Crush

by Tracy Wolff

  Sunrise is coming, turning the edges of the sky a myriad of colors—at least for a minute or two. And then lightning crackles across the sky. Thunder booms, and the darkest clouds I’ve ever seen move across the sky straight toward us.

  “Grace.” Jaxon calls my name in a voice made hoarse by too much pain, too much loss.

  “Yeah.”

  “You can’t go in there,” he rasps.

  “What?”

  “The arena. You can’t go in there without me.”

  “I know.”

  He rolls over to his side, reaches a hand out to me, and I think about taking it. I want to take it. But he’s too far away, and it doesn’t matter anyway. A touch of fingertips won’t bring back what we lost.

  “I mean it, Grace. They’ll kill you if you go in there. Or worse, take you back to London and destroy you piece by piece.”

  Silly boy, can’t he see that I’m already destroyed? Already broken into so many pieces that I can’t even imagine what it would feel like to try to put them back together again.

  My parents are dead.

  My memory is gone.

  My mating bond is gone.

  Why on earth would I go in there to fight?

  I’ve got nothing left to fight for.

  The clouds creep ever closer, blocking out the last remnants of light as sleet begins to fall, the rain and ice stinging my skin, leaching the last little bit of warmth from inside me.

  A heavy lassitude overtakes me. It has my eyes closing and my mind wandering and my breathing slowing to almost nothing. There’s a voice deep in my head telling me that it’s okay, that I can just stay right here. That I can rock shut as a seashell and let the stone take me.

  I don’t remember the last three months. Maybe if I stay stone long enough, I won’t remember any of this, either.

  I take one last breath and then let go.

  108

  Pom-Poms and

  Pompadours

  “Grace! Grace! Can you hear me?

  “Damn it, Grace, can. You. Hear. Me?

  “Don’t do this. Don’t you dare do this again. Don’t you fucking dare.

  “Get up! Damn it, Grace, I said get up!”

  “Stop it.” I don’t even know who I’m talking to; I just know that there’s a voice in my head, and it won’t go away. It won’t let me be. All I want to do is sleep, and it just keeps talking and talking and talking.

  “Oh my God, there you are! Grace, please. Please come back. Please don’t turn to stone.

  “Grace? Grace? So help me God, Grace, if you don’t wake up right now, I’m going to—”

  “What?” I demand, cranky and pissed off and more than ready to bite the head off whoever it is who keeps bugging the hell out of me.

  “Get up! I mean it. You need to get off this snow. You need to get into that arena. Now!”

  I creak one eye open and see him staring back down at me with those ridiculous blue eyes of his. “Ugh, Hudson. I should have known it was you. Go away.”

  “I will not go away.” His voice is all British again, dripping with perfect syllables and indignation. “I’m saving you.”

  “What if I don’t want to be saved?”

  “Since when has what you wanted even been of paramount importance to me?” he demands.

  “You make a good point.”

  “I always make a good point,” he snaps. “You’re just usually too busy hating me to listen.”

  “I’m still too busy hating you to listen.” But I push myself up into a sitting position.

  “Good. Hate me all you want. But get your ass up and get into that arena before you forfeit everything.”

  “I don’t have a mate anymore,” I tell him.

  He blows out a long breath. “I know the bond with Jaxon broke.”

  “If by broke you mean it was ripped apart by fucking Cole, then yes. It broke.”

  He looks down at me for long seconds, then sighs and settles on the snow next to me in his black Armani trousers and dark-red dress shirt.

  “Why do you look so good?” I demand, feeling exceptionally annoyed by his ridiculously pretty face.

  “Excuse me?” He lifts a brow.

  I hold my hands up. “It’s sleeting. Why aren’t you wet? Why do you look like you just walked off a runway?”

  “Because I’m not currently rolling around in the snow feeling sorry for myself?” he asks.

  “You’re a douche.” I make a face at him. “You know that, right?”

  “It’s a gift.”

  “More like a curse,” I tell him.

  “All gifts are curses in one way or another, don’t you think? Otherwise, why would we be here?” he answers.

  I turn my head so I can get a good look at his face as I try to figure out what he means. But after a solid sixty seconds of staring at him, I still don’t have a clue. I do, however, know that his blue eyes have a lot of green flecks in them.

  “You’re looking at me strangely,” he says, tilting his head questioningly.

  “I’m trying to figure out if you meant that existentially or if you meant it—”

  “No, I didn’t mean it existentially!” he barks at me. “I meant, why else would we be sitting out here in the bloody snow when your arse should be in that arena right now?”

  “I already told you, I. Don’t. Have. A. Mate.”

  “Who. Cares.”

  “What do you mean?” I demand. “I can’t compete without a mate.”

  “Sure you can. There is no rule on the books that says you have to take your mate in there with you,” he tells me.

  “Yeah, but I can’t hold the ball longer than thirty seconds, so what am I supposed to do if I don’t have someone else to throw it to?”

  “You’re a smart girl,” he answers. “You’ll figure it out.”

  “If that isn’t the most Hudson thing you’ve ever said, I don’t know what is.”

  He sighs, then reaches over and straightens my jacket, flipping the collar over and smoothing out the sleeves. As he does, I keep waiting for him to say something, but he doesn’t. Instead, he just sits there waiting, like he expects me to say something.

  Usually, I can wait him out, but I’m cold and wet and empty and a whole lot of other things I’m not sure how to identify right now, and I don’t want to play this game with him. Especially not when he’s looking at me with that ridiculous pretty face.

  “What am I supposed to do?” I finally explode. “Just go in there and throw the ball until Cole eviscerates me?”

  “You’re Grace Foster, the only gargoyle born in the last thousand years. I say, go in there and do whatever the fuck you want…as long as that includes kicking Cole’s skinny wolf ass all over that arena.”

  “What should I do? Turn him to stone?” I ask sarcastically.

  “Sure, why not?” he answers. “And then shatter him with a sledgehammer. I promise you the world will be better off.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “That’s what I keep trying to tell you, Grace. You can do whatever you want to do. Who saved Jaxon from Lia? Who won the Ludares tournament for her team? Who figured out what was going on with the Unkillable Beast? Who channeled enough magic from the aurora borealis to light up New York and got all her friends home? That was you, Grace. That was all you.

  “You don’t have to be a dragon. You don’t have to be a vampire. You sure as shit don’t have to be a werewolf. You just have to get off your arse, go into that arena, and be the gargoyle girl we all know and love.”

  “But it’s hard.” I give myself permission to whine for one more second.

  “Yeah,” he agrees as he stands back up. “It is. But life’s hard. So either get in there and do what you have to do or get the fuck off the ride.”

  “I tried to do tha
t, if you remember correctly.” I pull myself up to my feet. “You wouldn’t let me.”

  “You’re right, I wouldn’t. Total waste of the sexiest gargoyle girl to walk this earth in a thousand years.”

  “I’m the only gargoyle girl to walk this earth in a thousand years.”

  He gives me an arch look. “Damn straight you are. Now what are you going to do about it?”

  I sigh. “Go into that arena and get hurt a lot but then win in the end and shove a burning hot ball right down Cole’s disgusting, ugly werewolf snout.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” he tells me as we walk toward the arena.

  “Thank you,” I tell him, because if it wasn’t for him, I’d still be lying on the snow willing myself to turn into a statue forever.

  “You’re welcome.” He smiles slyly. “Gargoyle girl.”

  “Call me that one more time, and I’m going to eviscerate you.”

  “You’ll have to catch me first,” he tells me.

  “You live in my head. How hard could that be?” I counter. “Besides, I’d catch you even if you didn’t.”

  “Oh yeah?” Both brows go up this time. “Why’s that?”

  “Because I’m a gargoyle, bitch. And it may have been a thousand years since they’ve had to deal with one of my kind, but that ends now.”

  109

  Where Do Broken

  Bonds Go?

  I stoop down to check on Jaxon before I go. He doesn’t look good, but then I’m pretty sure the same can be said for me right now.

  But since there’s no bossy Brit boy living in his head at the moment, he’s still lying in the snow, curled up in a ball as if to ward off whatever blow fate decides to deliver next.

  I know the feeling.

  “Jaxon?” I call softly, but he doesn’t answer me. More, he doesn’t even open his eyes to look at me, which is so not like him that it worries me even more than the fact that he has yet to move. I’m sure he’s exhausted—I am, and I haven’t done half of what he has tonight, even after he was drained by Hudson.

  Determined to make sure he’s okay before I go anywhere or do anything else, I stroke my hand over his shoulder and call his name several times. Eventually, he opens his eyes, and I see the emptiness inside him—the same emptiness that I currently feel—staring back at me.

  Still, he smiles at me as I take his hand in mine. “Are you all right?” I ask.

  He doesn’t say anything, so I ask again even as I slip a hand under his arms to help him sit up.

  “Yeah. Are you?”

  As soon as he repeats my question back to me, I understand his hesitation in answering. Because there is no real, true answer to that question that doesn’t begin with, I’m not sure I’ll ever be okay again.

  And since we can’t say that, at least not now when we still have so much left to do before we can rest, I do the same thing Jaxon did and answer, “Yeah.”

  His sad smile says he knows exactly what I’m doing as he grabs hold of my hand and squeezes it. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I’m so sorry. This is all my fault.”

  “No,” I tell him. “It’s not.”

  “But, Grace, I threw the spell away and never thought about anyone finding it—”

  “Still not your fault,” I say, cutting him off. “If it’s anyone’s, it’s Cole’s. Or maybe it’s your father’s. I don’t know, but assigning blame isn’t going to solve anything right now, not when I have to—”

  “Don’t go in there,” he tells me again, clutching at my arm. “You can’t do the match by yourself. You’ll lose.”

  “Probably,” I agree. “But I have to go in there. There’s no other choice.”

  “There is,” he counters. “There’s always a choice. You can forfeit—”

  “And what? Go live as a prisoner in your parents’ dungeon?”

  “Better a prisoner than dead,” he answers me. “I can’t come find you if you’re dead.”

  “You won’t be able to come find me anyway. I’m pretty sure your parents will make sure of that.” I lean forward, bring a hand up to rest on his cheek, then take my time stroking my fingers down the scar he used to hate so much, the scar he’s finally come to grips with after more than a year.

  “You don’t know that.” His voice reflects his desperation. “You don’t know what the future could bring.”

  “Neither do you.” This time it’s my turn to smooth his hair out of his face. “Don’t worry,” I try to reassure him. “I’ve got this.”

  “Grace—” He tries to stand, but he’s too weak. Between feeding Hudson energy for so long, taking out the Circle guards, and then fighting the Unkillable Beast, he’s got nothing left.

  “It’s okay,” I tell him, propping him up against the stone wall that surrounds the arena, so that he can look out at the forest as he waits. “Rest now, Jaxon. Macy will be here soon with some blood for you. She just went for help for Flint and Eden. But she’ll be here as soon as she can.”

  “I don’t need Macy to take care of me,” he argues and tries once again to push to his feet. Once again, he fails.

  Which only pisses him off.

  Jaxon curses in frustration, kicks out at the ground in frustration, and has the closest thing to a hissy fit I’ve ever seen my strong, proud boyfriend have. But in the end, he sinks back against the wall and closes his eyes for long seconds as pain and fatigue draw lines on his typically unmarred face.

  When he finally opens his eyes again, it’s obvious that he’s blinking back tears, and just that easily my own emotions are back to burning in the back of my throat. “I wish I could go in there with you,” he whispers.

  “I know,” I tell him, because I do. Mate or not, if there was any way Jaxon could fight by my side right now, I know he would do it.

  But I also know that time is running out. Though he’s trying to be respectful, I can feel Hudson’s impatience pushing at me from the corners of my mind, urging me to hurry. Urging me to forget Jaxon and focus on the task ahead.

  But I can’t do that. I can’t just leave him like this, not if this is the last time I’m ever going to see him. So I cup his face with my hands, tangle the tips of my fingers in the edges of his too-long hair like I’ve done so many times before. And then I press kisses against his eyes, along his scarred cheek, over his mouth, which is still tight with pain.

  “I love you,” I tell him, and out of habit I reach for him along the mating bond. But it’s not there. Nothing is.

  God, it hurts all over again.

  “I love you, too,” he says, and from the pained look on his face, I can tell he’s feeling the absence, too. “Even without the mating bond.”

  He reaches out then, wraps his arms around me, and pulls me into a hug that is as painful as it is comforting. I bury my face in the spot where his shoulder meets his neck, and I breathe him in. Whatever happens with this Trial, however it may go, I want to remember this smell—and this moment—for an eternity.

  Too soon, horns sound from inside—the seven-minute warning I remember from the tournament. “I have to go,” I tell Jaxon. My Jaxon.

  “I know.” He lets me go slowly, painfully. “Be careful, Grace. Please, please be careful.”

  “I’ll try,” I tell him with a grin, because all this sadness is tearing me apart again. “But sometimes careful doesn’t get the job done.” I deliberately mimic the words he and Flint said during a study session not that long ago.

  I push to my feet, swaying a little as I do. Jaxon tries to steady me, but I just give him a smile as I step out of reach. There’s no part of this he can do for me. Now I have to do it on my own.

  “I’ll see you soon,” I tell him.

  “You better,” he answers, fear plain on his face.

  There’s more to say—there’s always more to say with Jaxon—but I really am out of time. So I jus
t give him one last smile, and then I turn away.

  110

  Heeeeeeeeere’s

  Hudson

  I’m not that far from the arena door, but once I’m inside, there’s a long walkway I have to go down to get to the field. Hudson hassles me about hurrying the entire time, even though I’m doing my best. It’s not exactly easy when everything hurts when I run.

  Or worse, everything hurts when I breathe.

  Maybe that’s why I don’t remember until I’m halfway down the ramp. “Hold on a minute,” I tell Hudson as I careen to a stop.

  “There’s no time to wait, Grace!” He shoots me an impatient look. “You’ve got to get on the field.”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t think I can afford to get on the field without doing this, so they’re all just going to have to wait a little bit longer, whether they want to or not.”

  I unzip the front pocket of my backpack and take out the small pouch I have hidden in the secret compartment at the back of it. I know it was a risk to bring these things with me to the cave of the Unkillable Beast, but I was afraid I might get injured while I was there—or worse. And if that happened, I wanted the others to have a way to get Hudson out of my head.

  I didn’t want him to have to die with me.

  Turns out, I wasn’t the one who died in that cave. And I will remember Xavier and regret his loss for the rest of my life—however long or short that might be. But I’m not about to go into another dangerous situation, one that can turn deadly at any moment, and not take care of everything—everyone—I can. Which means there is no other time. I have to do this now.

  I open the pouch and slowly, carefully take out each of the four items inside it, one by one.

  Hudson’s eyes go huge as he realizes what I’m doing. “You can’t do this right now,” he tells me, backing away from me in such a hurry that he nearly trips over his own feet—and probably would have if he was actually in his own body. “There are other, more important things for you to—”