Page 19 of The Bear Between Us

"Reinforce the northeastern section," I say. "We take her on the eastern scouting run this afternoon. I want her seeing the boundary situation firsthand."

Brennan's expression shifts almost imperceptibly. "You're taking her on a live scouting run."

"With a full escort. Yes."

He picks up the map and doesn't say anything else, which is its own kind of statement.

The scouting run is four of us, myself, Elowen, Torin on point, and one additional pack member on the rear position. Elowen takes in the escort configuration when we assemble and I watch her decide not to object to it, which costs her something. She's been doing that more often, choosing her arguments rather than making all of them, and I find I respect it more than I expected to.

Torin sets the pace and I fall back to match Elowen's position. She reads the terrain as we move with the same fluency I noticed in the training field, not just following the path but tracking what's around it.

"The mark," I say quietly, as we move. "Is it giving you anything out here?"

She considers that rather than dismissing it. "It's more active than inside the building. Directional, like it was on the creek path, but less urgent." She pauses. "There's something along the northeastern section. A kind of pressure."

Torin, ahead of us, holds up a fist.

We stop. He crouches and examines the ground, then signals me forward. The tracks are fresh, the wrong configuration, too many joints, the weight distribution of something not native to this region. Two sets, moving in parallel, testing the boundary at a specific point and withdrawing.

"Here," I say to Elowen, keeping my voice low.

She crouches beside me and looks at the tracks and I watch her read them without prompting, working from the physical evidence to the correct conclusion in about ten seconds.

"They came back to the same spot," she says.

"Three times in thirty-six hours."

Her expression shifts into something focused and a little cold. "They're not testing for weakness. They know exactly where the weakness is. They're waiting for something."

It's the right read. I came to it yesterday but hearing it from her, from field observation rather than operational briefing, confirms something about her instincts that I've been half-aware of all week.

"Yes," I say.

She looks at me. We're close in the crouch over the tracks and the mark's frequency is loud and the moment has a quality of alignment to it, two people reading the same situation from the same position, that is distinct from anything that's happened between us in the training field.

Torin clears his throat quietly from his point position.

We stand. The moment closes. We finish the scouting run professionally and efficiently and I spend the return walk filing the experience under operational developments, which works until we're back inside the boundary and she turns to say something to Maris and I catch myself watching her in the particular way that Brennan would have a great deal to say about.

I go run the perimeter myself instead, in the dark, for a long time.

It helps less than I'd like it to.

15

ELOWEN

The ambush hits fast and brutal. One moment we move through the underbrush on patrol. The next the forest erupts with twisted shadow creatures. Kaedric roars and shoves me behind him. We fight our way to this small defensible cave halfway up the ridge while the rest of the patrol gets cut off. Now the entrance stays warded with the last of my shaky magic. We remain stuck here until dawn.

My left wrist burns where the vine mark pulses. Minor cuts sting on my arms and cheek. Kaedric has a shallow gash across his ribs that he ignores while he builds a small fire.

The silence between us thickens until it snaps.

“You keep throwing yourself in front of me like I am fragile glass,” I say, voice low and sharp. “I am not your responsibility, Kaedric. I never asked for any of this.”

He turns slowly. His amber eyes glow faintly in the firelight as he towers over me in the confined space. “You think I do this because I enjoy controlling you? The mark chose you. The forest chose you. And whether you like it or not the bond ties us together. I will not watch you die because you refuse to accept help.”

The argument escalates quickly. Words turn raw and honest in a way they never have before. All the weeks of restrained tension, the way he has given me space while still hovering, the way I have felt his presence like a constant warm current under my skin, it all boils over.