Unlike me, who won’t even talk to him when Jaxon is nearby.

Suddenly, it’s all too much, and I tell no one in particular that I need to go study.

God knows I’ve got more than enough work these days to keep me busy.

But when I push away from the table, Jaxon pushes away, too. “Can I talk to you?” he asks.

I want to laugh, want to ask what he could possibly have to say to me when he’s spent the last ten minutes doing anything but speaking to me.

I don’t, though.

Instead, I nod and avoid making eye contact with Hudson while I send the group what I know is a really fake-looking smile. Jaxon doesn’t even bother doing that before he turns and heads for the door.

I follow him—of course I do. Because I’d follow Jaxon anywhere. And I can’t deny the tiny part of me that hopes he’s finally ready to discuss how we can make this work.

7

I Think I Missed

the Punch Line

I expect Jaxon to stop right outside the cafeteria doors and say whatever it is that he wants to say. But I should have known better—he’s not exactly into public displays of anything. So when he starts down the hall after holding the door for me, I figure we’re going to his tower.

But he turns at the last second, and instead of going up the staircase that leads to his room, he takes me up the one that leads to mine.

The lump in my throat is beginning to feel like a bad B movie, except instead of The Tomato That Ate Cleveland, it’s The Sadness That Swallowed a Girl, a Gargoyle, and an Entire Fucking Mountain. We always go to his room—for serious talks, to hang out, to make out. That he isn’t taking me there now tells me everything I need to know about how this conversation is going to go.

Once we get to my room, I open the door and walk in, expecting Jaxon to follow me. Instead, he stands on the other side of Macy’s beaded curtain, a look of uncertainty on his haggard but beautiful face for the first time in who knows how long.

“You know you’re always welcome in my room.” I force the words out of my too-tight throat and try to pretend like I’m not choking on them. On everything. “Nothing’s changed.”

“Everything’s changed,” he counters.

“Yeah,” I admit even though everything inside me wants to deny it. “I guess it has.”

My breathing turns ragged as a giant stone starts pressing down on my chest—one that has nothing to do with me being a gargoyle and everything to do with the panic churning inside me—and I turn away from him, try to gasp for breath without being too obvious.

But Jaxon knows me better than I want him to, and suddenly he’s standing in front of me, his big, steady hands holding my own as he tells me, “Breathe with me, Grace.”

I can’t. I can’t inhale. I can’t talk. I can’t do anything but stand here and feel like I’m suffocating.

Like the floor is moving beneath my feet and the walls around me are caving in.

Like my own body has turned against me, bent on destroying me as surely as the outside forces I’m growing so tired of struggling against.

“In—” He sucks in a long, deep breath and holds it for a second. “And out.” He breathes out, slow and steady. When I do nothing but stare at him with wild eyes, his grip on my hands gets firmer. “Come on, Grace. In—” He takes another breath.

The breath I take in response is nowhere as deep, nowhere as steady—I’m actually pretty sure I sound like I’m choking on a blood pancake—but it’s still a breath. Oxygen rushes into my lungs.

“That’s it,” he says, and now his hands are rubbing up and down my arms, my shoulders. It’s meant to be comforting—and it is—but it’s also devastating, because it doesn’t feel like it’s supposed to. It doesn’t feel like Jaxon, my Jaxon, is touching me, at least not like it used to.

It’s not fast and it’s not easy, but eventually I get the panic attack under control. When it’s over, when I can finally breathe again, I drop my forehead onto Jaxon’s chest. His arms go around me automatically, and it isn’t long before my arms slide around his waist as well.

I don’t know how long we stand like that, holding each other but also letting each other go. It hurts more than I ever imagined it would.

“I’m sorry,” he says as he finally releases me. “I’m so sorry, Grace.”

I fight the urge to cling to him, to keep my body pressed against his for as long as I can. “It’s not your fault,” I tell him softly.

“Not about the panic attack—though I’m sorry about that, too.” He thrusts a hand into his hair, and for the first time tonight, I can see his whole face in stark definition. He looks terrible—lost and tormented and in as much pain as I am. Maybe even more. “I’m sorry about all of this. If I could take back that one careless act, that one moment of utter selfishness and naivete, I would do it in a heartbeat. But I can’t, and now…” This time it’s his breath that sounds shaky. “And now, we’re here, and I can’t do a fucking thing about any of it.”

“We’ll get through it. It’s just going to take some time—”

“It’s not that easy.” He shakes his head even as his jaw works furiously. “Maybe we’ll get through it; maybe we won’t. But look at you, Grace. It’s hurting you being like this, giving you panic attacks.”

He pauses, swallows convulsively. “I’m hurting you, and that’s the last thing I ever wanted to do.”

“So don’t.” It’s my turn to reach out and grab on to him. “Don’t do this. Please.”

“It’s already been done. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. This, what we’re feeling now…it’s just the phantom pain after you’ve lost a limb. It still hurts, but there’s nothing there. And there never will be again…at least not if we keep on like this.”

“That’s all we are to you?” I ask, pain slamming through me like a sledgehammer. “Just something that used to matter?”

“You’re everything to me, Grace. You have been from the moment I first laid eyes on you. But this isn’t working. It hurts too much. For all of us.”

“It hurts now, but it doesn’t have to be like this. Our mating bond broke. But that just means mine with Hudson can break, too—”

“Do you think that’s what I want?” he demands. “I’ve lived two hundred years, and this is the worst pain I’ve ever felt in my life. Do you think I would wish that on you? On Hudson?”

His voice thickens, but he shakes his head. Clears his throat. Takes a deep breath and blows it out slowly before continuing. “Every time he sees us together…I know he’s hurting.”

I shake my head. “You’re wrong, Jaxon. I told you. We’re just friends, and Hudson is fine with that.”

“You don’t see him when you walk away,” Jaxon insists. “I killed my brother once, because I was arrogant and childish and thought it was the right thing—the only thing—to do. I won’t do it again, not like this. I won’t hurt him, and I won’t hurt you.”

“What about you?” I ask, even as the pain radiates through me. “What happens to you in all this?”

“It doesn’t matter—”

“It does matter!” I shoot back. “It matters to me.”

“This is my fault, Grace. All of it. I’m the asshole who loaded the gun, and I’m the asshole who threw the loaded gun in the trash. The fact that I got shot is no one’s fault but my own.”

“So that’s it?” I ask him on a shaky breath. “We’re breaking up, and I don’t even get a vote?”

“You had a vote, Grace, and you chose—” His voice gives out, leaving the ghost of what he was going to say hanging between us.

“But I didn’t!” I try to explain, the words coming out on broken sobs. “I don’t love him, Jaxon. Not like I love you.”

“You will,” he says, and I know it costs him dearly. “Mating bonds can snap into place when two people first meet, before they even know each other’s names. Look at how it happened between us. But the magic knows. You just have to have faith. Something I should have done.”

I look away, look down—look anywhere but at Jaxon as my heart cracks wide open—but he’s not having it. Instead of backing away like I’m desperate for him to do, he slides a finger under my chin and tilts my head up until I can’t do anything but look into his dark and heartbroken eyes.

“I am sorry that I didn’t hold on to us with every ounce of strength I had,” he tells me in a voice so hoarse, I barely recognize it as his. “I’d do anything to spare you this. Do anything to have my mate back.”

I want to tell him that I’m right here—that I’ll always be right here—but we’d both know it’s a lie. The chasm between us keeps growing, and I’m terrified that one day, neither of us will be able to find a way to jump across it.

Tears bloom in my eyes at the thought, and I blink furiously, determined not to let him see me cry. Determined not to make this any worse—for either of us. So instead of sobbing like I want to, I do the only thing I can think of to make this okay…or at least better.