Hudson winks at me. “Babe, if people kept coming to kill you and you couldn’t run away but you could use earth magic, what would you do?”

My eyes widen, and not just because he called me babe, although that does make my heart skip a beat or two. “I’d make myself as big and badass as I possibly could.”

He nods. “And use earth magic to heal your stone body, right? Otherwise, how is a gargoyle trapped in a stone cave unkillable?”

Mekhi whistles. “Being a gargoyle just got about a hundred times more badass than it already was.”

“A thousand times,” Macy contradicts. “Seriously, wow.” She’s grinning even wider than Hudson is.

Yeah, wow. Because in the middle of Hudson’s explanation, something else hit me. This guy, this amazing guy knew I was afraid to ask questions, afraid of finding out something I couldn’t handle. So he did it for me, just so he would have the answer when I was ready to ask.

I walk toward him, and I’m not thinking about PDA. I’m not worrying about what Mekhi or Luca will think, or even Jaxon. All I’m thinking about is Hudson as I wrap my arms around him and hold him as tightly as I can.

He hesitates for a second like he’s surprised, but then his arms snake around my waist, and he hugs me back. He bends over enough to rest his cheek on my head, and I close my eyes, let his familiar ginger and sandalwood scents fill my senses and just breathe him in. It feels like coming home.

I don’t know how long we stand like this, long enough for the others to drift away and give us a little privacy. Eventually, he murmurs, “You doing okay?”

I think of all the things I can answer to that question, all the feelings swimming in my eyes. Of how he pushed me to ask questions but also stood back and let me take my time to get here. Of how he knew I would eventually find a way to ask. And so—he waited for me. Like he’s waiting for me now.

In the end, I say the only thing that I can. “Thank you.”

He squeezes me against his chest again, crushes me against his warmth, and I know he heard everything I didn’t say. He always does.

After a moment, he drops a soft kiss on the top of my head before leaning back and saying, “Not that I’m complaining about having you in my arms or anything, but if I’m not mistaken, your cousin is about to do something seriously badass. Or maim us all.”

I pull away and follow where he’s looking…and my eyes go wide. Holy hell. My cousin is testing the weight of four unbelievably large athames in her hand, bouncing them up and down like she’s about to throw—

“Oh my God!”

51

A Cut Above the Rest

I gasp as she tosses the blades into the air as hard as she can.

We all look up in alarm, getting ready to dodge, but instead of falling back down and impaling one of us, they flatten out before arranging themselves into a kind of compass formation.

Hudson and I walk over to the clearing and marvel at the floating knives.

We wait for them to do something, anything, but for long seconds they just hang there—hilts facing inward, blades facing outward—and point to what I can only assume is north, south, east, and west.

“So what goes up doesn’t come down?” Flint whispers loudly after the seconds stretch into first one minute and then another.

“Shhhh,” Macy tells him as she lifts her wand above her head and starts swirling it around in a circle. “Gwen says the giants are constantly moving the entrance, and the entire city is protected by confusion spells so stray human hikers don’t wander in. Gimme a minute to locate it.”

Seconds later, the athames start to spin in a circle, too, faster and faster until they are whirling above our heads so quickly that it’s nearly impossible to distinguish one from the other. Until, all of a sudden, one starts to glow so brightly that it almost looks like it’s on fire.

The brighter it glows, the faster and jerkier Macy’s movements become, until the other three knives drop like stones to the ground—amid yelps from the rest of us.

We barely have a chance to register what just happened before the fourth athame—which is glowing so brightly now that it’s hard to look at—takes off, flying due south right into a huge clump of trees.

“Let’s go!” Macy shouts excitedly.

I’m still a tiny bit shaken by the very close call I just had with an athame, but in the end I suck it up. This is what we’re here for, right?

The others are already racing after Macy, so I join the chase with Hudson hot on my heels. I smile at him—then deliberately knock my shoulder into his. And because he’s a vampire and more than capable of holding his own, I put just a bit of stone into it.

He shoots me an inscrutable look as he takes the hit, then speeds up a little. It makes me grin, because this is his version of my shoulder check. Hudson would never hit me even in jest, but he will challenge me. A lot.

Good thing that’s the way I like it.

I increase my speed to match his, and then we’re racing through the forest, getting into denser and denser populations of trees, skipping over creeks and jumping over narrow ravines.

It’s more fun than I ever would have expected.

I can hear the others up ahead—Macy and Eden in the lead, with the guys right behind them. Flint is closest to us, whooping and hollering as we all wind our way through this forest that already feels a little magical, even without the giants.

We jump over another creek—this one complete with tiny frogs hopping along its banks—when Hudson cuts to the right and starts to pull ahead of me. Determined not to let him get any advantage, I use my power to channel the water and smack him right in the face with a giant ball of it—including a couple of frogs.

He looks so shocked that I crack up, then take the tiny advantage granted to me by his surprise and run for the tree cover as fast as I possibly can.

He catches up with me quickly—big surprise—but I zig when he zags and dart right when he darts left. And while there’s no water for me to throw up at him this time, the move still surprises a growl out of him, which then surprises a laugh out of me.

I’m smart enough to know he’s coming for me now, so I reach for the platinum string inside me. Moments later, my wings are out, and I fly straight up and over him.

I can see the others from up here, and they’re still hot on the trail of the athame. It’s moving fast, so Jaxon and Mekhi have moved up in front and Eden and Macy can drop back a little without worrying about losing sight of the knife. I’m at the very tops of the trees, but we’re moving into denser, taller forest, so I start to fly up a little higher to get a look at the land out in front of us—and to make sure I don’t hit any branches.

But before I can do much more than think about it, Hudson jumps straight through the tree branches to catch me.

I shriek a little as his arms come around me, but he just laughs and whispers, “Gotcha.”

I start to laugh with him, but the sound sticks in my throat along with the breath I just took, because what started out as good-natured fun has turned into something completely different.

My wings made it impossible for him to grab me from the back, so we’re face-to-face, his mouth inches from mine and the front of his body pressed flush against the front of mine as he holds on to me. It feels good, really good, to be held by him like this, especially when the look on his face says he feels the same way.

And when he leans in, adjusting his grip so that it feels more like he’s holding me than simply holding on to me, heat explodes between us. My heart kicks up triple time, and whatever air I’ve managed to pull into my body leaves in a rush.

For a second, just a second, I think about winding myself around him, arms circling his shoulders, legs at his hips. But then I remember where we are…and who is right below us.

He smiles even as he pulls back from me and whispers, “See you on the ground.”

Then he just lets go and falls straight through the treetops back to earth.

I hold my breath until I see him land safely in a crouch, before he takes off running through the trees again. I start to drop lower, planning on landing a little bit ahead of where he is so we can run together again. But then I look out over the world in front of me and am transfixed by what I see.

Trees in all directions, lush and green and majestic. It’s one of the most beautiful sights I’ve ever seen.

I’ve always considered myself an ocean girl—growing up on San Diego’s beautiful beaches will do that to a person—but this? This is breathtaking in a totally different way than the mountains of Alaska are.

I take a few spins, do a few loop-de-loops as I revel in the view—and that I’m not freezing my butt off for the first time in what feels like forever.