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I skid to a stop in front of him, still panting. “I need you to make him stop. Dad is up on my roof again, and he can barely lift his arm.”

Jacob rubs the back of his neck. “Your father is a grown wolf, Aya.”

“He’s an old wolf.” My voice cracks, and I hate it. I grab a fistful of his sleeve before he can turn back to his wood. “He won’t listen to me. He won’t listen to Mom. He’ll listen to you. Please, Uncle. Command him to retire.”

Jacob looks off through the pines toward Ash Clan for a long time. His scent goes heavy. He knows exactly what I’m asking him to do to his cousin. “He’s going to hate me for this.”

“He’ll get over it,” I tell him.

“Then let him hate me.” Jacob wipes his hands on his pants.

He doesn’t bother to shift. The dusty wolf still keeps up with me without breathing hard. Dad hasn’t moved. He’s hammering at the same row of shingles with his back to us, slow and stiff, like every swing costs him. Jacob stops at the foot of the ladder to watch him for a minute. Then he turns to me. Thank you, he mouths. I press my lips together until my eyes quit stinging.

“Levi,” Jacob calls up.

My father peers over the edge of the roof. “Cousin. Come to help?”

“Come down, Levi,” Jacob says.

“I’ve got one more row,” he argues. He goes back to hammering.

Jacob’s scent rolls out thick across the yard. “As your alpha, I command you to come down off this roof and put that hammer away. You’re retired.”

I’m not House of Zorah anymore. My wolf still drops her belly to the grass. By the side door, Kane and Gabriel lower their heads.

My father doesn’t move at first. When he finally starts down the ladder, he takes his sweet time about it. He grunts at Kane for rushing over to steady it. As soon as his feet hit the ground, he throws the hammer in the toolbox. “I built half this damn island,” he growls. “I’m not about to let a bunch of dragons finish my baby’s house.”

“Then you’ll sit on the porch and tell them how,” Jacob says.

He swings his glare at me. “You went and got your uncle on me?”

I put my hands on my hips. “I went and got your alpha.”

Gabriel snorts and coughs into his fist. Dad shakes a finger in my face, but under all his grumbling, I can smell how bad his back is hurting him. “Hardheaded. Just like your mother.”

“Thank you,” I sniff.

He groans as he pulls me in. He smells like sawdust and pain. He leans on me harder than he’d ever admit. I bury my face in his shirt and hang on.

Dad doesn’t make it to the truck. He drops onto my porch steps with a grunt, and before he gets comfortable, three Ash Clan dragons land in the yard with hammers of their own. He squints up at them. “You’re starting on the wrong side.”

The biggest one looks over at Jacob.

Dad jabs a finger at my roof. “Don’t look at him. He doesn’t know a damn thing about shingles. Start at the bottom row.”

The dragon climbs the ladder without another word. He keeps it up until Kane hauls him off the steps and into the truck. He’s still hollering about nails out the window when they disappear into the pines.

Gabriel comes up beside me. “Thank you, niece,” he murmurs. “We’ve been trying to get him off that roof for a week.”

I elbow him. “Try harder next time.”

He chuckles and pats my head on his way to the trees.

When my family is gone, I sit on the steps and listen to the dragons hammering over my head. My wolf won’t settle. She keeps tugging me toward the lake, so I keep checking the sky for midnight wings that don’t come.

Ezra better get his ass home.

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