Chapter 3 – Regina #2
The vial is cool against my palm, filled with liquid that seems to glow faintly from within.
I bring it to Villeneuve, who takes it without looking away from the poultice he’s preparing.
Considering he can clearly command anything in this room without lifting a finger, I’m pretty sure he just wants to distract me rather than actually needing help, but I appreciate the gesture.
“Hold his head steady,” he instructs. “The incantation will require him to remain still.”
I position myself at Killian’s head, my hands sinking into the fur of his neck. He’s so still. Too still. I can barely feel his heartbeat through the bond anymore.
Villeneuve applies the poultice to the deepest wound on Killian’s side and begins to chant.
The words aren’t in any language I recognize. They’re old. Older than Latin, older than any human tongue. They make the air vibrate, make the flames in the fireplace flare green. Something deep in my bones resonates in response.
Alchemy.
If he’s an alchemist, that explains how he can use magic despite being a shifter. Dragons must have a natural affinity for energy manipulation that other shifters lack.
The education I’ve received is in witchcraft, but I’ve always had a casual interest in alchemy. Never enough to study seriously, but enough to recognize the principles at work here.
Transformation. Neither creation nor destruction, but the fundamental changing of one thing into another.
As I watch him work, it becomes apparent this alchemy is his native tongue. Not witchcraft. And yet, he’s learned to approximate it so closely even an expert wouldn’t know the difference.
Not unless they had reason to suspect.
Under Villeneuve’s hands, Killian’s wounds begin to close.
The deep gash across his ribs knits together, new tissue forming where there was only torn flesh moments ago. The punctures from the werewolf’s claws seal over. Even the smaller cuts and scrapes start to fade, fur growing back over fresh pink skin.
But the bite on his shoulder stays the same.
“The other wounds are healing,” Sean says, his voice rough. I look at him properly for the first time since we arrived, and my stomach drops.
His eye is worse in human form. So much worse. It’s not just swollen shut, the whole left side of his face is a ruin of torn flesh and dried blood. I can’t even see the eye itself beneath the damage.
He’s going to lose it. I know that with sudden, horrible certainty. That eye is gone. It’s worse than what happened to mine, even if the rest of the damage isn’t nearly as extensive.
But Sean doesn’t seem to care or even notice. He’s watching Killian with single-minded intensity, like if he just stares hard enough, he can will the other alpha to survive.
“Even alchemy has its limits,” Villeneuve says without pausing his work. “This werewolf was not like the others. It was reanimated with dark magic. That makes its bite… unique.”
“Reanimated?” Rowan echoes. “You mean like—”
“Necromancy,” I whisper.
The forbidden art. The magic that was outlawed centuries ago because of what it did to the practitioners, to the reanimated, to the very fabric of reality.
“Kyle doesn’t have that kind of power,” I say. “He’s strong, but he’s not…”
“Which confirms my suspicion that someone powerful is assisting the coven,” Villeneuve agrees. “But that mystery will have to wait for another day.”
His hands move over Killian’s body, the chanting continuing in a low, steady rhythm. The wounds keep closing, but that bite mark stays stubbornly unchanged.
“Can you cure it?” I ask, even though I already know the answer. “The bite?”
Villeneuve’s eyes meet mine, the green bleeding out of them gradually as they return to their normally dark shade. “No. But I can slow its progress. Help him fight it off.” His lips curve into an almost-smile. “He has a strong will. That should help.”
I stroke Killian’s fur, willing him to hear me, to hold on. My fingers trace the line of his skull, the point of his ear, trying to memorize this form I know so little and searching for the similarities to the one I know so well.
“I need to make use of your power,” Villeneuve says quietly.
I nod before I can think about it, and then he’s reaching through our bond—
Wait.
Our bond?
The realization hits me like a bucket of ice water. He shouldn’t be able to do that. The only way to channel energy through a bond is if there is a bond, and the only bonds I have are with the pack—
The presence during the ritual.
Those green eyes.
That sense of something ancient and familiar latching onto the connection we were forming.
It was Villeneuve.
He was there. He felt it. He’s been connected to us—to me—this whole time.
He didn’t just oversee the bond, he fucking wove himself into it.
My eyes snap to his face, and I find him already watching me. A warning shadows his gaze, but there’s a promise, too.
Later, that look says. I can explain later.
I fucking doubt it. But for his sake, he’d damn well better.
Right now, though, if I let on about what happened, the pack is going to lose their shit. Rightfully, but Killian is dying, and right now, Villeneuve is the only one who can save him. Can’t do that if he’s dragon confetti.
I open myself to the connection and let him pull.
The sensation is strange. Different from how it feels when I draw from the wolves, but also different from when the coven drew from me. Villeneuve’s pull is precise. He takes exactly what he needs and no more, channeling it through his own magic into the healing work.
Under his hands, the red inflammation around the bite mark begins to fade, but it doesn’t disappear entirely. The angry color just softens to something less immediately threatening.
Finally, Villeneuve sits back. He looks tired in the same way he looked that day after class, when I caught him drinking something from a vial.
“Now we wait,” he says.
He’s placed Killian in stasis. I feel it through our bond, the way time seems to have slowed around him, his heartbeat steady but distant, his consciousness wrapped in a protective cocoon.
Giving him time to heal.
Time to fight.
“The first aid,” Villeneuve says, rising to his feet.
His first step falters slightly, so subtle I almost miss it.
He’s definitely weaker than before, even using my siphon ability to direct the pack’s energy.
“Do you think you can manage the rest of it? You have access to whatever you need from my laboratory.”
I look around the laboratory, at the shelves full of supplies, the tools and ingredients of a craft I barely understand.
But basic healing I can do.
Basic wound care doesn’t require dragon magic.
“Of course,” I say.
He nods and leaves the room, and I feel my mates let out a collective exhale. Villeneuve saved our asses back there, but he did so by incinerating a fucking werewolf in a single breath.
And they still don’t know the half of it.
Sean is the worst off after Killian. I cross to him, taking in the damage up close for the first time. The left side of his face is so bloody I can’t even tell where the injuries are.
Proof of just what damage a werewolf’s claws can do.
“I’m fine,” he says immediately.
“Sit.”
“Storm—”
“Sit. Down.”
He does, though not without grumbling. “You’re hot when you’re bossy.”
But I can hear the fear underneath the joke. Feel it through our bond. He knows this isn’t good for Killian. He has to know.
I find a clean cloth and a vial of antiseptic solution. At least, I think that’s what it is. The symbols on the label are alchemical, not witchcraft, but the smell is familiar. I pour it onto the cloth.
“That’s not gonna turn me into a newt, is it?” Sean eyes the liquid warily.
“Only if you don’t hold still.”
I bring the cloth to his face, and he flinches like he’s bracing himself for what I’m about to discover.
It’s worse than I thought.
His eye is completely gone. The werewolf’s claws carved a path directly through it, and there’s nothing left to save. The socket is a mess of torn tissue and dried blood, and even with an alpha wolf’s healing factor and magic, there’s no way to regenerate what’s been so thoroughly destroyed.
I clean the wound as gently as I can, pouring magic into the tissue to prevent infection, to encourage healing.
But I can’t bring back what’s lost.
“Probably gonna need a sexy eyepatch, huh?” he asks, his lips curving into a thin smile. “Think I could rock the pirate look?”
“You need to go to the hospital,” I tell him, keeping my voice steady through sheer force of will. “The one off campus.”
“Fuck that.” Sean’s good eye meets mine, fierce and stubborn. “I’m not leaving you and Killian unprotected in this creepy Dracula lair.”
“More like dragon lair,” Micah mutters from across the room.
Sean’s good eye lights up. “Okay, are we gonna talk about the fact that Villeneuve is a fucking—”
“Right now, we’re not talking about anything,” I cut him off. My hands are still on his face, still working. “Hospital. Now. You need real medical care. I can do basic first aid, but this is beyond what I can fix.”
“I don’t give a shit about my eye, Regina.” His voice is raw. “Killian—”
“Will still be here when you get back. I’ll be here with him.” I pull back, meeting his gaze. “Rowan goes with you. Micah stays. We’ll figure out the rest when you’re not actively bleeding from the face.”
Sean looks like he wants to argue. I sense his resistance, the desperate need to stay close to his packmates, to protect what’s left.
But he can also feel my insistence.
And underneath that, my fear.
“Fine,” he mutters. “But if anything happens—”
“I’ll call. I promise. And don’t forget to put some clothes on.”
That seems like a valid reminder, all things considered.
Especially with Sean.
“Roger that,” Rowan mutters.
“How the hell does Villeneuve shift with his clothes on, anyway?” Sean demands.
“The guy shifts into a dragon the size of a small house and that’s what you’re concerned with?” Micah asks dryly.
“Hey, it’s a valid question!”
Rowan helps Sean to his feet, draping the burly alpha’s arm around his shoulder to steady him. They both look back at Killian, who’s still unconscious, still barely breathing in stasis on that stone table.
“Take care of him,” Rowan says quietly.
“I will.”
They leave. The laboratory feels emptier without them, bigger and colder and full of shadows.
Micah moves to stand beside me, his shoulder brushing mine. We both look at Killian.
“He’s going to be okay,” Micah says. It sounds more like a question, though.
“He has to be.”
Villeneuve has retreated to another part of the mansion, giving us space. Or maybe conserving his energy. I don’t know and I’m not sure I care right now.
I have a fucking lot on my mind.
I cross to the table and sit on its edge, as close to Killian as I can get without disturbing the stasis field. My hand finds his fur again, stroking gently.
“You have to fight this,” I whisper, so quiet even Micah probably can’t hear. “You can’t leave us.”
Through the bond, distant and muffled by the stasis, I feel the faintest pulse of acknowledgment.
Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking.