Chapter 14 – Regina
Chapter
Fourteen
REGINA
The walk to Briar Hall feels much longer than usual.
Maybe because I spent half the night lying awake, replaying that moment in my head.
Villeneuve moving toward me after the bottle spun.
And how I leaned in.
Fuck.
My wolves are probably still dissecting every second of what happened, and honestly, I don’t blame them. I’d have questions too.
The morning air is frosty and crisp, which I usually find enjoyable as a bona fide autumnophile, but I’ve hardly slept since Killian got bitten, so everything feels like sensory overload right now.
I pull my jacket tighter and focus on the concrete steps leading up to Briar Hall’s entrance. One thing at a time.
First, I talk to Villeneuve. Then I figure out how to explain the mate bond to Killian and the others without anyone getting murdered.
Simple.
Theoretically.
The third-floor corridor is empty this early.
Most students won’t show up for another hour, and the other professors in this wing keep their doors firmly closed until office hours.
Especially since the wolves were going around trying to find faculty sponsors.
Even if Villeneuve took one for the team, the harried academics of Stormvale are still shaken from that near miss.
This morning, it’s just me and the display cases full of artifacts that may or may not be haunted, same as always. I breathe in the smell of old books and what I’m pretty sure is carpet glue.
It’s a whole ambiance, regardless.
It hits me all of a sudden that I’m living the life I left on the table when I chose Kyle. Like someone transported me back in time to that fork in the road, and instead of going left, I swerved.
Despite having not one but four mates, I’m actually working toward my dreams. But I guess that’s the difference between having mates who see you as a person and having a glorified handler.
The feeling lasts only as long as it takes for the guilt to kick in. Guilt for enjoying anything when Killian’s time is running out.
The fact that I know he wouldn’t want me to feel that way makes me feel even worse.
Villeneuve’s door is cracked open.
That’s unusual. He’s meticulous about privacy. The kind of person who locks everything, wards everything. An open door feels wrong.
I push it wider. “Professor? I need to talk to you about last—”
The words die in my throat.
Villeneuve is on the floor.
He’s collapsed against his desk, one arm thrown over the edge like he tried to catch himself and failed. His usually immaculate suit jacket is bunched under his shoulder, and his face—
His face is gray. Ashen, actually. Blood trickles from the corner of his mouth, dark against his pale skin.
“Shit.” I’m across the room before I can think, dropping to my knees beside him. “Professor. Hey. Can you hear me?”
His eyes flutter open. Dark, but unfocused. It takes him a moment to register my presence, and when he does, irritation crosses his features.
“Ms. Cook.” His voice is barely a rasp. “Your timing is... inconvenient.”
“You’re right,” I say flatly. “I definitely should have waited until you fully passed out or died from whatever this is.”
“Your sarcasm is noted.”
I sigh. “What do you need?”
He tries to speak, but another cough wracks his frame.
More blood. Way too much blood.
“Desk,” he manages. “Bottom drawer. Case. Vials.”
I don’t ask questions. I scramble to my feet and yank open the drawer he indicated. Inside, there’s a small wooden case as ornate as it is old. I flip it open and find a row of glass vials nestled in velvet, each filled with a thick crimson liquid.
Just like the vial I caught him drinking out of before.
I grab one and rush back to him.
“Here.” I press it into his hand, but his fingers are shaking too badly to grip it properly. “Let me—”
I uncork the vial myself and bring it to his lips. His hand closes around my wrist and I jolt as his fingertips bite into my skin. He drinks and the motion is desperate in a way I’ve never seen from him before, hungry and raw.
When the vial is empty, he slumps back against the desk. His breathing is still ragged, his hair falling across his forehead, but some color is returning to his face. The gray pallor fades to a shade closer to human.
I sit back on my heels and watch him, my heart in my throat.
“I’ve seen you take this before,” I say quietly. “After class one day a few weeks ago. I thought—” I stop. I didn’t know what I thought. Drug habit? Magical vice? “What’s wrong with you? Are you sick?”
Villeneuve’s eyes are closed. He doesn’t answer.
“Is this some kind of drug?” I press.
Still nothing.
“Hey.” I grab his arm. Even through his sleeve, he feels unnaturally cold, and something tells me that’s not normal for a creature who literally breathes fire. “Don’t do that. Don’t shut me out.”
His eyes open, a flash of his usual coldness within them. “It’s none of your concern.”
“Bullshit.” The word comes out sharper than I intend. “You forced your way into my bond. You wove yourself into my soul without my permission, and now you’re lying on the floor bleeding from your mouth. You don’t get to tell me it’s not my concern.”
He stares at me in that infuriating silence.
“You care,” he says. Like it’s a revelation and the concept is utterly foreign to him.
“Of course I care.” My grip on his arm tightens. “Whatever the circumstances of how we ended up connected, we are connected. I can feel you in there, underneath everything else. So yeah. I care. Which means you don’t get to pretend this doesn’t affect me.”
For a long moment, he just looks at me. That mask he wears so carefully has cracked, and underneath it, I see a vulnerability I didn’t think he was capable of.
“The serum helps,” he says finally.
I guess that’s technically an answer.
“Helps with what?”
He doesn’t elaborate immediately. Instead, he pulls himself into a sitting position, using the desk for support.
“Dragons and siphons,” he says quietly. “We have one thing in common.”
I wait.
“Both feed on energy.” He wipes the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. The gesture is surprisingly human. “Dragons can feed from anything. Magic. Emotion. Life force.” He pauses. “But most choose blood.”
I look at the empty vial in my hand. The thick crimson residue coating the inside of the glass.
“So this is...”
“Blood,” he confirms. “Fae blood, specifically. It helps the better side of my nature win out.” His dark eyes meet mine. “Ethically obtained. If you were wondering.”
I was. The relief I feel at that answer is probably more intense than I should admit.
“I don’t understand.” I set the vial aside carefully. “You’re sick because you need blood, like a vampire? Then why don’t you just…”
“Not like a vampire. I’m a dragon.” The words come out bitter. “A very old dragon. Eventually, all dragons succumb to their vices. Paranoia. Greed. Madness.” His jaw tightens. “Bloodlust. A vampire feeds because it has to. A dragon feeds because it wants.”
His silence contains even more disgust than his words, and they’re laced with plenty. I’ve heard him talk about every manner of supernatural creature in his classes, ones whose vicious natures repel even the most hardened practitioners, and yet he speaks about them with nothing but objectivity.
But when he speaks about dragons, it’s different.
Personal.
“To be a dragon is to exist in a perpetual, inevitable state of soul decay,” he finally continues. “Refusing to indulge slows the progress, but it cannot stop it entirely. Nothing can.”
I stare at him. Process what he’s telling me.
“So you’re starving yourself to death. Slowly.”
“An oversimplification, but not inaccurate.”
“Why?” The question comes out before I can stop it. “Why would you do that to yourself? If drinking blood helps, if it makes you stronger, why?”
“Because of what I become when I give in.” His voice is quiet now.
Almost gentle. “I told you once that dragons are selfish, greedy creatures. That we take what we want and hoard what we desire. That is not hyperbole, Ms. Cook. It is our nature. Our curse. We don’t age, and there are very few things in this world that can kill us, but we all fall prey to our own nature eventually. A fitting end.”
He looks at his hands. Long fingers, elegant despite the blood still staining them.
“Every dragon who has ever lived,” he continues.
“My father lasted nearly a thousand years before the madness took him completely. Others fall faster. Some embrace it willingly.” He pauses.
“I have spent eight centuries trying to be different. Trying to prove that what I am does not have to dictate who I am.”
The defeat in his tone is absolute. And heartbreaking.
“And the serum?”
“Keeps me functional. Keeps the hunger manageable.” His lips twist, but it isn’t quite a smile. “As a hybrid, I don’t need as much as a full-blooded dragon. But it is not a cure. There is no cure, only delay.”
I think about what he said in the garden. About his mother and being the last of his kind.
“How long?” I ask quietly.
He doesn’t answer.
“How long have you been doing this?” I press. “How long have you been starving yourself?”
“Centuries.” The word comes out tired. “Since I was old enough to understand what I was. What I would become if I allowed myself to slip.”
Centuries.
He’s been fighting this battle for centuries.
Alone.
“It doesn’t matter,” he says, starting to push himself to his feet. “This changes nothing. I will continue as I always have, and you will—”
I grab his arm again. Pull him back down.
“It matters.” My voice is fierce in a way that surprises even me. “Don’t tell me it doesn’t matter, because that’s bullshit and we both know it.”
He stares at me.
“We’re bound to each other now. Whatever you intended when you wove yourself into that ritual, we’re connected. That means what happens to you affects me. Affects the pack.” I hold his gaze, refusing to look away. “You don’t have to be completely isolated. And you don’t have to do this alone.”
That careful mask cracks a little more, and for just a moment, I see the man underneath. Not the ancient dragon, or the powerful professor, or the mysterious Council operative.
Just a man who has been alone for a very, very long time.
His hand comes up. Slowly, like he’s not sure if he’s allowed. His fingers brush against my hair, tucking a loose strand behind my ear. His touch is impossibly gentle.
“You have no idea how much I wish that were true,” he whispers.
He pulls away and then he’s gone.
There one minute, not the next.
The usual bullshit where he keeps as much distance between us as possible, except this time, I understand why.
He’s not protecting himself.
He’s punishing himself.
For existing.