Big Bear Energy (Shifter Mates of Hollow Oak #6)

Chapter 1

CHLOE

Chloe knelt in the small plot behind Freya's apothecary, her breath fogging in the gray morning air as she worked gloved fingers through the soil around a cluster of winter savory.

The herb should have been thriving in late January.

It was hardy enough to survive frost, stubborn enough to push through snow.

Instead, the leaves curled inward, edges browning like old parchment.

She sat on her heels and frowned.

Chloe took off her glove and dug her fingers deep into the soil. It felt wrong. Not frozen, that she could work with. This was something else. Too dense. Too still. When she pressed her palm flat against the earth, there was no answering hum, no quiet pulse of life waiting beneath the surface.

Just... nothing.

"You're glaring at that dirt like it’s done you dirty."

Chloe looked up. Freya stood in the apothecary's back doorway, copper-auburn waves escaping her braid, a steaming mug cradled between her palms. Even in the flat winter light, she looked like something that had grown straight from the forest floor in all warm greens and earth tones and an energy that made plants lean toward her when she walked past.

"The savory's struggling." Chloe pushed to her feet, brushing soil from her knees. Her pale blonde hair had slipped from its pins again, and she tucked a strand behind her ear. "I don't understand it. I've done everything right."

Freya's forest green eyes swept over the herb beds. "The valerian's the same. And the comfrey near the fence."

"I noticed."

"It's probably just the cold snap we had last week. That freeze came in fast," Freya replied, though her face looked a little more concerned.

Chloe nodded, but her hands wouldn’t let her believe it. When she'd pulled off her glove earlier to test the soil's temperature, her fingertips had tingled with something sour. Something off-key.

She didn't say that out loud. She'd learned that mentioning what her hands told her earned her looks in most places, and she had only been in Hollow Oak a year. She knew this place was supernatural but she still had no clue how to interrogate within the others, especially when she didn’t understand it herself. It just came off as suspicious that she had no answers and how her only living relative, her sister, wouldn’t just explain it to her.

"Come inside," Freya said. "Warm up. I've got that calendula salve ready to jar if you want to help."

"Give me five minutes. I want to check the other starts."

Soft steps suddenly approaching made them both glance back.

Corin Vane came around the corner of the building, a wooden crate balanced against his hip like it weighed nothing.

Which, given his size, it probably didn't. The man was built like the bear he shifted into standing at 6'5", broad shoulders and solid muscle, not to mention his hands that were big enough to palm her entire head if he wanted to.

His honey-brown hair was wind-tousled as always, and when he spotted them, his hazelnut eyes crinkled at the corners.

"Morning." His voice was low, unhurried. Everything about Corin was unhurried.

"You're early," Freya said, but she was already smiling. "I wasn't expecting the honey delivery until Thursday."

"Bees don't care about schedules." He set the crate on the small wooden table near the door, glass jars clinking softly. "Had a good yield from the winter stores. Figured you could use it."

"I can always use it." Freya was already reaching for a jar, holding it up to what little light the gray sky offered. The honey inside glowed amber, thick and slow-moving. "This is beautiful, Corin."

His shrug was a small movement that somehow involved his entire torso. "Bees did the work."

Chloe watched the exchange with the same quiet attention she gave everything in Hollow Oak.

Corin and Freya had known each other for years, their rhythm easy and established.

She was still learning these patterns, still finding where she fit into the weave of a town that had existed long before she'd stumbled through its borders.

Corin's gaze shifted to her, and she straightened without meaning to.

"Chloe." A nod, nothing more. But his eyes lingered on the herb beds behind her, tracking the same problems she'd been cataloging all morning. "How are the winter starts?"

"Struggling."

"Mm." He stepped past her, and she caught his scent of wild honey and woodsmoke, clean earth after rain. It was distracting. "Mind if I look?"

"Go ahead."

She watched him crouch where she'd been kneeling minutes before, his massive frame folding with surprising grace. He didn't touch the plants, just studied them, head tilted slightly, nostrils flaring once.

"Soil's sour," he said.

So she hadn't imagined it. "You can smell that?"

"Bear." He said it simply, like that explained everything. Which, in Hollow Oak, it probably did. "When did it start?"

"I'm not sure. I noticed last week, but it might have been earlier. The freeze made everything look stressed." She stopped herself. She was rambling.

Corin rose, brushing dirt from his palms. "My orchard beds are the same. Some of them."

"Really?"

He nodded, that steady gaze holding hers. "Thought it was runoff from the cold. But it doesn't feel right."

Freya had come to stand beside them, her mug forgotten. "What do you mean, doesn't feel right?"

Corin's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. "I'm not sure yet. Just…off."

Off. Such a small word for the wrongness Chloe felt when she pressed her hands to the earth.

"Could be a drainage issue," Freya offered. "The thaw and freeze cycles have been brutal this year."

"Could be." Corin didn't sound convinced.

A gust of wind cut through the garden, sharp enough to make Chloe shiver despite her layers. Corin's eyes flicked to her, then away.

"I should get back," he said. "Got frames to check before the temperature drops again." He turned to Freya. "Let me know if the sage turns too. It shouldn't."

"I'll watch it," Freya promised.

He nodded once, then looked at Chloe again. "If you want to compare notes on the soil, you know where to find me."

"The orchard?"

"Usually." That almost-smile again, softening the hard lines of his face. "Or ask Twyla. She always knows where everyone is."

"Everyone knows that's true," Chloe said, and was rewarded with a low huff that might have been a laugh before he left.

Chloe stared at the spot where he'd crouched, at the earth he'd studied with such quiet intensity.

"He's worried," Freya said quietly.

"I know."

"Corin doesn't worry easily. He's…" Freya paused, searching for the word. "Steady. Like the mountain."

"I've noticed."

Freya's gaze turned knowing in a way that made Chloe want to busy herself with the calendula immediately. "Have you?"

"Don't."

"I didn't say anything."

"You were about to."

Freya laughed, the sound bright against the gray morning. "Come inside before you freeze. We can check on the beds again tomorrow."

Chloe took one last look at the wilting savory, and the still and silent soil that should have been humming with the first whispers of spring.

She followed Freya into the warm amber light of the apothecary, but she couldn't shake the feeling that whatever was wrong with the land wasn't going to wait.