Smiting Adrian from the sky – and catapulting him through the ether to god-knew-where.
Layla’s heart seared as she roared in agony, and Dusk did also beside her. But Adrian’s rifts through the ether had flashed out now; Layla couldn’t even feel him anymore through their Bind as Hunter thundered in truth, heaving and cracking and roaring down Dusk’s protective barriers over and over with his terrible every-magic. As Layla tried desperately to scald Hunter with star-bright fire, she found she couldn’t, her heart screaming for Adrian as her head whirled. And as Hunter finally cracked through, swiping his terrible dawnfire talons in at Dusk and ripping through the sapphire-diamond plating on Dusk’s neck and shoulder, spewing Dusk’s midnight-diamond blood over their battleground, Layla felt despair take her at last.
With a crashing cacophony like bells shattering, Dusk fell, unconscious and bleeding out among the smashed sarcophagi. As he did, his protective domes over the others shattered; with mad triumph, Hunter turned in a mighty circle now, roaring out pure etheric power as he turned to all of Layla’s unconscious drakes – roaring a blast into them that tortured their hearts.
Layla felt her drakes shock out of unconsciousness as their hearts gripped from Hunter’s etheric maelstrom; as their bodies spasmed in a terrible rictus now, their hearts seized like they were having heart attacks. But they were aware enough as they spasmed to funnel all their magics into Layla through the Bind. Knowing they were dying, Layla had no choice but to save her mates as Hunter continued to roar his heart-stopping power at them. Using every last bit of her Bound mates’ energy and her own, Layla roared an immense, devastatingfinal strikeat Hunter from the very depths of her soul and out through her fire-bright maw.
Bright like the entire cosmos – and just as terrible in its finality.
But Adrian wasn’t with them; his power wasn’t in the Bind as Layla’sfinal strikefound Hunter. And with an ether-shattering roar, Hunter merely whipped his dawn-shimmering wings – deflecting herfinal strikeand scattering it into the selenite-diamond columns all around. Layla didn’t even have time to shriek as her strike came back at her from everywhere; exploding the crystal pillars as it rebounded. She barely had time to heave up an every-power shield – but even as she did, that shield got blasted apart.
And there was no power left in it to save her men.
As crystal shards and razor-sharp dust settled all around with a terrible glitter, Layla saw her Bound Royal Dragons lying motionless in the blasted-out valley, skewered with hundreds of crystal shards in addition to how Hunter had tortured their hearts. Not only had they given their all as they succumbed to Hunter’s heart-stopping power, to throw one lastfinal strikeat him, Layla understood now that she and her Bind had done so in wrath. And as she saw them now, skewered through by their very ownfinal strikeand hers, Layla understood how hatred for Hunter had poisoned her heart in that final moment.
And ruined their luck against him at last.
Standing strong before her, Hunter was triumphant as Layla screamed. It wasn’t a roar that came from her Dragon’s mouth as she side-wound fast to her skewered and bleeding drakes in all that ruination, heaving them up on a wave of winds and swirling their bodies into a tight nest with her; it was a scream of utter agony as she felt them shudder in death throes – losing life as their hearts ceased to beat from Hunter’s might and Layla’s own awful strike.
Coiling around them, trying to protect them as her beast’s instinct rose and all human thought fled, Layla screamed again as a horrible pain came of her Binds beginning to rip away from her men’s dying flesh – and she couldn’t stop it, didn’t know how to flood energy into them from the ether fast enough to reverse it. It was an Archangelic talent she needed now, to stop her Bound drakes from dying; and Layla didn’t have it, the knowledge of thousands of years of using etheric magic to know how it was done. As she screamed a third time, an enormous pulse hammered out from her heart; a terrible wave of agony and wish, woe and love, for her men to live. Smashing into Nadia’s ornate diamond bier still in the center of the valley’s ruination, that wave of golden power from Layla blasted Nadia’s coffin apart.
And then Nadia was waking – rushing up fast into her enormous black and gold drakaina.
Nearly the same size as Hunter but sleek as her oilslick-gold serpent, Nadia was a beast of the ages as she roared a terrible shockwave through the ether directly at her old beloved. Startling back, Hunter’s dawn-mad eyes were enormous as he raised a protective cocoon all around himself from her fury. Coiling quickly around Layla and her dying mates, roaring at Hunter in warning now with a furious snarl and baring fangs longer than a car, Nadia suddenly flushed a wave of etheric energy so hard through Layla’s dying men that she felt them all spark back to life. It was what Layla had wished for; the heart-desired miracle she’d needed as Nadia poured power directly into Layla’s mates from the stars, their bodies still struggling but their hearts beating once more. Deep inside, Layla felt her Binds flash back, even though she still couldn’t feel Adrian’s.
And then Nadia smashed into her mind.
Go, Layla! Make Orrin follow you. I will take your mates to where you hid Nimir and heal them. Join us and we will battle Orrin where you planned – where real Dragon miracles happen. But give me a little time first. Go!
Layla needed no second urging. Flooding open her Bind to Hunter as wide as it could go, Layla roared at him as she heaved up from within Nadia’s coils upon a powerful wave of wind and etheric magic.Hunter! You want to see Nimir? You want to see if he’s the last person in this entire universe who can possibly love the beast you are and pardon you for your crimes? Then I will take you to him! If you’re strong enough to keep up.
Bitch!Hunter snarled with a deafening concussion inside her mind as he roared through the crystal valley, ringing broken columns all around and shattering further the ones already wrecked.
But Layla didn’t care how many names he called her now, her heart bolstered once more as Nadia flashed away through a tear in the ether with all of Layla’s drakes. Suddenly, it was just Layla and Hunter facing off in the valley of tombs, as he flared his enormous dawnfire seven-layer wings and arched his neck, roaring her down like a wrathful god. Roaring back up at him, Layla raised a mantle of gold-white spikes off her skull with a furious shake, her entire body vibrating now like a live wire as she clattered those spines together like a rattlesnake. She’d not even known she could make such a violent, scary sound as Hunter roared back at her, enormous and male and utterly furious now.
And then Layla flashed like a gold-white dart into the ether.
As Hunter flashed through a portal after her – chasing her down.
CHAPTER 25 – LOVE
As Hunter chased Layla through the ether, she couldn’t keep track of how many realms they flashed through. Each one was as strange as the last, as they blitzed through yet another tear in space, flying high above a white city with gossamer filaments floating upon the breeze, to a place where the sky was violet and the mountains glowed blood-red, sprouting with electric blue mushrooms. Surging through skyscrapers in downtown L.A., they dove into a vast sea and darted past a pod of blue whales with shark-fins down their backs. As Hunter chased Layla, right on her tail and roaring deafening concussions through time and space, it was all she could do to keep ahead of him. Through sea and sky, over lush forests and barren ice.
Until Layla had no more power to flee – crash-landing in the place she had hidden Nimir.
Breathing hard, Layla was stunned as Hunter crash-landed beside her within the desert canyon’s vast ring. Just like when she had been here last, the first glimmer of dawn lightened the blue sky as night mist began to clear from the sigil-encrusted canyon walls. All through the canyon’s ring, the resonance of ancient Dragon-magics hummed; millions of bones entombed in this place to work miracles for those who came after. Shuddering from exhaustion as her body shifted back down to heal her swamping fatigue, Layla vaguely noted Hunter had done the same beside her. But with a terrible cry, he was suddenly up; striding to something atop the sigil at the center of the Dragon bone-yard where Layla had once had her encounter with the Ascendant.
Nimir’s sarcophagus – still containing the sleeping man within.
“Nimir!” Hunter cried in agony and ecstasy as he heaved himself to the sapphire-diamond bier, nearly as tired as Layla from their endless chase though weathering it better. She still couldn’t push up from the ground as she lay in the dirt, heaving hard breaths and blinking to keep the sky from spinning. Swallowing hard, she fought her stomach dry-heaving as she felt down through her Binds now – sensing all her drakes alive somewhere nearby like Nadia had promised, except for Adrian, whom she still couldn’t feel.
As relief filled every part of her, Layla told herself she couldn’t feel Adrian merely because he’d been banished somewhere far away by Hunter’s strike. Her heart bolstered even though she was still spent, Layla rolled her head on the hard-packed ground to keep an eye on her foe. But he was absorbed in Nimir now, running his hands over the smooth surface of Nimir’s sapphire-diamond sarcophagus as he gave a strangled laugh.
Obsessed with the man inside.
“He’s alive, Hunter.” Layla croaked as she tried to catch her breath and calm her pounding heart, wondering how long it would take Nadia to help her drakes. “I didn’t lie to you about that. I haven’t lied to you about anything; not like you lie to yourself.”
“You resurrected him!” Looking at her now with astonishment though he remained by the sarcophagus, Hunter gazed at her with wide – and entirely human – eyes. “You did it, just like I thought you would! You resurrected my Nimir, Golden Dragon Bind!”
