Chapter 30 Krystal
Krystal
Zaden made a show of dropping me off at the front entrance of Z's place.
Not a quick pull-up and a wave, but a full-on walk to the door, hand at the small of my back, his warmth rolling through the thin layer of my dress.
He wore jeans and a navy button-down, sleeves rolled.
I caught two women on the patio watching us with open curiosity, probably tourists, but I held his gaze when he bent to kiss me.
He lingered, letting the world see, then let me go with a wink.
Inside, the overhead lights were dialed down to gold, the wood and glass polished to a shine that magnified every color and every smile.
Z’s Place could be cavernous and loud, but tonight the noise was friendly, old jukebox tracks, laughter bouncing off the brick, the clink of glasses and the hush of secrets.
My friends had already commandeered the biggest corner booth.
Frankie spotted me first, waving a highball glass like a flag as beer sloshed down her arm. "Krys! Over here! We started without you, but only a little!"
I cut across the floor, ducking a pair of soused bikers and side-stepping a precarious tray of hot wings.
The booth was packed. Frankie and Tavi on one side, Skye and Rissa on the other, with Erin and Aurelia squeezed between.
Frankie had dressed for maximum attention, a violet wrap dress, hair swept up, heels that defied gravity and common sense.
She’d managed to convince Tavi to match, at least in color, but Tavi’s dress stopped mid-thigh and was sparkly.
Skye wore her hair in loose waves, lemon-bright, and a shirt that read, "I have a spreadsheet for this.
" Rissa had opted for a black turtleneck, statement earrings, and the resting expression of a woman who’d already decided which one of us would be bailing her out by midnight.
Erin and Aurelia sat at the center of the chaos, quietly chatting.
Erin wore a vintage tee and jeans, while Aurelia had gone full femme fatale in black silk and gold jewelry.
Drinks already lined the table, something clear and botanical for Skye, a whiskey sour for Tavi, a fluorescent blue monster for Frankie, and two stemless glasses of red wine for Erin and Aurelia.
I slipped into the only open seat, pressed shoulder to shoulder with Skye, and let the collective energy of the booth pull me in.
"Cheers!" Frankie crowed, raising her glass. "To Krystal’s mating bond and surviving the Wicked Witch of Stock Creek!"
Six arms shot up in salute, and the toast rolled around the table. Skye poured me a generous gin and tonic from a pitcher, then set a lime wedge on the rim.
I clinked glasses and let the first sip loosen everything inside me. Man, I needed this girls' night.
Aurelia caught my eye over the rim of her glass. "You look good, Krys. Rested."
I grinned. "You should see the volcano we built in the kitchen today. Bryce is still scrubbing food coloring out of his hair."
Rissa nudged me. "So the homeschool life is working?"
"Ask me again when we get to geometry," I said.
Frankie barked a laugh. "Please. He’ll be designing drone aircraft by Christmas. The real question is, how’s his magic?"
Erin set down her glass, tucking a flyaway curl behind her ear. "I heard the last runes session went well."
I shrugged but couldn’t stop smiling.
Aurelia launched into praises for her student. "He scorched a perfect circle into the backyard. Grass won’t grow there until the next ice age."
Skye raised her glass. "I’ll drink to that."
Tavi leaned in, elbows braced on the table, eyes glittering. "Did you see the video? Krys, you have to show them."
I blushed, but Aurelia's phone was already out, and in seconds the whole booth was clustered around a two-second clip of Bryce lighting up a chalked rune, the blue flare reflected in his wild grin.
"Damn," said Frankie. She was human but had been in our inner circle since she was a kid. Actually, she knew half the wolf pack before I did since I'd only visited during the years I'd lived in Knoxville with my mom.
"His control’s ahead of schedule," Aurelia said, sounding overly proud. "We can start runework next month."
Erin snorted. "Start now. Kid’s going to outpace you if you wait."
The conversation spiraled from there. I let them run with it, the noise and affection sinking in. It felt good to be just another mom, another friend. Not a cautionary tale or the subject of a crisis intervention.
After a while, Angel came by with drink refills and a big wink, and the topics drifted.
Rissa recounted an epic battle with a parent who refused to admit her child had bitten another child, "We don’t bite in Pre-K, we use our words!
", and Tavi described a disastrous date with a shifter who’d tried to convince her to join his "pack" after two drinks and a basket of curly fries.
Frankie kept the table alive, tossing out jokes and making faces at anyone who tried to take themselves too seriously. When Aurelia nudged the conversation toward relationships, Frankie rolled her eyes but gamely played along. "Fine, fine, who’s getting laid? Don’t be shy. We’re all friends here."
Skye shot her a look. "You first."
Frankie raised a perfectly plucked brow. "Not me. I’m on strike. Unless I can count my own right hand."
Tavi giggled, nearly spitting out her drink.
Aurelia let a sly smile curl at the corner of her mouth. "I think Krystal and Zaden have us all beat in the public displays department."
I shrugged, feigning modesty. "It’s the dragon genes. They come with exhibitionist tendencies."
Erin deadpanned, "That checks out."
Rissa steered things back. "So how’s the new co-parenting arrangement?"
I paused, considering. "Surprisingly functional. Zaden’s still banned from helping with school projects unless I want Bryce to show up at the science fair with a Tesla coil or a bomb."
Aurelia cackled. "Classic Zaden."
The table rocked with laughter. For a few minutes, all the old fractures in my life seemed far away.
Frankie finished her drink, eyed the empty pitcher, then stood. "I’ll get the next round and tell Kenneth to stop watering the pours."
She threaded her way toward the bar, hips swaying, as Skye watched her go with a pensive look.
The minute Frankie was out of earshot, Skye leaned in, dropping her voice to a confidential murmur. "Is she going to be okay with Chance being here?"
I blinked. "Chance?" I twisted around and scanned the bar. I’d been so locked in on the booth I hadn’t noticed the other end of the place.
Sure enough. The men had arrived. All of them, at the far end by the shuffleboard, their bodies arranged in a clumsy tableau of forced-casual.
Now that I saw them, the mating bond surged.
How had I missed that? I studied the drink in my hand.
Damn, he wasn't watering the pours at all.
I was already buzzed, and wolves took a bit for alcohol to work.
Zaden and Ashton stood closest to the tap, Nathan and Gavin behind them like bodyguards. Drake leaned against the wall, already working the room with a lazy charm, and there, at the edge of the group, was Chance.
He looked the same as always, tall, dark, a little too serious, but his focus was all for Frankie, following her every step with a hunger he didn’t bother to hide.
"Oh boy," I said, grinning despite myself. "I guess we’ll find out."
Rissa followed my gaze and snorted. "He’s been sitting there for thirty minutes, not drinking, just watching. It’s getting weird."
Aurelia raised her eyebrows. "At least he’s not setting things on fire."
"Yet," added Tavi.
Erin watched with the clinical detachment of a scientist observing a potentially explosive experiment. "How long since they talked?"
"Ten years," Skye said. "Since before the hibernation."
I sipped my gin and tonic, feeling the chill of the ice and the warmth of my friends. "Well. If we need to bail Frankie out, we can always call in the wolves."
Tavi perked up. "Are they here, too?"
I scanned the bar again. Sure enough, Nathan and Gavin weren’t the only wolves in the place. There was a small constellation of familiar faces at the pool table, pack members out for the night.
Frankie returned, carrying a tray of drinks with a flourish that earned her a cheer. She slid a whiskey in front of Rissa, set down another round of gin and tonics for the rest, and dropped an espresso martini in front of Aurelia, who accepted it with queenly grace.
She ignored the bar behind her, but I saw the twitch at the corner of her mouth. Oh, yeah. She’d noticed Chance, and she was making him suffer.
The next hour blurred in a pleasant way.
There was dancing, mostly Tavi and Skye, who commandeered the touch-screen jukebox and loaded it with every embarrassing girl-power anthem from the last thirty years.
Rissa convinced the bartender to invent a new cocktail and named it "The Blackout," and by the second round, even Erin let her hair down.
I kept my eyes on Frankie, who worked the table but never once looked toward the shuffleboard. Every so often, I’d catch Chance’s gaze flickering over, then dropping to his hands.
Aurelia picked up on it, too. She leaned close. "Are you going to play matchmaker?"
I shrugged. "She’d kill me."
"Not if you did it right," said Aurelia. "Sneaky."
I looked at Frankie, then at Chance, and felt a thrill of possibility that I hadn’t let myself feel in a long time.
Maybe things could change. Maybe the world, broken as it was, still had room for new stories.
It didn’t take long for the rhythm of the booth to overflow. After Frankie spilled a gin and tonic on the table. "My bad!" she declared, "We’re too hot for this furniture. Dance floor or bust!"
Tavi shrieked, "Yes!" and within seconds, the entire group was weaving their way past tables and onto the scarred expanse of parquet dance floor. The bass thumped through the soles of my shoes, followed by the opening riff of a song that had once been the soundtrack to a summer I barely remembered.
We found each other in the center, hands linked in a rough circle. Frankie yanked me in by the wrist and spun me so hard I nearly toppled, then caught me with a move that should’ve dislocated her own shoulder.
"You have to go with it, babe," she said, sweat already dotting her hairline.
I went with it.
Skye was a nightmare on the beat, but she compensated by yelling along with every lyric.
Aurelia danced like a woman who had spent centuries perfecting the illusion of grace, but Erin and Rissa brought her down to earth with their wild, unchoreographed joy.
I even lost my self-consciousness. The feeling of being in the middle of it, alive and wanted, crowded out the old scripts of worry and vigilance.
During the third song, I glanced over and caught the men exactly where I’d expected.
Posted up at the bar, six deep, angled so each one had a line of sight to the dance floor.
Ashton and Nathan stood slightly apart, arms crossed, wearing identical looks of amused concern.
Zaden tried to appear oblivious, but his eyes followed every one of my steps.
Gavin and Drake hovered near, feigning interest in a televised darts match.
Chance sat at the end of the bar, drink untouched, his focus a laser on Frankie.
I rolled my eyes at the collective overprotectiveness, but some buried part of me basked in it. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed being watched over for the right reasons, not the dangerous ones.
The playlist shifted, and suddenly we were in the middle of a nineties throwback.
Frankie shrieked and started doing the running man, only to trip over her own feet and collapse against Skye, who, against all laws of physics, caught her and set her upright in one smooth motion. Dragon reflexes for the win.
"Show-off," Frankie muttered, but hugged her anyway.
The song spun out, then slowed, the pulsing lights dipping to a lower, honeyed glow. An old torch ballad drifted through the speakers, and Skye booed, but Aurelia grinned at me and said, "Now we dance for real."
She nudged me in the direction of the bar. Zaden was already halfway across the floor, hands in pockets, waiting for me to catch up. He was a terrible dancer, too tall, too aware of his own limbs, but he offered his arm with mock formality. I took it, feeling his hand settle at my waist.
We swayed, barely moving. He tucked his chin so I could hear him over the music. "Are you having fun?" he asked.
I tipped my head up, met the gold of his eyes. "I think this is the first time I’ve felt normal in… maybe ever."
His grip tightened. "It looks good on you."
The slow song lasted an eternity, or maybe two minutes. Either way, I let myself melt into him. For once, I didn’t look around to see if anyone was judging.
I glanced to my left. Ashton and Erin were locked in conversation as they danced.
Erin’s laugh had the shyness of someone who’d only recently rediscovered joy, but Ashton’s smile softened the air around them.
Nathan, surprisingly light on his feet, spun Rissa with an ease that suggested a hundred dances before this one.
Gavin played bartender for Tavi and Frankie, bringing them a fresh round of shots.
Tavi tried to teach him the robot, while Frankie grinned and clinked her glass against his.
Drake cut in on Skye, twirling her with a flourish that drew applause from the tables.
Only Chance stayed on the sidelines, elbows braced on the bar, his expression a study in hunger and regret.
Zaden pulled me in, wrapped his arms around me, and held me as the world swirled.
For the first time in forever, I let myself believe it could last.
Around us, friends old and new made their own circles, their own magic, their own hope for a future bigger than any of us could imagine.
And for tonight, at least, that was enough.