I should go—I want to go—but there’s something in his gaze that keeps me right where I am, pinned to my chair, with my stomach turning flips deep inside me.

I grow more and more uncomfortable with each second that passes, though, and finally I can’t take it anymore. I’m not ready to deal with this. With any of it. I push my chair back from the table and say, “I need to get going—”

“You want to know what else I remember?” Hudson cuts me off.

Yes. I want to know everything he remembers, want to know everything I told him so I can make sure it wasn’t too much, so I can make sure I didn’t give him the power to destroy me. But even more than that, I want to know everything he told me.

I want to know about the little boy whose brother was ripped away from him. I want to know about the father who treated him like a trained seal and used him like a weapon. I want to know about the mother who looked the other way at all the terrible things that were done to her son, but who then so easily scarred Jaxon for destroying him.

“‘Oh, what tangled webs we weave…’”

“Stay out of my head!” I command, glaring at him. “How can you—”

“It doesn’t take mind-reading powers to know what you’re thinking, Grace. It’s written all over your face.”

“Yeah, well, I need to go.”

“And here I was, just getting warmed up.” He stands when I do, and the mocking tone is back in his voice when he says, “Aww, come on, Grace. Don’t you want to know what I thought of your red prom dress? Or that bathing suit you wore to Mission Beach that one time?”

“Bathing suit?” I squeak out, my cheeks on fire as I realize which one he’s talking about. A teeny tiny little bikini. Heather had bought it on sale at a local surf shop, then dared me to wear it. Normally, I wouldn’t have taken that dare for anything, but she’d also accused me of being staid, stuck in my comfort zone, and flat-out chicken.

“You remember,” Hudson prompts. “The purple one with all the strings. It was very”—he draws a couple of tiny little triangles in the air—“geometric.”

He’s teasing me, I know he is, but there’s something more than just a few laughs kindling in his eyes. Something dark and dangerous and just a little bit hot.

I lick my suddenly dry lips as I struggle to get words past the giant lump in my throat. “I really did tell you everything, didn’t I?”

He raises a brow. “How exactly am I supposed to know the answer to that question?”

He makes a good point, but I’m too far gone to acknowledge it now. “If you saw the bathing suit, then you saw…”

He doesn’t say anything else, and he certainly doesn’t fill in the blanks for me. I don’t know if that’s a kindness, though, or just another way to torture me. Because there’s no mistaking the heat in his eyes now, and all of a sudden, it feels like my blood is freezing and boiling at the same time. I don’t know what to do, what to say—may even have forgotten how to breathe for a couple of oxygen-deprived moments—but then Hudson blinks, and the heat is gone as easily as it came.

So easily, in fact, that I wonder if I imagined it.

Especially when he smirks at me and says, “Don’t worry, Grace. I’m sure you still have plenty of secrets left.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not so sure about that.” I force myself to answer his smirk with one of my own. “Which sucks, considering I can’t remember if I’ve ever seen you in anything besides your little Armani safety blankets.” I wave an airy hand toward his shirt and pants.

He glances down at himself, then demands, “What’s wrong with how I dress?”

“There’s nothing wrong with it,” I answer, and it’s the truth, because no one—and I mean no one—looks hotter in a pair of Armani trousers than the vampire standing across from me. Not that I’m going to say that to him. His head is big enough already. Plus, admitting it feels like turning the corner on something I’m still not sure I want any part of, mating bond or not.

His eyes narrow dangerously. “Yeah, well, you may say that, but the look on your face says something entirely different.”

“Oh yeah?” It’s my turn to lift a brow as I lean in a little closer. “What exactly does the look on my face say?”

At first, I don’t think he’s going to answer. But then I can see something inside him shift. See something dissolve until the caution he’s been wearing like a shield for the last several weeks morphs into a recklessness I don’t expect from Hudson.

“It says that it doesn’t matter what happened between us during those four months. It says that you’re always going to want Jaxon. It says—” He pauses and leans forward until our faces are mere inches apart and my heart is beating like a wild bird in my chest. “That you won’t rest until you find a way to break our mating bond.”

13

Antisocial

Influencer

“Is that what you want?” I whisper over the sound of blood rushing in my ears. “To break the bond?”

He leans back again and asks, “Would that make you happy?”

His question stirs something inside me, something I’m not ready to face, so I turn to the anger that’s always so much easier between us. “How can I be happy when so much of my life is still a mystery? How can I be happy when you won’t even pretend to tell me the truth?”

“I have always told you the truth,” he snaps back. “It’s just that you’re usually too obstinate to believe it.”

“I’m the obstinate one?” I ask, incredulous. “Me? You’re the one who won’t give me a straight answer.”

“I’ve given you plenty of answers. You just don’t like them.”

“You’re right. I don’t like them because I don’t like getting the runaround from you. I asked you a simple question, and you can’t even—”

“There is nothing simple about the question you just asked me, and if you weren’t so busy hiding your head in the bloody sand, you would damn well know that.” Fury crackles in the depths of his eyes, and this time, when he bares his fangs, it’s scary as hell. Not scary because I would ever worry Hudson would hurt me, but scary because I realize just how much the uncertainty of our mating bond is really affecting him.

Add in his words hitting entirely too close to home, and the anger drains right out of me. Not because I don’t have a point about Hudson’s nonanswer, because I do. But because he’s got a point, too. Which means the truth is probably somewhere in the middle between us.

It’s that knowledge that has me taking a deep breath and blowing it out slowly.

That has me reaching for his hand and squeezing it tightly.

That has me whispering, “You’re right.”

His shoulders relax, his own rage draining as easily as mine. He squeezes my hand back, his long fingers sliding between mine and holding tight, even as his face remains wary. “Why do I feel like you’re trying to lull me into a false sense of security?”

I give him a rueful look. “Probably for the same reason I keep thinking you’re trying to pull one over on me.”

“And what reason is that?”

There’s a part of me that doesn’t want to answer the question, but it’s the same part that regrets ever starting this conversation. But I did start it, and I did accuse Hudson of not being straight with me. Which means I need to do better, even if telling him the truth is more than a little embarrassing.

“I’m scared,” I finally admit, looking anywhere and everywhere but at his ridiculously handsome face.

“Scared?” he repeats, sounding stunned. “Of me?”

“Yes, of you!” I say, my eyes darting up to his. “Of course of you. And Jaxon. And this entire situation. How can I not be? It’s a mess, and whichever way it turns out, someone is going to get hurt.”

“Can’t you see that’s what I’m trying to avoid, Grace?” He shakes his head. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“So don’t,” I tell him. “Just be honest with me, Hudson, and I’ll be honest with you.”

“Honesty doesn’t guarantee that you won’t get hurt,” he says softly.

And that’s when it hits me, really hits me. Hudson is just as confused as I am.

Just as confused as Jaxon is.

I don’t know why I didn’t register that before. Probably because he always sounds so smooth and confident and in control, like he always knows what’s happening in any given situation.

Then again, this is a situation like no other, a situation that no one I’ve talked to has ever even heard of before. And can I just say, I’m getting a little sick of being the test case in all these situations.

The first human at Katmere.

The first gargoyle born in a thousand years.

The first person in forever to challenge for a seat on the Circle.

The first person to have a mating bond break…and then find another mate almost instantly.

Fantasy novels always describe finding your mate as this wondrous, glorious, amazing thing. But I figure the authors who write about those have obviously never been mated to anyone in their life. If they were, they’d know just how messy and terrifying and overwhelming the entire situation is.