Chapter 11 – Elias
Chapter
Eleven
ELIAS
Killian looks terrible.
Which makes sense, given the circumstances.
His dark hair is matted with sweat, his ice-blue eyes are bloodshot, and there are deep shadows beneath them that speak to the nightmares I can only imagine he’s been having somehow.
The stasis field should have prevented dreaming or any awareness of the passage of time entirely.
Clearly, I underestimated the strength of the virus.
Or perhaps I underestimated him.
Rowan is standing beside the table, his shoulders bleeding sluggishly where Killian’s grip left marks. The alpha’s nails have grown longer in stasis, more claw than human now. Another symptom of the transformation taking hold, slowly but surely.
“Mr. Miftah.” I don’t look away from Killian. “Please go inform the others that Mr. Underwood has rejoined us.”
The younger wolf hesitates. I sense his internal debate in the stiffness of his posture. Leave his pack alpha alone with the dragon, or follow orders.
“It’s fine,” Killian says. His voice is rough. “Go.”
Rowan goes.
The door closes behind him, and then it’s just me and the dying wolf.
Dying.
Yes. That’s the accurate term, even if no one wants to say it out loud. Even if I’m doing everything in my power to change the course of his fate, for her sake.
Killian swings his legs over the edge of the table, moving like a man twice his age. The wound on his shoulder pulses visibly beneath the scarred skin, a dark, rhythmic throb. Beneath it, the veins are dark beneath the bite, a few millimeters farther out than they were the last time I checked.
The curse is spreading.
“You should have let me die.”
The words are flat. Matter-of-fact. He’s not asking for sympathy or fishing for reassurance, he’s merely stating what he believes to be an objective truth.
I consider several responses.
Diplomatic ones. Outright deflection. Careful verbal maneuvering I’ve perfected over centuries of navigating courts and councils and the endless political machinations of beings who live too long and grow too bored.
Instead, I say, “Yes. I should have.”
His head snaps up. He clearly wasn’t expecting agreement.
“Then why the fuck didn’t you?”
I move to the shelving unit along the far wall, making a show of examining the jars and vials arranged there. Giving him space and giving myself a moment to formulate an answer that isn’t entirely a lie.
“Likely the same reason you’re still here,” I say, “when that’s there.”
I nod toward the small table near the altar. A knife sits on its surface. Silver-bladed, ornate, sharp enough to do real damage. It’s been there since I brought him in. I never bothered to move it. There didn’t seem to be a point.
Killian follows my gaze to the knife and his jaw tightens.
“Regina,” he says solemnly, understanding.
“She asked me to save you. To give her more time to find a cure.” I turn to face him fully.
“There is no fucking cure.” His voice rises, then cracks, but he forces it back down. “I know that. You know that.”
“Probably not.”
“Then what the hell are we doing here?” He gestures at the room, at the sigils, at the stasis field still humming faintly around the altar. “Leading them on a wild moose chase?”
I blink. “It’s goose chase.”
“Not the way wolves play it.”
I let out a breath that’s almost a laugh.
“You are not some run-of-the-mill human who wandered into a werewolf’s path and managed not to be torn apart,” I say, moving closer.
“You are an unusually strong alpha wolf shifter with a bonded pack and a powerful mate. Which is, I suspect, how you managed to fight your way through a stasis field designed to keep you unconscious for a minimum of three weeks.”
Killian says nothing. His hands are gripping the edge of the stone table so hard I can hear the faint scrape of claw against rock.
“With my intervention, I can slow the virus. I cannot stop it indefinitely, but I can give us time.” I pause, choosing my next words with care. “A few weeks at minimum. A few months if we’re fortunate. Time enough to explore options that might otherwise be unavailable.”
“And if we don’t find anything?” His eyes meet mine. Ice blue, but with the thinnest sliver of yellow flickering in their depths now, right around the pupil. That wasn’t there before. “If all your options turn out to be dead ends?”
I know what he’s asking before he asks it.
“Will you do what needs to be done?” His voice is steady now. The voice of an alpha making arrangements for his pack’s continued survival. “Like you apparently did to the wolf that bit me. If it comes to that, if I become like that thing, will you stop me from hurting her?”
I should deflect and offer some empty reassurance about hope and perseverance and the power of love conquering all.
I don’t.
“I know you care about her,” Killian continues when I don’t immediately respond. “I know you care in a way that’s more than just your bullshit about protecting her because you’re on the Council, because she’s a siphon. So spare me the denial.”
Perceptive. More perceptive than I gave him credit for.
Or perhaps I’ve simply grown transparent.
I hold his gaze for a long moment. I consider lying, but ultimately decide against it.
“It may surprise you to learn that I will take no pleasure in it,” I say quietly. “But yes. If the time comes, and there is no other option, I will do what needs to be done.”
The tightness in his shoulders eases slightly. “Good,” he says with a stiff nod, rubbing the back of his neck.
An agreement between enemies.
A strange sort of truce.
I look up at the same moment he goes still, his head tilting slightly in that way wolves do when they’re sensing something through their bond.
“That will be your mate,” I say. “Try not to move too quickly. The stasis has weakened your muscles considerably.” I pause, glancing at his naked form still perched on the altar. “And you should put some pants on.”
“Dick,” he mutters, but he’s already reaching for the clothing I had Margot leave on a nearby table for when he eventually woke up.
His movements are slower than they should be, his coordination slightly off. More evidence of the virus’s progression. But he manages to get the pants on without falling over, which is more than anyone else in his condition could say.
“Do you fucking mind?” he growls when he realizes I’m assessing him.
The door bursts open.
Regina is through it before I can blink, crossing the room in a blur of motion that ends with her arms wrapped around Killian’s neck and her face buried against his chest. She’s saying something—his name, I think, over and over—but the words are muffled against his skin.
He catches her. Holds her smaller form as it merges into his embrace. His eyes close and the lines in his face smooth out.
Sean and Micah are next, piling onto their pack alpha with the graceless enthusiasm of puppies reuniting with their father. There’s a lot of backslapping and what I can only describe as affectionate headbutting.
Wolves are tactile creatures. I’ve always found it somewhat exhausting to witness.
Rowan hangs back by the door. His expression is neutral, but there’s concern beneath it. The same concern that was in his eyes when I walked in and found him bleeding from Killian’s grip.
He made the same promise I just did. I can tell. And he’s having the same doubts about his ability to keep it.
Fortunately for him, only one of us will have to.
Regina finally pulls back enough to look at Killian’s face. Her hands cup his jaw, her thumbs brushing over his cheekbones like she’s checking to make sure he’s real.
It’s the first time I’ve ever seen her like this.
All her walls are down.
The analytical, powerful witch is, underneath it all, still a woman in love.
I do not believe, in all my years of existence, I have ever envied a creature more than I envy Killian Underwood right now.
“You’re awake.” Her voice is thick. “You’re actually awake. I thought—we thought—“
“I’m here.” His voice is softer than I’ve ever heard it. Gentle in a way that seems foreign on a man his size. He nuzzles the mark on her neck with the unreserved tenderness of the strong. “I’m okay.”
A lie. We both know it’s a lie. But she accepts it because she needs to, and he offers it because he can’t bear to see her hurt.
This is what I wanted for her.
What I told myself I was protecting her for.
A life with people who love her openly, freely, without the complications that come with being bound to something like me.
It’s so much easier for wolves. Their love is straightforward. Uncomplicated. They feel it and they show it and they don’t spend centuries building walls around themselves to keep from destroying everything they touch.
Dragons are not built for love.
My father wasn’t. He took what he wanted, hoarded what pleased him, and discarded anything that threatened his control. My mother was a possession to him. Something beautiful to own and display. Even in death, she could not escape him until he grew bored of her, as he did of everything eventually.
I’ve spent my entire existence trying to be different. Trying to prove that what I am doesn’t have to dictate who I am.
And yet.
Here I am. Watching from across the room while the woman I’ve bound myself to embraces another man, feeling the deep and seething envy that my kind excels at more than any other.
If I am capable of love—and that’s a significant if—then what I feel for Regina is my version of it. The closest I can come. A fierce, possessive, tightly controlled thing that lives in the hollow space behind my ribs and refuses to die no matter how many times I tell it to.
No matter how much distance I keep between us.
Sean is talking now, filling the room with his usual chaotic energy. He’s recounting everything Killian missed, from the most banal detail of their shared classes to the battle in the meadow and my subsequent intervention.
“And then, boom!” Sean makes an explosion gesture with his hands. “Big green fire, werewolf goes poof, and the whole time we’re all standing there like, what the actual fuck is happening right now?”
“That’s a gross oversimplification,” Rowan mutters, though his heart isn’t in it.
“Dude, our professor is a giant-ass dragon. No amount of nerd speak is gonna cover that.” Sean turns to me, grinning with that fearless stupidity I’ve come to almost admire. “No offense, Prof. You’re pretty badass. Even if you are kind of a dick about it.”
“None taken, Mr. Brewer.” I incline my head slightly. “I’ve been called worse.”
“I’ll bet you have. Hey, can you breathe fire in human form?” He frowns suddenly. “Like, if you wanted to, could you just…” He makes a whooshing sound and mimes flames coming out of his mouth.
I cock an eyebrow. “I’ve never tried.”
“You should try, bro. That would be sick. Twenty-four seven s’mores, no campfire needed.”
Rowan drags a hand down his face.
“I’ll take it under advisement,” I say.
Micah is hovering near Killian’s other side, his hand on the other alpha’s shoulder in a gesture that he probably means to be comforting but reads more like a man checking to make sure something’s still there. His glasses are askew, but he seems oblivious to it.
“How are you feeling, Kill?” he asks. “Really?”
Killian’s jaw tightens. “Fine.”
Another lie. Micah knows it, too, clearly. But he doesn’t push. These idiots have their own unspoken rules. Their code of behavior between alphas.
“Bro code,” I believe Sean refers to it as.
Regina hasn’t let go of Killian’s hand. She’s pressed against his side, her head resting on his shoulder, her eyes closed. Through the bond I have no right to, I feel her relief so intensely, it almost hurts.
I wonder if she can feel my presence in that bond.
If she’s aware of the thread connecting us, or if I’ve managed to keep it hidden well enough that she’s forgotten it’s there.
Probably the latter. She has more pressing concerns at the moment.
Killian is moving differently. I notice it in the way he shifts his weight, positions himself relative to Regina. Always between her and the door. Always angled so he can see the entire room. Always with one hand free, even when the other is holding hers.
He’s treating himself like a threat.
Which is exactly what he is.
But more than that, he’s treating himself like a threat specifically to her. Every movement is made with the same hypervigilance that has characterized my entire existence. The constant awareness of how much damage you could do if you lost control for even a second.
He’s afraid of himself. Afraid of what he might become. And he’s already adjusting his behavior to minimize the risk to what he loves, even when the risk is still theoretical.
He’s also pulling away. Already preparing for an ending he believes is inevitable.
Perhaps we are more alike than I once thought.