Chapter 25
Zaden
It was more a smudge than a shape, a blue-white pulse that bled across the lower left quadrant of the feed and then vanished, leaving the rest of the frame shaking.
I froze the tape, nudged the jog wheel a quarter-second forward, and zoomed in.
Nothing. Then, a pixel-wide line of light shimmered in and out at the edge of Bryce’s window.
The rest of the property was quiet. Foxes, the occasional raccoon, but nothing two-legged. No lights from passing cars, no shadows that didn’t belong. I watched it on repeat, fingers tapping the desk, trying to decide if this was a ghost in the machine or something more sinister.
A notification pinged. I checked the health dashboard for the system.
Three of the six cameras on the south end were showing offline.
At least two had gone dark overnight, judging by the way the logs stacked up with no signal flags.
I ground my teeth and wrote a new column.
"REPLACE/REPAIR, south perimeter." The mate bond pulsed hot in my veins.
I made a list of every piece of gear I’d need. 4K outdoor cams, IR floodlights, a battery backup system, motion detectors for the upstairs windows.
The room was lit only by the monitors. The blue cast made the skin on my hands look bruised. I glanced at the clock, 11:48 AM. I’d burned through breakfast and almost the entire morning on this, my world narrowing to the two inches of screen where that goddamned flicker kept showing up.
I forced myself away from the desk. The dragon in me didn’t care about evidence, or probability, or the odds of a witch trying to break into my house. It wanted claws and fire and an explanation, right now.
But first, lunch.
The kitchen was alive with the smell of cheddar and frying butter.
Krystal had the griddle going and was laying out grilled cheese on a plate.
She hummed as she worked, the oldies station on her phone playing a song about California girls.
I loved her for it, but I loved her more for the way she looked over her shoulder when I came in, catching my worry before I could say a word.
She slid a sandwich onto a plate and slid it toward me on the counter. "Food. You’ll need it if you’re going to keep up the dragon dad routine."
I took the plate, ate a sandwich in two bites, and let the salt and fat mellow the noise in my head. "I think we’ve got a problem with your camera system."
She shrugged, unbothered. "I told you those eBay specials weren’t going to cut it. I installed them years ago and have barely looked at them since. I haven't needed to."
I smiled. "They’re fine, but I’m getting weird flickers on the night feeds. Like something’s setting off the cameras, but not triggering the motion logs."
"Not a deer?"
"Not a deer," I said. "It’s always right outside Bryce’s window. And a few of the cams on the south end are offline."
She licked cheese off her thumb, unhurried. "You want to run new lines?"
"Yeah. And I want to add a couple more, maybe get some IR floodlights. If it’s just a fluke, I’ll feel stupid for a day. If it’s not…"
She looked up, and the expression on her face was a blend of amusement and pride. "You’re such a dragon dad already."
I grinned, the worry easing enough to let the compliment in. "It’s the mate bond. Makes me want to dig a moat around the house."
She plated another sandwich, then nudged it my way. "You don’t need a moat. You have me. And a kid who can throw a couch across the room when he wants."
That sobered me up. "How’s he doing?"
She frowned. "He’s better today. The siphoning helped. But he’s got another headache. It’s low grade, but he’s not talking much."
I set the plate down. "I can check him, if you want."
"After you finish lunch. He’s in his room."
I wolfed down the rest, then padded to the hallway. The door to Bryce’s room was half-shut, the inside shaded and quiet. I knocked and poked my head in. "Hey, kiddo. Are you alive in there?"
He groaned, then rolled to face me. His skin was pale, but not sickly. Just tired. He rubbed at his temple. "It’s not bad. Feels like a thunderstorm in my head."
I sat on the edge of his bed. "You want to take a walk? Fresh air helps sometimes."
He shook his head, then shrugged. "Maybe later. Did you see anything weird on the cameras?"
"Yeah," I said. "Have you ever seen blue light outside your window?"
He considered, then nodded. "Sometimes. But it’s not scary. It’s like a buzzing. I thought it was a dream."
I ruffled his hair. "Dreams sometimes mean something. You’ll tell me if it gets worse?"
"Promise," he said. He meant it. The mate bond hummed again, light and steady. He was fine, for now.
Krystal called from the kitchen. "Bryce! If you don’t eat, you’ll shrivel up and die. Come get lunch."
He groaned but smiled. "See? She’s the real dragon."
I followed him out, watched as Krystal made a big show of cutting his sandwich into tiny bites. She winked at me as he devoured the plate.
After lunch, I loaded up my shopping list and kissed Krystal on the cheek. She wiped her hands on a towel, then pulled me in for a real kiss. Her lips were soft, but the grip on my neck was pure wolf. "Don’t spend the mortgage on security cameras," she said.
I grinned. "No promises."
The hardware store clerk eyed my cart like I was planning a heist. To be fair, I’d stacked two dozen high-def outdoor cams, a tangle of Cat6 cable, two rolls of weatherproof conduit, enough IR lights to run a small airstrip, and a six-pack of the expensive wire splices.
I topped it off with a bag of zip ties and a box of pop rivets.
He rang me up, pausing only once to ask, "Big project?"
"Family property," I said. Well. Wasn't it nice to say that?
He grinned. "Smart move. I got a cousin who works at the animal shelter, she says the foxes in this county are getting bolder every year."
"You're cousin's right," I said, smiling enough to end the conversation, "never know what’s out there."
On the drive back, the boxes rattled in the bed of the truck. I made good time and parked as close as I could get, unloading the gear in one trip.
The install took all afternoon. First, I mapped the property line, marching the perimeter with a notepad, checking every angle the way I’d learned many years ago.
I mounted the cameras high, out of reach for anything without a ladder or wings and pointed half of them right at Bryce’s window.
If anyone or anything wanted to get close, I’d see them coming three towns away.
I ran cable through the crawl space, ducking old insulation and spiderwebs. Each time I hit a joist or snag, I let out a string of curses, but the rhythm was meditative, almost calming. I was building something. I was doing something.
Krystal poked her head out the back door once, holding a mug of coffee. "Need a break?" she called, but the look on her face said she knew the answer.
"I’m good," I called back, and meant it.
By the time dusk fell, the yard looked the same as it always had, normal, almost boring, but every square inch was covered. I tested the cameras from my phone, then Krystal’s, making sure the feeds updated in real time. No lags. No blackouts. No more excuses.
I checked the angles on Bryce’s window again, watching as the room’s interior flickered from the soft gold of a reading lamp to the blue flash of a game console screen.
He was in there, safe, playing a racing game with the focus of a fighter pilot.
The mate bond vibrated, like a tuning fork that never stopped ringing.
As I packed up the leftover hardware, my phone buzzed. A text from Aurelia.
Training session at Beck Manor, need you here. Vivienne has new data.
I wiped the sweat from my forehead, tucked the last coil of cable into the shed, and headed out. The drive was short, but the mountain road was slick with dew. By the time I pulled up, the Manor’s windows were all alight, candles and electric lamps in every room.
Inside, the ritual room was crammed with books and printouts.
Vivienne presided over the table, each finger curled around a different sheet of vellum or photocopy.
Aurelia was perched on the arm of a sofa, arms crossed, watching with a mix of skepticism and curiosity.
Eleanor stood by the window, arms folded.
Vivienne didn’t look up as I entered, but she addressed me immediately. "Take a seat."
I ignored the chair and stood by the door, arms folded, doing my best to look unimpressed.
Vivienne spread her hands. "We’re discussing the anomaly of Bryce. Male dragon witch, a true hybrid. Rare. Almost statistically impossible."
Eleanor scoffed. "You said that last week."
Vivienne smiled, predatory. "But now I have numbers.
" She tapped a sheaf of papers. "I’ve run energy signatures from the last two siphonings. Compared to baseline, he’s tracking three times the output of a normal juvenile witch.
And…" she slid a diagram toward Aurelia, "the composition isn’t just witch resonance. It’s a new variant. It reacts, it adapts."
I leaned against the wall, my impatience bleeding through. "What’s the punchline, Vivienne?"
She steepled her fingers. "The punchline is, we’re running out of time. If you want to keep this contained, you can’t train him like a human child, or even a wolf. You need protocols, supervision, boundaries."
"Boundaries are our specialty," I said flatly.
She shrugged. "Then you’ll need to apply them aggressively. I recommend daily siphonings, guided meditation, runes on the bedding, and a ban on digital screens for at least twelve hours a day. Light sensitivity is a hallmark of this transition."
Aurelia frowned, flipping the diagram. "He’ll hate that."
Vivienne nodded, insufferable. "Better than the alternative. The power will find a release, whether you like it or not."
I stared her down, the dragon in me flaring. "We appreciate your concern. But all decisions about Bryce’s training go through Krystal and me. You don’t make calls about my son."
She cocked her head, amused. "Of course. I’m just the consultant. But I fear you underestimate the urgency. The transition window is brief. If you miss it, his power might turn inward."
I bit back the retort. Aurelia caught my eye, her own expression loaded with warning and a dash of amusement.
Vivienne continued, "I’ll need a weekly sample. Hair, blood, whatever you can spare. The more data, the better."
I set my jaw, feeling the spike of old family politics in the air. "We’ll discuss it as a family. Thanks for the warning."
She dipped her head, not conceding, but acknowledging the line I’d drawn.
As I left, Aurelia fell in step with me. "You handled that well," she whispered. "Just watch her. She likes to set her own rules."
"She won’t get anywhere near him," I said.
Aurelia laughed, dark and soft. "You keep saying that. But she’s already here, and she's not going to hurt him."
I drove back to the cottage in the dark, windows down, the mountain air cold enough to sting. The dragon in me smoldered, not with anger but with a weird, clarifying sense of purpose.
Vivienne wasn’t a threat I could burn away. She was a force of nature. But I was a Beck, and for the first time, I had more to protect than just my own hide.
When I pulled up to the cottage, the only lights were the porch bulb and a faint glow from upstairs. I killed the truck engine and let the hum of the night settle in, unrolling the tension from my spine one vertebra at a time.
Inside, the place was quiet. Bryce’s door was cracked, a sliver of lamplight stretching across the hall carpet.
I peeked in, and he was out cold, clutching his wolf plush, legs tangled in the covers, one arm flung overhead.
The energy in the room was calm, almost serene.
The headaches were backing off, for now.
In the living room, Krystal slept on the couch, a battered paperback splayed on her chest and her mouth barely open. I pulled the Afghan from the back of the couch and draped it over her, careful not to wake her. She didn’t stir, but her hand found the edge of the blanket and pulled it closer.
I wandered to the kitchen, poured a glass of water, and stood by the window, watching the yard go blue-black under the stars. I checked the cameras on my phone. If anyone came close, I’d know.
But I wanted more than that. I wanted to see it for myself.
I set the glass down, slipped out the back door, and let the night swallow me. I waited until I was out of sight of the house, then let the change come.
My body knew the drill by now. The world stretched and refit itself. bones expanding, skin hardening, the old pain replaced by an ecstatic, shattering heat. My hands split to claws, my jaw lengthened, and my lungs flared wide. A rush of wind, and then I was off the ground, the yard shrinking below.
Flight never got old. Not after a hundred years, not after a thousand.
Up here, the worries of the ground fell away.
I could see every inch of the property, every heat signature in the trees, every rustle in the grass.
My dragon’s senses picked up things no camera could.
the trace of a fox in the underbrush, the shape of a barn owl on the hunt, the weird, static hum of magic when it lingered in the air too long.
I circled the house, then the property line, running the same path I’d walked that afternoon.
From the air, I could see how the land folded around the house, how the shadows moved when something was stalking.
Nothing moved tonight, but the sensation of being watched was gone.
The blue flicker I’d seen on the cameras didn’t show itself.
I banked high, catching an updraft, and scanned for anything out of place. Every muscle in my body was alive, every sense tuned to threat. But all I found was peace, the house glowing like a lantern at the center of my little world.
I made three full loops, then hovered over the backyard, out of reach of the floodlights. From here, I could see straight into Bryce’s window, the curtain pushed to one side, the kid’s silhouette soft in sleep..
The night was calm. The air held nothing but the memory of old storms.
I promised myself I’d do this every night, as long as it took. As long as there was a chance.
I drifted down, landed soft in the shadow of the shed, and waited for my heart to slow. Then I slipped back into human skin and went inside.
Krystal had rolled to her side, one hand under her chin, the book still perched on her ribs. I took the book and set it on the coffee table, then knelt and kissed her forehead. She smiled in her sleep, and the mate bond lit up, hot and sure.