“It’s a gift,” I tell her. “So you can get a hotel room and some food for a few days.”

She still looks like she wants to refuse, but in the end, she nods and whispers, “Thank you.”

I give her a hug. “Thanks for everything,” I tell her.

“Thanks for getting me out of there. You saved my life.” She hugs me again. “Bye, Grace.”

“Bye, Calder.”

“Okay, I’m ready,” Macy calls. “Let’s move!”

Calder backs up, blowing kisses to Flint and Hudson and even a few at Mekhi as Macy performs the spell to open the portal. The last thing I see as we dive through it is Calder pulling a magnolia bloom off the tree and tucking it in her hair.

It makes me smile, despite everything we’ve got waiting for us. Maybe she really is going to be okay on her own after all.

151

Not Every Island

Is a Fantasy

Macy opens up a portal to the same beach we left from before, and I can tell by the stiff set of her shoulders that she’s thinking about what happened the last time we were here. I think we all are. It’s hard to walk out onto this beach without thinking about Xavier’s body lying only a few feet away from where we are now, hard to walk toward the cave where he died.

But there’s no other way to free the beast. No other way to get the Crown before Cyrus. No other way to save Jaxon. No other way to stop Cyrus from attacking Katmere. And no other way to stop the coming war. So into the belly of the beast we go.

But we soon realize that Nuri and her troops have gotten here before us. They’re circling the air all around the island, guarding it and performing aerial surveillance. They’re watching for Cyrus and his army, determined to cut him off before he has a chance at the Unkillable Beast…or the Crown.

I know they’ve got the surveillance down, but I’m still worried enough that I look around for any sign that Cyrus has beaten us here. So do the vampires—Hudson, Jaxon, and the rest of the Order fan out over the entire beach area, looking for any sign that the dragons might have missed.

But there’s nothing. The beach is clear, the sand completely undisturbed. To be honest, it looks like no one has been here since we were, all those weeks ago.

When Hudson is convinced we haven’t missed anything, he fades across the beach to me. “Hey,” he says, wrapping an arm around my shoulder as I shiver in the chilly arctic air. “You ready for this?”

“Of course,” I tell him, even though I’m anything but. Because now that we know the beach is clear, it’s time to breach the rock formation separating the beast’s cave from the rest of the island. It’s time to go free him and get the Crown.

And it’s time to sever our mating bond once and for all.

“How about you?” I ask, leaning in so close that we’re breathing the same air.

He smiles that cocky grin of us—the one I used to hate but now love so much—and says, “Not even close.”

This time when I breathe out, the air is choked with tears.

“Hey, none of that,” Hudson tells me, like his voice doesn’t sound a lot thicker than usual. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not okay,” I tell him. “None of this is okay.”

“Oh, Grace.” He pulls me close, strokes a hand down my cheek as he presses kisses to my temple. “I told you a long time ago that I’d never ask you to choose. Nothing’s changed.”

“Everything’s changed!” I tell him, and for the girl who used to never be able to cry in front of anyone, I’ve sure changed my tune. “You wouldn’t ask because you thought I wouldn’t pick you. But I would. I would pick you, Hudson. If there was any other way, I would choose you. I love you.”

“Well, shite,” he says, looking away—but not before I can see tears glistening on his own cheeks. “I always knew you were going to crush me one day, Grace. I just didn’t know that…”

“You were going to crush me, too?”

“Don’t say that.” He shakes his head, pulls me even closer, and his voice nearly breaks as he says, “I can let you go. I can watch you build a life with my brother. I can even come by every once in a while and be fun Uncle Hudson. But don’t tell me that you hurt the way I do, Grace. Don’t tell me that. Because I wouldn’t wish this on anyone, and I would never, never wish it on—”

He breaks off as an explosion rips across the island.

And then all hell breaks loose.

152

Armageddon Me

Out of Here

For one second, two, Hudson and I stare at each other in shock as we try to figure out what’s happening.

But as the screaming starts, we jump up and race toward the rock formation that leads to the cave. I leap on the rocks, start to race right through the opening, but Hudson grabs me by the waist and yanks me down behind one of the huge boulders just as a stream of lightning shoots over our heads.

“What’s going on?” I shout at him. “Cyrus?”

“And witches,” he says grimly, nodding toward a warlock racing across the top of the boulders, firing shots of lightning from his athame.

Macy peeks her head up from a boulder several yards away from us and shoots him with some kind of spell right in the ass. He falls into the hot spring with a screech.

All around us, vampires and witches are popping out from everywhere. They were in the water, in the trees, on top of the very rock formation we’ve been searching for the past fifteen minutes. How could the dragons have missed them? How could we have missed them?

“Vanishing spell,” Hudson says, and I realize I asked the last question out loud. “We were looking for the vamps. We didn’t know Cyrus had the witches with him. Charon probably tipped them off hours ago—as soon as I started earning money in the Pit. And he knew we were freeing the blacksmith. They’ve had plenty of time to scout out the island for the best positions, plenty of time to cast the spells to hide themselves.” The last is little more than a growl.

“What do we do?” I ask as a dragon grabs a vampire in his mouth and flies straight up into the sky with him. “How can we help? And how do we—”

“Get to the Unkillable Beast?” He shoves me down with one hand, reaches up with the other, and yanks a made vampire off the rock right above us. The vampire falls, fangs flashing, and Hudson snaps his neck without blinking. Then he reaches in his mouth and yanks out one of his fangs, flinging it across the sand.

“We need to get moving,” I tell him as I ready myself to run for the Unkillable Beast’s cave. “Others saw him disappear. It’s only a matter of time before they swarm this area.”

He nods, and we run for the cave, doing our best to take cover from the various trees and boulders along the way.

All around us, war is being waged, dragons against vamps and witches. Paranormals are being ripped in half, set on fire, skewered by spears of ice, and screaming in agony as their still-beating hearts are ripped from their chests. And in the middle of it are my friends—some are trying to get to the cave, while others are trying to help the dragons who would have been a match for the vampires but are horribly outnumbered now that the witches are involved, too.

A spell flashes right above our heads, and I drag Hudson to the ground. We crawl behind some bushes, and I measure the distance between where we are and the mouth of the cave. It’s about one hundred yards, the length of a football field, but right now it feels so much longer.

And even if we do manage to get there, we have no idea what’s waiting for us in the cave itself. My gut says Cyrus—he knows that’s where Hudson, Jaxon, and I are going to go, which means it’s his very best shot at us. Especially if he’s been set up inside the cave waiting for us for hours.

But what’s the alternative? Run away? Flee this island and head back where? To Katmere? Maybe that is our best bet, now that I think about it.

Yeah, Cyrus is here with the Unkillable Beast—which feels like a major crisis to the safety of the Crown. But he doesn’t have the key. He can’t open the cuffs. And if he doesn’t open the cuffs, the beast will never be human enough—cognizant enough—to be able to tell him where the Crown is.

It’s not a long-term plan, at least not with Vander and the key in the world. But if we leave now, we can save a lot of bloodshed. Why fight Cyrus here when he’s got the advantage? Why not leave and make him come to us?

“We need to go,” I tell Hudson.

“What do you mean?” He looks at me like I said the absolute last thing he was expecting. “Go where?”

“We have the key,” I tell him. “If he fights us and wins, he gets the key. He gets the Crown. He gets everything. But without it—”

“He has to work a lot harder. You’re right. Let’s—”

He breaks off as another scream rends the air, only this one sounds really, really familiar and sends a chill down my spine.

“Flint?” I turn, and I don’t even think. I just run. I dash around a boulder and over a fallen tree…and then I see him—lying at the opening to the cave about thirty yards away. He’s not screaming anymore, and I try to tell myself that’s a good thing.