Chapter 21
Zaden
I could taste her panic in the air, sharp as a power line after a storm. Krystal’s pulse hammering so hard I felt it through the thick plate of my ribs. She never looked at me, just ran for the house. I shifted as fast as I could, clothes forming, and went in after her.
The back porch light was smashed, jagged glass dangling like teeth.
We pounded through the kitchen, which was already a shambles.
Spice jars rolled underfoot, the fridge venting a freezer’s worth of cold air into the chaos.
Someone had bled all over the floor, thin, arterial trails, but there was no one in sight.
Krystal led the charge down the hallway. I caught up in two steps. At the door to Bryce’s room, I almost slammed into her. She stopped so fast, I felt the backdraft of her lungs sucking the air from the space.
Bryce was at the center of the room. He hovered three feet above his mattress, limbs flailing outward in a crooked, cruciform T.
The bed below him sizzled and smoked in places, but the flames never caught.
Instead, the smoke hung in frozen wisps, each one tinted blue-green, each one flickering with a sickly, photosynthetic light.
The real show was the air. Something tugged at the molecules themselves, bent them around the boy’s body.
Picture frames on the wall twisted sideways and then sprang back, rat-a-tat-tat, like teeth chattering in a skull.
The overhead light strobed, sometimes bright enough to erase color, sometimes so dim you had to guess at the location of the walls.
Under it all, Bryce moaned, a sound with more electricity than breath.
The dragon in me wanted to shield, to bellow, to stake out territory and dare the threat to get closer. The man in me wanted to puke. I’d never seen magic do this, not even in the worst Beck family brawls. This wasn’t shifter energy. It was older, slipperier, witchcraft.
I tried to speak, but Krystal was already through the door, past the fulminating energy, moving like a mother who didn’t care if she disintegrated so long as she got to her child first.
"Bryce!" she called, grabbing for his foot. The instant she touched him, a column of light burst out, flattening her hair and blasting her skin with wind. She didn’t let go. Instead, she pulled harder, and the kid’s body began to tremble.
Nathan stood near the dresser, hands up, wearing the look of a man who’d just realized every tool in his kit was made of Play-Doh. He caught my eye, desperation burning.
"Can you shift him down?" he shouted, the words warping as the air flexed around us.
"I don’t know!" I yelled, moving to Krystal’s side. My hand found her waist, instinctively steadying. The mate bond flared, tripling the charge in my veins. I could see her thoughts; she wanted to take the pain, all of it, into herself. She would have bled dry for the kid without blinking.
But the light had other ideas.
Bryce’s eyes snapped open, two pinpoints of blazing gold.
His mouth worked in silent protest. The room convulsed.
Every surface not nailed down hit the ceiling and came back down in a hail of splinters and books and toys.
Krystal shielded her head with her free hand.
I ducked low, letting the detritus bounce off my shoulders.
Then a third party entered.
Vivienne drifted into the room with the composure of a therapist late for her last session of the day.
Her shoes picked a clean path through the glass, and her hair, for once, was a little wild, silver streaks uncoiling from their pins.
She stood there, hands folded, eyes locked on Bryce, drinking him in like a rare artifact.
She didn’t blink, didn’t flinch. Instead, she said, "Fascinating."
That single word broke the spell, or at least bent it enough for me to notice her real reaction. Vivienne’s posture was stiff, but her nostrils flared. For a split second, her irises flashed a color I’d never seen before, not on a human. A mix of greed and awe.
She looked at Krystal, then at me, and if she noticed the way I pressed Krystal into my side, she didn’t comment. "A male dragon-born witch," she whispered. "Almost unheard of."
She stepped closer, her hand raised in a show of nonthreatening intent. "I can help stabilize him," she said, measured. "But it must be now. This type of surge requires specialized containment."
I caught the flicker in her gaze, the way her eyes tracked Bryce’s power like a predator would track the flick of a rabbit’s ear. The dragon in me recognized the move. The man in me wanted to slap her hand away. I gripped Krystal harder.
Krystal shot me a look of pure plea, as if I could fix this, then turned back to Bryce. She dropped to her knees, both hands around his calf. "Let her try," she said in a croak.
Vivienne smiled, a gesture so slow and deliberate it felt like she’d practiced it in the mirror. She began tracing sigils in the air, each movement calibrated for minimum show and maximum effect. The space around Bryce warped further, magic thickening until every breath tasted of ozone and cloves.
Aurelia appeared in the doorway, clutching a velvet bag to her chest and surveying the scene with professional horror.
She didn’t speak but set her bag down and began laying out candles and quartz, her hands a blur.
I didn’t know what she planned, but if I knew Aurelia, she'd do anything to save the kid.
I tried to help. I reached out, palm aimed at Bryce’s shoulder. The instant my hand crossed the boundary of the flare, every hair on my arm stood straight up, and a pulse of pain shot to my elbow. I bit it back and pressed on, planting my hand on his shoulder blade.
The effect was immediate. The light in Bryce’s body recoiled, then surged back, wrapping my hand in a corona of blue fire.
I felt it, the magic, eating at the edges of my consciousness, tearing at memories, at every soft place in my soul.
I didn’t let go. I squeezed, willing the power into a single point.
Vivienne’s hands went still. She locked eyes with me and, for a second, I saw the real her. Hungry, desperate, but also genuinely curious. "Don’t try to force it," she said, her tone cutting through the storm. "Let it run its course. He’ll burn out otherwise."
I nodded, keeping the contact, trying to act as a lightning rod.
Nathan grunted, pushing closer. "What do you need me to do?"
Vivienne didn’t look at him. "Clear the room."
He went out, but reluctantly, ushering a crowd that had gathered in the doorway, making them back up. I couldn't spare another thought for them.
I glanced at Krystal, who looked ready to collapse. I shifted my grip and pulled her upright. "Stay with me," I said. The mate bond throbbed, filling me with a wild hope.
Vivienne started her incantation, low at first, then rising. The sigils she’d drawn began to glow, forming a lattice that wrapped around Bryce’s body. The room pressed in, thick as tar.
Bryce arched backward, then let out a scream so loud I thought my eardrums would split. The light in him pulsed once, twice, then erupted, shooting through the containment lattice like lightning through a fence. The force knocked me and Krystal back a step, but we didn’t let go.
Vivienne’s arms snapped out, catching the overflow. Her hands moved faster, weaving the energy into tight bands. The color changed, shifted from blue to violet, then finally settled into a pale green that hung in the air like a fog.
The tension bled from the room. Bryce sagged in his mother’s arms, sweat pouring down his face. He was alive but wrung out.
Vivienne took a shaky breath, then fixed her gaze on me. "You have no idea what you’ve got here," she said, not bothering to hide the wonder. "This isn’t just raw power. It’s something new."
Krystal hugged Bryce close, rocking him, sobbing. I kept my hand on both of them, the bond a white-hot thread through my chest.
Aurelia spoke shakily. "We have to siphon the excess, or it’ll just happen again."
Vivienne nodded, her attention already on the next step. She bent over Bryce, whispering something I couldn’t catch. He nodded, dazed.
Krystal clung to me harder, her grip desperate. I held her, and for the first time, fully leaned into me, not fighting, not trying to stay upright on her own.
I looked down at Bryce, who blinked up at me. His eyes were brown again, but there was a shimmer in them that hadn’t been there before.
"You okay, bud?" I asked.
He nodded, then whispered, "I was flying."
I smiled, blinking back the sting in my own eyes. "You sure were."
Vivienne finished her work, then turned to face me. Her expression was a mix of triumph and warning. "We need to talk. Soon."
I nodded. The crisis had passed, but only barely. Bryce slept now, cocooned in the safety of his mother and me.
I watched Vivienne as she watched us and made a vow. She was up to something far more than just helping my son. Whatever game she was playing, I would not let her win.
Vivienne waited until the rest of the room emptied before cornering me and Krystal.
Bryce was asleep, bundled in a heap of throw blankets, his hair a sweaty tangle against Krystal’s chest. Aurelia, already in crisis manager mode, had commandeered the kitchen table to assemble what looked like a field surgical kit for witches.
Mortars, herbs, a string of onyx beads, the works.
Eleanor hovered near the fridge, arms crossed, face ashen.
Vivienne swept into the living room with that predatory glide, her gaze skipping over Krystal and pinning me, then darting to the sleeping boy. She didn’t bother with pleasantries. "We need to talk, Zaden. Privately."
Krystal’s hand went tight on Bryce’s back, but she looked at me and nodded. "If she says anything weird, you let me know."