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Chapter 37

Nick

She thinks she’s so funny, but I show her. With my fangs out, I pin her down, then retract them when my lips meet her neck and kiss her gently there. She yelps and laughs, and I keep my mouth where it is so she’ll do it again.

“You’re evil,” she mutters as I plant kisses down her throat. “Also, PDA much. People will talk.”

“I don’t care,” I murmur into her skin.

She clearly does because she leans away, out of reach.

“Who built this?” She gestures to the gazebo. “It’s beautiful.”

“Dad made it. For my grandmother, Juliette, after she was killed.”

“Killed?”

“By shifters.” Not a story I want to share with her today. “She was Guardian before my dad. Her father founded the Pact with Constantin and Mom’s granddad, Henri Lund.”

She runs her hand along one of the posts, fingertips tracing the carved pattern. Dad cut down all the trees himself. He told us so every time we walked past the thing.

“How old was Mikel when he died?”

“One hundred and seventy-six.”

“One hundred and seventy-six.” She says the number to herself quietly.

We both leave that question alone.

Too soon, we have to pack up and get ready for tonight’s tour. The last one of the season.

It’s a brilliant night with clear skies, and the guests enjoy themselves. We roll back into Ravenslight Creek with the windows down. Except this time, her fingers are threaded through mine, and we end up back at her apartment, crashing into her bed, in no hurry to get to sleep.

In the morning, I wake with her nestled into my side, one arm slung over my waist, and I let that be everything.

I lie there thinking about the council’s decision, well aware that I told her not to worry, while I make escape plans. Parks Highway. Three hours to somewhere past Cantwell, where the boundary runs through Denali. Letting the scar on my chest open up as we cross it. I came close when we flew to Hollings. It hurt like hell and I pretended I was fine. This time I’d keep going, damning every Ravenslight Creek vampire to burn in the daylight, and not just the ones inside the line. And me, on the side of the road, the scar eating through my chest, and Ellery watching it happen. That last part is the only bit that gives me pause. Not the Pact, or the clans. Not even Luca.

Dad was marked with this thing for half of his long life. I’ve had it for four, and I’ve already found the price I’d sell it for.

She shifts against me, muttering as she pulls the blanket up to her chin, and I put my plans away to watch her sleep.

When she’s not at the cafe or tangled up in bed with me, Ellery’s at the newspaper with Roslyn. I’ve learned not to ask what she’s working on unless I’ve got time to spare, and I ask every time.

Late one morning, she’s making French toast in nothing but my flannel shirt, buttoned low, and I’m at her kitchen table watching her do it. I’ve got my own chart.

A copy of the Ravenslight Chronicle sits folded on the table. Page three is a profile of Pete, who has been flooding the creek ice every winter for thirty years, most of them unpaid. Under the headline: Ellery Ashford.

“Elle?” I slide it across to her.

“Oh, it’s nothing. Roslyn needed help, and I—” She stops with the spatula in her hand. “No. Sorry. That’s not true. Roslyn’s been giving me regular assignments.”

She goes to her dresser and removes a box from a drawer, dropping it on the table on her way past. Inside are articles clipped from the paper, each one of them hers. The festival piece is at the bottom, the newsprint already going soft at the folds.

“Elle, this is amazing.” I come up behind her and slip my hands around her waist, kissing the crook of her neck. “I’m proud of you.”

Four articles in an eight-page paper, and it’s the first thing she’s built herself. Here. The Parks Highway plan is me deciding where her life goes next and calling it protection.

I let it go.