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“You can take the night off if you want. I’ll train the new girl.”

I narrow my eyes at him.

“What? Just trying to help out.”

“No fraternizing with the employees. I mean it, Luca.” He backs away with hands held high, grinning. “No point in getting to know her anyway. I doubt she’ll last five minutes.”

None of them do.

The last thing I need is to spend time I don’t have training some dropout who’ll disappear in a week. We get a lot of college kids through here. They think Alaska will bring them closer to nature, help them find their true selves, all that crap. Then winter comes, the nights stretch longer, the weather becomes unbearable, and they bail. Most people aren’t cut out for this life. I wasn’t either, but I don’t get to bail.

Luca’s halfway to the door before he stops. “Hey. Did you talk to Constantin?”

“Yes,” I spit out. “He wouldn’t listen.”

My attempt to ask the Renards about their hunting habits this morning didn’t get far. Constantin poured himself a drink, didn’t offer me one, and asked after my mother twice while I was still talking. Five hundred and seventy-nine years old, the last one left who stood in that grove when the Pact was made, and he reminds me every chance he gets that my vampire wisdom is still in the single digits.

It makes me want to jam a stake through his chest.

“So that’s why you’re in a bad mood,” Luca says, flatly.

“He wouldn’t even hear me out. Said it was wolves and when I ‘have more experience,’ I’ll be able to learn the difference.” I can’t keep the contempt from my voice. “I went out to that clearing again. It’s all gone. Now, if I take it to the council, it’ll look like I’m trying to go around him.”

“Gone how?”

“I got in the dirt and scoured the area. Not even a hint of blood.”

Luca comes back into the garage, night off forgotten for a second. “That’s not wolves.”

“No.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Keep an eye out for now. If you hear of anything in your network of town gossips, let me know, yeah?”

“Sure. If anyone has information, I’ll find out. Those ladies love me.” He says it with the exact smile he’s been using since he was six.

“I bet they do.”

“Well, if I’ve got the night off, I’m going to make the most of it.” He slaps the doorframe on his way out. “Don’t wait up.”

My menace of a brother disappears into the house.

Luca’s been the glue of this family since Dad died and Sebastian left. I worry he’s just hanging around because of me. He rebuilt a snowmachine engine when he was fifteen, out of parts, because he wanted to see if he could. Now he’s changing the oil in my van.

He knows I had plans that didn’t involve being a vampire or being stuck in this town. But he was too young, and Mom married into this clan. She’s Lund by blood and always wanted to remain human. So it was me. I don’t want my situation holding him back.

I jump into Dad’s old pickup and start the engine. If I can’t prove there’s something in our woods, the least I can do is make sure they’re safe before my tour guests go into them. I message Carter to see if he wants to help me sweep the main campsites before dark. He’s two hours out of town, living alone with a pack of sled dogs as company, yet somehow has better social skills than I do.

My phone pings as I’m backing out of the driveway. Tamika, my inside source at the NOAA facility in Fairbanks, sending through the aurora forecast and a list of spots she thinks will have the best viewing this week. I pull up at the end of the drive to read it properly. Clear skies, lots of activity. That’ll make the tourists and my bottom line happy. Now I know which sites to check first.

She ends every message with a kissy-face emoji. I’ve never worked out what to send back, so I type thanks and put my phone on the seat.

Easy night, I remind myself. I’ll make sure of it.

Three pickups and whatever Mom has signed me up for. Except somebody was out in those woods last night, or they weren’t, and I have nothing to show for it but a bent branch and my own word.

Chapter 7