“Good God, people. Get a room,” Flint calls out, shattering the moment.

I only thought my face was warm earlier. Now it’s practically on fire, because oh. My. God. Did I almost just climb Hudson like a tree? In front of everyone? I’ve never had Jaxon’s issues with PDA, but I’m not an exhibitionist, either. At least I didn’t think I was. But I’m quickly realizing that Hudson is capable of bringing out parts of me I didn’t even know I had.

“We are in a room. My room in fact,” Hudson tosses over my shoulder at Flint. It’s a light-hearted response, but I can see his face shuttering, see him putting distance between us, as he takes in my embarrassment.

And I can’t help it; I turn around, looking for Jaxon. We’re not mates anymore, but almost making out with Hudson in front of him is so not fair, and I feel awful. Even before our gazes collide and I see stark, unadulterated pain in the depths of his. But then he blinks and it’s gone. Replaced with the cold disinterest I’m growing to hate.

I sigh heavily, not because I want Jaxon to still be suffering at what we lost but because I can tell that with every day that passes, the Jaxon I once loved is slipping even further away—from me and from himself.

A coldness seeps into my bones, and it takes me a solid minute to realize Hudson is gone.

45

When the Going

Gets Cuffed, the

Cuffed Get Going

Macy finishes with Eden’s nose pretty quickly, since she flat-out refuses to let her cover it up. Apparently, my unicorn bandages don’t fit her badass reputation.

By the time I get my first aid kit packed back up, everyone else has drifted away toward the tacos and drinks. Turns out Hudson had darted out to grab a cooler of blood for the vamps after our moment, and now we all gather around the coffee table in Hudson’s sitting area.

For the most part, we talk about finals and who has beaten the hell out of whom—as well as who’s had the hell beaten out of them—this week. But as Macy is going over a not-so-pleasant encounter she had with a wolf this morning, Flint starts to frown, even though Macy’s experience didn’t end with bloodshed.

“What about you, Grace?” he asks.

“What about me?” I ask, surprised.

“Have you had any problems in the last few days?”

I shrug. “No more than usual.”

“What does that mean?” Hudson asks, his voice sharp as a knife. “Is somebody messing with you?”

Everyone is staring at me now with concern—especially Hudson and Jaxon, both of whom look like they’re ready to slaughter a small city or at least a moderately sized boarding school.

“No more than the usual Ludares stuff,” I tell them firmly. “Some of the challenge team’s still pissed, so they try to mess with me. It’s no big deal.”

My friends don’t look convinced, especially Hudson. “Don’t worry about it.” I lean forward and rest a hand on his knee. “Seriously. I’ve got this.”

“Do you really have it?” Hudson raises one brow. “Or are you just ignoring it and hoping it will go away?”

I don’t know what to say to that—mostly because it’s true—but thankfully, Flint saves me from having to come up with a response when he says, “Something you mentioned earlier has me thinking. You said you thought we had enough people trying to beat the hell out of us lately.”

“Well, yeah.” I gesture to Eden and him. “Obviously.”

“So my question is this.” He looks around the group. “How many of you have had someone mess with you in the last few days? It doesn’t have to be as screwed up as Hudson and the wolves or what happened in the cafeteria with the vamps. It just needs to be out of the ordinary. Who else has had someone mess with them who normally wouldn’t?”

I watch in shock as every single one of my friends raises their hands—and every single one, save Macy, is wearing an enchanted cuff binding their magic.

“Everybody?” I manage to choke out once they’ve lowered their hands again. “Everybody’s been messed with?”

“Looks like it,” Luca answers quietly. His hand goes to Flint’s shoulder, whether for support or because he’s trying to calm Flint down, I don’t know. “I heard Finn mentioning that it was so bad, he was almost out of cuffs, and there’s nowhere to get more.”

Hudson and I exchange a look, but then I turn to Jaxon. “What happened to you?”

He shrugs. “Joaquin and Delphina thought they’d take a few potshots at me yesterday.”

“Fucking lousy excuses for dragons,” Flint snarls. “So what happened?”

“What do you think happened?” Jaxon shoots back. “They lost.”

Hudson snorts, but he doesn’t say anything to piss Jaxon off, which I appreciate. Jaxon already looks coldly furious.

Jaxon turns to Mekhi, who admits a few witches are regretting their life choices this week. He adds, “I’m fine, but you should check my man Luca out.”

“What the hell?” Jaxon’s voice cuts like a whip even as he skewers the Order member with a glare.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Flint asks, looking shaken.

“Because it wasn’t nearly as bad as what happened to you,” Luca tells him. “And I haven’t seen you since the vamps got me coming out of my room.”

“Vamps?” Hudson asks in a voice that’s a lot more chill than Jaxon’s. But the look in his eyes is anything but as he leans forward. “Vampires went after you?”

“Mades?” Eden asks, and even she sounds a little uneasy at this revelation.

Luca shakes his head. “Borns.”

“Who?” Hudson asks in a voice deadly with calm.

“Do they have a death wish?” Jaxon asks at the same time.

I watch the two of them as they grill Luca on the specifics of his attack before switching back to Mekhi and then finally to Flint and Macy, questioning every detail of what happened to them. Of what vamps did it, how they attacked, and what brought it on.

They’re both regal. They’re both determined. They’re both focused, and they both have amazing depths of kindness if you get past the coldness of one and the sarcasm of the other. And yet, as I watch them ferret out all the details of the attacks, I can’t help comparing them.

I swore I would never do that, but seeing them like this, it’s impossible not to.

Both are clearly furious about what’s been happening to their friends—particularly when the vampires are the aggressors—but the way they handle it is so different. Jaxon is ice-cold yet somehow looks like he’s ready to burn the world to the ground. He’s like a lightning strike—unexpected and thrilling but also dangerous as fuck.

Hudson, on the other hand, has a slow burn. He just kind of sits back and absorbs what’s going on, looking at it from all angles. He asks very specific questions, none of which seems especially meaningful on its own. But by the time he’s done, you realize he’s like the sun—warm and inviting but more than capable of incinerating you with almost no effort at all.

And somehow, I’ve been lucky enough to be mated to both of them. Jaxon, through the machinations of the Bloodletter, and Hudson through…I don’t know what. Fate? Destiny?

I just wish I knew what to do about it. I was so sure that I loved Jaxon, so sure that the boy with the tortured eyes and broken heart was everything I could ever want. But he wasn’t mine to love, not really. Not when the Bloodletter controlled everything so that we would be mates.

Which is the exact opposite of how things happened with Hudson. I hated him at first. I thought he was evil and awful, and I was determined to have nothing to do with him. Then I realized the incredible depths of kindness and hurt under his prickly exterior and ended up friends with him. And now? Now I don’t know what I feel, except confused as hell. That moment Flint interrupted, the look in his eyes, the way my entire body seemed to burn just from being around him?

Is that real chemistry or just the mating bond? Real emotion or just manufactured by the universe to make sure things go smoothly between mates?

As if.

“But why?” Macy complains, interrupting my thoughts with a voice loud and frustrated in a way I almost never hear from her. “What are they hoping to get by doing this?”

“That’s why I asked how many of us had been hassled,” Flint says quietly. “Because, like Grace said, it seems like it’s happening to us more than anybody else.”

“Yeah, but it also happened to Simone,” Macy objects. “And Cam, and—”

“Misdirection,” Hudson comments softly. “Look over here at all these things that are happening, and don’t pay too much attention to this one big thing that’s happening.”

“Which is?” Eden asks intently.

“They’re getting us out of the way,” Jaxon and Flint say at the exact same time.

“Out of the way?” Luca asks, looking confused. “Of what?”

Eden appears grim as she answers, “I’m pretty sure that’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it?”

46

Cats Aren’t the

Only Ones with

Nine Lives

“Who?” Mekhi demands. “Cyrus?”

“Of course Cyrus,” Flint tells him. “Who else would it be?”