“I don’t believe you.” Affront turns to indignation as he continues to stare at me, but I don’t back down. Instead, I just shrug and continue. “I’m sorry, but I don’t. You’ve got way too much power to just walk away from it. Don’t forget, I know exactly how vast it is.”

He lifts a brow. “Have you ever thought that it’s because I have so much power that I’m so willing to give it up?”

“Honestly, no. You don’t exactly seem the type.”

He stills. “And what type is that?”

“You know, the self-sacrificing, do-gooder, save-the-world type.” I widen my eyes in a deliberate gotcha kind of look. “Besides, if you’ve actually given up your ability to persuade people, how did you get that wolf to run away so quickly?”

“I already told you.” His voice and expression are all smug satisfaction. “I’m a vampire.”

“I have no idea what that means.” Except my damp palms say otherwise.

“It means that baby wolf is quite aware this vampire could separate his arms from his body in a blink if I wanted, with or without my powers.”

He looks so satisfied that I can’t help taunting, “Oh yeah? You really think you’re that big and scary, huh?”

His only response is to slowly blink at me, like he can’t believe I’m actually making fun of him. Or worse, flirting with him. Not as shocked as I am, though, when I realize that’s exactly what I’m doing.

I just wish I knew where it came from. I’d definitely be lying if I said there wasn’t something about the way Hudson snarled at the wolf that sent shivers straight down my spine. And not necessarily in a bad way. I clearly have a type.

Still, it doesn’t mean anything—except that both my human and gargoyle side recognize and appreciate strength when they see it. Right? Hudson is my friend. I’m in love with Jaxon, breakup or no breakup. Any chemistry that is showing up between Hudson and me has to be because of the mating bond and nothing else.

I know how powerful that chemistry was with Jaxon from the very beginning—before I even knew him, let alone had fallen in love with him. Is there any reason to suspect that it would be different between Hudson and me?

Just the thought has me freaking out a little bit.

Not to mention, Hudson still hasn’t answered the question I asked him before the wolf showed up, which means I’m pretty much in the dark here. I have absolutely no idea what happened between us or how he feels about me, let alone how he feels about being mated to me. Not that all this uncertainty isn’t scary or anything…

“Scary enough,” Hudson says so suddenly that I think he must be reading my mind. At least until he flashes a bit of fang, and I realize that he’s responding to my previous comment.

Since just seeing the tip of his fang sends another shiver along my spine, I realize I might have a serious problem on my hands, even before he asks, “What do you want to know about those four months?”

“Anything.” I take a deep breath in the hopes of calming the wild beating of my heart. “Whatever you can remember.”

“I remember everything, Grace.”

12

Eternal Ambivalence

of the Spotless Mind

“Everything?” I repeat, a little stunned at the admission.

He leans forward, and this time when he says, “Everything,” it comes out as much growl as word.

And I nearly swallow my tongue and my tonsils in one fell swoop.

Deep inside me, my gargoyle stirs, raising its wary head, even as I feel its stillness washing through me. I force it back, settling it down with the reassurance that I really am okay, even if I currently feel anything but.

“I remember what it was like to wake up to your incessant cheer and unwavering optimism,” he tells me hoarsely. “I was sure we were going to die locked in that place, but you were just as certain that we would survive. You refused to think any other way.”

“Really?” That kind of unbridled optimism feels foreign to me these days.

“Oh yeah. You were always coming up with someplace you wanted to take me when we got free. Certain if I could just see all the things to love in the world, I wouldn’t be evil anymore, I suppose.”

“Like where?” It sounds like I’m challenging him more than I’m asking a question, and maybe I am. Because all I can think about is how hard it must have been for him after we finally did make it back. First, me not even knowing he was there and then, when I did find out about him, I treated him with every ounce of suspicion I could muster.

“That little strip of Coronado you like to haunt when you’re in San Diego. You take the ferry over and then spend all afternoon checking out the art galleries before stopping at the little café on the corner to get a cup of tea and a couple of cookies the size of your palm.”

Oh my God. I hadn’t thought of that place in months, and with a handful of words, Hudson brings it back to me so clearly, I can almost taste the chocolate chips.

“What kind of cookies did I get?” I ask him, even though it’s more than obvious he’s telling the truth.

“One was chocolate chocolate chip,” he answers with a grin, and it’s the first real smile I’ve seen from him in ages. One of the only real smiles I’ve seen from him ever. It lights up his face—lights up the whole room, if I’m being honest. Even me…or maybe, especially me.

Because it’s an uncomfortable thought—an uncomfortable feeling—I ask, “What about the second cookie?” I never tell anyone about this, so I figure I’m safe.

But Hudson’s smile only gets wider. “Oatmeal raisin, which you don’t even really like. But it’s Miss Velma’s favorite, and no one ever buys them from her. She always said she was going to stop baking them, but you could see it made her sad, so you started buying one every time you went just so she would have an excuse to keep making them.”

I gasp. “I’ve never told anyone about Miss Velma’s oatmeal cookies.”

His eyes meet mine. “You told me.”

I haven’t thought of Miss Velma in months. I used to visit her at least once a week when I lived in San Diego, but then my parents died, and I just fell apart and never went back. Not even to say goodbye before I left for Alaska.

We were friends, which sounds silly considering she was just some lady who sold me cookies, but we were. Some days, I would hang around her little shop and talk to her for hours. She was the grandmother I never had, and I was a good standin for her grandkids, who lived halfway across the country. And then one day, I just disappeared. My stomach sinks thinking about it—thinking about her, wondering where I went.

Because I’ve had more than enough sadness lately, I force down my regrets and ask, “What else do you remember?”

For a second, I think he’s going to push—or worse, start reciting some story I told him about my parents that I don’t think I can handle tonight. But, typical of Hudson, he sees more than he should. Definitely more than I want him to.

And instead of bringing up something sentimental or sweet or sad, he rolls his eyes and says, “I remember the way you used to stand over me every morning at seven a.m. and demand that I wake up and get moving. You used to insist that we do something even when there was nothing to do.”

I grin a little at the slight aggravation in his words.

“So what did we do? Besides swap stories, I mean.”

There’s a long pause, and then he says, “Jumping jacks.”

So not the answer I was expecting. “Jumping jacks?” I ask. “Seriously?”

“Thousands upon thousands upon thousands of jumping jacks.” If his expression got any more bored, he’d be comatose.

“But how is that even possible? I mean, we didn’t actually have bodies, right?”

“You shook the whole realm when you jumped. It was completely embarrassing, but—”

“Oh my God, tell me I was not stone the whole time, was I?” I interrupt.

“You absolutely were. I tried to convince you to pick up a quieter hobby—skeet shooting, for example, or wooden clog dancing—but you were insistent. It was all about the jumping jacks.” He gives a what-could-I-do? shrug before the laugh that had been trying to force its way out finally escapes. “No, you were in your normal human body, but the marathon jumping jacks…” He winks.

“But I hate jumping jacks.”

“Yeah, me too. Now. But you know what they say about hate, right, Grace?” He leans back in his chair and gives me a look so hot that it curls my toes and straightens my hair at the same time. “It’s just the other side of—”

“I don’t believe that.” I cut him off before he can finish the old saying about hate being only one side of a coin with love. Not because I don’t actually believe it, like I told him, but because there’s a part of me that does. And I can’t deal with that right now.

Hudson doesn’t call me on my bluff, for which I am intensely grateful. But he doesn’t just move past it, either. Instead, he stays where he is—arm draped over the back of the chair beside him and long legs splayed in front of him under the table—and watches me as the seconds tick by.