He follows me to the ritual room and I have to hold my inner wolf back like I'm gripping the chain on a junkyard dog.
"Professor," Regina greets him, stepping forward with more confidence than I expected. "Thank you for coming."
"You can call me Villeneuve," Villeneuve says—only to her—and something in his tone makes my shoulders lock up. "And I wouldn't miss this for the world." He hands her the grimoire. "I've made the necessary adjustments to your ritual. The incantation is more precise now, and I've marked where the dragon's blood must be incorporated."
"And are you gonna explain how you got dragon's blood on such short notice?" Rowan asks pointedly.
"It's probably the fuckin' incense type," Sean mutters.
Villeneuve ignores him. His smile doesn't reach his eyes. "As I said before, I have my sources."
"But you're not going to elaborate," I say. Not a question.
"No," he agrees,waytoo pleasantly, and moves to examine Sadie's setup. He picks up the phial and holds it up to the light so the liquid swirls inside. "Ah, the Bryer witch has excellent taste in lunar venom. This is high quality."
"Should be," I mutter. "Cost a fucking fortune."
Micah moves closer to Regina, frowning at the grimoire over her shoulder. "This is... different from what you prepared."
"Very different," Regina confirms, her fingers tracing lines of text. "The base structure is similar, but there are substantial modifications to the energy flow." She looks up at Villeneuve. "This is going to be more complex than I anticipated."
"Yes," he admits. "Breaking a coven bond while simultaneously establishing a pack bond for a siphon is rather like performing heart surgery while the patient runs a marathon. It has to be perfect."
"Wait," Sean interrupts, pushing off the stairs. "I thought this was just a standard bonding ritual. Packs take Bondeds all the time. Why is this such a big fucking deal?"
Villeneuve looks at him the way you'd look at a golden retriever who just asked about quantum physics. "Ms. Cook is not a 'standard' anything. She is a siphon—one of the rarest and most powerful types of witches in existence. And you four are not a standard pack either. All alphas, all with unusually strong energy signatures."
Sean's chest puffs out. He looks my way with a stupid grin. "I think Professor Stick just said we're magically shredded."
"I said no such—" Villeneuve's eyes snap to him. "What did you just call me?"
Sean deflates faster than a balloon. "Oh. It's uh, on account of how hard your classes are. You know. Like... a stick. A stick in the mud. Academic... mud."
Smooth recovery.
Not.
The real reason is because he always acts like he has a stick up his ass, but I'm not saying that out loud.
Villeneuve's eyes narrow, and I can tell he doesn't buy it. But eventually he just shakes his head and decides Sean isn't worth the effort. Smart man.
He moves to the center of Sadie's arrangement, fingers hovering just above the components. "A normal witch bonding with a normal pack is relatively straightforward. Ms. Cook bonding with your pack is akin to merging a hurricane with a forest fire.Both are immensely powerful natural forces with completely different energy signatures."
"So it's like mixing Red Bull with tequila and cocaine," Sean says, nodding like he's just cracked the Da Vinci Code. "Gotcha."
My stomach drops. "It's that dangerous?"
"It's volatile," Villeneuve corrects, opening the wooden box to reveal a small vial of what looks like glowing liquid ruby. "Which is why I brought this. Dragon's blood serves as a bridging agent between disparate magical forces. It will stabilize the transition, making it safer and reducing the likelihood of a rejection."
Arejection?
That wasn't even on my radar as something that could happen. I've witnessed a hundred different bonds in my lifetime and never heard of one beingrejected.
"That still doesn't explain why you're staying for the ritual," I say, not bothering to hide my suspicion. "Getting some voyeuristic thrill out of watching us bond our mate?"
Villeneuve sighs like I'm exhausting him. Good. "Because despite all these precautions, things could still go awry. You will want someone with strong magic present should that happen." His dark eyes lock onto mine. "Unless you'd prefer to risk your mate's life and magic for the sake of your wolfish pride?"
I clench my jaw so hard my teeth ache. The bastard knows he has us cornered.
