Chapter 27 Zaden
Zaden
It'd been two days since we dropped Bryce off at his friend's house.
He'd had a great time and was home snoozing now.
Krystal was as well. I closed up the bar myself tonight, a job I enjoyed.
The trick was to focus on the tactile. The sweep of the rag across the sticky bar top, the repetition of pint glasses stacked mouth-down on rubber mats, the metallic clatter of ice scooped from bin to slop sink.
Every surface was familiar, mapped into my muscle memory a thousand times over. Each Sunday night was the same.
The crowd had thinned by two, and the regulars trickled out in twos and threes.
Even Kenneth had taken a sandwich and vanished.
The only noises left were the hum of the refrigeration and the quiet click of the liquor bottles as I inventoried the shelf.
Sometimes I liked to think the bar had a heartbeat, slow and stubborn, refusing to stop even after last call.
I finished wiping down the last table and turned all but one row of lights off.
The place looked different in this half-lit state, more honest. It smelled of lemon cleaner and a faint, lingering undertone of old smoke, even though we’d gone non-smoking years ago.
It was the afterimage of a hundred years’ worth of packs, stubborn as memory.
I poured myself a soda and took it to the office.
The paperwork didn’t care what time it was.
There was a rhythm to counting out the register, logging the receipts, balancing the till.
The computer screen painted everything blue, the text sharp and impersonal against the battered wood of the desk.
I filled in the numbers, made a few quick notes for Kenneth, "Check keg levels before lunch shift," "Find out who’s drawing dicks on the bathroom stall again", then scanned the security feeds one last time.
Every camera angle was clear, and each door locked tight. My eyes went to the corners of the image, looking for the flicker, the ghost, anything out of the ordinary. Nothing. Only my own warped reflection, hunched at the screen.
I logged off, killed the lights, and did a walk-through, front to back. The windows all closed, the coolers humming, the chairs stacked.
I shut the door behind me, listened to the bolts slide into place, then stepped out into the alley.
The night air wasn't super cold, but it had a nip that promised winter was on its way.
The main drag of Stock Creek was empty, all the shops and restaurants asleep, even the neon at the vape shop blinking out between colors.
The alley behind the bar ran three blocks, ending at the mouth of a shallow creek.
Nobody ever came back here, except for the occasional high schooler with a six-pack or the foxes looking for a bite.
I set my bag down and stretched, rolling my shoulders. The ache in my neck said it was time to shed the skin.
I scanned the alley, more out of habit than caution, then let the change come.
First, the heat, a full-body rush that burned through the soles of my feet and up into my teeth.
My bones lengthened, rearranged. My skin thickened, turned to armor and scale.
My hands cracked open and curved, fingers dissolving into talons.
Every tendon pulled tight, then loosed, then pulled again as my body stretched into its true shape.
The pain was exquisite and brief, gone as fast as it came.
The world grew smaller, then bigger again, then smaller still as the shift finished and I hunched, dragon-spine pressed to brick.
I unfolded, one careful segment at a time. My scales shimmered in the dark, picking up scraps of moonlight. My tail curled behind, nearly double the length of my human height, and my wings were massive and strong enough to snap a telephone pole if I didn’t watch my flight.
I stood for a second, cataloging the scrape of gravel under claw, the sharp tang of the air, the distant chemical sweetness of antifreeze from a leaking car a block away. My dragon senses never dulled. They layered over each other, building a picture of the night more complete than any camera.
I crouched, checked the sky, then launched.
Flight is its own language. It doesn’t translate to humans, not really.
There’s no "up" or "down," only where the next current takes you and how your wings catch it.
The air was clear, perfect for gliding. I took it slow, low at first, skimming over rooftops and the cracked tar of the main road.
Stock Creek was a speck of a town, but from above, it felt like the navel of the universe.
Every light was a beacon, every heat signature a story.
I banked left, then caught a gust that pushed me higher.
The town lights shrank, and the mountain that loomed over everything became another shadow.
Out here, I could see the scatter of farms, the subdivisions stitched together by long, winding roads, the quicksilver flash of a deer herd moving at the edge of a field.
I circled wide, then angled toward the northwest edge of town, where the cottages thickened into woods.
The mate bond thrummed in my chest, a silent GPS that pointed the way to Krystal and Bryce.
The closer I got, the stronger the pulse.
not a sound, not a feeling, just a certainty. They were safe. They were home.
I dropped altitude, careful not to rattle the treetops, and coasted above the house.
It was dark except for the single lamp in Bryce’s window, a faint blue glow that seeped into the yard.
The security cameras I’d installed blinked red, their tiny eyes never sleeping.
I ran a quick perimeter check, scanning for any movement, nothing but the usual.
A possum crossing the road, a feral cat nosing around the trash.
I slowed, hovered, and let the dragon sight go deep. I could see in the windows from this angle, and it didn't matter to my dragon eyes that it was dark.
Bryce was asleep, a tangle of arms and sheets, his mouth open in mid-snore. The wolf plush was still clutched to his chest. Krystal lay on the bed, fully dressed, one arm draped across her eyes. Her breathing was slow, even. I counted the beats, twelve per minute, the same as always.
Satisfied, I swept the rest of the property, then found my landing spot. I dropped to earth behind the shed, back where the ground went soft, and the grass grew wild.
The shift back to human was easier but left me hungry. I stood still for a moment, skin prickling, checked the cameras one last time from my phone, then walked the house perimeter. I listened for anything weird or out of place. Only the ordinary night sounds answered.
Inside, the fridge light painted the kitchen white.
I opened it, found the leftovers from dinner, and ate straight from the Tupperware.
The mate bond ran a soft background hum, not urgent.
Sated. It told me, in a way that was older than words, that everyone inside these walls was safe, at least until sunrise.
I rinsed the bowl, set it in the sink, and padded down the hallway. I paused outside Bryce’s door, letting myself soak up the ordinary miracle of a kid sleeping without fear.
In the master bedroom, Krystal had barely moved. I slipped in beside her, careful not to wake her, and watched the line of her jaw in the moonlight.
This was the center of my universe, for now. This was enough.
In the darkness, I let myself dream. For the first time in a long time, I didn’t have to fight it.
Outside, the town spun on. But nothing would get past me.
The next night, I felt the wrongness before I saw it.
I’d flown the same route, glided the same thermals, clocked every outbuilding and road sign.
The air was colder, the moon a sharper blade above the trees.
But there was a flicker at the edge of my vision, something not animal, not natural, a pulse that read off to every organ in my body.
I cut altitude and swept a wider arc. The mate bond vibrated at a higher pitch, not panic yet, but close enough to get my hackles up. The anomaly pulsed again, a stutter in the magic field that rippled out from the woods north of the cottage.
I banked, turned into the wind, and braked hard.
The shift from air to earth was quick, brutal, with no time for a pretty landing.
I clawed down into the trees, branches whipping scales, the scent of mulch and sap jarring after the clean air above.
I folded my wings, crouched low, and crept forward.
At the edge of the yard, I listened.
There. A whisper of movement, a scrape of shoe on bark. I went still, holding every breath in my body. It was close, maybe thirty feet away, down by the fence line where the cameras didn’t quite reach. I slipped from shadow to shadow, then let the change pull me back to human.
This time, the shift barely registered. My mind was too busy working the problem, running every scenario. Sweat cooled instantly on my skin as I crouched and waited.
A red camera blinked through the brush. I moved past it. The anomaly was stronger now, a taste in the back of my throat. metallic, sweet, and laced with an undercurrent of rot. It was magic, but not any Beck flavor. Something else.
I slid through the undergrowth, rolling heel-to-toe, predator quiet. Ahead, through the half-open slats of the fence, I spotted a figure. Small, dressed in black, hair pulled back in a hard tail. Vivienne. Of course.
She knelt in the grass, hands spread wide, her fingers weaving a slow pattern in the air. Light bled from her knuckles, faint, but visible. It wasn’t showy. If you didn’t know what to look for, you’d miss it.
But I knew.
She was siphoning, slow and precise. The energy built in a lattice, each line and node feeding off the last, the effect like a slow battery drain on everything around her. The trees wilted, the grass pressed flat in a circle at her feet. She worked methodically, with the detachment of a surgeon.
A hundred possible reactions flashed through my mind, but the dragon decided for me. Rage didn’t creep up. It detonated, shotgunning adrenaline through every nerve. My muscles burned, and I leaped the fence without thinking.
Vivienne didn’t flinch. She kept her hands moving, the spell tightening. The threads of light wrapped the side of the cottage, wormed into the cracks by Bryce’s window.
Inside, the boy was thrashing, his limbs pinwheeling under the covers. Sweat slicked his brow, his lips drawn back in a rictus of pain. The mate bond spiked, raw fear, then nothing, then fear again, hot and blinding.
I roared. No attempt at stealth, no attempt at cleverness. Just pure threat, the kind that empties the air and leaves everyone gasping.
Vivienne didn’t look up, but her spell faltered. That was enough.
I closed the last ten feet in a single lunge, grabbed her by the wrist, and squeezed. The magic snapped, visible as a shower of blue sparks that scattered over the grass.
Vivienne’s skin was cold, but her eyes burned. She met my gaze, steady as hell.
"You’re interrupting," she said, her tone clinical. "I was stabilizing him. His power was fluctuating."
I bared my teeth. "You’re draining him."
"He would have broken himself without intervention. It was building to a catastrophic event."
I squeezed harder, letting her feel the real danger. "If you touch my son again, you’ll wish for a catastrophic event."
Behind us, a window slammed open. Krystal’s head poked out, eyes wild, hair stuck flat to her cheek. She took it all in quickly. Me pinning Vivienne, our son writhing behind the glass, the lattice of broken magic in the air.
She was out the front door in seconds, barefoot, shirt half-buttoned. The mate bond doubled down, fusing our panic and anger into a single, feral focus.
She shouted unintelligibly, barreling toward us. Her canines had lengthened. I saw them even from here.
Vivienne was about to reach the find out stage.