We’re both gasping when he finally pulls away. I try to hang on a little longer, try to keep the connection between us from slipping away. Because as long as he is wrapped up in me—in us—then he’s not locked in his head, destroying himself for something he can’t, and shouldn’t, change.
Eventually, he pulls back, but I’m not ready to let him go. I keep my arms locked around his waist, my body pressed against his. Just a little longer, I plead silently. Just give me a few more minutes of you and me and the oblivion I feel when we’re touching.
He must feel my desperation—and the fragility I’m working so hard to hide—because he doesn’t move.
I wait for him to say something witty or sarcastic or just plain ridiculous in the way that only he can, but he doesn’t say a word. Instead, he just holds me and lets me hold him.
And—for now—it’s enough.
We’ve been through so much in the last twenty-four hours. Fighting giants, escaping prison, that horrible battle, losing Luca and nearly losing Jaxon and Flint, finding Katmere wrecked. Part of me thinks it’s amazing we’re still standing. The rest of me is just grateful that we are.
“I’m sorry,” Hudson whispers again, his breath hot against my face. “I’m so sorry.”
A powerful shudder rocks his long, lean frame.
“For what?” I ask, pulling back so I can see his face.
“I should have saved him,” he says as our gazes collide and his voice breaks. “I should have saved them all.”
I can see the guilt eating him alive, and I won’t allow it. I can’t. “You did nothing wrong, Hudson,” I tell him firmly.
“Flint was right. I should have stopped them.”
“By stopped them, you mean disintegrated hundreds of people on the spot?” I ask, brows raised.
He tries to turn away, shamefaced, but I hold him tightly. I’ve carried this kind of guilt and pain ever since my parents died, and it’s not exactly fun. No way am I going to stand here and let Hudson do the same. Not if I can help it.
“What were you supposed to do?” I ask him. “Make Cyrus and everyone else against us just”—I shake my head, searching for the right words—“disappear into thin air?”
“If I had, Luca would still be alive. Flint would still have his leg. And Jaxon and Nuri—”
“Could you have done it?” I ask, because I felt his confusion at the beginning of that battle, felt him struggling to get control of himself and the situation as mayhem rained around us. “In the beginning, when everything was such a mess, could you have done it?”
“Of course I could have—” He breaks off, runs a hand through his hair. “I don’t know. Everything was so close and chaotic. And when Jaxon threw himself right in the middle of it all…”
“You threw yourself in the middle right with him. Because you couldn’t take the risk of missing and hurting him or the others. And you would rather have died yourself than let anything happen to Jaxon.”
“Well, you saw him,” Hudson drawls, and for a moment, he sounds like his old self. “The kid obviously needs protection. The second I turn my back, he goes and gets his heart ripped out of his chest.”
“I’m not sure that’s quite what happened,” I say with a snort. “But I know you would do anything to protect him and me. I also know you would do anything to protect the others, too. You didn’t disintegrate everyone at the beginning because you couldn’t be sure you wouldn’t get one of us. And once you were sure, once you did figure things out, you threatened to do so and would have, I’m sure.”
He stares at the wall over my shoulder again. “You don’t understand. No one does. It’s not that simple.” He sighs. “I hate this thing inside me.”
“I know you do.” I slide my hands from his waist and cup his face, wait patiently until his eyes meet mine again. “But I also know if Cyrus and the others hadn’t left when you warned them, you would have made every single one of them cease to exist, and you would have done it for us. I have no doubt that you would have done it if it meant keeping us safe.”
His gaze holds mine as he admits, “To keep you safe, I would have done anything.”
But I’m not buying it. Hudson loves me, I know that, but I don’t think even he realizes how much he would sacrifice for everyone else, not just me. “To keep everyone safe.”
He shrugs, but I can feel him relax just a tiny bit this time. So I wrap my arms around him again and hug him even tighter, do my best to show him that I have faith in him even when he doesn’t have faith in himself.
“Either way…” Hudson coughs and adds, “Before we go up against Cyrus again, I need to talk to Macy about how to counteract a sense spell.”
“A sense spell?”
“That had to be what Cyrus used,” he continues. “Cyrus had the witches do something to the whole group of them—I’m almost sure of it. Which is why, when I tried to persuade his troops to back off, they didn’t so much as acknowledge me. It was like…”
“They didn’t hear you at all?” I finish for him.
“Yeah.” He shakes his head in disgust—whether at himself or his father, I don’t know. “I should have expected him to do something like that.”
“Because you’re omniscient?” I ask sarcastically. I get why he’s blaming himself—he’s Hudson, and he takes the weight of the world on his shoulders whether it belongs there or not—but enough is enough. “Or because you’re a god?”
His turbulent blue eyes narrow just a little in annoyance. “Because I know my father. I know how he thinks. And I know he’ll stop at nothing to get what he wants.”
“That’s right,” I tell him. “He’ll stop at nothing. Which means everything that happened on that island is because of him, not you.”
Hudson starts to argue with me but quiets again at the arch look I give him. This time he knows I’m right, whether he wants to admit it or not.
We stay that way for what feels like an eternity, eyes locked, bodies pressed together, everything we’ve seen and done settling like wet cement between us. I just wish I could be sure it was binding us together and not forming a wall.
Because this war is far from over. We’ve got a long road ahead of us if we hope to save the kids before Cyrus kills them, and there are no guarantees that it will end the way we want it to.
No guarantees that anything will ever be okay again.
Which is why I take a deep breath and tell him the fear that’s been plaguing my mind since we got back to Katmere. “I don’t think the Crown is what we thought it was.”