Chapter 10 – Killian
Chapter
Ten
KILLIAN
The darkness is familiar now.
I’ve been here long enough that I’ve stopped fighting it. Time doesn’t work right in this place. I might have been here for hours, or years.
The cold seeps into everything, this wet, bone-deep chill that never quite lets me sleep but never lets me fully wake up either.
But the dreams come anyway.
Always the same fucking dream.
I’m running through the woods on all four paws. In the dream, I’m always shifted, but not as my wolf.
As that thing.
I tear through underbrush and dead leaves.
The moon looks wrong overhead. It’s too bright, throwing fucked up shadows across the forest floor that move when they shouldn’t.
And I’m hunting.
I can smell her. That’s the worst part.
Even in the dream, her scent is perfect. Old magic and ancient forest and emerald green. It pulls at me like a fishhook through my chest, reeling me forward through the trees no matter how hard I try to stop myself.
My mate’s scent, stirring something profane inside me. Not the love I’ve felt from the moment I saw her, but another emotion that’s dark and hungry and sick.
No.
My legs won’t obey. They just keep moving, faster now, the scent getting stronger.
Please, no.
I can hear her breathing somewhere up ahead. Quick and scared, like a rabbit’s panting. She knows I’m coming.
Run, I want to scream at her. Run, get away, don’t let me catch you.
But my mouth won’t work either. Nothing works. I’m a passenger in my own body, watching through eyes that have gone yellow and cruel, feeling the hunger rise in my throat like bile.
The trees thin out around me. I burst into a clearing, and she’s there.
Regina.
Standing in the moonlight with her hands raised in defense, magic crackling between her fingers, that stubborn set to her jaw I love so fucking much.
Her scars are fully visible, her magic worn too thin to keep up her usual armor, and she’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
But it’s not her beauty that captivates this creature wearing my skin like a suit and moving my bones like some cursed puppeteer. It’s hunger. Sheer, unadulterated bloodlust.
“Killian.” Her voice cracks on my name. It always does in this nightmare, but it never changes anything. The monster wearing my skin is beyond recognition and mercy. Please. I know you’re in there. You can fight this.”
I can’t.
I’ve tried.
Every time, I try.
I throw everything I have against the walls of my own skull, screaming at my body to stop, to turn around, to do literally anything except what I know is about to happen.
It never works.
My packmates are there too. I see them now, emerging from the trees around the clearing.
Rowan. Micah. Sean.
All in wolf form, all snarling, all trying to get between me and Regina.
Kill me, I beg them through the bond. Kill me before I—
But they hesitate. Just for a second, but it’s long enough.
I’m faster than I should be. And so much stronger. The thing inside me has made me into something that isn’t quite wolf anymore, something that moves with that jerky, puppet-like wrongness I remember from the meadow.
Sean lunges for my throat and I bat him aside like he weighs nothing.
Micah goes for my legs. His teeth sink in. I feel nothing, and snap his throat in my jaws without even breaking stride.
Rowan puts himself directly in my path and refuses to move. His eyes meet mine, and I see the moment he realizes he’s going to have to either kill me or let me through.
He should take me out while he has the chance.
He fucking should.
But he can’t, even after what I just did to Micah.
I feel the dragging weight of his hesitation through the bond, his desperate hope that there’s another way, that if he just holds on a little longer, someone will figure something out.
It’s the last mistake he ever makes.
My fangs sink into his neck and his blood waters my throat, a substitute for what I truly crave.
Now there’s nothing left standing between me and Regina.
She throws magic at me, everything she’s got. It washes over my fur like water. The greedy thing inside me eats it up, hungry for more.
“Killian.” She’s crying now, tears streaking down her cheeks. “Please. Don’t do this. I love you. I love—“
My jaws close around her throat.
The taste of her blood.
The sound she makes.
The way her body goes limp in my grip…
Every. Fucking. Time.
I wake up screaming, except I can’t scream because my body isn’t mine anymore, and then the cold closes back in and the darkness swallows me and I wait for the dream to start all over again.
Rinse and repeat, forever.
My own personal hell.
Except this time, something’s different.
The dream starts the same as it always does. Running. Hunting. Her scent pulling me forward. But when I burst into the clearing, when I see her standing there with her hands raised and her scars showing, there’s something else.
Green light.
Not her magic. Someone else’s, a magic that’s ancient and terrible and familiar, though I can’t quite remember why.
The sky tears open above us, and green fire pours down.
What the—
It hits me. Burning, engulfing flame, like every cell in my body is being unmade and remade simultaneously.
The wrongness inside me screams, this high-pitched keening sound that sounds like it came straight from hell rather than my throat, and I feel it fighting. Feel the demon thing trying to hold on.
The fire burns hotter.
I can’t see Regina anymore. Can’t see anything except the wall of green completely surrounding me.
And then…
I wake up.
I actually fucking wake up this time.
And I wake up to reality instead of the half-conscious drift of that cold, dark place or the nightmare loop that starts over every time I think it’s finally done.
It’s real consciousness, and I have a body that responds to my commands, shaky as the movements are. I’m breathing, shaking, the whole works.
It takes me a second to process that. My brain feels like it’s full of smoke. Everything hurts in that dull, background way that means I’ve been hurt worse recently and this is just the echo.
I open my eyes and see a stone ceiling carved with symbols I don’t recognize, but not the kind Regina uses. These are older and weirder and they make my eyes itch. The light is dim and blueish, coming from somewhere I can’t see.
I turn my head, which turns out to be a bad fucking idea. The room spins enthusiastically.
When it settles, I can make out more details. Shelves lined with jars. More symbols carved into basically every surface. And a stone table I’m currently lying on, which has channels cut into it.
This looks like a sacrificial altar.
What the fuck?
I try to sit up, which my body also informs me is a terrible idea.
“Killian?” A familiar voice comes from somewhere nearby, but my neck hurts too bad to turn right away and my brain’s still foggy as shit. “Fuck, Killian, don’t—“
Rowan materializes beside me, hands hovering like he wants to help but isn’t sure if he should touch me. He looks exhausted. Dark circles under his eyes, shirt wrinkled, that expression he gets when he’s trying really hard not to freak out.
“You’re awake,” he says like he can’t quite believe it. “And human.”
“Debatable.” My voice comes out like gravel. When did I last talk? When did I last do anything except run through those woods and—
The memory slams into me.
The meadow. The coven and the werewolf, fighting that thing to keep it at bay while my pack tried to protect Regina. Feeling my strength give out, knowing I was going to die, hoping that at least my death would buy them time to get her somewhere safe.
And then—
I reach for my shoulder. My fingers find the wound before I can stop them.
It’s still there. Healed over, mostly, but the scar tissue is raised and angry. I feel it even through the bandage.
“Don’t touch it,” Rowan says quickly. “Professor Villeneuve said—”
“Where is she?”
The words come out harsh as reality fully sinks in. I grab Rowan’s shoulders before I can think about it, pulling him close enough to see the surprise flicker across his face.
“Where’s Regina? Is she—did I—“
My voice breaks. I can’t finish the sentence. Can’t ask if the nightmare was real, if I hurt her, if I…
“She’s fine.” Rowan’s hands come up to grip my arms, steadying me. “Killian. She’s fine. She’s at the library with Sean right now, but she’s fine. You didn’t hurt her.”
The relief hits so hard I almost black out again. Or maybe that’s just the blood rushing around in my head. Hard to tell.
“The library,” I repeat stupidly.
“Yeah. Research. She’s been, uh…” Rowan stops himself and takes a breath. “You’ve been out for almost two weeks, man.”
Two weeks…
“What?”
“Villeneuve put you in a stasis. Some kind of dragon magic.” Rowan’s jaw tightens on the word dragon, which makes zero sense in my already chaotic brain.
When he sees the way I’m looking at him, he adds, “It’s a long story.
The point is, you’ve been stable. We didn’t know when you’d wake up.
Or if you’d even wake up.” He stops again.
“I don’t even know how you’re awake right now.
The stasis field is still up. You shouldn’t be able to move. ”
I look around the room again. Take in the symbols, the general Frankenstein’s lab aesthetic going on around us.
“This is Villeneuve’s place,” Rowan offers. “He teleported you here after the fight.”
“Yeah. I gathered that.”
“And he’s a…?”
“A dragon,” Rowan says with a strained smile. “Mystery solved?”
“When the fuck did that happen?”
It makes more sense than I want it to. The lack of any scent I’ve ever encountered before, the fact that he can use magic. And he’s a cranky, ancient asshole, so that checks some boxes, too.
“Another long story.” Rowan’s voice sounds hoarse and exhausted.
I should probably care more about the dragon thing. Under normal circumstances, the revelation that the spooky asshole who’s been lurking around our mate is actually an ancient mythological predator would be pretty fucking high on my list of concerns.
Right now, I can’t focus on anything except the scar on my shoulder. The way it pulses with every heartbeat.
But Rowan said it’s been two weeks.
Even if I’m a shifter, an alpha, I should be at least halfway to crazy town right now, unless…
Unless they’re trying to save me.
That’s what Rowan isn’t saying. That’s why I’m here instead of in the ground where I should be. Villeneuve didn’t kill me. Probably because Regina asked him not to, because she thinks they can fix this.
They can’t. I’ve already seen the writing on the wall, the movie that plays out in my brain nonstop.
The inevitable.
“Rowan.” I tighten my grip on his shoulders. He winces slightly, because I’m probably digging my fingers in hard enough to leave bruises, but he doesn’t pull away. “Listen to me.”
“You need to rest, Kill. Let me go get the others, tell them you’re—“
“Listen to me.”
He goes still.
I can see the wariness in his eyes now. The way he’s holding himself, ready to move if he needs to. He knows something’s wrong. He can probably feel it through the pack bond, or whatever’s left of the bond after two weeks of me being half-dead.
“There’s nothing that can fix this,” I say, sounding a hell of a lot calmer than I should. “I saw it. Before the werewolf, before the woods, before any of it actually happened. I had dreams.”
Rowan’s brow furrows. “Dreams?”
“The same dream. Over and over.” I swallow hard.
The taste of blood is still in my mouth, phantom but vivid.
“I’m hunting her. Through the forest. And I—“ My throat closes up. Forces me to push through anyway. “I kill her, Rowan. Every time. I become that thing and I tear out her throat and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.”
“That’s not going to happen.”
“You don’t know that.”
“We’re going to fix it.” His voice is firm but his eyes are desperate. “Villeneuve has contacts. There’s a siren working for the Council who specializes in this kind of thing. We’re not giving up.”
“And if you can’t?” I demand. “If you can’t fix it, what then?”
Rowan doesn’t answer.
“I need you to promise me something.”
He shakes his head like he already knows where this is going, already trying to refuse before I can even ask.
“If you can’t fix it,” I continue, ignoring his protest, “if there’s no cure, no solution, I need you to promise me you’ll do what needs to be done.”
“Killian, come on.”
“Promise me you’ll lead the pack,” I continue. “That you’ll take care of Regina and the others.” My grip tightens again. I feel his bones shifting under my fingers before I loosen up. “And that you’ll put me down before I can hurt her.”
Rowan stares at me. All the warmth leaves his face. I can see the conflict behind his eyes, the loyalty warring with the horror, the love of pack fighting with the necessity of what I’m asking.
“I can’t,” he whispers. “I can’t kill you, man. You’re my brother.”
“That’s all the more reason you have to.”
He shakes his head. “There has to be another way.”
“Promise me.” The snarl tears out of me before I can stop it. More monster than human or even wolf.
That’s what I’m becoming. That’s what’s waiting for me if they can’t find a cure. A monster wearing my face, hunting the woman I love, and no amount of hoping or researching or trying is going to change that.
I’ve seen how it ends. I’ve lived it a hundred times in the dark.
“Promise me,” I say again, quieter now. “Please.”
Rowan’s throat works. His eyes are wet.
“I promise,” he says finally. The words sound like they’re being ripped out of him. “If it comes to that, if there’s no other way, I promise.”
I want to believe him. I really do. But I can hear the hesitation in his voice. The part of him that’s already looking for loopholes, already planning to find another option, refusing to accept that this might actually be the end.
He’ll hesitate when the time comes.
Just like he does in the dream.
And I’ll… I’ll kill her.
I open my mouth to say something else, to make him fucking swear, but before I can speak, the door opens.
Villeneuve stands in the doorway.
He looks different than I remember. Not as composed as usual. His suit is slightly rumpled and some of his hair’s falling across his forehead, which, for him, is basically the equivalent of showing up to class naked.
His dark eyes sweep the room, taking in the scene. Me sitting up on the stone table naked as the day I came into this world, my too-long nails digging bloody crescents into Rowan’s shoulders.
“Mr. Underwood.” His voice is exactly the same as always, giving absolutely nothing away. “You’re awake.”