Chapter
Five
REGINA
“Regiiiiiiiinaa.”
Sean’s tone-deaf song echoes through the sitting room Villeneuve apparently designed for people who want to feel inadequate about their book collections. The walls are lined with leather-bound volumes that smell obscenely expensive.
“I’m in love with a girl namedRegiiiina.”
He’s sprawled across a velvet chaise, one arm conducting an invisible orchestra while the other holds an imaginary guitar. The bandage over his missing eye makes him look like a pirate who wandered into the wrong century.
“Wanna take her on a date to...” He trails off, brow furrowing in concentration. “Uh.”
I don’t look up from the book in my lap.Lycanthropic Transformation: A Comprehensive Analysis of Bite Pathology. The title is dry as dust, but the contents are worse. Page after page of case studies that all end the same way.
Madness and death.
“Nothing rhymes with Regina,” Sean announces, sounding genuinely distressed about this.
Micah, who’s been pretending to read in the armchair across from me, snorts. “Arena? Cantina? Marina?”
Sean’s good eye goes wide. “Whoa, man.Youshould be the songwriter.”
“I’ll add it to my resume.” Micah’s voice is flat. “Right under ‘survived dragon encounter’ and ‘watched packmate lose an eye to a werewolf.’” He closes his own book, a text on alchemical healing that he’s been flipping through without actually reading. “How many of those pills did you take?”
“Only one.” Sean sits up, looking offended. “And that was like seven hours ago. They just made me sleepy.” He pauses. “And hungry. And horny.”
“Dude, you’re always all of those things.”
“True.” Sean grins, which should be impossible for someone who just lost an eye mere hours ago, but here we are. “Hey, you know what’s weird? You’re my favorite person in the world and your name is just two letters off from my favorite food.”
I set the book aside. The words have stopped making sense anyway, my brain refusing to process another paragraph about the progressive deterioration of cognitive function in bite victims. I’m clearly not going to get to the solution to Killian’s situation tonight. “And what’s that?”
“Vagina.”
He pronounces it to rhyme with my name.
Va-GEE-na.
Regina.
Haven’t heardthatsince my middle school bullies, but he says it so fondly I can only be amused.
“I should add that to the song,” he muses.
I laugh, at least as much as I’m capable of laughing right now. Pretty sure Sean’s clowning is the only thing keeping all of us from losing our fucking minds right now.
The irony.
“Are yousurethe painkillers aren’t still in effect?” I ask him.
“No, this lyrical genius is all me, baby.” He taps his temple with one finger. “Pure, unfiltered Sean Brewer.”
“Gods help us all,” Micah mutters.
I close the book completely and set it on the side table. It joins the stack of other volumes I’ve been working through. Six books on werewolf bites, three on transformation pathology, and one ancient text on pack bonds that’s written in a language I can barely read. None of them have told me anything useful.
