It only takes a second before his energy starts pouring into me, his power lighting up my tattoo so bright that I can barely look at it. There’s so much power—so much heart—inside him, it only takes a few seconds before the tattoo starts to undulate on my arm, snaking up and down and around as it glows more and more brightly.

My other hand is on Flint, and I’m pouring Jaxon’s unchecked power into him in a way I couldn’t do before. Normally, when I channel power from Hudson or Jaxon, I skim the surface, take only what’s on the very top layer. But now, with Jaxon, I dig deeper so that the energy rolling out of him, rolling through me, rolling into Flint is more powerful than anything I’ve ever tried to harness before—except maybe for Remy.

I can feel Jaxon weakening, can feel the spark deep inside him starting to grow dim, and it makes me want to scream. Makes me want to break the whole fucking world. But a promise is a promise, so I stay the course.

Already, I can see Flint’s wounds getting better in a way they weren’t before. The muscles are building up enough at this point that I might even be able to try to repair his leg.

Jaxon must feel himself fading, too, because he looks at Hudson and says, “You better take good care of her, or I’ll haunt your ass for an eternity.”

Hudson’s eyes say he’s screaming inside right along with me, but his voice is droll when he answers, “I don’t think vampire ghosts are actually a thing.”

Jaxon chuckles. “Yeah, well. You know me. Always wanting to be an original.”

“That’s for sure,” I tell him, even as his words to Hudson register. Is that why he went after Cyrus alone? Because he had heard what I said to Hudson?

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, and this time I can’t keep the sobs at bay. “I’m so sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry for,” he tells me. “I love you, Grace. Too much to ever let you choose me.” He squeezes my hand. “This is how it was always supposed to go.”

“Jaxon—” My voice breaks.

“No more,” he tells me, eyes glittering with a million different emotions. “Now, hurry up and finish it. Pull out what you can get before that bastard’s bite takes it all.”

Hudson reaches over and puts a hand on Jaxon’s shoulder. “I love you, brother,” he murmurs, but Jaxon is too far gone to answer.

Then, with the fury of a thousand suns burning in his eyes, he gets up and walks to the edge of the rock formation we’re balanced on.

“Drop the protection,” he tells Macy, and there’s something in his voice—in his demeanor—that has her letting go of the spell without so much as a word of protest.

He strolls all the way out onto the ledge, hands at his sides as he surveys the havoc and the damage his father continues to wreak.

A witch comes flying at him, wand at the ready. But just as she is about to launch her spell, Hudson glances her way. And she turns to dust in an instant.

He moves to look the other way at a small pack of wolves making their way up a boulder to ambush Mekhi from behind. With a flick of his wrist, not only are the wolves gone but so is the giant boulder Mekhi was standing upon. Dust fills the air around him as he falls harmlessly to the sand.

A pack of made vampires—under Cyrus’s direction, I’m sure—makes a beeline for him, and Hudson disintegrates the whole group of them in the space between one breath and the next, the dust of what they used to be hanging in the air like a dream.

And still he’s scanning the area, his gaze moving from tree to tree, boulder to boulder, for any sign of enemies—for any sign of Cyrus.

He’s here; I know he’s here. I can sense the evil in him. Can feel his malevolence infecting the whole area, and I can tell that Hudson can feel him, too.

In the meantime, Jaxon can’t even keep his eyes open anymore, his energy so low that I know I won’t be able to hold on to him much longer. Even if I don’t let him go, even if I try to hold on, the eternal bite is closing in. Shutting down his organs and his systems. Turning him into petrified stone from the inside.

Death is too good for Cyrus, but I’ll take it. I’ll take anything that gets that bastard out of our lives for good.

Jaxon moans, shudders, and I know the pain must be excruciating by now. “It’s okay,” I whisper to him as I smooth a hand over his hair. “I’m right here.”

He’s too far gone to answer, but I keep stroking him even as I drain him of more power.

Outside, Hudson is still under fire…and still kicking ass. A rogue dragon sends a dagger of ice straight for him, but with a flick of his finger, the dagger disintegrates. And so do the dragon’s wings.

In the blink of an eye, ten to twelve vampires swarm him—and then melt into nothingness with only a look. This is Hudson Vega, the most badass vampire in existence, and he is beyond livid.

He’s walking along the edge of the cliffs now, decimating anyone who crosses his path. Two werewolves, teeth gleaming as they lunge for him, become dust. So does a witch lucky enough to land a spell on his shoulder.

Hudson staggers as the bolt slides through muscles, but the witch doesn’t get a chance to touch him again. And neither does anyone else, because Hudson has had enough. He’s made it to the edge of the rock formation, hands raised high above his head.

I brace myself, expecting anything—expecting everything—and when he lowers them in a powerful whoosh, I am not disappointed. Because out of nowhere, it all disappears. The hot springs, the surrounding cliffs, the dozens upon dozens of trees, all gone in the blink of an eye.

For several beats, everything comes to a stop. The fighting, the skulking, the flying spells. They stop as every single person in the entire area focuses on my mate. On Hudson.

He’s drained—I can tell that last move took everything out of him. The energy he’s given me, the fading, the fighting in the Pit, it’s all caught up to him, and that last blast took everything he had in reserve. I can feel through the mating bond that there really is nothing left.

And yet he chose this path anyway. He could have killed everyone with that blast, could have melted their bones and turned every person in the whole area to dust if he’d wanted to.

Instead, he’d chosen mercy—and left himself vulnerable because of it.

There’s a part of me that admires the move, that knows there’s no forgiveness needed for what he’s done here. But the rest of me—the mate part that loves him more than my own life—is livid. Because he’s left himself wide open to attack at a time when he needs to be as invulnerable as possible.

But this is Hudson, and if there’s one thing he’s better at than razing things to nothing, it’s bluffing. And as he stands up there, surveying everyone who has fought with him and against him, he raises his hands up again and bellows, “I will only show mercy once. Leave now or you. Are. Next.”

No one moves, and I feel my stomach tighten as I realize that the bluff didn’t work. That they are going to call him on it. But then I realize the witches are spinning portals as fast as they can make them, then diving through just as quickly.

And as they all flee—Cyrus at the forefront, I’m sure—I can’t not think of Delilah’s message from all those weeks ago. Appear weak when you are strong. And the second half she didn’t say: Appear strong when you are weak.

He bluffed and, in doing so, saved us all.

157

All the Broken Pieces

As Hudson watches Cyrus’s allies turn tail and run, I focus on Jaxon. And realize that I’ve taken all that he has to give. There’s nothing left for him and, truthfully, barely anything left of him, either.

I hold his hand still, but I stop siphoning any energy from him. I direct the last little bit of power housed in my tattoo into Flint. Then smooth a hand down Jaxon’s ashen face. His breathing is shallow now, his body shivering so much that Macy has shrugged out of her hoodie and draped it over him. But it’s still not enough to stop the drastic shaking as his entire body prepares to enter the death throes.

“Was it enough?” Jaxon seems to gather some new reserves of energy, enough to choke the words out as I continue to stroke his face. Because there’s no chance that I’ll let Jaxon die alone as he feared. No chance he is going to die any other way than surrounded by love. Flint and me on one side of him, Macy on the other.

We owe him so much more than that, but here, now, it is all that I can give him.

“More than enough,” I tell him, and he smiles, even as his eyes drift closed one last time.

“God, have I got a headache,” Flint groans from the other side of me as he struggles to sit up. “What the fuck happened? What did Jaxon do? Did we miss the whole fight?”

Jaxon groans, though he’s not strong enough anymore to open his eyes. “Leave it to you to bitch at me for saving your sorry ass,” he says so quietly, I have to strain to hear him.

“The day you need to save me,” Flint starts to joke, then freezes when he gets his first good look at Jaxon. “What’s—” His voice breaks. “What’s wrong with him, Grace?”