Chapter 20
Krystal
Saturday, I pulled up to Beck Manor with the engine still ticking under my hands. Tonight, the windows glowed gold against the oncoming storm, and the only vehicle in the drive was Zaden’s motorcycle. He opened the front door before my boots even hit the first step.
He looked different. There was no shield in the curve of his mouth, just a question written all over his face. Are you really here, or am I still dreaming you?
He said, "Hey," but it sounded like welcome back.
I tried to answer, but my lips had decided to stick together out of sheer spite. Instead, I tucked my hands into my jacket pockets and let him take the lead, following the broad line of his shoulders through the foyer. He waited for me to catch up, then walked me down the long, echoing hall.
Aurelia’s ritual room was on the ground floor, tucked between the library and the less formal den.
I’d never seen the inside, only heard stories that the floors had been imported from a church in Spain, that the walls were lined with enough protective glyphs to keep a whole town in check.
I’d assumed, stupidly, that they were exaggerating.
I understood my mistake the moment Zaden opened the door.
The air was thick, like walking into a room just after someone has been crying.
Dark wood ran the length of the floor, every board carved with a pattern of interlocking knots and suns.
The walls were painted matte black, but every few feet a chalk-white sigil shone under the candelabra light.
It was cleaner than any church, but alive in a way churches never were.
At the center of the room, a low altar bristled with candles.
Some were fresh, tall, and elegant, but most were stubs fused into waxy continents.
The altar’s surface was swept clean except for a half-dozen glass bowls, each filled with something different.
Sea salt, river pebbles, thorny red berries, silver chain, dried lavender.
There was a mortar and pestle, the inside dyed a bruised purple.
Next to it, a lighter, a knife, and a handful of index cards covered in Aurelia’s angular script.
The witches had already assembled. Aurelia stood barefoot at the altar, tying back her hair with a ribbon that looked like it was spun from spider silk.
She wore jeans and a white t-shirt, but it might as well have been a ceremonial robe, the way she carried herself.
Vivienne hovered in the corner, arms crossed, expression bright as a sunny day but hard as flint.
Eleanor, my mother, sat on a stool by the window, her knees pressed together tightly.
She had her hands folded in her lap, fingers twitching with micro-movements that gave away her nerves.
No one spoke for a moment, sizing up the energy in the room. Aurelia broke the silence, waving me forward. "Take off your shoes," she said. "You’ll need bare feet for the circle."
I hesitated, but Zaden knelt next to me and untied my laces before I could talk myself out of it. I felt a tremor in his hands, barely there, but real. He stood and set the shoes aside, then caught my gaze. "I’ll be right here," he said. "I promise."
Something in me wanted to throw my arms around him, but instead I pulled back and murmured, "Thank you." Was that the spell? Was that how it had messed me up all these years?
Aurelia handed him a candle. "You can sit on the edge of the circle. Do not cross the chalk."
He nodded, then took up his post with the candle held in both hands.
Vivienne pressed her lips together. "If anything goes wrong, I’ll step in," she said, not quite looking at Eleanor.
Aurelia knelt, drawing a wide circle on the floor with a stick of white chalk. She ringed it with glyphs that made my eyes water if I looked at them directly. When she finished, she beckoned me to the center.
My legs felt like someone had swapped the bones out for iron rods, but I went anyway.
I knelt, then folded my legs under me, the wood floor cold and almost sticky under my skin.
I tried to keep my back straight, the way they taught in yoga class, but everything in me wanted to curl into a ball and wait for the storm to pass.
Eleanor rose, walked the slow half-lap around the circle, then stopped just out of arm’s reach. Her hair was wild tonight, silver threading through the black. She fixed me with a look that stripped away years. "You ready?"
I nodded. It was the only thing left to do.
She began in a whisper, words too soft for even my wolf ears to catch, her fingers weaving a pattern in the air.
The sigils on the wall seemed to pulse, the candelabra flames drawing toward her like she was breathing them in.
She spoke faster, each word building on the last, until I felt the words as much as heard them, a thudding in my pulse, a heat on my tongue.
Aurelia added her own chant, low and steady, a rumble that filled the gaps in my mother’s spell.
She walked the edge of the circle, dropping pinches of salt and lavender.
The room grew brighter, the candles all but blinding, and the chalk at my feet lifted into a light haze, the powder tracing the outline of my calves and thighs like a second skin.
The first thing I felt was a cold spike in my chest, a needle that ran from heart to spine and back.
Then heat, curling around my ribcage. My body wanted to jerk away, but I kept still.
The memory of pain was old news. This was something different.
I watched Eleanor’s hands, how they tugged at the air, fingers plucking invisible threads and pulling them taut.
It looked like she was unraveling me, every memory, every layer, every bad decision, and old scar.
Then came the glow. It started at my sternum, a bead of light no bigger than a pinhead.
It spread, branching up through my neck, down my arms, then into my hands and legs.
The magic wasn’t red or purple or any color I could name.
It was the brightness behind your eyes after you’ve stared too long at the sun.
Every nerve in my body sprang awake, and every memory hit me at once. All the laughter, the fights, the hunger, and loneliness. The years of tamping down, of holding still so I wouldn’t break anything important. Every mistake, every moment I’d wanted to run and didn’t.
It hit so hard I gasped, shoulders shuddering.
I tried to breathe, but the air wouldn’t cooperate.
My fingers clenched the floor, nails scraping wood.
I wanted to scream, but I’d forgotten how.
Instead, my head snapped back, and I saw Zaden, just outside the circle, the candlelight burning in his hair, his hands pressed white-knuckled together.
It broke all at once. Not in a shower, but in a single, convulsive wave. The mate bond slammed into place, a line of force that ran straight from my chest to his, pulling so hard I thought my ribs would snap.
Eleanor said, "Now," and Aurelia’s hands shot out, weaving the air with impossible speed. The bond bucked, then snapped taut, and suddenly I could feel everything. The roughness of the floor, the taste of blood in my mouth, the wild, choking certainty that I was alive in a way I’d never been before.
But that wasn’t all of it.
The second wave was deeper, colder. It rolled up from my belly to my throat and settled behind my eyes, spreading through every cell in my body.
I saw Zaden's face in my mind, clear as a photograph. The bond with him didn’t ignite or surge, it just settled, calm and solid.
I understood, in a way that was less a thought than a knowing, that I would live as long as he did.
The mate bond wasn’t a leash or a curse.
It was a soul contract. He would not leave me behind.
I started to shake, tears streaming down my face.
My mother’s spell was still at work, unraveling the old suppression.
Every time she pulled, more of me came loose, but it hurt less and less.
The numbness peeled away in slow, aching strips, and when it was gone, I was clean.
Empty, but in a way that promised room to grow.
The light faded. The candles guttered, then steadied.
I blinked and looked up, meeting Zaden’s eyes across the circle.
His expression was raw, like he was watching the sun rise and fall at the same time.
He looked at me as though he’d never seen me before, and I realized that maybe he hadn’t.
Maybe it had somehow tempered the mating bond for him as well.
I wiped my face with the back of my hand, my skin hypersensitive all over. "Is it done?" I asked, my voice hoarse.
Eleanor let out a long, slow breath. She looked tired, but not diminished. "It’s done," she said, almost tenderly.
Vivienne stepped forward, gliding to the edge of the circle, her eyes wide and bright. "Remarkable," she said, and for once, she sounded sincere. "Did you feel the ripple?"
Aurelia exhaled, then nodded. "It will have woken every sensitive within a hundred miles. There’s a backlash. Something’s going to happen."
At that moment, the house’s main door slammed, hard enough to rattle the windows. Ashton barreled into the room, his height and presence crowding the air, with Erin close behind, her hair a mess of red and her hands clamped on his arm.
Ashton scanned the circle, eyes flicking to Aurelia, then to me. "What the hell was that?" he demanded, voice pitched to reach every corner of the manor.
Aurelia answered, "We broke the suppression. The mate bond activated, and it’s stronger than any of us predicted."
Erin looked at me, her face gone pale. "It wasn’t just here. I felt it all the way out in the garden. Like the world twisted."
Eleanor nodded. "It’s a hybrid bond, dragon and wolf. It’s rewriting her nature in real time. There may be side effects."
I started to stand, but the room spun. Zaden crossed the chalk line before anyone could stop him, catching me under the arms and lifting me upright. He smelled like cedar and something metallic, and I wanted to bury my face in his neck and sleep for a year.
He whispered, "You did it. You’re free," and it meant more than any celebration I’d ever known.
The moment was cut short by the shrill buzz of a cell phone. Mine. Aurelia was closest. I nodded and she answered, listened, and then said put it on speaker.
It was Nathan, his voice barely controlled. "Something’s happening to Bryce," he said. "He was asleep, and then, things started flying. Windows breaking, lights exploding. He’s in pain, but I can’t get close. Every time I try, I get thrown back."
I clutched the back of a chair, panic swallowing the last of my newfound peace. "Is he—"
"He’s alive," Nathan said, "but I don’t know for how long."
Aurelia, Eleanor, and Vivienne locked eyes in a triangular standoff. Vivienne said, "The backlash."
Zaden glanced at me, then at Aurelia. "What do we do?"
Aurelia was already moving, collecting bowls and candles and tossing them into a velvet satchel. "Flight is fastest," she said, pulling on boots as she talked. "The dragons can get us there before it escalates."
Vivienne rolled her shoulders, then stalked over to Skye, who had just appeared in the doorway, breathless. "Are you up for a midnight flight?" Vivienne asked.
Skye grinned, all teeth. "Hell yes."
Zaden looked at me, concern drawn across every line of his face. "Can you ride?" he asked.
I didn’t hesitate. "If it gets me to him, I’ll do anything."
He nodded, squeezing my hand. "Let’s go."
Aurelia snapped instructions with military precision. "Ashton, take me. Zaden, you and Krystal. Skye, Vivienne is with you. Drake and Chance, flank and cover." She pointed at Erin and my mother, who both looked unsteady. "Drive and meet us there."
Erin protested, but Ashton bundled her into his arms and kissed her forehead. "I’ll call as soon as we land."
The whole party surged out the door, down a long hallway and into the yard. Above, the moon pressed through clouds, highlighting the lawn.
Ashton shifted first. The process was too quick to be beautiful, bones cracking, clothes shifting with him, and then the great black dragon stood where he’d been, scales absorbing the moonlight.
Aurelia mounted with the ease of long practice, climbing the ridges of his back and settling between two spines.
Zaden dropped my hand and stepped away. The change hit like a silent explosion, his body expanding, red scales fanning out, limbs doubling and then doubling again.
He was a beast of living garnet, his wings catching light like stained glass.
For a second, I could only stare. He was impossibly beautiful, and terrifying in a way that made my heart lurch.
He extended one wing toward me, lowering it to the grass. I set my bare foot on the leather, testing the surface, then scrambled up, finding handholds in the subtle dips between the scales. I slid into the hollow behind his shoulders, straddling his back, and clung to a bony ridge.
The other dragons shifted in rapid succession, Skye in a flash of pearl, Drake in a sweep of blue, Chance in silver.
Vivienne mounted Skye as if she’d done it a hundred times, her skirt flaring as she swung her leg over the neck.
Drake and Chance flanked the group, scales glittering with pent-up energy.
Aurelia and Vivienne raised their hands, and for a moment, the world turned to syrup. A dome of light shimmered into being, a shield of distortion that would hide us from any mortal eyes. Aurelia called, "Now!" and the dragons sprang forward in unison.
The takeoff was nothing like a commercial flight. There was no gentle build, just the instant, ferocious thrust of muscle and magic. My head snapped back, hair whipping into my mouth, eyes streaming as the ground fell away. I wanted to scream, but I couldn't get in enough breath to.
We banked hard, flying low over the town, the world below reduced to a blur of streetlights and sleeping roofs. The wind burned, but I couldn’t stop grinning. I felt alive, every part of me tuned to the impossible power beneath me.
Zaden roared, a sound that vibrated through my whole body, and I pressed closer, burying my face between the warm curve of his shoulders. The cold was nothing compared to the fear for Bryce, but I couldn't help feeling the thrill of my first flight.
We closed in on Nathan’s house in under two minutes.
The backyard glowed with a pale, shifting light, magic, raw and uncontrolled, spilling out from the windows in waves.
Zaden circled, then landed with a force that shuddered through the ground.
I slipped off, barely landing on my feet, and ran for the back door. I had to get to my son.