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Samara grins. “No, it wasn’t. It’s on its way. You have to understand the bear. All of them will cave in a couple of days.”
Behind us, Tristian and Caleb groan.
Aya giggles beside me. She’s already figured out whatever Samara pulled. I’m still catching up. “Okay,” I sigh. “Now what?”
“Now we wait for them to come around. And while we wait, you work things out with Ash Clan.” Samara jabs a finger at me. “Hard to convince the Mer if you can’t even accept who you are.”
My dragon sulks at that, mostly because she’s right. She walks off with Seth and Ocran.
Caleb watches her go until she’s out of sight. “It’s getting her to live here with me that’s the hard part. She’s very attached to her coven. It’s the shifter way for her to come with me, but I’m afraid I might have to leave my clan behind.” He looks over at Aya. “Was leaving House of Zorah hard for you?”
She doesn’t answer at first. The bond tugs low in my gut while she thinks it over. “It wasn’t easy, but I did it. For my Ezra.” She squeezes my hand.
I lace our fingers tighter. If I open my mouth now, I’ll end up reciting poetry in front of a bear. “It’s still fresh,” I add. “She just left her pack.”
“Right. Of course.” Caleb nods, but sadness clings to his scent. I quit gloating over my mate. The bear doesn’t need it rubbed in.
Aya touches his arm. “Give it time, Caleb. Don’t give up on the idea of it.”
My dragon huffs at her hand on another male. I ignore him and turn to her. “Looks like it’s time for us to formally return to Ash Clan.”
When she nods, I take her face in my hands and kiss her in the middle of Axel Clan’s lumber yard. She sighs into my mouth. Her wild-berry scent wraps around me until I can’t smell anything else. Every bear in sight pretends not to watch. I couldn’t care less who sees.
I’m not ready to deal with Valek, but that stopped mattering the night my dragon rose. He’s already pushing me toward home. This has to happen for the Mer and my father. Ash Clan is counting on me, and so is my lovely mate.
36
AYA
ASH CLAN—THREE DAYS LATER
Iclutch Ezra’s hand as we step onto Ash Clan territory. Every scent here is dragon with a sour edge under it. My wolf pushes toward my mate.
The dragons we pass stop their work and drop to a knee with a fist to the chest as soon as they recognize him. “Alpha,” they say.
Ezra puts his hand up and crushes my fingers in his grip. “No, stop. I’m not alpha yet.”
The ones farther up the path don’t listen to him. A thin curl of smoke drifts from his nostrils. I squeeze back. “Chill.”
“It’s too soon,” he says. “If I can smell the tension in this clan, I know you can too.”
I don’t argue. I rub my thumb over the back of his hand instead.
Ezra stops walking in the middle of the path. “I’m not ready to face Valek.”
I step in close. “Ezra.”
He pulls his hand out of mine and stares past me at Valek’s cabin. His scent runs thin and sharp. “Call me a coward, but I can’t do it. He’s my uncle, and he’s always been alpha. He held this clan together through the war. This is the first time Ash Clan has had a leader outside of him.”
He finally brings his eyes back down to mine. “These are the biggest shoes I’ve ever had to fill, Aya.”
My wolf whines. My mate fought Valek and won, but I’ve never heard him sound small before.
I take his hand back. His skin is hotter than usual. “I get it. Soon, my cousin Jonathan will be taking over House of Zorah. I know he feels the same way.”
I study the village with my fingers laced through his. Hatchlings shriek and chase each other over the rooftops on clumsy wings. Below them, the grown shifters and their humans go about their day like the sky isn’t full of babies.
“I grew up different,” I tell him. “My world is so much smaller compared to yours. But I know all of Wintermoon knows the value Ash Clan brings to this land. And you have the privilege of being born on this soil. Our parents survived the war so we could live here.”
