I’m reconsidering, half based on what she told me and half on the survival instinct deep inside me that’s screaming for us to get the hell out of here.

But Hudson is all in, saying, “That is why we came. Jaxon and Grace don’t deserve this.”

“What about what you deserve?” She makes the question sound like a threat.

“I know exactly what I deserve,” he answers. “But thank you so much for your concern.”

She gives a little shrug, makes a face that can roughly be translated to: your inanity isn’t my problem. And says, “There is a way you can maybe, maybe break this bond.”

“And that is?” Hudson prompts.

“The Crown.”

“The what?” I ask, but Hudson must know exactly what she’s talking about because his whole face has gone flat.

“It doesn’t exist,” he tells her.

“Sure it does.” She looks down, checks out her nails. “It’s just been missing for a bit.”

“It doesn’t exist,” Hudson says again.

But I’m not so sure—the Bloodletter doesn’t look like she’s bluffing. At all.

“Is that what Cyrus told you?” she asks him. “More like he couldn’t get his hands on it, so he doesn’t want anyone else to even know it exists.”

That sounds exactly like something Cyrus would do, and I can tell Hudson must think so, too, because he stops arguing. He’s not ready to ask her any questions about it, but he isn’t fighting anymore, either. Which is as close to surrender as he gets.

“What does the Crown do?” I ask, still very confused about the whole thing.

“The Crown is supposed to give whoever wears it infinite power,” Hudson says flatly.

“That’s it?” I ask. “Just more power?”

“There’s no just about it,” the Bloodletter tells me. “The power is unparalleled. Some even say that it grants its wearer the ability to rule the Seven Circles.”

“Wait. Circles? As in the council we’re supposed to be on now?” I gesture to Hudson.

“The council you’re supposed to be on,” he tells me.

“Yeah, with my mate.”

He looks away. And damn, just damn. Somehow this situation keeps getting worse, and everything I say is the wrong thing.

“There are seven of them?” I ask.

“Of course, child. You didn’t think there were only five paranormal creatures in the world, did you? You just happen to belong to this Circle.”

I have no idea what I’m supposed to say to that. She’s barely gotten started, and I already feel like that emoji with its mind blowing up. “Who’s in the other Circles?”

“Does it matter?” Hudson snarks.

The Bloodletter ignores him. “Fairies, mermaids, elves, succubi, just to name a few.”

“Succubi,” I repeat. “Elves. Just walking around the world, minding their own business.”

“Elves mind everyone’s business,” Hudson says. “They’re a nosy lot.”

Not what I was expecting him to say, but okay. “And this Crown rules them all?”

“The Crown brings balance to the universe. For a long time, paranormals held too much power, so the Crown was created to balance that out. But where there is that kind of power, there is always avarice. The desire to wield power over everything and everyone.”

She takes a slow drink of blood. “A thousand years ago, the person who tried to claim the Crown was Cyrus.”

“Of course it was,” Hudson mutters.

“It disappeared, along with the person who was wearing it, and Cyrus has been searching for it ever since. Find the Crown and maybe, just maybe, you’ll find a way to break your mating bond and unbreak your bond with Jaxon.”

31

I’ve Got to See

a Man About

a Beast

“Let me get this straight,” I tell her. “It’s been missing for a thousand years, with people all over the world—including the vampire king himself—hunting for it, and you think Hudson and I can find it?”

“I never said I thought you could find it. I said it’s possibly the only way to break the bond.” She walks to her chair and settles back into it. “Sorry, these old bones of mine get tired if I stand too long.”

I don’t believe that for a second, and a quick glance at Hudson tells me he doesn’t, either. But neither of us calls her on it, not when she’s in the middle of this story.

“But if you were to decide that you wanted to look for it, I would start with the one person who might know where it is. And since you’ve already met him, you could actually have a chance to get him to talk to you.”

“Who?” I ask, even as I rack my brain trying to figure out who she could be talking about. Even Hudson is leaning in, as invested in her answer as I am.

“You mean you don’t know?” She crooks a brow. “The Unkillable Beast, of course. Some say it’s why he was imprisoned to begin with…so no one would know where he hid the Crown.”

“The Unkillable Beast?” I repeat, heart beating faster. “I already told you, he speaks to me. You think I could just ask him, and he would give me the answer?”

“I think he’s too far gone to impart anything but the very basic things needed for survival. But you tell me. What do you think?”

I think back to his cave, to how he only talks to me in very short sentences. How he tried to give me his heart. “I don’t think he remembers.”

“Then you’ve only got one choice. You need to turn him human—he’s been in his gargoyle form so long, it’s likely driven him mad.”

“Wait a minute, is that possible?” I ask, because it feels like something someone should have told me. Like, stay a gargoyle too long and that could happen to you, too. Yeah, it definitely feels like something I should know.

“Centuries, Grace.” Hudson chimes in for the first time in a while. “You’d have to stay in your gargoyle form for centuries for it to happen to you.”

“How do you know?” I ask.

“Because I’ve been researching gargoyles for weeks.” He rolls his eyes at me. “Do you think I’d let you figure it out all by yourself if there’s something out there that might hurt you?”

Of course not. Not Hudson, who is as crotchety as they come but who also would never, ever let someone he cares about face something awful alone.

I smile at him, and for a second I think he’s going to smile in return. But he looks back to the Bloodletter at the last minute and demands, “So how exactly do we turn him human?”

Her green eyes sharpen on Hudson before she replies, “You free him. His chains keep him in his gargoyle form. Break those, and he’ll become human again.”

“We already tried to break them,” I tell her. “We couldn’t. Vampire, dragon, witch, gargoyle—” I gesture to myself. “None of us could do it.”

“That’s because they’re enchanted.”

“Enchanted?” Hudson throws his hands up in the air. “Are you fucking with us now? Sending us on some wild goose chase to get us out of your hair?”

“Hudson—” I lay a calming hand on his shoulder, but he shrugs it off.

“No! No way, Grace. She has all these bloody rules that just get more outlandish every second of the day. You can’t break the bond. Oh, yes you can, but you need the Crown. Oh, no one knows where the Crown is. Except, wait a minute, someone does. But you can’t actually find out from him… Come on. It’s a bunch of shite and she knows it.”

“Maybe it is,” I whisper to him. “But maybe it isn’t. Maybe we should try.”

“Is it really that important to you?” he asks, and the anger is gone from his eyes—along with every other emotion.

I don’t know how to answer that question, so I sidestep it for now. “We don’t have to make a decision this minute. We can just hear what she has to say and then decide later.”

He looks like he wants to argue some more, but in the end, he just sighs and waves a hand in a whatever gesture.

“How do we break the enchanted chains?” I ask, even though I’m feeling as overwhelmed as Hudson obviously is. Maybe even more.

The Bloodletter looks back and forth between us, like she’s debating whether or not she’s even going to tell us. But in the end, she heaves a little sigh and says, “All I know is that you need to find the Blacksmith, who made the chains. Actually,” she adds with a small smile at Hudson, “he’s the same Blacksmith who made that cuff you’re wearing. Made a whole set of enchanted cuffs that were later gifted to Katmere. If you want to break the Unkillable Beast’s chains, then you need to find him.”

“And how exactly do we find the Blacksmith?” Hudson demands.

“Honestly?” She shakes her head. “I have absolutely no idea.”

32

Hello, Is it Brie

You’re Looking For?

We don’t get much more out of the Bloodletter—either because she has nothing else to tell us or because she’s holding out on us for God only knows what purpose. With her, you never can tell.

She offers to let us spend the night because it’ll be super late before we get back to Katmere, but I’d rather face all the nocturnal wildlife Alaska has to offer than spend one more minute in her ice cave.