by Tracy Wolff
“It’s time,” Macy says, and there are tears streaming down her face, too, as she reaches for my hand.
“It’s going to be okay,” she tells me. “You’re going to be okay.”
I don’t know how, but as Hudson bends down and slides me from Jaxon’s arms back into his own, I get my first real look at what he’s been doing while I talked to Jaxon.
And horror seizes my chest. For all this time, Hudson has been carving a grave for me out of the frozen earth and the granite that lies below.
My breath catches as I whisper, “Why?”
125
Between a Rock
and a Hard Place
“No,” I beg, confusion muddling my already pain-soaked brain. “Hudson, please. Please don’t do it. Don’t make me—”
“What are you doing?” Jaxon demands, shoving to his feet and moving toward us. “Dude, don’t touch her—”
Without ever taking his gaze from mine, Hudson reaches out and explodes a wide fissure in the ground, leaving Jaxon and Macy on one side and he and I on the other.
“Do you trust me?” he asks.
“Of course, but—”
“Do. You. Trust. Me?” he asks again, and in the space between the words—the space between us—are all the things we’ve never said.
“Don’t!” Jaxon shouts to me. “Don’t believe anything he says. You know he can’t be trusted, Grace. You know—”
“Yes,” I whisper, even as my entire body recoils from the hole in the ground he’s made for me.
“Yes?” he asks, his blue eyes a little disbelieving and a lot determined.
“Yes, Hudson. I trust you.” It may be the most ridiculous decision of my rapidly draining life, but I do trust him. I do, more than I ever would have believed possible even a couple of short days ago.
“Do you remember that night we went to the library?”
“Which one?”
He rolls his eyes. “The night Jaxy-Waxy got you those street tacos.”
I laugh just a little at how disgruntled he looks, then wish I hadn’t when another wave of pain slides through me at the disjointed motion. “Oh, right. The night you behaved like a total ass. I remember that really well, actually.”
“I think you’re confused,” he tells me with a heavy sigh. “But, considering the morning you’ve had, I suppose that’s to be expected. I won’t hold it against you.”
“You sure about that?” I ask. “Because I’ve got to say, burying me alive seems like one hell of a revenge plot.”
“Forget about the bloody ground for a second, will you, please?” he snaps.
“Easy for you to say, all things considered,” I snap back. Then spend several seconds having a coughing fit for my trouble.
“I read something in the library; then when we met the Unkillable Beast—” He stops as the coughing fit overtakes me and I gasp for air, tears sliding unchecked out of the corners of my eyes. “We don’t have time for explanations.”
“Yeah.” Another coughing fit comes on, this one harder and more painful than the one before.
“It’s getting worse,” he says, all traces of humor gone.
Now it feels like there’s a weight pressing down on my chest, but I finally manage to choke out, “No…shit…Sherlock…”
We both know what I’m doing—making it easy for Hudson to bury me in the ground.
He doesn’t want to put me there any more than I want to be there, but we’re out of options.
And so Hudson bends down and lays me gently inside the grave he so desperately carved out for me.
It’s terrifying—the most terrifying thing that’s ever happened to me, even after everything I’ve faced in the last few months—and I tell myself to close my eyes. To pretend it isn’t happening. To just breathe and wait it out.
But I can’t, not when Hudson waves Jaxon and Macy over, and everyone is standing over my grave, watching me.
“Bury her—” Hudson begins.
“I won’t,” Jaxon insists. “No way am I burying her before she’s dead.”
But Hudson isn’t in the mood to put up with anything from him right now. “Bury her,” he commands. “Right now. Or you won’t like what happens next. That much I can promise you.”
Macy’s eyes widen in fear, and I want to tell her he doesn’t mean it. But both she and Jaxon must take him at his word, because Jaxon is using his telekinesis to slowly, methodically cover me with small stones and pebbles.
He starts at my feet, dropping more and more of the tiny rocks on top of me, then slowly, carefully works his way up until my legs are covered, then my hips, then my rib cage and arms.
I’m cold, so cold, but I struggle to hold on just a little longer. If this is the last time I’m going to see these people—my family—then I’m going to hold on until the very last second. I’m going to stay with them until I no longer have a choice in the matter.
Macy is full-on ugly crying now. Jaxon’s eyes are locked sadly on mine. And Hudson, Hudson is crouched down at the head of the grave, his fingers gently, gently, gently stroking my hair.
I watch the three of them until the end. Until the stones reach past my neck and there is no more time left. Then, and only then, do I close my eyes and let the earth and the stone take me.
0
Amazing Grace
—Hudson—
I’m terrified.
It’s not something I like to admit, even to myself—and something I’d deny if anyone ever asked—but I am bloody terrified watching Grace sink into the earth.
Watching the rocks cover her even as the cold rain and sleet pour down on us.
Watching her fade away a little more with each labored breath she takes.
This isn’t how this was supposed to happen—it isn’t how any of this was supposed to go. When we first made the plan to come back, together, I thought we’d covered every contingency, had thought of anything that might possibly go wrong. I knew it wouldn’t be easy, but I never, never thought it would end up like this.
If I’d had a clue, I would have found another way. Any other way, even if it meant staying encased in stone, locked up with Grace, forever.
I run a hand through my hair, glancing around at the sheer destruction I’d leveled on this forest. I should come out and plant saplings in the spring. Grace would want that.
“If this doesn’t work, I’ll destroy you,” Jaxon snarls at me as the last rock covers her. He’s obviously spoiling for a fight.
But I’m not biting. I’m not going to be drawn into an argument when he wants to act like a child. So I swallow the eight thousand things I could say in response and settle for the pure, unvarnished truth. “If this doesn’t work, you won’t have to.”
Because what the fuck am I supposed to do if Grace doesn’t make it out of that grave? How the fuck am I supposed to live with myself…or just live, for that matter, without her?
“I can’t believe this is happening,” her cousin says, tears still pouring down her face.
Jaxon glares at me. “It shouldn’t be happening.”
I return the look with interest. “Maybe it wouldn’t be if you’d killed that bloody wolf the first time you had a shot at him.”
Okay, so maybe I am biting a little after all.
I can put up with a bloody buggering lot from my younger brother—and I have—but I’m not taking responsibility for something he should have taken care of to begin with.
“You really think my killing Cole would have prevented this?” he demands.
I don’t know. Maybe nothing would have prevented this, short of wrapping Grace in cotton and keeping her as far away from our father as we could. Then again, he would have found her eventually. Whether any of them know it or not, Cyrus has been gunning for her from the moment he first found out she was a gargoyle. Probably before.
&nbs
p; “So what do we do now?” Macy asks, her voice echoing in the tense, angry silence that weighs between us. Her tears have finally stopped, but she sounds almost as empty as I feel as she stares down at the stone-covered grave.
“Now we wait,” Jaxon tells her. “What else is there to do?”
Nothing. If I thought there was something, anything else I could do to help Grace, I would be doing it.
“How long should it take?” Macy shifts her weight back and forth, like she’s too nervous to stand still.
“I don’t know.” And I don’t care. I’ll stand here as long as I have to if it means Grace comes out of that ground healed.
“Is there anything you do know?” Jaxon demands, and there’s a distrust in his eyes that slays me even as it makes me want to punch the shit out of him. “Why the fuck did you have to come back anyway? Things were fine before you got here—”
“By fine, you mean everyone thought I was dead, and you were wallowing in your own despair, throwing your life away like a total wanker? Because if that’s your definition of fine, then yes. Things were great.”
“Throwing my life away? I was trying to get my shit back together after everything you did and then what Mom…” He drifts off, but his scar stands out in stark relief against his cheek despite the weather.
And maybe I should feel bad about what our mother did to him, but fuck that. He has no idea how easy he’s had it.
“Oh, did Mummy not love you enough?” I make a fake-concerned face. “Poor little Jaxy-Waxy. It’s so hard to be you.”
“I should have done a better job of killing you when I had the chance.” He glares at me like he’s measuring me for a body bag…again. Big surprise.
“You really should have,” I agree with a deliberately bland expression. “Apparently you have a real history of screwing things up and then feeling bad for yourself. And of expecting everyone else to feel bad for you, too.”
“You know what? Fuck you! I don’t need anyone to feel bad for me.”
“Umm, guys—” Macy tries to interrupt, but this is a fight that’s way too long overdue and there’s no way a sixteen-year-old girl—witch or not—is going to be able to stop it.
“Sure you do,” I taunt, because I can’t stop myself now that I finally have the chance to say just a little bit of what’s been burning in my brain for weeks now. “When we were together, Grace went on and on about how sorry she felt for you. I kept telling her there was no reason to, but you know how softhearted our girl is.”
“My girl,” Jaxon corrects me. “My mate—bond or not.”
His words hit with an accuracy that makes them feel like body blows. The last two and a half weeks have been a living hell for me, and now he’s acting like he’s got all the cards when he’s the one who let this happen to Grace to begin with. It’s shite, absolute and total shite, and I’m sick of listening to him whine about it.
“Your mate? Oh, right. That must be why you protected her so well that there’s not even a bond anymore.”
His hands clench into fists. “You’re a real bastard, you know that, right?”
“And you’re a pathetic child who can’t protect himself, let alone anyone else.”
“You’re really going to come at me with that?” he demands incredulously. “Can we discuss—just for a minute—who the fuck I was trying to protect Grace from last semester? Oh, right. Your homicidal ex-girlfriend who wanted to sacrifice her to bring you back.”
Guilt slams through me all over again, because he’s right. This is all my fault. Not because I planned it, but because I couldn’t stop it.
So here we are. Lia’s dead, Grace is in the ground, and Jaxon—
“You guys!” This time Macy’s voice is more forceful when she tries to get our attention. “Look.”
The sleet is letting up, and Jaxon and I turn as one, just in time to see Grace’s body finish absorbing one of the stones my brother laid on her chest.
“What’s happening?” Jaxon asks, eyes wide and voice just a little awed.
“I’m not sure,” Macy answers. “But that’s the third one she’s absorbed in the last two minutes.”
“Really?” I watch as another stone starts to quiver and then gradually sinks into her flesh.
Our fight forgotten, Jaxon and I stand with Macy for long minutes while Grace slowly, slowly, slowly absorbs every stone, every rock, every pebble that Jaxon laid over her—hundreds of small shards sinking into every inch of her flesh, one by one by one.
When it’s over, when every single speck of granite has been absorbed into her body, we stand over her, waiting…for a sign, for a breath, for something that proves she’s alive.
Something that proves that this last-ditch desperation on my part actually worked.
Several nerve-racking seconds pass where nothing happens. And then, just when Jaxon starts cursing and I’m about to give up, Grace’s eyelids flicker open. It’s all I can do not to put my head down and sob in relief.
“Oh my God!” Macy’s hand flies up to cover her mouth as shock rockets through us all. “Grace! Grace, are you okay?”
Grace doesn’t answer, but as Jaxon races to sit beside her head, she smiles up at him.
“You’re okay?” he asks, and I’ve never heard such joy in my younger brother’s voice in our lives.
“I—” Her voice cracks and she coughs, licks her lips.
“Here!” Macy reaches into her ubiquitous backpack and pulls out a bottle of water that she hands to Jaxon.
He opens it, then helps Grace sit up in her bed of granite so that she can take a sip.
“How are you feeling?” I ask, slowly walking to the other side and crouching down beside her.
“Okay, I think.” She coughs a little more, then pauses like she’s taking inventory of herself. “Pretty good, actually. I think I’m…okay.”
This time when she takes a deep breath, she doesn’t cough.
“Do you remember what happened?” Macy asks, excitement and concern warring on her face.
Grace thinks and then says, “I do, yeah.”
And just like that, my hands are shaking, when they never shake. I can’t figure out what to do with them, so I shove them in my pockets. And wait.
“I won the game and Cyrus bit me. You guys brought me here and—” She turns to me. “Hudson, thank you. Thank you so much.”
Disappointment racks me, but I ignore it. I’m certainly used to it by now, and—on the positive side—at least my hands aren’t trembling anymore. So what if she remembers the facts of what happened today and nothing else. Certainly nothing that came before. It’s probably better that way.
“Don’t thank me,” I tell her, even as she reaches for me, her hand clutching at my arm as she smiles up at me in a way I haven’t seen from her in quite a while. Now my whole body is trembling…and I don’t have a bloody clue what to do about it.
Especially when Grace is full-on grinning at me despite the fact that her grip isn’t quite as strong or as firm yet as it would normally be. “And why is that exactly?”
A half a dozen answers come to mind, but in the end, I don’t say any of them.
“That’s what I thought.” She rolls her eyes. “Just admit you saved me, Hudson. I promise, it won’t make you any less of a jerk in the long run.”
“I think you’re confused.” I shake my head again, more determined than ever to make it stick this time. The last thing I want from Grace is gratitude. It’s the last thing I’ve ever wanted from her. “I was just—”
“I don’t want to argue with you,” she says. “Especially over something so ridiculous.”
“So don’t,” I answer. “I’m sure you’ve got better things to do right now.” Besides, you know, ripping my heart out of my chest again.
Things like returning to Katmere and taking her rightful place in the Circle
.
Both necessary.
Both important.
And both extremely dangerous.
Because Grace may have survived my father’s bite, but that only makes her more of a target, not less. He will heal eventually, and when he does, he’ll be angrier, and more afraid, than he ever was before.
Which means it’s already too late.
The war I’ve worked so hard to prevent—the war my brother and others have tried to blame me for inciting—will come whether we want it or not.
Whether we’re ready for it or not.
And now that we know what side the wolves will fall on… It took an army of gargoyles to defeat them the last time the vampires and wolves fought together. Who knows what it will take today, especially when all we have is one gargoyle and a few rogue vampires to join the witches and the dragons.
Not great odds.
But thinking about the war will wait…at least a few more days. Because as Jaxon reaches down to help Grace from the hole I created for her, he wraps his arms around her and presses her body to his. And I begin to see red, even before he leans down to kiss her, and every ounce of chill—and emotional self-preservation—I have goes out the fucking window.
My hands curl into fists, my fangs explode in my mouth, and though there were a million other ways I was hoping to break my newfound knowledge to Grace, the words come out before I can even think about stopping them.
“Jaxon, if you wouldn’t mind, take your fucking hands off my mate.”
End of book Two
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Acknowledgments
Writing a book this big and complicated takes more than just one person, so I have to start by thanking the two women who even made it possible: Liz Pelletier and Emily Sylvan Kim.
Liz, I feel like we’ve been through a war, or three, and I can only say thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you for pushing me and this book past my comfort zone, thank you for your unflagging determination to tell this story, and thank you for the Herculean effort you put in to make sure that we got it done (in a ridiculous amount of time). We make a great team and I adore you more than I can say.