Chapter 5 – Regina
Chapter
Five
REGINA
“Regiiiiiiiinaa.”
Sean’s tone-deaf song echoes through the sitting room Villeneuve apparently designed for people who want to feel inadequate about their book collections. The walls are lined with leather-bound volumes that smell obscenely expensive.
“I’m in love with a girl named Regiiiina.”
He’s sprawled across a velvet chaise, one arm conducting an invisible orchestra while the other holds an imaginary guitar. The bandage over his missing eye makes him look like a pirate who wandered into the wrong century.
“Wanna take her on a date to...” He trails off, brow furrowing in concentration. “Uh.”
I don’t look up from the book in my lap. Lycanthropic Transformation: A Comprehensive Analysis of Bite Pathology. The title is dry as dust, but the contents are worse. Page after page of case studies that all end the same way.
Madness and death.
“Nothing rhymes with Regina,” Sean announces, sounding genuinely distressed about this.
Micah, who’s been pretending to read in the armchair across from me, snorts. “Arena? Cantina? Marina?”
Sean’s good eye goes wide. “Whoa, man. You should be the songwriter.”
“I’ll add it to my resume.” Micah’s voice is flat. “Right under ‘survived dragon encounter’ and ‘watched packmate lose an eye to a werewolf.’” He closes his own book, a text on alchemical healing that he’s been flipping through without actually reading. “How many of those pills did you take?”
“Only one.” Sean sits up, looking offended. “And that was like seven hours ago. They just made me sleepy.” He pauses. “And hungry. And horny.”
“Dude, you’re always all of those things.”
“True.” Sean grins, which should be impossible for someone who just lost an eye mere hours ago, but here we are. “Hey, you know what’s weird? You’re my favorite person in the world and your name is just two letters off from my favorite food.”
I set the book aside. The words have stopped making sense anyway, my brain refusing to process another paragraph about the progressive deterioration of cognitive function in bite victims. I’m clearly not going to get to the solution to Killian’s situation tonight. “And what’s that?”
“Vagina.”
He pronounces it to rhyme with my name.
Va-GEE-na.
Regina.
Haven’t heard that since my middle school bullies, but he says it so fondly I can only be amused.
“I should add that to the song,” he muses.
I laugh, at least as much as I’m capable of laughing right now. Pretty sure Sean’s clowning is the only thing keeping all of us from losing our fucking minds right now.
The irony.
“Are you sure the painkillers aren’t still in effect?” I ask him.
“No, this lyrical genius is all me, baby.” He taps his temple with one finger. “Pure, unfiltered Sean Brewer.”
“Gods help us all,” Micah mutters.
I close the book completely and set it on the side table.
It joins the stack of other volumes I’ve been working through.
Six books on werewolf bites, three on transformation pathology, and one ancient text on pack bonds that’s written in a language I can barely read.
None of them have told me anything useful.
They all say the same thing.
The madness comes.
The monster takes over.
There’s no cure.
Not tonight, I tell myself. I’m not solving this tonight.
Through the bond, I feel Killian in the other room.
His energy is distant and muffled, like trying to hear someone through a thick wall.
Rowan is with him, since he insisted on taking the first watch even though there’s nothing to watch.
Killian can’t be moved. The stasis field is anchored to those sigils on the stone table, and disrupting it could kill him.
But none of us is willing to leave him alone.
So we wait. I read books that tell me nothing, and Sean sings songs about vaginas.
Could be worse, I guess.
I push myself up from the chair and cross to where Sean is sprawled on the chaise. He watches me approach with that goofy grin still plastered on his face, though I can see the tightness around his remaining eye. The fear he’s trying so hard to hide.
“How are you doing?” I ask, settling onto the edge of the chaise beside him. “Really.”
“I’m fine.” The answer comes too fast to believe. “I mean, the mummy look’s not really my vibe, but that’s temporary. I’ve already got a sweet custom patch on the way. It has metal—“
“Sean.”
“Okay, maybe I’m a little freaked out.” He reaches up to touch the bandage, then stops himself. “The depth perception thing is gonna suck. And I’m gonna have to learn to wink with my other eye. Very important skill.”
“For what?”
“Flirting with my mate. Signaling. General roguish charm.” He shrugs. “The usual.”
I take his hand, threading my fingers through his. His palm is warm and rough, calloused from years of sports and whatever else wolves do with their hands when they’re not paws. “You’re allowed to not be okay.”
“Yeah, but being okay is more fun.” He squeezes my fingers. “Besides, I’ve got my sexy witch sitting next to me. Things could definitely be worse.”
His good eye meets mine, and I see it there. The vulnerability he’s trying so hard to joke away. Sean processes everything through humor. It’s his armor. The way he survives things that would break other people.
“A kiss would definitely make it better,” he says, his full lips quirking into a smile.
So I kiss him.
It starts gentle, a press of lips meant for comfort more than passion. But Sean has never done anything in halves, and after a moment, his free hand comes up to cup the back of my head, fingers tangling in my hair as he deepens the kiss.
When we finally break apart, he’s breathing harder, his pupil blown wide.
“You’re not gonna leave me hanging on that promise earlier, are you?”
I blink. “What promise?”
I know exactly what he’s talking about. I just want to hear him say it.
“The one where you promised to make me feel better.” His grin returns, sharper now. “With undertones of a blowjob.”
“Is that what those were?” I ask, trying not to smirk. “Undertones?”
“Oh yes. Definitely. Very clear undertones. Practically overtones, really.”
I glance over at Micah, who’s watching us from his armchair with an expression that’s trying very hard to be neutral and failing completely. His book has been abandoned on the arm of the chair, and I can see the way his hands are gripping his thighs.
He wants this too. Wants the distraction and connection. Something to focus on besides our packmate fighting in the other room.
We all do.
“Well,” I say, turning back to Sean. “I can’t break the undertones of a promise, now can I?”
My fingers find his belt. The buckle is cold against my palm as I work it open.
Sean looks like he can’t believe his luck. His good eye goes wide, then soft, then hungry all at once. “Holy shit. You’re actually—“
“Shut up, Sean.”
“Shutting the fuck up. Silent as the grave. Which, given recent events, is maybe not the best metaphor—”
I yank his belt free and he finally stops talking.
His jeans come open easily. I push the fabric down his hips just enough to free him, and he’s already half-hard, his body responding to the promise of touch even before I’ve done anything.
“Fuck,” he breathes as my hand wraps around his knot. “Okay. Yes. This is happening.”
I stroke him once, twice, watching his face as his eye flutters closed. When I lower my head and take him into my mouth, he makes a sound that’s half groan, half begging.
“Regina—fuck—”
I work him slowly at first. Learning the taste of him, the weight of him on my tongue. He’s thick and hot and already leaking precome, his hips twitching with the effort of staying still.
“You don’t have to—“ He stops, then swallows. “Actually, no, please do have to. Please definitely have to. If you want.”
I would laugh if my mouth wasn’t otherwise occupied.
Instead, I take him deeper, hollowing my cheeks around him. His hand finds my hair again, not guiding but holding on. Like I’m the only thing keeping him anchored.
His pulse throbs through the vein wrapped around his knot in my palm and I squeeze tighter since he seems to like that. The current of impressively creative profanities that flows from his lips in response is all the confirmation I need.
“Micah.” My voice comes out rough when I pull back for a moment. “Come here.”
I don’t look up to see his reaction. Don’t need to. I can feel his surprise, followed immediately by a surge of want so strong it makes my thighs clench.
I hear him stand and cross the room. Then his hands are on my hips, warm through the thin fabric of my leggings.
“You sure?” His voice is low.
“Yes.”
He doesn’t ask again.
My leggings come down, panties with them, and then Micah’s hands are everywhere.
Stroking up my thighs, cupping my ass, spreading me open.
I hear him groan at what he finds. I’m already wet and have been since I started kissing Sean, my body responding to the intimacy even when my brain was still stuck on supernatural pathology.
But it’s getting easier to unwind with each touch.
“Fuck, you’re gorgeous,” Micah murmurs.
Then he’s pushing into me, slow and steady, and I have to stop what I’m doing to Sean just to breathe through the stretch.
“Please don’t stop,” Sean begs. “I was so close to—”
I shut him up by taking him back into my mouth.
The rhythm is awkward at first. Me on my hands and knees on the chaise, Sean propped against the arm with his cock in my mouth, Micah behind me setting a pace that’s just this side of too slow. But we figure it out.
Micah’s thrusts push me forward onto Sean. Sean’s hand in my hair keeps me steady. The three of us find a rhythm and move together like we’ve been doing this forever.
Through the bond, I feel them both. Sean’s pleasure rising in sharp spikes, Micah’s slower and deeper, building with each thrust.
Micah wraps his arm around me and finds my clit, circling in that slow, small-circles way he’s already figured out is my weakness. Before long, I’m a trembling mess between them, my thighs shaking from the effort of holding me up.
“Fuck, I’m gonna—“ Sean’s warning comes out strangled. “Regina, I’m—“
I take him deeper, and he comes with a shout that’s probably too loud for a house this quiet. I swallow around him, working him through it, feeling his pleasure burst through the bond like fireworks. And the energy that flows into me replaces what I gave over to Villeneuve for the healing magic.
On the next thrust, Micah’s pace falters. I feel the press of his knot against my pussy, and clench around him instinctively, because my body wants something that I’m pretty sure is still physically impossible. At least without a lot more training.
He pulls back, not pushing all the way in. Making sure his knot doesn’t catch.
But even without the knot, Micah knows exactly how to work me. His fingers pick up speed as he strokes me, and he’s angled to hit just the right spot.
“Come on, pretty witch,” he murmurs. “Let me feel you come.”
I’m already there. Already tipping over the edge. Sean’s hand is still in my hair, stroking now instead of gripping, and Micah’s fingers are relentless on my clit, and the bond is amplifying everything, not just the energy flowing between us, and—
I come with a gasp that’s muffled against Sean’s thigh, and I don’t know what comes over me, because I bite down on the inside of it. Not hard enough to break the skin, but enough that he cries out, and then—
The way his cock twitches makes it clear it’s not from the pain. At least, not entirely.
“Fuck, Storm,” he groans, his head lolling back.
The orgasm rolls through me violently, my body clenching around Micah as he follows me over with a groan.
He spills inside me, hot and deep, and for a moment we’re all just breathing.
The bond pulses, and fills me with fresh energy tinged with Micah’s sweet gingerbread flavor.
Still weird how that works, but each of them has his own energetic flavor, as surely as his scent.
It was subtle at first, but now that I’ve been siphoning from them for a while, each alpha’s energy has become more distinct.
Micah pulls out carefully and collapses onto the chaise beside Sean. I end up sandwiched between them, breathless and too tired to care about how much I need to shower.
“Damn,” Sean starts.
“Yeah,” Micah agrees. “Lot of things in this world that are overrated, but bonded sex is not one of them.”
I laugh softly, wiping the corner of my mouth. “No, it’s not.”
I close my eyes, letting their warmth surround me.
Sleep pulls at me. I try to resist, considering there are still books to read and a cure to find, but my body has other ideas. The exhaustion of the day catches up all at once, and between one breath and the next, I’m gone.
The dream starts in darkness.
I’m running. Through trees and shadows, through a forest that smells like blood. My feet are bare and the ground is cold and somewhere behind me, something is hunting.
I know this dream. I’ve had it a hundred times since that night in the basement. The werewolf. The attack. The claws that carved my face into something I can’t stand to look at.
But this time, something’s different.
The forest opens into a meadow. The same meadow from earlier, I realize. The grass is still scorched in places, still stained dark with blood. Bodies lie scattered across the ground. Coven members, their robes torn and their faces frozen in expressions of terror.
And in the center of it all, a wolf.
He’s big. Massive, really. Shoulders like mountains, fur like midnight, teeth bared in a snarl that makes my blood run cold.
Run, my dream-self thinks. Run, run, run—
But I can’t move. My feet are rooted to the ground, my body refusing to obey. The wolf stalks closer, each step intentional, and I can see now that there’s something wrong with it.
Something that just feels off.
Its movements are jerky and puppet-like, driven by something that isn’t quite instinct and isn’t quite thought.
The wolf stops in front of me.
Close enough to touch.
Close enough to smell.
Earth and bourbon.
No.
No.
The wolf raises its head, and I see its eyes clearly for the first time.
Ice blue and painfully fucking familiar.
Killian’s eyes.