“Why not?” I plead. “You did it once—”

“Because, Grace dear, once broken, some things can never unbreak.” She gives a sympathetic little smile. “I only knew how to break yours with Jaxon because I’m the one who created it.”

28

Today’s Forecast:

A Deep Freeze

My heart is thundering in my chest. “What do you mean you created it?”

“That’s what was wrong with it,” Hudson interrupts, a dawning horror invading his eyes. “I knew it didn’t look right, green twisted with black. I just…” He shakes his head as if to clear it. “I never imagined that it was off because it should never have existed in the first place.”

The Bloodletter shrugs. “Should or should not aren’t concepts people with power tend to think about much.”

“Yeah, well, they need to,” I tell her as all the pain and fear and sadness of the last few weeks well up inside me until it feels like I’m about to be ripped to shreds.

“Come now, Grace.” This time when she smiles, I can see the tips of her razor-sharp fangs. “You have quite a bit of power yourself. As does your…” She waves a dismissive hand. “Mate. Are you telling me you don’t ever use it to benefit the people you care about?”

“How exactly do you think you bloody benefited anyone in this situation?” Hudson demands. “All you did was fuck everything up.” His accent is so heavy that “fuck” comes out sounding like an entirely different word.

“I wasn’t talking to you,” she snaps in a voice more frigid than the ice all around us.

“Yeah, well, I was definitely talking to you. What kind of monster plays God with four people’s lives—”

“Four?” I interrupt, confused.

He’s so busy glaring at the Bloodletter that he doesn’t even glance my way, still speaking directly to the Bloodletter. “Did it ever occur to you that Jaxon has a real mate out there somewhere? One he would never even look for because he was already mated to Grace?”

His words sink like stones into the air around us, and I forget how to breathe. How to think. How to be. Oh my God. This can’t be happening. Oh my God.

For the first time, the Bloodletter looks furious. Pure, unadulterated rage pours out of her as she points a finger at Hudson. “Are you worried about Jaxon’s imaginary mate?” she asks. “Or are you worried about yourself?”

“That’s the problem with people who abuse their power,” he snarls. “They don’t like to think about what they’ve done. And they can’t stand it when someone calls them on it.”

“Don’t you think you’re being a little sanctimonious, considering you’re Cyrus Vega’s son?” she accuses, and now her fangs are completely bared.

As are Hudson’s.

“It’s because I am his son that I recognize abuse of power when I see it,” he answers, and the way he raises his hands makes me wonder if he plans on strangling her.

The Bloodletter sighs and waves a dismissive hand at him again. But this time, Hudson freezes. Like full-on freezes, snarl on his face, eyes narrowed, hands still raised.

“What did you do?” I demand, the accusation coming out before I can think better of it. “What did you do to him?”

“He’s fine,” she assures me. “But he wouldn’t be if he kept talking, so really, I did him a favor.”

I don’t even know what I’m supposed to say to that, so I just carefully ask, “Will you eventually unfreeze him?”

“Of course.” She makes a face. “Believe me when I say that the last thing I want cluttering up my home is a statue of Hudson Vega.”

“He’s not a statue,” I tell her. “He’s—”

“I know exactly what he is. And I’m bored with it.” She gestures to the chair next to hers. “You, however, I’d like to talk to for a while. So why don’t you come sit by me?”

I’d rather sit next to hungry bears than sit next to her now—or ever—but it’s not like I have much choice. Besides, sitting where I am doesn’t make me any safer if she could freeze Hudson with nothing but a wave of her hand.

I don’t want to risk setting her off and getting both of us frozen, so I settle gingerly into the rocking chair next to hers.

“What do you think about all this, Grace?” she asks as soon as I’m seated.

“I don’t know what I think.” I keep looking at Hudson, worrying about him, willing him to unfreeze. Is this what Jaxon and Macy and Uncle Finn felt when I was frozen in stone all those months? This helplessness and all-consuming fear? He’s only been frozen about three and a half minutes, and I’m ready to crawl out of my skin. I can’t imagine how they handled three and a half months.

“I remember seeing Jaxon’s and my mating bond.” I think back to that night in the laundry room, to the green-and-black string that looked so different from the others. “I didn’t realize at the time that something was wrong with it, but looking back, I can tell that it wasn’t like any other string I have. Especially now that I’ve seen the bond between Hudson and me.”

“Seriously, Grace?” She sighs at the mention of Hudson’s and my bond. “You couldn’t have made a better choice?”

“I don’t think I’ve had much choice in any of this,” I tell her. “It seems like all the choices have been made for me.”

“How do you feel about that?”

“Like I want to rip someone’s head off.” Again, the words come out before I think to censor them, so I end up backtracking. “Of course, not yours. I just—”

“Don’t ever soften what you feel, Grace. Own it,” she tells me. “Use it.”

“Like you did?” I ask.

The Bloodletter doesn’t answer right away. Instead, she studies me for what feels like forever before sighing. “I want to tell you a story.”

“Okay,” I say, like I have a choice.

“It starts before you were born,” she tells me. “Long before you were born, actually, but for now we’ll concentrate on the more recent past.”

She takes a drawn-out sip from her goblet, then sets it on the coffee table in front of us. “Nineteen years ago, a coven of witches came to me in the middle of the worst snowstorm Alaska had seen for nearly fifty years. They were terrified, desperate. Worried for the fate of their coven and the world, both human and paranormal.”

She’s staring into the fire now, the look on her face more pained than I have ever seen it.

“What did they want?” I ask when she doesn’t immediately offer any more information.

“They wanted help finding a way to bring gargoyles back. It had been more than a thousand years since one was born, nearly that long since one had roamed the earth, and without the balance gargoyles bring to us, the paranormal world was spinning rapidly out of control. It had gotten so bad that it was affecting the human world, and that was endangering us all. Or so they argued.”

“But there was another gargoyle alive,” I tell her. “The Unkillable Beast—”

“You figured that out, did you?” She smiles. “Smart girl.”

“I can hear him in my head. When I’m in danger, he talks to me.”

“He talks to you?” And just that quickly, she’s focused back on me, her eyes glowing that eerie green again. “What does he say?”

“He warns me. Of course, he doesn’t talk to me all the time—only when I’m in danger. He tells me not to do something or not to trust someone.”

“Does he, now?” She crooks a brow. “You’re a very lucky girl, Grace.”

“I know,” I tell her, even though I don’t feel very lucky—haven’t felt lucky in a long, long time.

“Several witches and warlocks came to me in that coven—including your father. I talked to them all, and I talked to your mother, who wasn’t a witch but whom I could sense carried magic within her. And I knew, instantly, that you would be of the utmost importance to us later.”

“Because I’m a gargoyle?” I ask through my suddenly too-tight throat. I don’t know if it’s because she’s talking about my parents or if it’s because she’s finally telling me about myself—even though it feels a little like I’m being sold a bill of goods. Like I’m at one of those fake fortune-tellers who just give people what they want to hear.

She clicks her tongue at the interruption but continues anyway. “Because of who you really are.”

29

Less Grandmother

and More

Grand Master

I wait for her to say more, and when she doesn’t, I whisper, “I don’t know what that means.”

Her smile is placid. “Don’t worry—you will.”

“But what does this have to do with Jaxon? With my bond?”

“I agreed to help the witches, but I asked a favor in return.” She sighs heavily.

A chill creeps through me. “I don’t understand. What kind of favor?”

“That this child I promised them would come, this gargoyle who they so desperately wanted and who would have so much power in her own right, that she would be mated to my Jaxon…if she wanted.”

“Before I found my real mate, you mean.” I barely get the words out as horror sweeps through me and my gaze darts to Hudson.