Chapter 20 – Regina #2
It’s a challenge, there’s no mistaking that.
“This matter is taking place on university grounds. My university. My jurisdiction.” Villeneuve moves to stand between me and the lich, flanked by the pack. “You have no right to be here without my authorization.”
“I have Council authority—”
“Your Council authority ends at my wards.” Villeneuve’s voice sends tremors through the ground at my feet, frigid enough to freeze lava. “Which you bypassed without permission. That alone is grounds for a formal complaint.”
Knox’s jaw tightens. “The investigation has been mismanaged. There are concerns at the highest levels about favoritism. About certain parties protecting Ms. Cook from scrutiny she clearly deserves.”
“And who raised these ‘concerns’?” Villeneuve tilts his head slightly. “The Starbridge family, perhaps? The same family whose heir is currently wanted for assault, necromancy, illegal magical containment of a werewolf, and conspiracy against the Council itself?”
Knox’s face goes blank. Clearly, Villeneuve hit a nerve.
A Villenerve.
Gods, I’ve been spending too much time with Sean. Whatever is wrong with him is starting to infect me.
“You’re intimately connected with the Starbridge coven, are you not, Mr. Warner?” Villeneuve continues. “I believe your sister married into the family. Second cousin to Kyle himself, if I’m not mistaken.”
“That has no bearing on—”
“It has every bearing.” Villeneuve’s voice drops to something dangerous and he stalks forward with such ferocity Knox actually staggers back.
“You come onto my territory. You threaten my people. You attempt to take custody of an individual under my protection, citing an investigation that you clearly have a personal stake in corrupting. And you expect me to simply allow it? You test my patience, lich.”
“Damn,” Sean whispers. “Bro’s got presence.”
Rowan elbows him in the ribs, but doesn’t take his eyes off Villeneuve.
Sean is right, though. If there was any part of me left that had trouble reconciling the calm and collected professor with the ruthless, possessive dragon I know him to be, it’s gone now.
“She’s not under your protection in any way that matters to a Council investigation,” Knox says, recovering. “She’s a Bonded to these wolves, nothing more.”
Villeneuve goes still.
The air around him changes. I feel it through the bond, chaotic energy singing between us like a live wire. Something ancient and terrible is rising behind his carefully crafted mask.
For the first time, I see it. What he meant when he said he wasn’t a human who shifts into a dragon, but rather a dragon who wears his humanity like a mask.
“She,” he says in that calm voice that somehow shakes the earth, “is my mate.”
The words ignite in the silence of the private garden.
I feel the wolves’ shock pulse through our pack bonds. Their collective attention snaps toward Villeneuve with laser focus.
But I can’t look at them. Can’t look away from Knox’s face, which has gone a shade paler than its usual corpse-white.
“You’re bluffing,” Knox says. But there’s uncertainty behind his words now.
“Am I?” Villeneuve takes a step forward.
Just one step this time, slow and measured, but Knox jolts anyway.
Villeneuve raises his hand, and I gasp as a green light forms in the center of my chest. It stretches and strains like an unspooling thread across the field to where Villeneuve is standing, and finds its end point just over the professor’s heart.
The same thing as the cords binding me to the pack, the same one Vyse recognized when he immediately connected me to Villeneuve. And now it’s finally visible for the eye to see.
Not just Knox, but the pack too.
“Try me, Mr. Warner,” Villeneuve says coldly, the thread vanishing once more. “Attempt to take her. See what happens when you come between a dragon and his mate.”
Dragon.
He said it out loud. In front of a Council investigator.
Surely they know what he is if he works for them, but still. He doesn’t talk about these things openly.
Knox’s purple eyes flicker. He’s undead, powerful in his own right. But even a lich knows better than to challenge a dragon on his own territory.
“This isn’t over,” Knox says finally. “The Council will hear of this. Your interference, your... relationship with the suspect. Your ‘jurisdiction’ is at its end.”
“I’m counting on it.” Villeneuve’s smile is sharper than usual. “Now get off my property before I remove you myself.”
Knox holds his gaze for a long moment. Then, without another word, he turns and walks back toward the tree line. The wards shimmer as he passes through them, and then he’s gone.
The garden is silent once more.
I can hear my own heartbeat pounding in my ears.
They know. Not only does the pack know that I’m Villeneuve’s mate, but they all saw the usually invisible thread binding me to him.
No hiding it now.
Villeneuve turns to face us. His eyes have faded back to their usual dark shade, but there’s an emotion in them I wasn’t expecting to find in the wake of the wrath he turned on Knox.
It’s almost apologetic.
“Regina—”
Killian moves.
I don’t see it coming. None of us do. One second Killian is standing beside me, the next, he’s launched himself at Villeneuve, shifting mid-lunge, his massive black wolf form colliding with the professor in a blur of fur and fangs.
“KILLIAN!” I scream.
Villeneuve doesn’t shift. He stays in his human form, catching Killian’s charge with supernatural strength that shouldn’t be possible for something that looks like a man.
They crash through a rose bush, destroying the ancient plants Sean trampled earlier, and hit the ground in a tangle of limbs and snarling fury.
Killian is strong. Stronger than he should be, even for an alpha wolf. He’s driving Villeneuve back, raw power surging behind every snap of his jaws. The virus is making him faster, more aggressive, more dangerous.
But Villeneuve is a dragon. Even in human form, he’s holding his own, deflecting strikes that would have killed a normal man, keeping Killian’s teeth away from his throat through sheer force of will.
“Stop them!” I shout at the others. “We have to—”
But they’re all still frozen. Staring and processing what Villeneuve just revealed and what Killian is doing in response.
I don’t wait for them. I push right through them and run toward the fight, magic gathering in my hands, not to attack, but to intervene.
To stop this fucking insanity before someone gets killed.
“Killian!” I’m close now. Probably a little too close for comfort, but I feel the others pursuing me. “Killian, stop!”
His head whips toward me.
Those ice-blue eyes are all wrong. Yellow bleeds through them like an infection, and for one horrible moment, I don’t recognize him. Don’t see my mate behind that feral, hungry gaze.
Time slows. I see his massive form pivoting away from Villeneuve, see those jaws opening, see the wolf that isn’t quite my Killian anymore staring at me.
And then Rowan is there, tackling Killian from the side, and Micah is grabbing my arm, pulling me back. Sean shouts something I can’t make out over the roaring in my ears.
Killian stumbles. Shakes his head like he’s trying to clear it. The burning gold fades from his eyes, and I see the moment he realizes what he almost did.
The horror on his wolf’s face is devastating.
He runs.
Shifts direction mid-stride and bolts for the tree line, disappearing into the woods before any of us can even react.
“Killian!” I’m already moving to follow. “Killian, wait!”
Strong hands catch my arms. Rowan, his grip firm but gentle as he holds me to his chest.
“We’ve got this.” His voice is calm and steady and commanding. The voice he uses when everything is falling apart and someone needs to hold things together. “Let us handle it.”
“But…”
“We’ve got this, Regina. Stay here. Sean, stay with her,” he orders.
He’s gone before I can argue, Micah at his heels, both of them shifting as they hit the tree line. Two wolves chasing their pack alpha into the forest.
I’m left standing in the ruined garden with Sean and Villeneuve.
Sean is staring at me, his eye wide and his jaw slack. He glances between me and Villeneuve a few times, a thousand different emotions splashed across his face like an abstract painting, masking every last trace of the carefree, goofy Sean I know and love.
He wants answers and he deserves them. They all do, but I know it’s too late. I should have told them before, and now…
I turn back to the tree line, looking into darkness where Killian disappeared.
“I’m sorry, Regina.”
Villeneuve’s voice is quiet, coming from somewhere behind me, but I don’t turn around.
“I know you didn’t want it to come out this way.”
No. I didn’t. I wanted time. Wanted to figure out how to explain and understand it myself before I had to make my wolves understand.
And now it’s out there. The truth I’ve been sitting on for weeks, dropped like a nuclear fucking bomb in the middle of everything else we’re dealing with.
I can’t do this right now.
I turn and walk toward the mansion, my legs moving on autopilot, my brain refusing to process anything beyond the next step. The next breath.
“Storm?” Sean’s voice follows me. He sounds confused and hurt. “Wait…”
“I’m sorry,” I choke out without stopping, because I can’t.
The world around me is too open, too vast, and I feel exposed, the invisible tendrils of my magic and frayed bonds whipping around me like severed wires.
I push through the back door and into the cool darkness of Villeneuve’s house, and I don’t stop walking until I can’t hear anything but my own ragged breathing echoing off the ancient walls.