Chapter 7 – Elias
Chapter
Seven
ELIAS
“You might as well come out,” I say. “I know you’re there.”
The pen in my hand doesn’t pause its movement across the undergraduate’s thoroughly mediocre essay on pre-Roman blood rituals. Red ink bleeds into the margins. Another C-minus for Mr. Cox, who seems to believe that enthusiasm can substitute for research.
It cannot.
A beat of silence from the hallway. Then the door creaks open.
Micah’s face appears in the gap, glasses slightly askew, expression caught somewhere between sheepish and defiant. “How did you know? We masked our scents.”
“Scent maskers don’t work on dragons.” I set down the pen and lean back in my chair. “Besides, Mr. Brewer is literally hiding behind a fern. And not well.”
I point with the pen toward the corner of my office, where a truly massive specimen of Nephrolepis exaltata is doing its level best to conceal the giant wolf shifter. The fern is perhaps five feet tall. Sean Brewer is approximately six-foot-five.
The fronds rustle indignantly.
“I’m bulking, bro,” Sean says, peering out from behind the plant. His bandaged eye gives him a vaguely… piratical air. “Ferns add like ten pounds visually.”
“I told you that was a bad hiding place,” Micah mutters, pushing the door open fully and stepping inside. He moves like he’s entering a predator’s territory, which is accurate enough. “You can’t blame us for keeping an eye on you. Especially now that we know what you are.”
I organize the stack of essays into a neat pile. The motion is automatic, something to do with my hands while I consider how to handle this intrusion. “And here I rather thought knowing what I am would put an end to the surveillance.”
Sean abandons his pathetic attempt at concealment and ambles over to stand beside Micah. They make an interesting pair. The jock and the scholar, united in their suspicion of me.
How touching.
“What do you mean?” Sean asks.
“I am a dragon.” I fold my hands on the desk. “You are wolves. Wolves whose pack leader is presently in a comatose state, I might add. What exactly do you think you could do in a fight against me, even if I were inclined toward whatever malice you ascribe to me?”
The question falls on silence.
Micah’s throat bobs visibly as he swallows. Sean is suddenly very interested in the binding of a book on my shelf.
“We could, uh...” Micah trails off.
“Run away really fucking fast if shit goes sideways and try again later?” Sean offers.
“Look at that. The first accurate assessment you’ve ever made in my classroom, Mr. Brewer.” I gather the essays and slide them into my briefcase. “Leave. As amusing as I normally find your antics, I have company on the way. It would be better if you weren’t here when they arrive.”
Micah’s head snaps up. “You find us amusing?”
He sounds insulted.
Before I can respond—or more likely, choose not to—a knock sounds at the door.
I know who it is before I see him.
Vyse leans against the doorframe, red hair spilling over one shoulder like a gunshot wound. His blue eyes sweep the room like a lazy cat surveying a room full of mice.
A predator wearing a pleasant mask.
“Am I interrupting anything fun?” he asks, his honeyed voice pitched to slip past defenses. I’ve always found it grating, personally. But then, I suppose I’m not his target audience.
“Who’s the red-haired lady?” Sean asks warily.
Vyse’s expression flickers, his eyes momentarily lit with irritation.
Then he laughs and slinks into the room with the boneless grace of something meant to live underwater. “I am many things, but a lady ain’t one of them.” He crosses to Sean and trails one finger down his bicep. “Aren’t you a tall, thick glass of water?”
Sean flinches away and awkwardly rubs the back of his neck. “I’m more like a keg of beer, if anything.”
“Charming,” Vyse purrs.
His eyes flash like a camera snapping.
Sean freezes mid-motion, his hand still raised to his head, his expression going slack. The change is instantaneous and total. One moment he’s a person, the next he’s a statue.
I should have moved faster. Should have anticipated this, really. Vyse has always been predictable in his unpredictability.
“What—” Micah starts forward, reaching for his frozen packmate. “Hey! What the fuck are you doing to him?”
Vyse ignores him completely. He circles Sean like a shark, head tilted, examining him with curiosity. “Fascinating. I’ve never seen such low brain activity in someone who wasn’t asleep.”
“Let him go,” I say with a sigh.
Vyse continues as if I haven’t spoken. “Dumb as a box of rocks, but admirably loyal. To the point of obsession, really.” He taps his chin thoughtfully. “And completely heterosexual. How boring.”
Micah lunges for him.
Bad idea.
Vyse doesn’t even look at Micah. He just flicks his fingers and Micah joins Sean in frozen stillness, caught mid-stride with his hands outstretched.
“This one’s got a bit more going on upstairs,” Vyse observes, poking Micah’s forehead with one long finger. “But he’s equally obsessed with the little witch. Wolves and their mates.” He heaves a dramatic sigh. “How charmingly droll.”
“Vyse.” I stand and the chair scrapes against the floor. “The wolves are off limits.”
He pouts. The expression would be more convincing if his eyes weren’t still hunting. “You’re never any fun.”
He waves his hand.
Both wolves stumble back into motion simultaneously. Sean pitches forward into Micah, who barely catches him, and they end up in an ungainly heap of limbs and confusion.
“Feels like my brain threw up,” Sean groans, pressing his palm to his forehead.
“Sit down,” I growl. “Both of you.”
They sit. Whether from shock or some lingering effect of Vyse’s influence, I neither know nor care. At least they’re not moving around and providing him with more entertainment.
Vyse, because he is constitutionally incapable of doing anything the easy way, rounds my desk and drops into my chair. He spins it lazily, trailing his fingers across papers and pens and the small obsidian paperweight I acquired in Constantinople in 1544.
He’s trying to get a rise out of me.
He won’t succeed.
“If you’re done harassing my students,” I say, “there’s an important matter we need to discuss.”
“Ah yes.” Vyse stops spinning, props his chin on one hand, and regards me with theatrical interest. “I was wondering when you’d be calling. I hear you’ve got a siphon under your protection.” His lip curls. “How special.”
“You sound jealous, bro,” Sean mutters.
Vyse’s eyes narrow.
“What do you want, Elias?” He starts rearranging items on my desk, moving the paperweight three inches to the left for no apparent reason other than that he knows what I am and he knows how dragons feel about people touching our things.
“You know I find the fact that I can’t read your mind boring, so let’s cut to the chase, shall we? ”
“I need a cure.”
“A cure?” His laugh is sharp. “I thought we’d been over this. There is no cure for—“
“Not for me.”
The words come out faster than I intended. I’m acutely aware of Micah and Sean watching, listening.
At least they seem to know when to shut up.
Vyse’s eyebrows rise. “Consider me intrigued. What is it, then? Vampiric blood curse? Fae wasting sickness? Succubus addiction?” He ticks the options off on his fingers. “Pixie pox? Goblin rot? Reverse mermaid?”
“That’s a thing?” Sean asks with a grimace. “How’s that work?” He makes a… fishy motion with his hands, somehow.
“I need a cure for a werewolf bite,” I say, ignoring him.
The room goes very still.
Sean’s remaining eye widens. Micah’s jaw tightens, and his eyes flash like his wolf is two seconds away from tearing out of his skin and into my throat.
“What the fuck, man?” Micah snarls. The gravel in his voice confirms my theory about his wolf. “You can’t just—”
“Silence.”
I don’t look at him. My attention is fixed on Vyse, whose expression has gone uncharacteristically blank.
“A werewolf bite,” he repeats slowly, tapping his pointed nails on my desk. “You have my attention.”
“I thought that might pique your interest.”
“I’m quite piqued.” He leans forward, and for once there’s nothing performative about his intensity. “But you know as well as anyone there is no cure. Once the transformation begins—”
“This isn’t a normal werewolf bite.” I move to stand by the window, putting distance between myself and the wolves. If they decide to do something stupid, I’d rather have room to maneuver. “The victim is a wolf shifter. And the werewolf was reanimated.”
Vyse goes silent.
“You’re lying.”
“What reason would I have to lie to the likes of you?”
His eyes narrow. For a long moment, he simply stares at me, searching for the deception he clearly wants to find.
Then his lips curve into a wicked version of a smile.
“Consider me considerably less bored.”
“I know you enjoy a challenge.” I turn from the window. “If you can find a cure, you can consider your debt wiped clean.”
That gets his attention. His whole body shifts, orienting toward me.
“You know I’m a sucker for an interesting case,” he says, his voice gone soft with genuine interest. “I would have taken it for the sake of professional curiosity alone.”
“Think of it as an incentive, then. Add in whatever resources you need, both monetary and magical, to get the job done.”
Vyse rises from my chair. He crosses to me, stops just inside the boundary of polite distance, and studies my face with a scrutiny that would be uncomfortable if I were capable of discomfort.
“You realize if the Council finds out you’re harboring a transitional werewolf, they’ll have both our heads?”
“They’ll have your head,” I correct. “If anyone on the Council were capable of killing me, they would have done it a long damn time ago.”
He scoffs, but doesn’t argue the point. We both know it’s true.
“Do you have the werewolf?” he asks. “The reanimated one?”
“Charred, I’m afraid.”
“Of course.” His tone is withering. “Dragons. So fucking predictable.” He moves toward the door, then pauses. “I’ll need access to the bite victim eventually. But I’ll see what I can dig up in the meantime.”
Micah growls. The sound is low and warning and utterly pointless against someone like Vyse.
“Poor choice of words,” Vyse adds with a smile that shows too many teeth. “Ta-ta, boys.”
He’s gone before anyone can respond, slipping out of my office. The silence he leaves behind is deafening.
It lasts approximately two seconds.
Then Micah is across the room, his hand fisted in my shirt, slamming me back against the wall hard enough to rattle the framed degrees hanging behind me. His eyes have gone gold, his wolf riding very close to the surface.
“What the fuck?” His voice is a snarl. “You just told that psycho about Killian?”
I don’t fight him. Simply stand there and let him have his moment of rage. Wolves aren’t accustomed to being incapable of protecting the people they love. Especially alphas.
“He won’t tell anyone about Killian,” I say calmly. “And we don’t have a choice.”
“Like hell we don’t—“
“What was he?” Sean’s voice interrupts Micah’s fury. He’s still in the chair where I told him to sit, but his face is pale beneath the bandage. Unsettled and sober in a way I haven’t seen from him before. “That guy. What was he? And how did he know about Storm?”
“Vyse is a siren. He possesses a myriad of psychic abilities, most of which you’re better off not thinking too much about.”
Sean blinks. “A siren? Like a mermaid?”
“Some prefer to hunt on land.”
“Hunt?” Micah’s grip on my shirt tightens. “You invited a fucking hunter to—”
“I invited an expert in forbidden magic to examine an impossible case.” I meet his eyes steadily. “Unless you’d prefer to watch your alpha lose his mind and tear all of you apart, in which case, by all means. Continue listing your objections and tell me when you have a better idea.”
I can tell the words hit their intended mark.
Micah’s grip loosens. His gold eyes fade back to their usual warm hazel, and the rage settles into despair.
“We just want to protect them,” he says quietly.
“I know.” I step away from the wall, straightening my shirt. “Which is why you should go back to the mansion and be with your mate. She needs your support.”
Sean stands, wobbling slightly. He probably won’t feel well for a few hours, but Vyse knows better than to do any permanent damage to anyone under my protection. Which includes every living and undead soul within the campus wards. “When can we take Regina and Killian back to the frat house?”
“Right now, Killian is a threat. Both if he escapes stasis and if anyone finds out you’re harboring him.
” I gather my briefcase, check that the essays are still in order.
“Then there’s the matter of Kyle still being out there, with an unknown accomplice who apparently has some significant skill with necromancy.
The mansion is heavily warded. Can you say the same for the fraternity house? ”
Sean hesitates. “We have a broken porch board that trips people a lot.”
Micah sighs. “Point taken.”
I move toward the door, briefcase in hand. There are things I need to do. Research to pursue and contingencies to prepare in case Vyse fails, which is likely. But right now, it’s the best option we have.
“Villeneuve.”
Micah’s voice stops me at the threshold.
I turn.
He’s standing in the middle of my office, Sean beside him, both of them looking at me with the usual suspicion, tinged with something new. Trust, if I were inclined to be optimistic.
I’m not.
“Why are you doing this?” Micah asks. “Why are you protecting Killian?”
The question is so earnest, I actually consider it.
I could tell them I imprinted on Regina the moment I met her.
Could explain about mate bonds and dragons and the particularly vicious kind of isolation that comes from being the last of your kind.
Could admit that protecting their alpha is really about protecting her, and protecting her is really about the fact that the moment I laid eyes on her, I stopped being able to imagine a world without her in it.
I could say all of that.
I don’t.
“Don’t touch my things,” I say instead, and walk out the door.