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Past the threshold, we fall in with Caleb while Samara walks ahead with Tristian, close enough to hear every word. Caleb keeps his eyes on her swinging braids and steps around rocks without glancing down.

Aya leans toward Caleb. “How long has your bear known?”

“A week,” Caleb says.

“A week.” Aya rounds on her cousins. “And no one told me?”

“You left the pack.” Ocran shrugs. “Didn’t want to add to your plate. Your dragon was already threatening to burn down our village.”

“I hate you both,” Aya says, and turns back to Caleb.

I can’t even argue with Ocran there. I do the math on the timing instead. The night Aaron came to set me straight, his portal opened on bear territory. He mentioned one more shifter on his mother’s shit list. “Ohhh.” I point at Caleb. “So that’s why Aaron was visiting Axel Clan.”

Caleb whistles low. “That’s one warlock you don’t want to piss off.”

“Tell me about it,” I mutter.

“My cabin is almost finished,” he goes on. “I built it with my own two hands, for Samara…” Ocran and Seth pat his shoulder on their way past. “So what are we doing with the Mer?” Caleb asks.

“Just convincing them this is safe land,” I say. “I kind of scared them off.”

Caleb snorts. “Wild bear to your wild dragon.”

“That’s why we’ve been so close all these years. We both have untamable beasts.” I wink at Aya. “Well. Until our women find us and tame them.”

She presses into my side. Being called mine sweetens her scent. Caleb heads up the path.

We pass through the village. Bears haul split logs to a timber stack taller than the cabins and strip bark off felled trunks by hand. Down at the saw pit, a crew drags a blade as long as I am through a log. Its rasp carries over the knock of axes deeper in the trees. Aya picks her way over the wood chips barefoot without a word of complaint. Solomon comes up the lumber row with an entire tree balanced over his shoulder.

He stops walking when Samara heads his way. Caleb steps in front of her, but she peeks around him to ask for a word. Solomon throws the trunk aside. The ground jumps when it slams down. Somewhere behind us, a woodpile clatters over. Caleb already has Samara clean off her feet by the waist, with guilt souring his scent. A tree that missed her by a mile doesn’t earn that much of it. Seth and Ocran get very busy studying the timber stack.

Samara stares up at Caleb with her freckles glowing blue. Beside me, Aya stops short and digs her fingers into my hand. I fight to keep my face straight.

Solomon dusts bark off his shoulder. “Well, damn near the whole crew is here,” he says. “What you need from me?”

“It’s about the Mer,” Samara answers from up in Caleb’s arms.

Solomon shifts his weight. “I’m sorry, Samara. My parents told me to stay away from the shoreline.”

“I get that,” she says. “And I don’t want you to go against their wishes.”

“None of you will understand. My mother…” He considers the trunk at his feet. “You all will have to find another way to win over the Mer.”

Samara bristles, but Tristian frowns at her. Caleb hugs her closer and growls at his father.

Solomon rubs the back of his neck. “I don’t want to start any conflict.”

“There is none,” Tristian says. “Go ahead and get back to work.”

Solomon raises a hand to us all and points his chin at Seth and Ocran. “I’ll see you two Sunday.”

They wave him off. Samara twists around to meet Caleb’s eyes.

He leans down to her. “I’ll talk to him, okay?”

She doesn’t fight him on it. He takes his time setting her down, and I’d drag it out too.

She walks back over to us. I scrub a hand over my face. “Well. That was a fail.”