Chapter 2 – Regina
Chapter
Two
REGINA
Magic tears through my fingertips as I throw another blast at the coven members closing in.
Three of them.
Four.
I’ve lost count. Everything is chaos, growls and screams and the crackling discharge of spells going wrong.
Destruction magic isn’t my forte, and it’s not like I had the opportunity to prepare, but the pack is holding its ground despite the coven outnumbering us three to one.
Then there’s the fucking werewolf.
All I can think about is the fact that Killian led that thing off into the woods to protect me, and he’s fighting it alone, but right now, there’s no way to escape the coven.
Or the son of a bitch who’s presently trying to wrap a containment hex around me.
I feel it pushing at the edges of my bond where the wolves’ claim shields me, refusing to let him get purchase.
Ryan Fairchild, Kyle’s golden-haired lieutenant, circles to my left. His smile hasn’t changed since the day I met him. Same charming curve, same cold eyes beneath. He always looked at me like I was furniture Kyle hadn’t finished polishing yet.
“Come on, Regina.” His voice is condescension in the form of audio waves. “This doesn’t have to be messy. Just come home.”
“I am home.”
I pull harder on the bond, drawing energy from Micah and Rowan as easily as breathing. The power responds instantly, eager to assist and nothing like the thin trickle Kyle used to ration out. Green light gathers between my fingers, bright enough to make Ryan squint.
“You’re going to hurt yourself,” he says, still advancing. “Siphons aren’t meant for combat magic. You know that.”
“Guess we’ll find out.”
He raises his hand to cast, and I don’t think, I just react.
The spell that leaves my fingers isn’t the same force wave I’ve been throwing up until this point. It’s darker magic, the kind I’m usually too responsible to play with, but desperate times…
It hits Ryan square in the chest.
For a second, nothing happens. He just stands there, looking confused, like I’ve told a joke he doesn’t understand. Then his eyes go wide. His mouth opens, but no sound comes out.
The light leaves his face and blood trickles from his eyeballs.
He drops.
I stare at his body. At my hands. At the faint green residue still clinging to my fingers.
I just—
I killed him.
I killed someone. With magic.
My stomach lurches, but there’s no time to process because another coven member is already screaming an incantation and Rowan is there, silver fur streaked with blood, tearing through shields like paper. Micah flanks him, the two of them working in perfect sync as they take down witch after witch.
The coven is falling apart. Now that their numbers have dwindled, Kyle is staying off to the sidelines, focused on avoiding hits rather than throwing them.
And he knows my alphas are targeting him.
Without his guidance, the coven members are just individuals.
And individuals don’t stand a chance against a pack.
Most of them are down now. Dead or dying or fled. I see bodies in dark robes scattered across the meadow, Rowan standing over someone who’s stopped moving, Micah circling back toward Sean, who’s—
Sean.
I feel his pain like it’s my own.
So much pain, and beneath it a stubbornness that refuses to quit. He’s still fighting, trying to drag himself toward the battle even with blood pouring down the side of his face.
Oh, gods, his eye. I can’t tell if it’s gone or just swollen shut and there’s too much blood to be sure.
I have to get to him, but I feel the bond pulling me toward Killian, too. Stretching desperately in four different directions.
Killian is injured, but I can’t feel pain from him, just exhaustion and a resignation that scares the hell out of me. Like he’s already decided how this ends.
No.
Kyle is retreating. I see him backing toward where Rebecca and Kara stand, the silver-haired healer’s hands glowing with that sickly light that can kill as easily as cure.
Three other men flank them. Taylor, Jason, and a newcomer Kyle must have swapped Paul out for.
The one guy who occasionally dared to question him.
That checks out.
“Call it off,” I demand, stalking toward them. My hands are still glowing. Ryan’s body is behind me, and I don’t look at it. “Call off the werewolf.”
Kyle laughs. “Why would I do that? Your alpha is keeping it occupied. By the time it’s done with him, we’ll be long gone.”
“You turned that thing loose on a campus full of innocent people, and you don’t think the Council will come for you?” I seethe.
“Me?” He arches an eyebrow. “You’re the one who let it loose the first time.
And those are your sigils on its collar.
” He must see the shock on my face that I can’t quite manage to mask, because his lips stretch into a wicked grin.
“You left pieces of yourself behind when you ran in the middle of the night, Regina. You should know better than that.”
“They won’t believe you,” I grit out, even though I’m not sure.
I’m a rogue siphon who bonded with the most troublesome wolf pack in the tristate area.
Killian’s family may be rich and powerful, but that doesn’t mean they’re well liked.
Only that the other supernaturals have no choice but to tolerate them.
“I think they will,” Kyle sneers. “Especially when they see the casualties here, from us trying so diligently to stop you.” His voice drips with false sincerity as he stretches out his hands toward his dead followers strewn across the grass.
“Stormvale can deal with the consequences of preventing me from taking what’s mine. ”
The portal opens behind him and he steps through without a backward glance.
The remaining coven members stare after him, their faces cycling through shock and betrayal. Taylor actually takes a step toward the closing portal, like he’s thinking about following until it closes in his face.
Rowan, who lunged the second Kyle tried to go through, lands a few feet away with an indignant snarl.
Rebecca turns to me, fury replacing her surprise. “This is your fault. Everything was fine until you—”
“Don’t tell me you’re surprised,” I interrupt. “He was always going to abandon you the second things got hard. That’s what Kyle does.”
I guess she’s finally realizing her prince charming isn’t the prize, after all.
Her face twists. She raises her hands, magic gathering between her palms. Sean and Micah put themselves between me and Rebecca, while Rowan tries to close the distance between them since he’s closest, clearly ready to tear out her throat. I call my own magic to the surface and brace for impact—
Green fire erupts from the ground.
Not my fire or my magic.
It’s the same impossible emerald light I saw during the bonding ritual. The flames form a wall between me and the remaining coven members, and through it, I hear screaming. And Rowan’s snarls.
Thank the gods he’s okay, but…
What the fuck is that?
Sean’s voice, weak and pained, echoing through the bond. I feel the others’ confusion, too.
A shadow passes overhead.
Massive.
And the ground is shaking beneath my feet as something lets out an otherworldly shriek.
I don’t stop to look.
I run. Not away from whatever it is that’s distracting the remnants of the coven, but toward Killian, who’s somehow managed to hold off a werewolf on his own for all this time.
I feel him in my chest, even now, but the bond is strained. I don’t know if it’s because he’s injured, or something even worse.
A strange warmth surges against my chest and I look down, realizing the pendant Micah gave me is glowing again. It levitates off my collarbone and the needle spins before pointing due east.
Toward Killian.
It has to be.
Guess this thing wasn’t just a romantic gimmick after all.
My legs burn as I sprint across the meadow, dodging bodies and blast marks and the scorched circles of earth. The bond pulls me forward like a compass needle, guiding me toward Killian, toward the terrible sounds of combat that haven’t stopped.
The others are coming behind me. Sean and Micah. Rowan is still trapped on the other side of that fire wall, fighting like hell. I feel his elation as his fangs sink into a witch’s throat through the bond and a shiver runs down my spine.
Whatever that creature is, for some reason, it’s not targeting him.
I crest a small rise and see them.
Wolf and werewolf, locked together in a tangle of fur and teeth and blood. They’re both wounded, both slowing and running on fumes. Killian’s black fur is matted with red. The werewolf’s neck hangs at a wrong angle like a broken toy, but it keeps fighting, keeps trying to tear my mate apart.
They lunge at each other one final time.
I see Killian’s jaws close around the werewolf’s throat.
I see the werewolf’s claws sink into Killian’s shoulder.
They both go down hard.
“NO!”
The scream tears out of me and I’m running again, faster than I knew I could move, sliding to my knees in the blood-soaked grass beside Killian’s massive form.
His fur is soaking wet. There’s so much blood. His eyes are closed, his breathing shallow and wrong.
“No, no, no…” I press my hands against the wound in his side, trying to stop the bleeding, to remember every healing spell I’ve ever learned. Green light flickers between my fingers. “Stay with me. Killian, stay with me.”
His eyes briefly flicker open, but he doesn’t respond. I feel him fading. Not gone, not yet, but slipping away like water through my fingers.
I don’t think about the werewolf lying nearby, presumably dead.
Don’t even think about how it scarred me, or how the sight of it has haunted my nightmares for three years.
I just stroke Killian’s fur with one hand while the other presses against his wound, pouring every scrap of magic I have into keeping him alive.
“You don’t get to die,” I tell him, my voice cracking. “You hear me? You don’t get to show me what love can be and then leave me.”
The others run up. Rowan first, still in wolf form, pressing his muzzle against Killian’s neck. Micah close behind, human now as he staggers toward us. And Sean, limping badly. Half his face is covered in blood and his eye is completely swollen shut, but he’s still standing.
“How bad?” Micah’s voice is rough.
“Bad.” I don’t look up. “I need… I need more power, but… What about that thing?”
A look passes across Rowan’s lupine face, like he doesn’t quite know how to answer. I don’t know. I didn’t even get a good look through the trees. It just obliterated the rest of the coven, and then it—
A sound cuts me off. Low and wrong.
We all turn.
The werewolf is moving.
Its neck is clearly broken, lolling at an angle that should mean instant death for any living thing.
But it’s pulling itself upright anyway, those yellow eyes fixed on us with that mindless hunger that makes my stomach churn.
The silver collar around its throat is glowing, pulsing with the same sickly magic Kara was using through my fucking sigils.
Which means if Killian dies, my magic is what…
No.
No, I can’t even let myself think it.
Kyle is still controlling it somehow, even from wherever he fled to like a godsdamned coward.
Get behind us. Rowan’s voice echoes in my head as he places himself between me and the approaching nightmare. Micah joins him, and even Sean staggers forward, refusing to stay down.
My wolves. Ready to die for me.
The werewolf takes another step. Its movements are jerky, puppet-like, driven by magic rather than muscle. It shouldn’t be able to stand, let alone fight. But Kyle’s collar keeps it moving, and I know with the kind of certainty I’ve only ever felt a few times in my life, we can’t win this.
Not like this. Not with Killian down and Sean barely standing and all of us exhausted. But they’re going to fight anyway, until their last breath.
So am I.
Then the shadow returns.
It blocks out the sun, vast and dark, and I hear the sound of its massive wings beating the air into submission. The ground trembles. Trees at the edge of the meadow bend like they’re bowing.
I look up.
Green eyes. Impossibly green, burning with ancient fire. Scales that shimmer between black and emerald. A head the size of a car, and huge wings that seem to stretch out endlessly, tipped in ivory points that could pierce clean through a human’s chest. Or a wolf’s.
A dragon.
A fucking dragon.
Its jaws spread wide, burning smoke gathering in its throat. Crackling emerald flames lick through rows of daggerlike teeth.
It roars.
The sound shakes my bones, rattles my teeth, makes every instinct I have scream to run. But I don’t. Killian is beneath my hands, still bleeding, still dying, and I won’t leave him.
Even the werewolf freezes, as if whatever is left of its survival instincts from the time when it was human are activated by that terrifying, ancient sound.
The dragon’s roar builds, and green flames pour from its mouth.
The same green light I saw during the ritual.