“Cyrus bit him,” I answer softly. “And you were badly wounded. He didn’t want to die with all his power inside him if he could save you, so I…” I let the words drift away, barely able to think them myself, let alone say them to Flint.

“Don’t tell me that.” Flint’s eyes well up. “Don’t you fucking tell me that, Grace.”

He rolls over, tries to reach for him. “It’s okay, Jaxon. You’re going to be okay.”

Jaxon laughs a little at that, which causes a massive coughing fit. “I think—” He starts when he can finally breathe again, then breaks off because he’s too winded and it takes too much energy. “I think you’ve pretty much run out of time on that prediction,” he finally manages to gasp out. “This is as good as it’s going to get.”

“No,” Flint says, and there’s an agony in his eyes I wouldn’t wish on anyone. Then again, it’s the same agony burning a hole deep inside me at this very moment. “Don’t do this, man.” He turns to me. “Don’t let him do this.”

“I can’t stop it,” I whisper, and I’ve never felt like more of a failure in my life.

“You’re going to be okay,” Jaxon gasps out.

It’s the last thing he says as Hudson, Mekhi, and the rest of the Order come racing across the ledge with the dragon army right behind them. Once they reach us, as many of them as can fit crowd into the entrance of the cave. Hudson and the Order all look as broken as I feel. Even Eden is crushed.

Flint searches their faces with wild eyes, and at first I don’t know what he’s hoping to see—until the moment it dawns on me. “Luca?” he whispers, hunching in on himself like he can’t bear to hear the answer.

I shake my head, whisper, “I’m sorry.”

“What happened here?” Flint almost screams. “What the fuck happened here?”

No one answers as Jaxon’s chest rattles, his breath growing more and more shallow.

Hudson falls to his knees beside his little brother, dropping his head onto Jaxon’s shoulder as he grabs hold of his hand.

“Somebody please tell me what the fuck I missed,” Flint begs as Jaxon exhales again. Long seconds pass as we wait for him to inhale. And wait. And wait. And wait.

But it never comes.

“He’s gone,” Macy whispers as she pulls her hoodie up to drape over Jaxon’s face. “How can he be gone?” She’s not crying now. She just sounds…bewildered.

“How did we let this happen?” Mekhi whispers, shrugging out of his own hoodie so he can do the same for Luca’s body.

“It happened because I failed you,” Nuri says, dropping to her knees beside her son and pulling him into a hug. “This is my fault. From the first time I aligned myself with Cyrus, I knew that this could happen…and still I did nothing. Still I let him run roughshod over every important law we had. And now we’re here.”

“They’re gone, Mom,” Flint whispers, tears streaming down his face, and he sounds more broken than I’ve ever heard him.

“I know, my love. I know.” She looks away from his face to the terrible wound at the bottom of his right leg, and when she turns back to me, she has steel in her voice. “There was no other choice? Only…”

“I tried,” I tell her, even as shame burns inside me. “But either I’m not strong enough or it couldn’t be healed. Not if I wanted to save his life.”

For the first time, Flint seems to notice that the pain he’s in is from more than an injury. It’s because he’s missing his right leg from the knee down.

“I’m sorry,” I tell him. “I’m so sorry.”

But he just shakes his head. “I’ve lost Luca and Jaxon,” he tells me through a throat thick with fear. “What do I care about my fucking leg when I’ve lost them both?”

“No, son,” Nuri says with a shake of her head. “You haven’t. I won’t let that happen.”

“It’s already done.” Mekhi speaks up. “There’s nothing to stop.”

But Nuri squares her shoulders. “This is my fault. And I will set things to right.” She moves to her husband. “Aiden, darling—”

“I’m here,” he tells her, wrapping an arm around her waist like he needs to hold her up. “And I’ll be right here no matter what.”

She nods regally and then steps back.

158

Cross My Heartstone

My heart is in my throat as I watch Nuri move to the front of the cave entrance. I don’t know what she’s going to do, but I know it’ll be something big. The way Aiden is looking at her like she’s the bravest, most wonderful woman in the world tells me that much.

Flint isn’t watching. He’s got his head in his hands sobbing, and his grief is a wild thing tearing through the room, biting and clawing at all of us who are already in such bad shape.

Nuri holds one bejeweled hand up and changes into the most beautiful, elegant golden-brown dragon I have ever seen. She’s proud and huge and regal, so regal, as she gazes down at her son.

Flint watches the shift, and his eyes go wide as his face drains of color. “No!” he screams. “Mom, no!”

He pushes up, tries to get to her, but he’s still weak from everything he has lost, and one of his legs is still useless.

It’s over in the space of one beautiful heartbeat. Nuri uses a talon to slice her chest open, then reaches inside and pulls out a glowing red jewel so big, it barely fits in her hand.

Her dragon makes one long, low, keening cry of sorrow, so heavy and profound that it has all of us falling to our knees in front of this woman and her sacrifice.

In a blink, she’s human again.

Tears are pouring down Aiden’s and Flint’s faces and even Eden’s cheeks, as they watch her walk to Jaxon. A sweep of her hand has Macy’s hoodie on the ground, and then she’s placing the jewel right in the center of Jaxon’s chest.

As soon as it touches him, it starts to pulse, the light it casts diffusing through the room until every single one of us is touched by it. Only then does it begin to spin, slowly at first and then faster and faster as it seems to drill itself right into Jaxon’s pale, still chest.

“Oh my God,” Hudson breathes, his tone more reverent than any I have ever heard from him. “She gave him her dragon’s heart.”

The moment the stone finishes sinking into his chest, we all wait. One beat, then two. And then Jaxon gasps. His body arches off the ground where it’s been lying, and he jackknifes into a sitting position as he draws loud gulps of air into his chest.

It’s a good thing I’m still kneeling, because every bone in my body has just gone weak. Hudson grabs me and holds on tight, but he’s shaking so badly that I’m not sure if it’s because he wants to support me or because he needs me to support him.

Either way, we’re holding on to each other now, and I figure that’s the way it’s supposed to be.

“Your dragon heart,” I breathe. I remember the story she told me of the price a dragon paid to the Crone in order to leave the Aethereum: his dragon heart. A fate worse than death, she’d said.

“I’ve only heard rumors,” Hudson says as Nuri’s dragon guard surrounds her. “I didn’t think it was possible.”

She emerges cloaked in one of the dragon guard’s capes, and her eyes zero in on Hudson’s. “Yes, we can give our dragon heart if all the circumstances are right.”

“It’s rare, though,” Eden murmurs. “Because once you gift it—” She breaks off, has to clear her throat as tears continue to slide down her cheeks.

“Once you gift it, you lose your dragon forever,” Flint finishes. “You can never shift again.”

My hands fly to my mouth as the pain of her sacrifice reverberates through me. I lost my gargoyle for a week, and I could barely stand it. Nuri just gave away her heart—and her dragon—to Jaxon for the rest of her life.

The sacrifice is unimaginable.

“Nuri.” I call her name because this is the bravest, most beautiful act of love I have ever seen.

She just smiles at me. It’s a sad smile but a smile nonetheless. “Whatever it takes,” she whispers, and it brings me right back to that moment in her office and what we promised—to ourselves and to each other.

Whatever it takes to defeat Cyrus. Whatever it takes to keep the people we love safe.

I nod, and she shifts her gaze to Jaxon, who is staring at her, at all of us with wide, confused eyes. “You owe me a life debt, vampire. And I am claiming it here. Protect my son.”

Jaxon nods, and the look on his face slowly morphs from shock to understanding. “Thank you,” he whispers.

She inclines her head, then turns to her husband, who still has tears streaming down his face. “It is time to go home, my love.”

He nods and shifts into a bright-green dragon that looks so much like Flint, it makes my heart ache. Nuri climbs on like she was born to ride a dragon—nothing like my awkward ascent onto Flint’s back all those weeks ago.

We watch, silent and overwhelmed, as Aiden takes to the skies, the dragon army right behind him, carrying their wounded in their talons.

And as they stretch their wings, as they fly out to sea, the bodies of the slain dragons slowly rise from the ground beneath us, the last of their magic bearing them across the ocean to the Boneyard where they will rest for an eternity.