And then Layla felt something she’d never thought would happen, as Hunter flooded his memories into Nimir across the space between them. With a gasp, Nimir’s brown eyes widened in a terrible shock as he received Hunter’s horrible lifetime. Through their Bind, Layla could feel Hunter pouring his memories of all the battles he had wrought, and all the manipulations he had done, and all the Dragons he had murdered into Nimir upon that vast wave. With an awful cry, Nimir stumbled behind Nadia to break the flow of those terrible memories, as Hunter ceased with agony in his dawn-bright eyes. Retching as he collapsed to his hands and knees upon the canyon’s stone and bones, Nimir shuddered to the foundations of his being.
And did not look at Hunter again.
“Nimir?” Hunter gasped as he took a step towards his lover.
“Stay away from me!” Nimir roared now as he held an arm around his stomach, still on his hands and knees, dry-retching into the dust. As he glanced back to Hunter, his chocolate-brown eyes were Dragon-bright. “How could you have done all those things to those people?!How could you have slain them like that, with no mercy?! That was not our plan to make our world a better place, Orrin! Not like that…!”
“Nimir, please!” Hunter begged now as he stumbled forward again towards his lover.
But Nimir scuttled quickly back, pushing up fast to his feet now as a wave of formidable Royal Dragon Bind power flowed all through him, raising a fiery red nimbus in the air. “No! You are ademon, Orrin! You are a demon of the Descended Realms, to have done as you did all these years!! How could you?! How could you do this to the world, and to Nadia, and to my memory? And to all these innocents – whose lives have been ruined by your insanity?!” This last was said with a gesture to Layla and her men, her drakes still coiled tightly around her in protection as they stood away from the action.
But at Nimir’s terrible chastisement, Hunter suddenly reverted back to his old self. Like a bomb, Layla saw it possess his eyes as his face and body suddenly flickered through numerous personalities at once. Just like he’d done when Layla had denied him in his fortress-realm and turned away from his need, Hunter’s true personality came thundering back the moment Nimir denied him. Wrath flooded through Layla’s Bind as Hunter strode forward – seizing Nimir’s long, sleek dreadlocks in his fist and shaking the man by his hair as he roared into Nimir’s face.
“I did this for you, wretch! I did this for all of you, to create a better world where we could live in peace! I did this to prevent the kind of agony that my master inflicted upon me, so that no one would ever have to endure such treatment again!”
“And found only darkness.” Nimir spat as he snarled right back into Hunter’s face, setting his strong hands to Hunter’s chest and shoving him backwards with a shockwave of energy like a Crystal Dragon’s blast. “You didn’t do this for us, Orrin! You didn’t do this for peace. You did this to subjugate others because of your own misery – to dominate them all so you’d never be dominated again. I curse your name, Orrin Alumedi. I curse your name… and let you be damned to the never-ending wilds of the universe.”
Layla saw it, as Hunter’s face stilled into the impeccable madness of his Dragon.
And then he thrust a hand right to Nimir’s heart – flooding Nimir with his Bind.
It was the worst thing Layla had ever felt, as Nimir screamed from Hunter’s Bind forcibly re-taking him. It was worse than rape, worse than murder as Hunter forced his terrible dominance upon someone he had once loved so deeply – but was now consumed by madness to have their submission. Layla watched as Nimir collapsed to his knees, still screaming as Hunter followed him down – still pouring that terrible power all through Nimir. As Nadia rushed in, roaring and trying to pull Hunter bodily off Nimir, Hunter thrust a hand to her heart, too.
Blasting back open his Bind to her as well.
Insanity rang all through Layla’s mind as Hunter’s Bind-power blossomed hard inside her, fully Bound to Nadia and Nimir once more. They were his again, even though Nadia had blocked his Bind for so long and Nimir’s had been severed in death – and they were slaves to his power now, rather than equals. Hunter’s magic was tremendous now as it flooded Layla, her Bind with him still wide-open from her search for him earlier. As she clutched her heart and screamed from the enormity of his might rushing through her, she felt Hunter direct its flow inside her, thrusting his dominance out to all her Bound men via their connection.
Taking Layla’s Royal Dragons for his own – and turning them upon her at last.
There was no escape from her drakes’ coils as Hunter made them turn to her with a snarling unity, roaring their combined powers through the air and flexing their talons as they bared fangs. There was no stopping it as Layla felt Hunter rip all their Binds from her via his ownnullaxnow; taking her mates away as she screamed in pain and collapsed inside their ring. Menaced not only by her own Royal Dragon lovers, but Nadia and Nimir also, rushed up into their mighty Dragon-forms, there was no escape for Layla, and no shifting in her bone-crushing exhaustion. There was no stopping it as Hunter flared up into his own enormous dawnfire drake, suddenly inhaling all the power of the Dragon ancestors all around them in the canyon.
And Binding their unwilling souls into his union also.
Layla felt it, as all of those hundreds of thousands of Old Dragons were suddenly Hunter’s to command inside his Bind. Blazing with vast darkness and infinite light as that power came to completion inside him, Hunter was a beast of the cosmos as he roared in triumph, sundering the glittering barrier above the canyon now as he sent a shockwave of pure dominance out through the entire universe. As he transformed, so massive he filled the canyon now with seething darkness and star-bright power, Layla knew he had become what he’d sought. Like the ancient Dragons of Vittria, he had become a creature of the ages like whatever had stopped the Vittrian’s battle upon their ancient plain.
And with that power, he sent out afinal strikeof pure wrath and utter dominance now – right to Layla’s heart.
She knew it was death, as Hunter’s strike was cast. She knew she would not survive it as all that infinite darkness and light came screaming at her from Hunter’s roaring starfire maw. All the same, Layla’s left hand flashed up on instinct – palm-out over her heart as she flooded one last wish of love through the entire universe for her lost Bound mates. In her mind, she saw the brightness of Dusk as his sapphire eyes smiled at her and the beautiful haughtiness of Reginald as he laughed with delight. She felt the endless joy of Rhennic and unstoppable passion of Fury, united in his human side and his drake. But mostly, she saw the incredible truth of Adrian, as she witnessed his Mediterranean-blue eyes flash with every color in the last of the sun’s rays finally cresting over the canyon.
And she felt Adrian’s love – as he and all the rest of her Bound mates breathed love into her back.
Hunter’sfinal strikesmote Layla like a star going supernova; but even as it did, it funneled suddenly into her palm from her spontaneous hamsa-ward at her heart. As that strike flooded into her, her hand curled quickly in to her chest; pressing Hunter’s terror, Nimir and Nadia’s anguish, the Old Dragon’s infinity, and her Bind-mates love deep into her heart all at once. For a moment, there was chaos inside Layla as she absorbed Hunter’s strike, and all the darkness and light it contained.
And then she was flooding open with the radiance of the Star Bind – claiming all those Bound souls of Hunter’s with her own Bind-power.
And flooding it wide in the rising dawn.
As Layla blasted that combined love through the entire universe now with the Star Bind, she created not a pinnacle in herself via the Bind, but a beautiful hub where all could join and revel. As one, Layla felt every soul now Bound to her suddenly understand how to use the Star Bind and what it meant – and blast that same love through the universe with all their might.
In a vast wave, all that power was suddenly hurtling back at Hunter, not in afinal strikenow but in a surge of true love through the ether with Layla’s heart and Nadia’s original wish behind it – that Orrin might find peace at the end of his days. Surging all through Hunter, Layla felt that vast wave of magic explode through the ether as she saw it race through the world, brightening hearts in love all over the planet as it cascaded through space. As it surged through other realms also, even the fractured realm of Vittria, Layla’s human body flooded entirely gold; a wealth of beautiful all-gold Dragon-scales cascading over her skin as magnificent corkscrewing horns seared up through her hair and her limbs lengthened into a stately grace, her hands festooned with shimmering gold talons.
Layla was the light of worlds as she pushed up from the ground as a Dragon-woman now, walking on a wind of pure ether as she approached Hunter’s fallen form. As Adrian and her Bound mates, Nadia, and Nimir swirled back down now, the light of gold was in all of them as they beamed with universal radiance. Each and every one of them was a Dragon-human as they approached to surround Hunter in a ring. Kneeling beside Hunter’s collapsed form, returned to human also from the power of the Star Bind, Layla extended a Dragon-hand, holding it gently to his heart. Gazing up at her from where he had fallen, overwhelmed by the Bind’s love, tears fell liberally down Hunter’s cheeks.
As his dawn-bright eyes stared up at her, undone.
“What is this feeling you give me?” He gasped as his heart beat hard beneath her hand.
“Love, Orrin.” Layla growled softly with a blend of her human and Dragon’s voice now as she knelt beside him, still holding her taloned hand to his bare chest. “This is true love.”
