by Tracy Wolff
I never should have gone to her room today. I should have left Grace the hell alone. But I’m selfish and I’m weak and I couldn’t not see her. I couldn’t not check on her, couldn’t not make sure she was okay, no matter how much doing so fucked things up even more.
But that was before I saw her over Macy’s shoulder, covered in cuts and bruises from the flying glass. Battered, bandaged, broken. And realized, mate or not, the best thing I can do for her is to leave her the fuck alone.
The thought has me recoiling, has the monster deep inside me screaming in rage. But that just makes me move faster, desperate to put as much distance between Grace and me as I possibly can.
There are miles between us now, and still it isn’t enough. Still, I can feel her blood calling out to me, her taste like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. When I licked the small drop of her blood off my thumb that very first night, the taste of her nearly brought me to my knees. Last night was worse. I wanted her blood even as it spilled over me, even as I tried desperately to staunch the flow that would kill her if left unchecked.
I already know I’m a monster, but what does that need—that craving—in the middle of a life-and-death crisis make me? Desperate? Evil? Irredeemable?
And when did that happen? When I killed Hudson? Or years, decades, before?
I keep fading, even though I don’t have a clue where I’m going, as I race across the snow. It doesn’t really matter, though, as long as it’s far away from Katmere…and from Grace. I can’t think when she’s that close, her blood calling to me—one more temptation that I can’t afford to give in to.
Not if I want to keep her safe.
Not if I want to keep her whole.
And I do, more even than I want to make her mine.
It’s that thought that finally gives me direction. A quick glance at the GPS on my phone tells me just how close I already am to my newly decided-on destination. So close that I can’t help wondering if my subconscious was guiding me here all along.
I take a quick left at the base of a mountain I once lifted a hundred feet in the air—a training exercise for twelve-year-old me—and fade another twenty miles through the snow to an ice cave whose entrance is almost completely obscured by the snow at the base of the mountains that surround it.
I pause when I reach it, take a minute to get my thoughts, and the rest of me, under tight control. The Bloodletter might be the mentor who taught me almost everything I know, but that doesn’t make it any easier to go in there. The most vicious and powerful vampire in existence, the Bloodletter is an expert at ferreting out weakness. And then using it to destroy you with barely more than a word or two.
I spent twenty-five years of my life right here in this cave at the queen’s insistence, learning to harness my powers. And how to use them to destroy any enemies of the throne, also at the queen’s insistence. The Bloodletter made sure I could do all of that…and so much more. It’s been a blessing and a curse.
When I’ve finally got my defenses in place, any thoughts of Grace shoved down deep inside me, I take a few long breaths. And begin my descent into the ice.
There are safeguards on the entrance, protections woven into the air and rock and ice as ancient as the Bloodletter. I dismantle them without a thought—as I was taught all those years ago. Or, more accurately, as I figured out through very painful trial and error.
The ground slopes steeply down, a narrow path carved through ice and igneous rock. I traverse it quickly, winding my way through beautiful and deadly ice formations from memory alone. Eventually, I get to a fork in the path and take the way on the right, despite the feeling of dread that overwhelms me the moment I step down it.
More safeguards, which I also undo, making sure to weave them back in place before I continue deeper into the cave. Normally, this part of the walk is done in total darkness, but today lit candles line both sides of the path. I wonder if the Bloodletter is expecting someone…or if some sacrifice has recently been made by someone seeking some kernel of the knowledge the Bloodletter so stingily doles out.
One more bend in the path, one more fork to traverse—I go left this time—and one more set of safeguards. Then I’ve finally arrived in the antechamber before the Bloodletter’s quarters. The room is huge and also lit with candles that illuminate the brilliant ice and rock formations that line the walls and ceiling in all directions.
A small river of ice runs right down the center of the room. It’s currently frozen solid, but I’ve seen it as running water as well. In the middle of summer and, of course, at a flick of the Bloodletter’s fingers. When I was young, I used to think it was the River Styx, carting the souls of everyone who failed the Bloodletter’s trials straight to Hell without benefit of a ferryman.
More than once I threw myself into it on the off chance that a one-way trip to Hell would finally end my torment. It didn’t.
I look around, take a second to collect myself one more time. And do my best to ignore the human carcasses hanging upside down in the corner, draining into a couple of large buckets on the floor. More proof that nothing has changed. The Bloodletter lures humans to the cave instead of going out to hunt. Some are eaten fresh and some are…stored for when the weather is so bad that this area is nearly deserted. It’s a more efficient use of time for everyone involved, I was always told.
Right before I was punished for never fully draining my victims…not to mention leaving them alive.
I look away from the bloody carnage, take one more deep breath. And step right through an ice archway into the Bloodletter’s living room.
It’s exactly as I remember. The walls are painted a cozy periwinkle blue and flames snap in the rock fireplace that dominates one of the side walls. Bookshelves filled with first editions line two of the other walls and an abstract rug in shades of sunrise stretches across the ice floor.
In the center of the room, facing away from the fire, are two antique wingback chairs in brown leather. Across from them, separated by a square glass table, is a velvet sofa in dark violet.
And sitting on that sofa in a bright-yellow caftan, legs curled up beneath her, is the Bloodletter, knitting what I’m pretty sure is a winter hat in the design of a fully fanged vampire.
“Took you long enough to get through the safeguards.” She glances at me over the top of a pair of half-moon glasses. “Are you going to stand there all day or are you going to come on in and sit down?”
“I don’t know.” It’s the most honest answer I’ve ever given.
She smiles, pauses in her knitting just long enough to pat her short gray curls a couple of times. And gesture for me to have a seat. “Come on. I’m making you a present.”
The hat is almost done, which means she started it long before I even decided that I was coming…which is not exactly a surprise, now that I think about it.
“What exactly am I going to do with a hat?” I ask, even as I follow her directions.
She grins, her bright-green eyes twinkling against the warm brown of her skin as she answers, “Oh, I’m sure you’ll think of something.”
I have no idea what to say to that, so I just nod and wait for her to say something else. The Bloodletter has never been fond of anyone speaking first.
Turns out, at the moment, she’s not interested in talking at all. So I sit in the leather chair for almost an hour, watching as she puts the finishing touches on a vampire hat I have absolutely no interest in wearing.
Finally, when she’s done, she ties off the yarn and puts everything beside her on the couch. “Thirsty?” she asks, nodding toward the bar in the corner.
I am, but a flashback to the humans draining right outside this room has me shaking my head. “No, thanks.”
“Suit yourself.” She gives a delicate little shrug as she stands up. “Well, come on, then. Let’s take a walk.”
I stand and follow her toward a secon
d archway near the back of the room. The moment we pass through, the icy floor and walls of what I vaguely remember as my training room transform into a summer meadow, complete with wildflowers and the sun beating down warmly upon us.
“So,” she says after we’ve walked several minutes in silence. “Are you going to tell me what’s bothering you?”
“I’m pretty sure you already know.”
She makes an affirmative sound, along with a face that says, Maybe I do. But she doesn’t volunteer any information.
“How are you?” I ask after a few seconds. “I’m sorry I haven’t been by in a while.”
She waves a hand. “Oh, child, nothing to worry about on that front. You’ve had bigger fish to fry.”
I think of Hudson and my mother and the nightmare of keeping the different factions from dissolving into civil war. “Yeah, I guess you could say that.”
“I am saying it.” She reaches up, rests a hand on my shoulder. “I’m proud of you, my boy.”
It’s the last thing I expect her to say. An unexpected lump blooms in my throat in response, tightening up my vocal cords until I have to clear my throat several times before I can speak. “That makes one of us.”
“Don’t do that.” The hand on my shoulder goes from comforting to slapping the back of my head from one instant to the next. “You’ve done more for this race than anyone in the last thousand years. Be proud of that. And be proud of the fact that you’ve found your mate.”
“So you do know why I’m here.”
“I know why you think you’re here.”
I look away, only to end up staring at a patch of wildflowers in a shade of bright pink that I will associate with Grace until I take my last breath. “How do I do it?” I ask, and the earlier tightness in my throat is nothing compared to how I feel now.
I can barely breathe.
“Take her as a mate?” Her brows go up.
“You know that’s not what I mean.” I clench my fists and pretend this conversation isn’t making me want to hit something…or throw up. Or both.
She sighs heavily. “There is a way.”
“Tell me.”
“Are you sure, Jaxon? Once you do it, there’s no coming back from it. You can’t just fix what’s been torn asunder.”
“I won’t want to fix it.” I grind the words out past clenched teeth.
“You don’t know that.” She waves a hand, and the meadow transforms into Grace’s dorm room. Grace is curled up in bed, reading something off her phone while Macy flits around her. She looks beautiful and fragile, and I want nothing more than to wrap my arms around her. Want nothing more than to protect her from everything…even if that everything includes me. Especially if it does.
“Finding your mate is a precious thing,” the Bloodletter continues. “Finding her so young is even more special. Why would you give that up if you don’t have to?”
“They’re already gunning for her. I don’t know why yet, but she’s a pawn in some plan they have to do God knows what. Overthrow the vampires? Bring about the civil war I’ve worked so hard to stop? Get revenge for what Hudson did? I don’t know. I just know that I can’t let her get hurt because of decisions I made that have nothing to do with her.”
I mean every word I’m saying, but that doesn’t make them hurt any less. I’ve never had anything that was mine in my whole life—my mother saw to that. Yet here Grace is, right in front of me. She’s meant to be mine. And still I can’t afford to reach for her. Not if it means risking something happening to her because of me.
“You know she’ll never be safe in this world. You know they’ll kill her just to make me suffer.”
The Bloodletter waves her hand, and once again, we’re walking in the meadow. I have to bite my lip to keep from begging her to bring Grace back, even as she answers, “I know they’ll try.”
“Eventually they’ll succeed.” I say it as much to remind myself as her. “They always do.”
“Not always.” She gives me an arch look meant to remind me of what happened a year ago. Like I need reminding. “Have a little faith, will you?”
I snort. “In myself?”
“In yourself and your mate.”
“I have all the faith in Grace. But she’s human. Vulnerable.” I think back to the spurting blood, to the deep cuts on her shoulder and her neck. “Breakable.”
She laughs. “We’re all breakable, my boy. Part of being alive.” She points a finger at me. “And your Grace might surprise you, you know.”
“What are you talking about?” I ask. Then, tired of all her riddles and partial advice, I can’t help demanding, “Can’t you just tell me what you mean? Can’t you just tell me what to do?”
“Nobody can tell you want to do, Jaxon. It’s been your greatest strength—and your greatest problem—your entire life. Why change that now?”
Impatience wells up inside me, overwhelming the last of my fake calm. “Damn it! I just need to know how to break the mating bond.”
This time when she smiles, there’s a flash of razor-sharp incisors. “Careful how you speak to me, my boy. Just because I’m fond of you doesn’t mean I won’t drain you for a midwinter meal. You taste quite good if I remember correctly.”
It’s an old threat, one neither of us pays much attention to anymore. But I do shut my mouth because there’s another threat implicit in that one—mainly that she won’t help me after all.
We walk in silence for several minutes, until I’m all but vibrating with a desperate impatience, convinced I’m going to jump out of my skin at any second. Only then does she take hold of my hand.
“This will tell you how to do what you seek,” she says to me, pressing a folded piece of paper into my palm and curling my fingers over it.
I want to ask her where the paper came from, but the truth is, I don’t care. Not now that I have the means to save Grace within my grasp.
“Just be make sure it’s what you really want.” She repeats her earlier warning. “Because once you break what’s between you and Grace, you can’t ever put it back together again.”
It absolutely hurts to hear her say that, to imagine an endless life without my mate. Without Grace. But when the alternative is watching her suffer—and die—so people can get to me, there really is no alternative.
“Thank you,” I tell the Bloodletter, shoving the paper deep into my pocket.
“You’re welcome, my sweet boy.” This time when she lifts her hand, it’s to pat my cheek. “I do love you, you know.”
“I know,” I agree, because in some strange way, it’s true.
“And if even a crusty old vampire like me can love you, I’m pretty sure a girl as strong as Grace can, too.” She winks at me before dropping her hand and stepping away. “Besides, you’re forgetting one thing.”
“What?” I ask, a tiny flare of hope kindling to life inside me despite my best efforts.
“‘There are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio, / than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’” She takes another step back, transforming into a winged creature I don’t recognize right before my eyes.
And then she flies away, leaving me with the answer I sought and a host of questions I don’t have a clue how to even ask.
Part of me wants to stick around and wait for her so we can talk some more—sometimes she’s willing to do that after she feeds. But the second I walk back toward her main quarters, my phone starts buzzing with a series of texts from Grace and Mekhi.
They come in a mismatched order, though, so I head out of the cave and back into cell service range in an attempt to get the whole story. Which is when they start showing up fast and furious. As I read them, I forget all about waiting for the Bloodletter to return. I forget all about everything except getting to Grace—to my mate—as soon as possible. I need to make sure she’s okay, and I need to make sure that who
ever had the nerve to bite her understands just what a terrible life choice they made.
It’s as I’m racing back to Denali that it hits me.
It doesn’t matter who I have to fight to keep her safe. It doesn’t matter what I have to do to hold on to her. Grace is my mate, and there’s no way I’m giving her up. No matter what.
And what a stupid idea anyway—to sever the bond before Grace even knows it exists? This is a choice both of us need to make, and I was a total asshole to ever think otherwise.
Which is why the first thing I do when I get back to Katmere is to reach into my pocket and pull out the note the Bloodletter gave me. I don’t even bother to open it before I tear it up and drop the pieces in the nearest trash can on my way up the stairs.
After all, I have a mate to see to, and nothing is going to stand in the way of that.
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About the Author
New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Tracy Wolff is a lover of vampires, dragons, and all things that go bump in the night. A onetime English professor, she now devotes all her time to writing dark and romantic stories with tortured heroes and kick-butt heroines. She has written all her sixty-plus novels from her home in Austin, Texas, which she shares with her family.
tracywolffbooks.com
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
If you made it all the way to the end of this monster book, I have to start my acknowledgments by thanking you. Thank you for picking up Crave, thank you for reading all one hundred and fifty-two thousand words of it, thank you for letting me share Jaxon and Grace’s world with you. I’m more thrilled than I can say that you have chosen to take this journey with us. Thank you, thank you, thank you.