“Your dad is draining the kids of their magic and could be killing them,” I blurt out. Probably not the best way to deliver the news to Jaxon, but, well, it definitely chases the grief from his eyes fast. What is burning there now is a white-hot fury that sends a chill down my spine.
“I will kill him with my bare hands,” Jaxon bites out, and he looks like he means to do so right this minute.
“Let’s play Who Gets to Kill Father Dearest First in the morning,” Hudson drawls. “I think what we all need is sleep, or no one is going to be getting killed except us.”
Everyone grumbles, but we know he’s right. I feel like I’m about to fall over from exhaustion. Marise makes a few attempts to get us to promise not to do anything rash, but the best Jaxon will agree to is not to leave before morning. He waits until Flint is back up on his crutches, and then he and the Order head to their rooms.
As we all file out the door behind them, Hudson wraps an arm securely around my waist and fades us to the stairs leading to his room in a blink. I have to admit, sometimes the whole fading thing really comes in handy—especially since we were moving so fast, it made it impossible to catalog all the damage Katmere Academy sustained in the attack. I know I’ll have to look eventually, but right now, I’m not sure I’m up for seeing just how much Cyrus’s minions managed to destroy of this place I’ve come to call home.
Hudson sets me gently on my feet beside the bed, his gaze bouncing around the room, looking anywhere but at me. “You need to get some sleep. I’ll take the couch so I don’t disturb you.”
“Disturb me? As if you ever could.” He might be standing in front of me, but I can’t help noticing the elephant wedged between us. “Hudson, we should talk about what happened in the infirmary.”
“What’s there to talk about?” he answers grimly. “It is what it is.”
I lay a gentle hand on his arm. “I’m so sor—”
“Grace, stop.” He sounds firm but not angry. And not nearly as wrecked as I feel.
“Why are you acting like this?” I ask, hating how needy I sound. Hating even more how needy and uncertain I feel. “What’s wrong?”
He gives me a seriously? look. And I get it—everything’s wrong. But that’s nothing new. That’s not us. That’s just everything around us. Except…
Except when he’s acting like this, it feels an awful lot like it might be us after all.
I’m not okay with that, not after everything we’ve been through to get here. And I’m definitely not okay with him just pulling away to lick his wounds, instead of sharing his concerns with me.
“Hudson, please,” I say, trying to reach for him. “Don’t do this.”
“Don’t do what?” he asks.
It’s my turn to give him a look. And it must hit home because his jaw tightens, and suddenly he’s very, very interested in the wall directly behind my head.
“Talk to me,” I whisper, moving closer and closer, until our bodies are nearly touching and we’re breathing the same air.
He stays where he is for one second, two, then takes a deliberate step back. And it slices like a knife. “I don’t have anything to say.”
“I guess there really is a first for everything,” I try to tease, hoping to get a reaction out of him. Hoping to bring back the Hudson who’s too sure of himself, too cocky for his own good.
He looks at me then, finally, and as I look back, I feel myself drowning in the endless infinity of his oceanic gaze—the endless infinity of him.
But the closer I look, the more aware I become that he’s drowning, too. And no matter how hard I try, he won’t let me toss him a life preserver.
“Let me help you,” I whisper.
He gives a sad little half laugh. “I don’t need your help, Grace.”
“Then what do you need?” I grab on to him, burrow close. “Tell me what it is, and I’ll find a way to give it to you.”
He doesn’t answer, doesn’t wrap his arms around me, doesn’t so much as move. And just like that, fear is a snarling beast deep within me, desperately clawing at my insides to get out.
Because this isn’t my Hudson. This is a stranger, and I don’t know how to bring him back. I don’t even know how to find him under all that ice. I just know that I have to try.
Which is why when he begins to move back again, I hold on tight. I clutch his shirt in my hands, press my body against him, keep my gaze locked on his. And refuse to let go.
Because Hudson Vega is mine, and I am not going to lose him to the demons buried inside him. Not now, not ever.
I don’t know how long we stay like that, but it’s long enough for my throat to tighten. Long enough for my palms to go damp. More than long enough for a sob to rise in my chest.
And still, I don’t look away. Still, I don’t let him go.
And that’s when it happens.
Jaw clenched, throat working, he slides his fingers around the back of my neck and fists his hand in my hair. Then tugs my head back, eyes still locked with mine, and says, “Grace,” in a voice so raw and anguished, it has my whole body tensing in anticipation and despair.
“I’m sorry,” he tells me. “I can’t— I don’t—”
“It’s okay,” I answer even as I cup his cheek in my hand and pull his head down to mine.
For a moment, I think he’s going to pull away, that he doesn’t want to kiss me after all. But then he makes a sound low in his throat, and just that easily, all the fears and the failures slip away in the frantic, frenzied crush of his lips against my own.
One moment I’m trying to crack him open, and the next I’m drowning in sandalwood and amber and hard, solid male.
And nothing has ever felt so good. Because this is Hudson, my Hudson. My mate. And even when things go wrong, this is so, so right.
As if to prove it, he nibbles along my lower lip, his fangs scraping the sensitive skin at the corners of my mouth, and I can’t help but lose myself in the heat of his dark and desperate heart.
“It’s okay,” I murmur as his fingers clutch at my back and his trembling body strains against my own. “Hudson, it’s okay.”
He doesn’t seem to hear me—or maybe it’s just that he doesn’t believe me—as he deepens the kiss and breaks the world, and me, wide open.
Lightning strikes, thunder crashes, and I swear all I can hear is him. All I can see or feel or smell is him, even before he slides his tongue along my own.
He tastes like honey—sweet, warm, dangerous. It’s addictive, he’s addictive, and I moan, giving him everything that I can. Giving him everything that he wants and begging him to take more. So much more.