Page 5

“Hey! Get out.” I slap him away. “I like running, okay?”

He chuckles as I leave him to change into my gear.

Headphones in, I jog down Main Street, past Mom’s cafe. Cinnamon, coffee, and bacon fat so thick I can practically taste it from the sidewalk. None of which I can eat, but my steps slow anyway.

Ladies pile out of the salon, and I weave around them before I’m drawn into a conversation. Kendall’s tour van is parked across two spaces outside the hardware store. Typical. She sent me two bookings last Thursday, and I’ll owe her for it, which is as close to friendly as competitors get.

Roslyn’s at the window of the Ravenslight Chronicle with her reading glasses pushed up into her hair. She lifts two fingers from her coffee cup as I pass.

The light’s already stretching into amber. Another few weeks, and we’ll be losing daylight by the hour.

“Hey, Nick.” Dominic stops me before I can cross the road at the fire station, and I swallow a curse.

My patience for the Renard clan is frequently in short supply. Dominic couldn’t wait to take his Rites. The second he hit twenty-one, he took them like a kid tearing paper off a present. Fifteen years later, he still looks twenty-one—and still acts it. Some people run toward the immortal life. Fine. Good for them. Why the town made him fire chief, I’ll never understand.

“What’s up?”

“You want to come hunting with us tonight?”

He’s asked a few times. I’ve never said yes. The Renards insist real vampires feed directly from the source, preferably while it’s still moving. Not humans, that would violate the Pact, but animals. Blood straight from a living thing. No thanks. I vowed the day I transitioned that I’d only drink from the supply we get from the blood bank.

“Can’t. Working.”

He nods like this is a real scheduling problem and not the fourth time I’ve said no. “Ah, man, that sucks. Maybe next time?”

“Sure.” I leave him standing there and cross the ancient bridge into the grounds of Ravenscrest Lodge.

The planks bounce with my stride. The bridge was here long before this was even a town, before our three clans wandered into this valley and fought over it with those already calling it home. Nobody won. Two hundred and thirty-six years ago, they stood in a grove and came to an agreement instead. Back then, our kind couldn’t venture into the sun. That’s what the witches offered. The freedom of daylight, paid for with three of us chained to the borough for the rest of our long lives.

One from each clan—Valzera, Renard, and Lund—to stand as Guardians and protect the townspeople. If one of us crosses the boundary line, the whole arrangement comes apart. My father wore that scar half his life. Now it’s mine.

I take the path down to the creek and the trail that follows the edge into the woods, kicking it up a gear as the track curves around the side of the hill and descends into a deep valley, the yellowing leaves tinging the canopy gold. My legs pump, and I pull air in and out of my nose, the way I have to remember to do when I actually want to smell something.

The light grows gloomy the deeper I go. Down here, the air sits colder, pooling around the tree roots, and the ground gives under my feet, springy where the frost melted. The breeze shifts, carrying blood, and I slow to a jog. Another scent lingers beneath it, one I don’t recognize, and I detour off the path. Dew and twigs cling to my sweatpants as I push through the brush.

A quarter mile from the trail, the foliage is pressed flat where something bedded down. Blood streaks the damp leaves, but any clue of what left it is long gone. Maybe wolves, but they rarely come this close to town.

The smell is fainter than the blood, but concentrated here. And decidedly un-wolf. I go through what I know. Not bear or moose. Not a shifter either. Not the touch of decay that clings to old vampires. A dark blue thread hangs snagged on a juniper bush. Smell could be human, or vampire, or both. It’s too degraded to tell.

Could’ve been the Renards. Dominic and his cousins being careless on a hunt.

For four years, I’ve been watching over this town, and I’ve never had to decide something like this on my own. Dad would’ve known.

Whatever was here has hours on me already, and I’ve got two before I need to be on the road. I mark the spot in my head. The juniper, the distance from the trail. I turn back toward home. It’ll still be here in the morning, and I have guests to pick up.

The Renards can answer some questions then, too.

Chapter 4

Ellery

Thirteen hours and one grueling midnight layover in Chicago later, I touch down in Fairbanks. I follow the stream of passengers along the jet bridge into the terminal, and my feet stutter to a stop. It’s small. Vaulted timber ceiling, huge window panels framed with steel girders, more aircraft hangar than airport. The bathrooms at LaGuardia are bigger.

At the carousel, I wait alongside the other tired travelers. A retired couple, obviously heading for a cruise, ready to tackle the day with both hands—thick Patagonia jackets, camera slung around his neck. Three men kitted out for a hunting trip in camo Sherpa jackets and those hats with the ear flaps. My wool skirt, knitted tights, and favorite knee-length peacoat are perfect for NYC fall weather. I’m sure it’ll be fine.

Outside, the cold doesn’t blow at me so much as press in from every direction at once, and my breath billows up in a cloud. Pulling my coat tighter does nothing, because the coat is already doing everything it can. My beanie is in the suitcase. Naturally.

Note to self: get one of those hats with the flaps.