by Tracy Wolff
“I’m sorry, but we have to go,” I tell Macy. “I can’t do this on my own. I need you to come with me.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” She dashes her hands across her cheeks to dry her tears. “Let’s go, let’s go.”
“I’m sorry, Macy.” Jaxon’s voice is low and hoarse with pain.
My cousin just nods. I mean, what else is there to actually say?
Eden and Flint wish us luck as we take off across the snow, stumbling a little under the weight of tiredness and injuries. But at least Macy’s right. Once we break through the forest of trees we landed in, the arena looms huge over the landscape.
I glance at Jaxon’s phone. We have eighty-five minutes to get inside. That doesn’t leave much time for us to rest once we get settled by the field, but it’s enough. That’s all that matters.
“Go straight through there,” Macy tells us, pointing to the closest entrance. “I’m going to find help, see if I can get Marise or someone to come out with me to try to help Flint. I’ll also grab some blood for Jaxon and get to the arena as soon as I possibly can.”
I don’t have the energy to answer her, so I just nod as I continue to trudge across the snow, Jaxon’s arm draped over my shoulders so I can support some of his weight. I’m tired, so tired, and every single bone in my body hurts.
I just want to sit down. I just want to go home. I just want to be anywhere but here.
“Hey,” Hudson says, and his voice is nearly as hoarse as Jaxon’s and mine. Then again, he did do a lot of shouting there in the cave. “You’ve got this. It’s just a little farther, and then you can sit for a few minutes and just breathe, right? You and Jaxon can get your second winds.”
“Pretty sure you mean our fourth winds,” I comment, but I take a deep breath and tell myself that he’s right. That we can do this. It’s only for a little while and then it’s over. I can do anything for a little while. Even pretend that I’m not racked with guilt over Xavier’s death.
But as we start down the final hill between the arena and us, Jaxon tells me, “We need to come up with a better plan for what we’re going to do in there.”
I glance his way. “I don’t know that we can. Yes, we planned on using a lot of the portals, but you’re probably not in good enough shape for it. The one I did during the game took a lot out of me.”
He nods. “You know, I hadn’t really talked to you about what I planned on doing in the Trial, but I was going to try to get it all the way down the field in one turn. Nuri held the comet for nearly five minutes. I figured I could do close to that, and then you wouldn’t have to worry—”
“My pretty little head?” I ask as shock and outrage rip through me.
“What?” he asks, looking confused.
“You don’t want me to have to worry my pretty little head about anything as strenuous as actually participating in the Trial that I called for?”
“Uh-oh,” Hudson says faintly in the back of my head, but I’m not paying attention to him right now.
“That’s not what I said.” Jaxon eyes me warily.
“Maybe not, but it’s what you meant, right? What did you think was going to happen in that arena, Jaxon? Did you think I was just going to sit back and let you do your thing while I just hung out and cheered? I mean, should I have brought pom-poms?”
“Hey! That’s my line!” Hudson complains, but there’s a little bit of glee in his voice when he says it.
“I didn’t mean it the way you’re taking it,” Jaxon says, and he sounds pissed for the first time.
“Okay, that’s fair.” I stop hobbling forward and just wait. “How did you mean it?”
“Really?” he asks, and the wariness is more pronounced now.
“Absolutely,” I tell him. “If I took it wrong, then I’m sorry. But I would like to know what you meant.”
He sighs, runs a shaky hand through his hair. “All I meant was I’m trying to take care of you, Grace. I’m stronger than you and I can do more, so let me do more. There’s nothing wrong with me taking care of my girlfriend.”
“You mean your human girlfriend, don’t you?” I ask, eyebrow raised.
“Maybe I did. What’s wrong with that?” He throws his free hand up. “What’s wrong with me wanting to take care of you?”
“Nothing,” I answer. “Except with you it’s a sickness. And I think it’s a symptom of something a lot more problematic in our relationship.”
“Problematic?” Now he looks more than just a little bit pissed. “What does that mean?”
“It means you think I’m weaker than you and that means you have to—”
“You are weaker than me!” he roars, cutting me off. “It’s a fact.”
“Oh, really?” I shrug his arm off, step away, and he almost falls flat on his ass. “Because right now it looks like you need me a lot more than I need you.”
His eyes turn to pure, flat black. “Are you making fun of me for being exhausted after everything I just did in that cave?”
I take a deep breath and force myself not to yell at him even though I really, really want to right now. Because Jaxon just isn’t getting it. For the first time, I’m a little afraid, because maybe he can’t get it. Maybe he’ll never get it. And then what will we do?
“No, I’m making fun of you because you don’t seem to understand that we need to take care of each other,” I tell him, backing up a few feet because I just can’t be near him right now. “That sometimes I need help—”
“I know that—”
“Oh, I know you know that. You’re super impressive at reminding me of all the things I can’t do, of all the ways I’m weaker than you.” I pause, my voice breaking. “Of all the ways my opinion doesn’t matter to you.”
“I’ve never said that.” Jaxon staggers a little bit as he tries to close the distance between us. “You know I ask your opinion all the time.”
“That’s just it,” I tell him. “You don’t. You tell me what you think. I try to tell you what I think. And then you do what you want to do anyway. Maybe it doesn’t happen that way all the time, but it happens that way at least eighty percent of the time.
“You don’t tell me something because you’re afraid it will worry or hurt me. You don’t listen to me, because you don’t think I’ll understand. You always want to solve a problem for me, because the frail human can’t survive having to do it herself.”
“What’s wrong with wanting to take care of my girlfriend?” he growls. “I lost you for four months. What’s wrong with me trying to make sure nothing else happens to you—”
“Because you didn’t lose me. I saved you, in case you’ve forgotten.”
“By nearly dying,” he shoots back, and he looks anguished, his face contorted, his hands clenched into fists. “Do you know what that felt like? To stand there in that hallway with you turned to stone, completely out of my reach, and to know it happened because I didn’t protect you well enough? To know that you nearly died in the tunnels, because I was naïve enough to drink that damn tea from Lia? To know that you were stuck with my brother for three and a half months because I couldn’t reach you, couldn’t—”
“Save me?” I finish his thought for him. “That’s the whole point. It’s not your job to save me. Maybe it’s our job to save each other. But you’re never going to give me that chance. Because in your head, I’m still the frail little human who came to Katmere Academy back in November.”
“You are human. You are—”
“No!” I tell him, and this time I get right up in his face to say it. “I’m not human. Or at least, I’m not only human. I’m a gargoyle, and I can do a lot of cool shit. Maybe I can’t shake the earth like you can, but I can turn you to stone right now if I wanted to. I can fly as high as you. And I can take a hell of a beating and keep coming.”
“I know that,” Jaxon tells me.
&nb
sp; “Do you?” I ask. “Do you really? Because you say you love me, and I believe you do. But I don’t think you respect me. Not like an equal. Not like I need to be respected. If you did, you wouldn’t have just ignored me when I told you I thought it was a bad idea to go after the Unkillable Beast.”
“That’s not fair, Grace. I still stand by my opinion that letting Hudson into the world with his powers would be a disaster—”
“Xavier’s dead, Jaxon. He’s dead and it’s our fault! How are we supposed to live with that? How am I ever supposed to forgive myself for not fighting you harder? For not demanding that you listen? For not getting through to you?”
“You learn to understand what the rest of us already do. That it is a goddamn tragedy—” His voice breaks, but he clears his throat, swallows a couple of times. “It is a tragedy that Xavier died. But he said it himself the other night. Some things are worth dying for. Because if Hudson gets free with his powers, then a lot more people are going to suffer, a lot more people are going to die than just Xavier. That’s what you don’t understand.”
His words resonate. They do. Because I wasn’t here eighteen months ago. I didn’t see firsthand what Hudson did. I didn’t see what led to Jaxon feeling like he had to kill his brother.
And that’s when it hits me.
Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe the reason he can’t believe me is that if he does, he’s going to have to acknowledge that he didn’t have to kill his brother. He’s going to have to acknowledge that maybe he made the worst mistake of his life.
But we can’t keep doing this. We can’t keep chasing after ways to keep the world safe from Hudson, not when those ways leave people dead or badly injured.
“You’re going to have to trust me,” I tell him. “You’re going to have to believe me on this. Because if you don’t, I don’t see how we can get past it. You’re my mate, and I love you. But I can’t spend the rest of our lives together fighting for you to believe me. Fighting for you to believe in me.”
Hudson has gotten very, very quiet inside me. And I can understand why. There’s a part of me that can’t believe I’m saying this, that can’t believe I’m even thinking it. But I can’t live like this. I won’t live like this, where my partner isn’t actually my partner. I deserve better than that…and so does Jaxon.
“What does that mean?” he asks, and for the first time ever, Jaxon looks panicked, out of control, desperate. “What are you saying?”
Part of me wants to admit the truth. To say that I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m saying. I don’t know what I’m thinking. But that’s a cop-out. Worse, it’s weak. And if there’s one thing I’m not going to be anymore, it’s weak. Not for Jaxon. Not for anyone.
“I’m saying I need you to meet me halfway,” I tell him. “I need you to try to treat me as an equal. I need you to listen to me, to trust me, even when it’s the hardest thing in the world for you to do, because that’s what I’m willing to do for you. But if you can’t get there, if you can’t even try, then I don’t know where we’re going to end up.”
He doesn’t say anything for a few seconds, doesn’t espouse his undying love, doesn’t promise me that he’ll do anything I want. And actually, I’m grateful for that. I’m grateful for the time he spends thinking about it. Because that means it’s real. That means he’s really trying to listen.
Finally, when my nerves are stretched to the breaking point and the clock has ticked down as long as we can afford to let it, Jaxon says, “I’ll try, Grace. Of course I’ll try. But I’ve been like this a really long time, so you’re going to have to cut me some slack. I’m going to mess up. I’m going to try to protect you even when you don’t need to be protected, and some of the time you’re going to have to let me. Because that’s who I am. That’s who I’ll always be.”
“I know,” I answer, tears burning my exhausted eyes as I finally, finally lean in to him. “We’ll both try, okay? And we’ll see where that gets us.”
He presses his forehead against mine. “Right now, I’m pretty sure where it’s going to get us is into that stadium where we may very well get our asses kicked.”
“Yeah,” I tell him. “Probably. But at least we’ll get them kicked together. That’s something, I guess.”
“Not something.” He looks at me with eyes that burn like the blackest sun. “That’s everything.”
106
Stone Hearts Can
Be Broken
It takes a couple of minutes for us to hobble up to the back entrance of the arena, but just as we get to the ornately carved entranceway, Cole walks out from behind the closest tree and starts clapping as he puts himself directly in our path.
“What do you want, Cole?” Jaxon growls, but there’s not a lot of strength behind it, and judging from the way Cole’s eyes go wide, he knows it, too.
“I just wanted to see if you were actually going to show up, Vega. It looks like you did. I don’t know if that means you’re brave or just the cockiest bastard on the planet. I mean, look at you.” He laughs. “I almost feel bad.”
I know I shouldn’t ask—he’s too smug and I don’t want to give him the satisfaction. But I’m tired and obviously easily bait-able, and the words come out before I know I’m going to say them. “For what?”
He looks me straight in the eye as he pulls a piece of paper, obviously ripped into pieces some time ago and now held together with tape, out of his pocket and says, “For this.”
Jaxon’s eyes go wide and he yells, “No!” as he makes a grab for Cole. But suddenly all of Cole’s minions are there. Two wolves grab on to me, two of them grab Jaxon, and the last three position themselves between him and Cole.
“You’re just so arrogant, aren’t you, Jaxon? You didn’t even hesitate to tear up something this powerful that could be used against you and throw it into the trash in front of everyone.” His smile is pure malice and something more…jealousy. “What must it be like to be that confident everyone fears you, that no one would ever even dare to hurt you or your mate? Well just remember: you brought this on yourself.”
And then Cole is reading a series of words that don’t make much sense to my already addled brain—words that sound like a spell or a poem. I don’t know. I’m so tired and it’s so hard to follow… Except as he finishes, there’s a giant wrenching inside me, a ripping in my soul that hurts like nothing has ever hurt before in my life.
I scream from the shock, from the pain, and my legs go out from under me. I hit the ground hard, my head bouncing off the packed snow as every single part of me shrieks in agony.
Make it stop, oh my God, make it stop! Whatever he did, please, please, please make it stop!
But it doesn’t stop. It goes on and on and on until I can barely breathe. Barely think. Barely be. At one point, I try to push up to my hands and knees, but I’m too weak. It hurts too much.
I hear Jaxon shout, and I use the last ounce of strength I have to turn my head toward him. He’s writhing on the ground, legs drawn up, body arched in pain.
“Jax—” I reach a hand out toward him, try to call his name, but I can’t reach him. I’ve got nothing left. Darkness wells up inside me as I collapse back onto my stomach, and I do the only thing I can do to get to Jaxon.
I reach for the mating bond…and then scream all over again when I realize it isn’t there.
107
I Never Asked for
This Anyway
Time passes. I don’t know how much, but it does.
Enough that Cole and his posse of sadistic wolves disappear.
Enough that dawn finishes creeping over the sky.
More than enough that the reality of my missing mating bond sinks in.
The pain is finally gone and, in another world, at another time, I guess that would be a good thing. But right here, right now, in this time, at this place, I miss the feeling of it more than
I can ever say.
I miss the searing heat of it.
I miss the violent cold of it.
I miss the overwhelming omnipotence of it as it fills up every nook and cranny of my heart and soul.
Because without it, without the agony and the ache, all that’s left is emptiness.
Yawning, gaping, everlasting emptiness.
I’ve never felt like this before. I never even had a clue I could feel like this. When my parents died, I was numb. I was angry. I was lost. I was sad.
But I was never empty. I was never destroyed.
Now I’m both, and I can’t even summon up the will to care.
Time is ticking away, seconds fading into minutes that I don’t have to spare.
I should be walking into the arena with Jaxon right now.
We should be taking our place on the field right now.
We should be fighting this atrocity, facing down Cyrus and the evil that’s taken over the Circle like a cancer, eating away at anything good that might have once been there.
Instead, I can’t even get off the ground.
I glance over at Jaxon, realize that he, too, is still on the ground. Unlike me, he’s not lying flat, though. He’s curled up in a ball, hands over his head like he’s desperate to ward off the next blow.
But there are no more blows coming, because there are no more blows to be dealt. Cole, in his infinite hatred, struck the death blow, and I didn’t even see it coming.
At least the worst is over. No matter what dungeon they throw me in, no matter what terrible things Cyrus has in store for me, at least none of them will ever feel like this.
At least I will never feel like this again.
I take a deep breath, then start to cough as I breathe snow into my nose and down my throat. I roll over out of the most basic form of self-preservation, then stay that way because there’s no reason not to.