“Really?” He appears fascinated with a large cuff bracelet, symbols almost dancing around its edges, and my breath catches. The way the runes are etched looks very similar to the ones on the cuff around the beast’s ankle. “Does she take commissions?”

“I don’t think so.” Olya’s face clouds over for a couple of brief seconds. “She doesn’t like to deal with people very much—especially strangers. She’s been very sad since losing her husband, and we’re all just a bit protective of her.”

“Are you sure?” Hudson asks, and he’s doing an incredible job of pretending to be fascinated with that bracelet. “Because this is—”

He stops as I grab his hand and press gently in an effort to get him to back off a little. Olya has started to look uncomfortable, and we don’t want to raise any red flags that will get people to clam up or, worse, tell Erym’s parents about our agenda, which is growing more obvious by the second.

Hudson must get the message, because he stops pushing at her about the jewelry maker and instead comments on the ring I’d been admiring near the front of the shop.

Olya’s smile comes back right away as she regales him with the names of all the different runes etched into the silver. Satisfied that Hudson isn’t going to push too hard, I start to pull my hand from his, but instead he threads our fingers more tightly together, and that stolen moment above the treetops a few hours ago comes rushing back, his arms wrapped around me, his face inches from mine, his voice dark and a little flirtatious as he whispered, “Gotcha.”

A thousand butterflies take flight in my stomach, and I pretend to focus on the ring and not our joined hands, oohing and aahing over it, though only vaguely paying attention to the explanation about the various runes and what they mean.

“Would you like to try it on?” she eventually asks.

“Oh, I would love to,” I tell her honestly. “But I don’t have any money.” It’s not strictly true—I have a couple hundred dollars in my backpack, but that’s American money. I have no idea what giants use.

“I do,” Hudson says, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a gold coin with a tree stamped on it.

Olya’s smile beams at the potential sale. “I’ve never met a vampire or a gargoyle before.” She turns back to the ring. “Besides, I can already tell, the ring has chosen you.”

My eyebrows shoot up, and I turn to ask Hudson what she means, but he is full-on grinning at me. The little dimple in his cheek I so rarely see melts my heart, and I am powerless to resist him. I place the hand not caught in his death grip onto his chest, and my whole body melts into his with a sigh. I study his eyes, fascinated as his pupils grow so large that they swallow almost his entire iris, so that I can only see a rim of stormy blue along the edges. His lips are moving, but the words sound like I’m underwater. And that’s when I realize I must have drowned in the endless depths of his oceanic eyes. It seems like a fitting way to die.

Olya pulls the case out of the display, but Hudson beats her to the punch, lifting our joined hands and slipping the ring gently on my finger as he murmurs something on a soft breath. His fingers brush against mine, sending shivers through my whole body as my breath catches in my throat.

Even Olya must sense what’s passing between us because she sniffles and says, “That was beautiful.”

It’s just the mating bond, I tell myself as I clear my throat and try to find the breath I somehow lost. That’s what’s making me feel all these weird things toward Hudson. Just the mating bond.

My finger starts to itch, and I glance down as the tiny runes burn a bright orange for a second before fading back to their previous silver etchings.

My gaze searches out Hudson’s again, and he says simply, “My gift to you, Grace.”

Hudson bought me a ring? Why? What does this mean? My heart starts to pound in my chest as I become aware of where we are again, like waking up from a cozy nap.

Oh my God. I let Hudson buy me a ring.

He narrows his eyes on me and sighs. “You’re about to make a thing about this, aren’t you?”

I sputter. “Well, o-of course. You can’t just go around buying people magical rings!”

“Well, she found her voice again.” He winks at Olya. “I know, honey, what you really wanted was one of those cuffs over there.” He dips his head toward the thick bracelets at the back of the store he’d been looking at before.

I want to argue, but he’s staring at me hard, and realization dawns on me. “Yes, honey, you know I wanted a cuff today.” I effect my best imitation of a spoiled girl pouting. “Pleeease?”

Like he’s used to my tantrums, he turns pleading eyes on Olya. “If you care about my happiness at all, you will let my mate try on one of those amazing cuffs.”

Olya just shakes her head, murmuring something about mates as she walks over to the display case holding the cuff at the back of the store.

“What are you doing?” I whisper.

He raises one brow. “Trust me?”

I don’t even hesitate. “Yes.”

His dimple appears again, and he squeezes my hand and says in an intentionally loud voice, “Anything for you, honey.”

As we walk over to Olya, I can’t help but feel like I’ve been getting hit by a Mack truck with Hudson’s name stamped all over it from the second we walked into this store.

I just hope I don’t end up with tire tracks on my heart.

58

Only Fools and

Vampires Rush In...

I have to admit, Hudson’s idea was smart. After I tried on the cuff, he inspected it, turning it this way and that…until he found the word he’d been hoping to find etched inside it: FALIASOLI. If the jeweler refused to tell us more, at least we had the name of the blacksmith’s wife now. Surely that was a good start.

I explained to the jeweler that I just didn’t think this cuff was as flattering as the ring Hudson had already bought me, and she happily nodded (since, of course, she’d made the ring herself) and put the cuff back in its case.

“It’s hard to compete with a Soli promise ring,” she says. “Believe me, I get it.”

My eyes go wide—I have absolutely no idea what I’m supposed to say to that, especially with all the undercurrents suddenly flowing between Hudson and me—but I’m saved from answering when a mother and daughter come into the shop, chattering brightly.

The mother stops and stares at us, but the little girl smiles and waves. At the prospect of having a new customer, Olya seems to give in and says, “If you really want a cuff like that one, Falia Bracka made it.” She then tosses out some directions to her house (today is her day off) and wishes us luck before turning to the mother and daughter inspecting a case with lockets inside.

We wave and thank Olya one more time for the ring before making our way to the door. I share a smile with Hudson as we realize we’ve got the information we came for. We’re one step closer to freeing the Unkillable Beast and finding the Crown.

As we wander back to the market to meet up with our friends, I can’t help wondering what’s going to happen next.

Especially since Hudson is still holding my hand. The one with a promise ring weighing it down.

I decide, as we exit the store, that Hudson can call me a coward all he wants, but no way am I going to ask what I might have promised to do when he placed that magical ring on my finger. Not today, Satan. Not today.

Thankfully, he seems perfectly comfortable not bringing it up, and we spend the next hour and a half wandering around, waiting on our group. And I, at least, also spend it eating all the food. Like, all the food.

Every food vendor we pass wants us to try their wares for free—guests of the royal colossor and all that—and since Hudson doesn’t eat, I’m the one who has to try everything. And I mean everything.

Normally, it wouldn’t be a chore. The food is delicious and I’ve been living on cherry Pop-Tarts and granola bars a little too much lately, but the portion sizes are enormous. No matter how many times I tell them “just a little bit,” I end up with at least half of what a giant would eat…at every single food booth.

Which means by the time our two hours are up, I am beyond stuffed with beef pastries, forest falafel (which tastes a lot better than its woodland name suggests), boysenberry tarts, a smoked turkey leg (only because I refused the whole turkey), a giant skewer of roasted vegetables and fruit, and one barbecued rib from what had to be the largest cow in existence.

“We have to go,” I whisper to Hudson after I manage to choke down a couple of bites of the rib. “I can’t eat any more. I can’t.”

Hudson nods as he steers me away from the last part of the market.

The second we’re out of sight, I trash the rib in the first garbage can I find. “I don’t think I’ve ever eaten that much in my life.”

“I have to admit, I’m impressed,” Hudson jokes. “I didn’t think you had it in you.”

“That’s the problem,” I tease. “Everybody always underestimates me.”

“A lot of people do,” he says, and he sounds a lot more serious than I intended him to. “But I never have.”

“What does that mean?” I ask, sending him an arched look.