“Charming,” he tells me with a roll of his eyes. “Mind if I veto that and pick something else?”

I wave a magnanimous hand at the screen. “Pick away.”

He scans through the different streaming services we’ve got, then settles on Disney Plus—which is not what I was expecting.

“Let me guess,” I tease. “Monsters, Inc.?”

He glances at me out of the corner of his eye. “Actually, I’m more of a Beauty and the Beast kind of guy.”

I try to think of something flippant to say—or anything to say, for that matter—but before I can, Hudson hits Play. But instead of the old Disney fairy tale, Star Wars writing starts scrolling up the screen.

“The Empire Strikes Back?” I ask, surprised.

He shrugs. “It’s a classic for a reason.” Then he nods at the tray I haven’t yet touched. “Eat. You need it.”

As if to underscore his words, my stomach growls again. So I do as he suggests and take a bite of the grilled cheese. Then ask, “Which YouTube video did you watch anyway? One from Gordon Ramsay or something?”

“We Brits need to stick together.” He eyes me warily. “Why? Is it not good?”

“It’s amazing.” I take another bite and nearly moan in pure joy. “This might be the best thing I’ve eaten since…” I break off as I realize what I was about to say. Since my mother died.

Hudson must get it, though, because he doesn’t push me. Instead, he settles back against the wall and nods toward the laptop. “This is one of my favorite parts.”

“The snow?” I ask, because it’s been a really, really long time since I’ve seen this movie.

He gives me a dry look. “Yes, because snow is such a rare commodity in my life that I need to just bask in its glory on-screen.”

“Wow.” I make a face at him. “Who peed in your cup of blood?”

He just kind of stares at me for a while, then says, “I don’t even know where to start figuring out what that means. And I’m pretty sure I don’t want to know anyway.”

“It’s just a funny saying. About peeing in someone’s cornflakes, but you don’t eat cornflakes, so…” I sigh. “I’m just making it worse, aren’t I?”

“Maybe a little bit, yeah.” He shakes his head. “People are strange.”

“Umm, excuse me, but so are vampires.”

He gives me a mock-offended look. “Vampires are perfectly normal, thank you very much.”

“Yeah, right. We did just come back from visiting a woman who had actual human beings draining into a bucket. And you’re going to hassle me about some bizarre phrasing?”

“The draining thing is weird, right?” He shudders. “I much prefer to drink from—” He freezes, like he’s suddenly realized what he’s saying and who he’s saying it to. Then he becomes very, very, very interested in what is happening on-screen.

But no way am I letting him off that easily, especially since it’s really hard to even get a vampire to talk about what they eat…at least, it’s always been for me. “So you like feeding from the…host?”

He looks at me like he’s debating how much he wants to say, but in the end he shrugs and says, “You like it when your food’s warm, right?”

“Oh, right. Of course.” I don’t even realize that I’m gently stroking the sensitive skin of my throat until I notice Hudson is staring at my fingers with a look in his eyes that has nothing to do with food and everything to do with a lot of things neither one of us is talking about. At all.

His look has me fidgeting, has me wondering, for just a second, what it would feel like to have his fangs scrape against my skin. Which basically gets me all flustered again and has me looking anywhere but at him as I try to banish the thought from my mind.

We watch the next few minutes of the movie in silence, but there’s a tension in the air now that won’t go away, and it’s making me feel all kinds of shaken. Making me think of all kinds of things—including that Hudson and I are mates.

But also, that I used to be mated to Jaxon.

Just the thought has me squirming uncomfortably.

“What’s wrong?” Hudson asks.

Since I’m in no way emotionally prepared to tell him that I just spent entirely too long thinking about his fangs on my skin, I admit to the other thing I haven’t been able to get out of my mind, no matter how hard I try not to think about it.

“I can’t believe my parents made a deal with the Bloodletter. Like, what did they say? ‘Sure, absolutely, mate my unborn child to a vampire. As long as I get what I want, I’m in. No big deal.’” I give a little what-the-hell shrug. “How could that not have been a deal breaker? And then they didn’t even bother to tell me about it. They just…”

I drift off, because the only way to finish that statement is with a comment about how they died before they ever told me…that is, if they were ever going to tell me.

“Are you angry?” Hudson asks softly.

“I don’t know. I’m—” I sigh, then run a hand through my still-damp curls because it’s all I can do at this point. “I’m just tired. Really, really tired. I mean, there’s no point in being angry with them. They’re dead, and nothing I feel now is going to change that fact, so…” I blow out a long breath. “I just really want to know what they were thinking. Why did they think it was okay to take away my choice like that?”

“That’s the thing, though, right? They didn’t actually take your choice.” He grabs the laptop and pauses the movie before turning back to face me. “Or, at least, I’m pretty sure that’s not how they thought about it.”

“They chose my mate—”

“Yeah, but it wouldn’t have worked if you weren’t open to it. They could have done all the magic in the world, but if you didn’t want Jaxon, it wouldn’t have mattered. You chose him, and that’s why he became your mate. They were part of this world. They know how it works. Worst-case scenario—or best case, depending on your point of view—you meet Jaxon, fall for him, and then realize he’s your mate when you choose him. If you hadn’t chosen him, neither of you would ever have known. They probably thought it was a win-win situation.”

I think about what he said, turning his words over and around in my head until I decide he might be right. And if he isn’t, I’m just going to pretend that he is because I really can’t handle being angry with my parents now, not on top of everything else I’m feeling and going through at the moment.

But as I play his words back in my head one more time, I can’t help realizing something else. “Is that what happened with us?” I ask before I can think better of it. “Did you choose me?”

The second the words are out of my mouth, I kind of want to crawl under my bed. Instead, I stare straight ahead at the frozen screen as I wait, breath held, for his response—and to find out just how embarrassed I should be for asking him that question.

To make matters even worse, Hudson doesn’t answer right away. He’s not staring at the laptop, though. He’s staring at me—I can feel the weight of his gaze even though I refuse to so much as glance at him.

The silence goes from unnoticeable to awkward to uncomfortable as fuck, and still he doesn’t answer me. Still he continues to watch me. It’s awful, terrible, and when I can’t take it anymore, I turn my head and prepare to tell him to forget it.

Instead, the moment our eyes meet, he smiles just a little and says, “How could I not want to be mated to my best friend? I’ve known you were incredible from the first day we met.”

Oh my God. The relief that rushes through me is so huge that it almost makes me light-headed. Which, to some degree, seems totally ridiculous. But I don’t care because I’m not humiliated. And also because…

Hudson chose me on that field. He chose me in that clearing. And that matters.

Maybe he doesn’t love me, maybe he’ll never love me—maybe I’ll never love him. But I’d be lying if I said we didn’t have something between us. I’ve felt it a bunch of times—from that one weird moment when he was still in my head, when I swore I felt his fangs scraping along my neck, to just a few minutes ago, when he reached for the computer. He brought me flowers. He helped me figure out how to channel my magic. He stood up for me with the Bloodletter.

He’s never once not believed in me.

Not to mention the obvious—he’s seriously easy on the eyes.

Yeah, there’s definitely something there. And this guy, this really great guy, has never had anyone love him before, has never had anyone choose him.

Don’t I owe it to him—don’t I owe it to us both—to at least try to make things work between us? Maybe they will, maybe they won’t. But he matters to me. He matters to me a lot, and maybe I need to figure that out before I even think about doing anything else.

Maybe Jaxon was right, and I need to trust the magic.