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Ocran steps out of the trees at the foot of my porch and brushes off his clothes. He’s his father top to bottom, all hard lines and broad shoulders. He has some of Tami in his face. When he straightens and fixes his green eyes on me, I can tell he heard plenty and hasn’t made up his mind yet whether it’s funny.

I eye him over the railing. “How much did you hear?”

Ocran gives me a flat look. His wolf reeks of annoyance. “Damn, man, I thought you were going to breed my cousin at the door.”

We wince when Aya squawks out in the forest. Of course my nosy mate stopped to eavesdrop. She crashes off through the undergrowth again. Ocran drags a hand over his head.

I turn back toward the cabin. “Come in,” I tell him. “I’ll make a pitcher of ice water.”

He comes up after me and shuts the door. By then I can’t hear Aya’s footsteps anymore.

She won’t be gone long. Tomorrow night she’ll be back, and this time I’m keeping my stupid mouth shut.

5

EZRA

Ocran’s scent of pine and pack fills my cabin. He tests the window latches before he sticks his nose into the kitchen. He’s checking whether my place is good enough for his cousin. My dragon likes him for it.

I fill pitchers of ice water at the tap. “Feel free to go upstairs and have a look,” I call out as I come back into the main room and hand him one. “I haven’t taken Aya up there yet.”

Ocran tips it back and glares at me over the rim. I grin back. He’s more Aya’s brother than her cousin, and I respect it, even when he wants to rip my throat out.

He has an alpha’s build. He’s the fastest wolf in the pack now, faster even than his father, Kane, but House of Zorah won’t ever be his to lead. That job goes to Gabriel and Olivia’s son, Jonathan, and that suits me fine. Ocran is the only one in Aya’s family who has never come between me and my mate.

He gives the cabin another sweep before he nods. “It’s nice, brother. Aya didn’t seem to mind it much.”

I raise an eyebrow. “And how long were you eavesdropping, exactly?”

Ocran doesn’t bother acting guilty. “I was just checking in on you, making sure you hadn’t done anything stupid since you moved out here.” He takes his time with another drink. “But I gave pause when I caught the scent of Aya’s arousal. And yours. I decided to wait and see how far things were going between the two of you.” He leans against the wall. “If it escalated, I would have made my departure and given you two some privacy.”

“How generous of you.” My dragon snarls at the idea of any male scenting her like that, cousin or not. I swallow down the fire prickling at the back of my tongue. I don’t like it any more than he does.

I can smell the laugh Ocran’s sitting on. “I almost did,” he teases. “Almost made my departure, I mean. Things were getting intense there for a minute.”

I snort and drain my pitcher, but it doesn’t help. I can still taste Aya on my mouth and feel her curves pressed up against me. My dick twitches in my pants at the memory. It’s going to take more than ice water to cool me off.

“Damn, man,” Ocran says. “Is it really that bad?”

I set the pitcher down hard. The cubes left in the bottom rattle. “Did you think I would stay while your uncle was stalling on my cabin build? While Valek kept finding new reasons to delay? I’ve been patient for years, Ocran. And I’m done waiting for permission to be with my own mate.”

He shrugs and stops teasing me. “Well, I had a feeling it was coming. The pack isn’t on board with Uncle Levi’s apprehension, but as a pack, we respect it.”

I huff out smoke through my nostrils and ears. Ocran eyes it and waits me out. “What? It’s not like your clan wouldn’t do the same for you.”

I drop his empty pitcher in the sink with mine. He’s right and I hate it, but it doesn’t change anything. I’m still stuck out here while Aya sleeps in House of Zorah territory without me.

When I come back out, Ocran’s standing at the dining table and frowning at the floor plans spread across it. He waves a hand at the cabin around us. “I don’t know how you do it, brother. Spending so much time away from your clan like this. I’m always anxious to get back to my pack after being away at the Academy. It’s not good for us to be separate. We shifters are a tribal people.”

“There are plenty of shifters in the community lands who choose to reject their packs and clans,” I argue as I step in beside him. “We’ve got a few dragon shifters from Ash Clan living out here.”

He rolls his eyes at me. “Well, that’s temporary. They’re waiting for you to take the alpha position because you’d be less critical of them than Valek.”

I laugh at that. Plenty of dragons in Ash Clan would rather follow someone gentler than Valek and his heavy hand. My father says I take after my mother that way, and maybe I do. It’s part of why I moved out here. I’ve watched Valek put him down in front of everyone too many times. I haven’t forgiven my uncle.

I lean over Amari’s design and the neat handwriting in his margins. When a vampire and a dragon like us work on a build together, Wintermoon talks about it for years. It’s going to be beautiful. My father gets every bit of it. He’ll have his stars under a roof and a room full of people who come to hear his lectures. He’s going to lose his mind.

Ocran taps the drawings. “I’m more into carpentry like my father. All these angles and measurements give me a headache.”