“Grace—” Flint steps forward, puts a hand on my arm, but I shrug him off. I’m not exactly happy with him right now, either. He might not have known what Nuri had planned, but he didn’t stand up for Hudson either.

“What I expect,” Nuri says, “is for you to do what we all do in times like this, Grace. Whatever is most prudent for you—which, in this case, I believe, is going to your room to unpack and cool off a little bit.” Her eyes narrow just slightly. “It is unseasonably warm today.”

It’s a threat, and not even a very veiled one at that, but I couldn’t care less. Not when panic is a living, breathing monster inside me, sucking up all my oxygen and battering at my insides. I take a deep breath, then several more as I count to ten, twenty, fifty. I name ten things in the room, try to concentrate on the feel of my toes scraping against the bottom of my shoes, but nothing is working. I keep coming back to Nuri’s face, to the look in her eyes, and it destroys me. As does the idea of Hudson locked up and vulnerable and being totally unable to help him.

Maybe that’s why I whirl on Flint. “Did you know this was going to happen?”

He shakes his head, but he won’t meet my gaze. Instead, he stares straight ahead, eyes blank and jaw working feverishly.

It infuriates me like nothing else could have. This emotionless being isn’t the Flint I know, which means what? This whole weekend was just a trap? But by whom—Nuri or Cyrus?

I shoot a panicked look at Macy, who’s usually really good at knowing how to calm me down, but the look she sends back shows that she’s just as freaked out by all of this as I am. Which only succeeds in freaking me out more.

Still, I manage to hold my tongue—and keep my shit together—as Nuri takes us one floor down and walks us to our rooms. She’s right. Not that I need to calm down, but that I need to take a moment and assess the situation. Figure out my next move. And if that means going to my room like a good little gargoyle, so be it.

The hallway we walk down is gorgeous, the ballroom we pass exquisite…and set for what looks like close to a thousand people. Any other time, I know I’d be fascinated, but right now, I barely notice. All my attention, every single part of me, is focused on Hudson and the bright-blue string within me.

I don’t know how this works, didn’t even know these strings existed until Jaxon’s and my mating bond. And I’ve been too scared to look at Hudson’s and mine that closely.

Too scared that it will let me see more than I want of him…or him of me.

Too scared that I’ll like it too much.

Too scared that I won’t be able to let it—to let him—go.

But now, now I reach for it with all the strength inside me, close my hand over it with the same determination I grab hold of my platinum string. I’m desperate to find him, to feel him, to know that he’s safe.

The moment my fingers wrap around our bond, I feel him inside me, squeezing his side of the bond back. So many emotions come slamming into me, I almost stumble. Emotions I’m not ready to examine. Not ready to acknowledge. So I sift through the layers of our relationship until I find the part I need—just Hudson.

I expect him to be scared, frantic, as worried about himself as I am about him. But I don’t sense any of that—which would scare me, except for the fact that deep inside him there’s warmth instead of worry, calm in place of fear.

Hudson is okay—more than okay—at least for now. I have time to figure out how to get him out of there before Nuri moves on to whatever the next step of this plan is.

For a second, I can’t help wishing that she was a made-up villain, getting ready to spill her evil plan so that the hero (or in this case, heroine) could figure out a way to foil her. But this is real life, not fiction, and Nuri doesn’t look oafish enough to spill her plans to anyone. Then again, she doesn’t look like she’s capable of kidnapping and imprisoning anyone, either, and yet here we are.

I squeeze the blue string one more time, once again heartened by the zip of electricity that slices back through me. Hudson is still alive, still strong. That’s all that matters.

“This is your room, Grace,” Nuri says as she stops in front of a beautiful blue room. It’s got another Dale Chihuly chandelier hanging over the bed, beautiful white and silver furniture, and a bedspread that, coincidentally, is only a shade or so lighter than the mating bond I’ve spent the last five minutes staring at.

I nod and, after giving Macy a look that says come find me as soon as Nuri is gone, I step into the room. Nuri pauses a moment outside the door, like she’s waiting for me to say thank you or close the door, but hell would have to literally freeze over before I even consider doing either.

She invited us here for a celebration and to help us figure out what to do, then turned around and imprisoned Hudson without a second thought. No way am I thanking her for that. And no way am I closing this door and risking her locking me in, too.

This room might be most people’s idea of luxury personified, but once that door locks from the outside, it’s a prison like any other. Today is not the day for me to willfully give away my freedom. Not when so many other people’s freedom depends on me keeping mine.

So instead of saying anything to Nuri or Flint or the others, I put my backpack down on the luggage rack in the open closet beside the door and start fake riffling through it, my back to her.

I can sense her waiting, hear her breathing, but when it becomes apparent that I have no plan to move, she reaches for the door handle and starts to close it.

“No thank you.” I stretch out a stone hand and foot and block the door from being closed.

Nuri doesn’t look shocked by my move. Instead, she looks intrigued—and watchful. Very, very watchful.

“I suppose we’ll leave this open, then,” she says before continuing down the hall, my friends following behind her like little ducks…or faithful servants. I guess the next few days will tell.

74

Past Really Is Prologue

“Oh my God!” Macy says the second she hits my room.

“I know,” I answer, moving from my spot on the bed for the first time since I lay down there half an hour ago.

I’ve counted every rose in the crown molding at least ten times and am happy to report that there are 227 of them with eight petals each, for a total of 1,816 petals. Not that anyone cares, but it gave me something to do besides obsessively checking on my blue mating bond.

“Just, oh my God, Grace.”

“I know.”

“What are we going to do?”

“I don’t know.” I reach into my backpack and pull out a Twix, then hand one of the bars to Macy. Nuri had small fruit-and-cheese baskets put in our rooms, but at this point, not only do I not want anything from her, I don’t trust anything from her. “I mean, besides break Hudson out of prison before he levels the whole damn building? I’m pretty sure he’ll go to real prison for that, and not just to find the blacksmith.”

“Yeah.” She sighs. “I know.”

I bite into the Twix for some chocolate courage, then ask what’s been on my mind since Nuri showed her true colors. “Do you think Flint knew this was going to happen?”

“What?” Macy asks, genuinely shocked. “He wouldn’t do that to you.”

I want to believe the same thing, but I’ve been wrong about him before. And while I’m a big believer in letting the past stay in the past, it’s hard to do that when the past keeps punching me in the face. Repeatedly.

“I don’t know. I want to believe that he wouldn’t deliberately screw us over like that, but what if this was all just an elaborate trick to get Hudson here?”

She looks confused. “They have the festival every year. It’s not a trick—”

“Not the festival. The Circle business stuff. And the promise of a dragon who came back from the prison in a day. What if none of that was true? What if this is just a wild goose chase that ends up ruining everything?” My voice breaks, and I take a deep breath, determined to will back the panic that’s been plaguing me from the moment those elevator doors opened.

Too bad it’s easier said than done.

“What if Flint thinks…” I trail off, not even sure what I want to say. And also, maybe a little too scared to put into words what I fear most.

“What if I think what?” Flint asks from the door, face strained and signature grin long gone.

Luca stands behind him, but not in a good way. There’s definite space between them, and even from here, I can feel the ice-cold vibe rolling off the vampire. Apparently, I’m not the only one with some doubts.

“I don’t know,” I tell him as betrayal washes over me, twisting my stomach into knots. “Maybe if I did, I wouldn’t feel so fucked over.”

His jaw works. “That’s not fair, Grace.”

“Not fair?” I tell him. “Seriously? You’re going to go there? Hudson is in a cell right now—”

“For killing my brother!” he roars. “He’s locked up because he murdered Damien. You keep forgetting that.”

“I haven’t forgotten a damn thing,” I tell him.