Chapter 567: Not yet.

Dean did not leave Theodore at the window for long.

The child stood with one small palm pressed against the glass, black eyes fixed on the distant northern horizon where the restricted forest began far beyond the palace grounds. He was no longer upset about Otto’s enormous stuffed dragon sitting abandoned behind them.

If anything, Theo had become unusually calm.

That concerned Dean more.

He crossed the room and lifted him.

"No."

Theo allowed himself to be moved without protest, wrapping one arm automatically around Dean’s neck while continuing to look over his shoulder toward the forest.

"Papa, he is awake."

"I heard you."

"He wants me to find him."

Dean carried him toward the sofa.

"That is also something I heard, and the answer is still no."

Theo frowned thoughtfully rather than arguing.

"But I know where he is."

"You know approximately where he is."

"I can feel him."

That changed the room.

Arion had already moved closer, his attention completely on their son now.

"Since when?"

Theo looked at him.

"A while."

"How long is a while?"

Theo considered the question seriously.

"Before my birthday."

Dean sat with him on his lap.

That explained the black dragon appearing seemingly from nowhere.

Theo had not invented a new toy and forgotten where he placed it. He had been trying, with the vocabulary of a four-year-old, to explain something neither parent had realized he could sense.

Arion crouched in front of them.

"Why didn’t you tell us that someone was calling you?"

"I did."

Dean closed his eyes.

"The dragon."

Theo nodded.

Arion looked toward Dean, and something almost apologetic passed through his expression.

"We assumed he meant a toy."

"So did everyone."

Otto glanced toward the elaborate stuffed dragon he had personally commissioned.

"I had supporting evidence."

Rina covered her mouth.

Minerva looked away before Dean could see her expression clearly.

This was not the time.

Arion rested one hand against Theo’s knee.

"Can you hear words?"

Theo shook his head.

"No. He just wants me."

Arion’s expression changed in protectiveness, sharpening into something colder.

"You are not going anywhere."

Theo looked at his father for several seconds, then nodded.

"All right."

Dean kissed his temple.

That was more like their son.

Theo could become frustrated, and he had certainly spent the last few days increasingly unhappy that nobody understood what he meant, but he was not reckless. Once his parents gave him a clear reason and a firm boundary, he usually listened.

The problem was whatever had spent several hundred years inside the forest was apparently reaching for him.

Arion stood.

Black lines surfaced faintly beneath the skin of his wrists.

Dean immediately recognized what he intended.

"Careful."

"I’m only reaching."

Vetiver spread gradually through the sitting room.

Not enough to disturb Theo or the others, but deep enough that the darker metallic layer beneath it became recognizable.

Theodore turned his head north again.

Arion closed his eyes.

Dean felt the change through their bond almost immediately.

Arion’s awareness moved beyond the palace, following pathways he had spent years learning to control through the infected territory. Beasts responded first, distant impressions brushing against him before settling once they recognized who was reaching.

Then the knights.

The restored ones were no longer part of that network in the same way, but the infected population still inside the forest registered around its edges.

Arion pushed farther.

Toward the north. Toward the place Matthias had warned them about years ago.

Nothing answered.

His brow tightened.

Dean felt him reach again, stronger this time.

I know you can hear me.

Silence.

The connection remained open, yet the ancient presence did not acknowledge him.

Arion’s golden eyes opened.

"He is there."

Matthias stepped closer from the doorway.

"You feel him?"

"Yes."

"But?"

"He is ignoring me."

Theo leaned against Dean.

"He wants me."

Arion looked toward him immediately.

"That does not mean he gets you."

The certainty in his voice softened something in Dean’s chest.

Arion moved beside them and rested one hand against Dean’s shoulder while the other brushed Theo’s dark hair away from his forehead.

"If he wants something from this family, he can communicate with the adults first."

Theo seemed satisfied with that logic.

Dean was not, because the pressure had changed.

He could feel it now through Arion.

Heavy and distant, older than anything else inside the network, but unmistakably focused on Theodore.

Dean’s irritation rose almost instantly.

"Fine."

Arion glanced toward him.

Dean closed his eyes.

Mint lemonade slipped into the room, not expanding into a full neutralizing field but threading through the connection Arion still held open.

His mate understood immediately.

Arion strengthened the pathway for him.

Their pheromones overlapped, vetiver carrying Dean farther into a system that did not naturally belong to him.

Dean found the presence.

It was enormous.

Not physically, he had no sense of a body, but in age and weight, like touching the edge of something that had remained unmoving while generations passed around it.

Dean pushed directly against it.

Stay away from my son.

The response was immediate.

A deep vibration rolled through the connection.

Dean’s eyes opened.

Arion stared at him.

Matthias went completely motionless.

The sound was not truly a sound, yet all three of them understood it.

A low, displeased grumble.

Theo brightened.

"That’s him."

Dean looked north.

"Oh, now you answer."

Another rumble.

Longer this time.

Arion’s mouth twitched despite the tension.

Dean ignored him.

He is four years old. If you want to know him, you will wait until he is old enough to understand what you are and decide whether he wants anything to do with you.

The pressure shifted into disappointment.

Dean had no idea how something ancient and possibly monstrous managed to sound sulky through a pheromonal connection, but it did.

And if you intend to keep calling him until he spends days searching wardrobes and trying to explain a black dragon to people who have no idea what he means, then you can come here and manage bedtime yourself.

Arion laughed quietly.

The being grumbled again.

Theo leaned closer to Dean’s chest.

"He doesn’t like that."

"I gathered."

Matthias finally moved.

His face had gone pale.

"It answered you."

Dean looked at him.

"Yes."

"No, I mean it actually responded."

Matthias crossed another step into the room.

"Dominic reached for that presence. The elders reached for it. I tried more than once before I was restored. Sometimes we felt it shift, but it never answered."

Arion’s expression sharpened.

"Yet it ignored me just now."

Matthias nodded slowly.

"And answered Dean immediately."

Silence settled over the room.

Theo looked toward the window again, but he made no attempt to leave Dean’s arms.

"Can I meet him when I’m bigger?"

Dean looked at Arion.

Arion looked at their son.

"If we know it is safe," Arion said.

Theo accepted that.

"How big?"

Dean sighed.

"We’ll negotiate later."

The distant presence stirred once more.

A faint, dissatisfied vibration traveled through their connection.

Dean looked toward the forest.

"You are not part of the negotiation."

This time even Minerva laughed.

And somewhere far beyond the palace, the ancient thing grumbled again.