Chapter 17
Zaden
Nathan’s house sat at the bottom of a gravel drive, hugged on two sides by trees and the third side by Erin's Inn. The place looked unchanged from when I’d visited years ago to deliver a keg. I parked my bike by the mailbox and killed the engine.
The whole walk up the path, my dragon thrashed under my skin, pushing me to go to Krystal, who lived nearby, deeper on the pack land. A few centuries of being the biggest, baddest thing in the room, and here I was, sweating at the front door.
I knocked, and Nathan answered faster than I’d expected, as if he’d been waiting for me. He wore a faded Rolling Stones T-shirt. His salt-and-pepper hair was damp, like he’d just showered off the day, but his eyes were clear and wolf-sharp.
He sized me up from boots to brow, reading every twitch. "Zaden," he said.
"Nathan." I tried to be casual, but my throat rebelled. "Got a minute?"
He hesitated, then stepped aside. "Come in."
The walls were busy with family photos, decades of pack gatherings, a parade of wolves and kids and the occasional blurry snapshot of Nathan in his police uniform from before he retired.
At least half the frames included Bryce, who mugged for the camera.
The living room held a battered couch, a recliner leaking stuffing, and a low coffee table with a chessboard set up and half-played.
Nathan nodded at the couch. "Sit."
I did, perching on the edge like I might have to bolt. Nathan sat opposite me in the recliner.
We waited, the only sound was the faint drip of a faucet somewhere in the house.
"Krystal not here?" I asked.
He shook his head. "She's got a shift at the bar, but you would know that. Bryce is out with Elle somewhere in the woods."
Yeah, I knew she was working. I don’t even know why I asked.
He studied me, his gaze refusing to blink. "You didn’t come here for pleasantries."
I shrugged, the motion stiff. "Figured we should talk. Man to man."
He nodded. "I’ve been expecting you. Krystal told me everything last night. Did you come to help me bury her mother for putting that spell in her?"
I chuckled at that. "We should wait until Eleanor removes the spell safely first."
It should have been easy to say it. Instead, I stared at the chessboard and tried to remember how the game worked.
"Bryce is my son," I said, finally. The weight of the world rested in those words.
Nathan’s jaw clenched. He looked away, picking at a seam in the arm of his chair. "Yeah, that’s what Krys said."
He sat back, the tension turning his arms to cord. "Doesn’t change much. I helped raise that boy. My pack did. He’s a wolf."
"Is he?" I asked, genuinely curious.
Nathan’s face went cold. "You looking to take him?"
My dragon bristled at the implication, but I forced it down. "No," I said. "I wouldn’t do that. I just want to be part of his life. That’s all."
The silence thickened. On the TV stand, a plastic clock ticked away the seconds.
Nathan broke first. "He’s happy, you know. Got friends. Got family. We don’t need a dragon swooping in and messing with his head."
"I get that," I said. "Family is just as important to dragons as it is to wolves. I want what is best for him and Krystal. And you know my clan is deeply rooted in this area, too. I have no plans of leaving."
He nodded, almost imperceptibly. "What’s the plan?"
I hesitated. "I don’t know. I’ll follow Krystal's lead. I just wanted to sit down with you. Let you know my intentions, and that they're totally honorable."
For a while, neither of us said anything. The house felt smaller with both of us in it.
Nathan looked down, jaw flexing. "If you hurt him or her…"
"I won’t," I said flatly. The dragon in me made it an oath. "I’ll protect both of them. Always. Krystal is my mate, and I plan to claim her after the spell is broken, as soon as she'll have me."
Nathan shifted, his posture less combative. "Krystal’s a good mother. The best. But she’s got her own scars. You help her, or you stay the hell out of the way."
I nodded. "I will."
Another long pause, this one not quite as sharp.
Nathan sighed, the sound heavy with decades. "You want a beer?"
I almost laughed. "Yeah," I said. "I do."
He rose, crossed to the kitchen, and returned with two cold ones. He tossed me one, which I caught without thinking.
We cracked them together, a small, reluctant truce.
Nathan said, "Bryce talked about you nonstop until his mom picked him up."
My chest warmed, and my dragon purred at hearing that. I sipped the beer, letting the cold settle my nerves. "At least he won’t have to worry about the curse."
Nathan grunted in agreement. "That’s a plus for your whole clan."
I raised the can. "I’ll drink to that."
I finished my beer and stood, setting the empty on the coffee table. "Thanks. I just wanted you to know my intentions. She's my mate so there will be no walking away. Now that I know I have a son, my dragon is pushing me to go to her."
Nathan followed me to the door. "You want to see him, you clear it with Krystal first. She’s the only one whose permission matters."
I nodded. "Understood."
He watched me go, eyes steady but not unkind.
I walked down the drive, past the mailbox and the silent woods toward my bike, feeling the weight of what I’d signed up for. It was heavier than anything I’d carried before, but it felt right. My dragon agreed. The best burden ever.
I threw a leg over my bike, started the engine, and drove off, heading to Chance’s house. It was move-in day."
The road to Chance’s mountain ranch home twisted and climbed, asphalt patched so many times it looked more scar than surface.
The first mile, I gunned it, letting the throttle and the wind shred whatever was left of my composure.
The dragon liked speed, wanted to take the curves fast and reckless, but I reined it in, kept the needle on the right side of stupid.
It had been years since I’d let myself just ride, nowhere urgent to be. It should have cleared my head, but every turn wound the tension tighter. The bike vibrated through my legs, grounding me in the present. I could smell the hint of rain coming over the ridge. None of it made a difference.
Three miles past the last mailbox, I pulled onto the shoulder and killed the engine. The silence landed heavy, louder than the roar had been. I dug the phone from my jacket and typed Krystal’s number. My hands shook but I ignored it.
She answered on the second ring, no greeting, just, "What’s wrong?"
I hadn’t expected that. "Nothing’s wrong," I said, and winced at how flat it came out.
A pause. "Okay. What do you want?"
I breathed in, slow and deliberate. "I want to meet him. Bryce. I want to—" I broke off and swallowed. "I want to start being in his life."
She said nothing for a moment. I heard the background noise of a TV, Bryce’s voice shouting about dinosaurs, then a door shutting.
Krystal came back on, more guarded. "I still haven’t told him. I don’t know what to tell him. How to tell him."
The truth was, I wanted to see the kid, but I didn’t want to wreck anything she’d built. "I’ll follow your lead," I said, softer. "In the meantime, we can start dating."
She exhaled, tired. "He deserves to know. But I have to tell him in a way that doesn’t make him think his whole world’s been a lie."
"Okay," I said. "You figure out how to tell him. I’ll wait."
Another silence. "This isn’t how I wanted it," she said, so low I almost missed it. "But we’ll make it work."
I nodded, even though she couldn’t see me. "Thank you."
"Hey, I could always blame it on my mother."
"Do you think the spell also made you forget who I was?"
She paused as if thinking about it. "Maybe, but I don't think so. I think I was just really freaking drunk that night. It sounds like something my mother would do. Let me go. We can talk more later."
"See you soon." We hung up, and I started the engine of the bike and continued to Chance’s house.
Chance’s place stood on a ridge above town, a low-slung ranch in the early stages of a full-scale resurrection. The driveway was blocked by a battered moving truck and a muscle car. I parked behind the latter and cut the engine.
Inside, the house buzzed with the kind of chaos only the Beck Clan could generate. Drake and Ashton manhandled a washer through the front door, and Chance, shirtless, scarred, and bellowing orders, steering the entire operation from a pile of drywall scraps.
Erin was there, too. She swept dust from corners, her hair tied up with a pencil and a length of packing twine.
I ducked past my brother, who grinned and shoulder-checked me into the wall. "You’re late," he said.
I grunted and aimed for the kitchen, where Aurelia and Skye were unboxing coffee mugs and sorting silverware into trays. The counters were lined with enough caffeine and sugar to keep an army upright for a month.
Aurelia saw me and pointed a knife in my direction. "Don’t even think about eating before you wash those claws."
"Some of us don’t have time to preen before manual labor," I said, but the banter felt hollow. I pumped soap from the novelty dispenser, shaped like a miniature fire hydrant, and tried to let the water rinse the tension from my hands.
Chance strode in, already glistening with sweat, and collapsed at the table. "We’re ahead of schedule," he said. "If we keep it up, we can get to the garage this afternoon. Zaden, you take wiring with Skye. She’s less likely to kill you than me."
I didn’t bother to protest.
We worked. The afternoon blurred into a medley of box lifting, curse words, and Skye’s running commentary on the sorry state of the American electrical code. She was faster than me, more focused, but I kept up, if only to give my body something to do while my head churned.
Dinner was pizzas and cheap beer, eaten on the half-finished deck. Everyone sprawled on camping chairs or hunched on steps, the sun burning away the worst of the paint fumes.
Aurelia handed out fresh cans and set her own on the railing. "Anything new from the outside world?"
Ashton sipped his beer, thoughtful. "Rumor mill says the witches are up to something, but Vivienne hasn’t dropped by in a week."
The conversation circled, but my mind was somewhere else, on a porch two miles away, a kid with a dragon’s smile and a wolf’s stubbornness.
I stared at the horizon, tuning out the rest. When I finally spoke, it was without warning. "I have a son."
The words detonated, and the clan stared at me in shock.
Drake recovered first. "You knocked someone up?"
I shook my head, the motion slow. "Not like that. It’s Krystal’s son. He's my son. And she’s my mate." They already knew the last part.
Aurelia’s mouth dropped. "You know now that I think about it, Bryce does have a little dragon in his aura. I didn’t think anything about it. I didn't fully notice."
"But now we know Krystal is under that spell, it makes sense that we all missed it." Skye studied me for a minute. "What’s your plan?"
"She wants to tell him herself, but I’m not going anywhere. She’s my mate, and I’ll be there for whatever she needs."
Erin, who had been sitting quietly on the edge of the deck, spoke up. "That’s fair," she said. "He should hear it from his mom."
Aurelia turned to her, surprised by the alliance. Erin just shrugged, her gaze even. "Once the spell is broken, Kystal will be open to the mating. I couldn’t imagine not being able to sense my mate. It’s got to be confusing for her."
The moment stretched. Then the sound of a car door slammed from in front of the house, and everyone looked up.
Vivienne strode into view, her heels sinking into the grass. She wore sunglasses the size of salad plates and a smile that could cut glass.
"Well, well," she said. "Looks like a full house." She swept onto the deck, pausing to let everyone admire her. "What’s the occasion?"
Drake grinned. "Zaden’s a dad."
Vivienne’s eyebrows shot up. "Is that so?"
I braced myself, but she just perched on the rail next to Erin and waited for the details.
Aurelia filled her in, condensing the last ten minutes into a single sentence. "Krystal's son, Bryce, is Zaden's."
Vivienne turned to me, her gaze clinical. "How old is he?"
"Nine," I said, not wanting to add anymore. My dragon grumbled in my head. For whatever reason he didn’t care for Vivienne very much.
"Has he shown any signs?"
I frowned. "Of what?"
Vivienne smiled. "Of the dragon. Or the wolf. Or something new?"
I shifted, uneasy. "He hasn’t shifted yet. Wolves don’t shift until they hit puberty either. For all I know, he could be a normal kid." It was unheard of for male dragon offspring to not be dragons, but Bryce was some sort of hybrid. I had no idea what that meant for my son.
Her eyes narrowed. "No kid in this town is normal. Especially not a dragon hybrid."
I bristled. "He’s not a science experiment."
She raised her hands, feigning innocence. "Of course not. I’m just curious. Hybrids are rare. Powerful. Unpredictable."
Skye Tucker cut in. "Let the kid be a kid, Viv."
I bit back my first response, the dragon in me wanting to burn the question out of existence. Instead, I said, "Why are you so damn interested in my son?"
The deck went silent.
Vivienne’s smile faded, replaced by something almost human. "Because I care about the future of this family. Of all of us."
I didn’t believe her. But I didn’t say anything else.
The tension held for a long moment, then Ashton, ever the diplomat, said, "We should get back to work. The garage isn’t going to organize itself."