deep flow of the ether as he pinned Hunter with his gaze. Arresting every channel of blood deep inside Hunter’s massive body, Reginald’s own mind forced Hunter’s to silence.
Pushing and pulling the very blood inside Hunter’s flesh.
Layla felt Reginald flood Hunter’s blood deep into his heart then, from every artery and vein all throughout his body. Panic flashed through Hunter’s dawnfire eyes as Layla heard him keen through paralyzed jaws; the first worry she had seen in him this entire time as his eyes remained fixed upon Reginald. Reginald was a demon of the ages as he stared Hunter down; flooding all of Hunter’s blood back into his heart and trying to burst it. But Hunter was a master of dominance – even as Layla felt his heart struggle, over-filled and ready to explode from Reginald’s control, Layla felt Hunter master his own body, forcing his heart to give a single, tremendous beat.
And hammer all that mind-magic back at Reginald as Hunter resumed mastery.
But even as Reginald’s power was cast back at him tenfold, Dusk hammered up a huge dome of fire-bright diamonds, smelted with etheric power to stop Hunter from taking Reginald over. Though Reginald was knocked out by Hunter’s brutal rebound, Layla felt him spared from Hunter’s control by Dusk’s shield – mirrored on the inside with etheric magic to make Hunter’s mind-attack reflect back. As Hunter roared in rage to have lost Reginald, Layla and Adrian raised their twin fire-bright magics in a shield of smelted everything-power, protecting themselves and the fallen Reginald also. As Dusk’s mirror-barrier finally shattered out like a bomb from Hunter’s tremendous retaliation within, Layla and Adrian were ready.
And as he was freed, heaving out another awful strike which was pulled into Adrian’s still-open rift, Layla and her primary mates fought back.
Roaring twin flames of star-hot magic from their gullets, Layla and Adrian’s fire found their target. As Hunter roared in pain, that smelted white star-fire seethed over him, devouring his scales just like Layla’sfinal strikehad once devoured his human flesh at Deep Harbor. As their strike hit Hunter, Dusk sent a terrible tone through the crystal pillars all around, smashing them apart and hurling enormous spears of selenite-diamond from the ancients at Hunter. Skewered, burning, roaring, Hunter cracked his massive seven-layer wings open now – whirling in a circle and flooding all that fire and skewering crystal right back at them.
In a terrible volley of death.
But Adrian was suddenly everywhere, as he used the Bind’s energy to portal fast through the ether over and over, opening black rifts all around in a maelstrom and absorbing that volley as it consumed them. Like a dart of light through the darkness, Adrian burned hot as the stars, shining like a comet of white and red, gold and blue now as he sundered the entire valley with etheric fissures – sending Hunter’s terrible attack flooding away to somewhere unknown. But even as it did, Layla felt their enemy change tactics; whirling, Hunter used Layla’s own Bind now to search for Adrian’s essence and where he would emerge from his portals next. Adrian was bright like a star within Layla’s Bind; even as she screamed with her Dragon’s voice, Hunter thrust all his terrible power down through her Bind and out through Adrian’s.
