But he doesn’t. Instead, he turns away, heads back to his own table without so much as a word to me. And I can’t take it for one more second—the silence that throbs between us like a pounding heart that suddenly forgets how to beat. “Hudson!” Like the song, my too-loud voice echoes through the thankfully nearly empty room.

He turns back with a regal lift of his brow, his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his black Armani dress pants, and I can’t help but smile. Only Hudson Vega—with his perfect Brit boy pompadour and even more perfect smirk—would be wearing dress pants and a dress shirt to a late-night reading sesh at the library.

His only concession to the growing lateness of the hour is the sleeves of his probably very expensive, very designer shirt, which are rolled up to the middle of his perfect forearms—which, I have to grudgingly admit, only makes him look better. Because he’s Hudson and of course it does.

I realize I’m staring at him about the same time I realize he’s staring back at me, that endless gaze of his burrowing into my bones. I swallow in an effort to push back the sudden nerves blooming inside me. I don’t even know why they’re there.

This is Hudson, who spent weeks living inside my head.

Hudson, who saved my life and nearly destroyed our whole world to do it.

Hudson, who has somehow—despite everything—become my friend…and now my mate.

It’s that word, “mate,” that hangs between us. And it’s that word that has nerves bubbling up inside me even as I give a small smile and say, “Thank you.”

His look turns slightly mocking, but he doesn’t say any of the things I can see brewing right behind his gaze. Instead, he just inclines his head in a kind of you’re-welcome gesture before turning and walking away.

And just like that, my blood boils. Because seriously? Seriously? Jaxon doesn’t want to be with me because he thinks Hudson is in pain, but Hudson can’t even talk to me when I’m clearly upset about a damn song? I know their relationship is complicated—know this whole thing is complicated—but I’m tired of being collateral damage. I mean, who lets their friend avoid them for a week without even trying to find out why?

And just as quickly, I’m over it. Completely, 100 percent over it. Throwing my phone onto the table, I shoot after him. “Really?” I say to his broad shoulders as I chase him across the library. His long, rolling stride eats up more distance than my short-legged one does, but my annoyance gives me speed, and I catch up to him before he can sit back down.

“Really what?” he answers, and this time his gaze is watchful.

“You’re not going to say anything to me?” My hands are on my hips in challenge, and I just barely fight the urge to stamp my foot. I know what I’m doing—deep down, I know. I’m angry with the world, with the universe, for doing this to all of us. For taking Jaxon from me and then taking my friendship with Hudson, too. I’ve been working through my grief since it happened, but last week Jaxon forced me to give up the denial I’ve been clinging to since our bond was broken. Now I guess I’m fully embracing stage two: anger. And I’m not even a little sad I’m misdirecting it at Hudson.

“What would you like me to say?” His crisp British accent makes the words, and the look that accompanies them, even colder.

I throw up my hands in exasperation. “I don’t know. Something. Anything.”

He holds my gaze for so long, I think he’s going to refuse to speak. But then his mouth curves in that obnoxious smirk that’s driven me wild from the first time he showed up in my head, and he says, “You have a hole in your sweats.”

“What? I don’t—” I break off as I glance down and realize not only do I indeed have a sizable hole, but also that it’s in a pretty embarrassing area, providing a decent glimpse of my very upper thigh. And my underwear. “Did you just do that?”

Now both brows are up. “Did I just do what?”

I gesture to my pants. “Make this hole. Obviously.”

“Yes, yes I did,” he answers, his expression completely deadpan. “I absolutely used my fabric-ripping superpowers to disintegrate a hole over your crotch. How did you guess?” He lifts his wrist, and the magical handcuff around it, and waves it in front of my face.

“I’m sorry.” Heat floods my cheeks. “I didn’t mean—”

“Sure you did.” His gaze is locked on mine now. “But on the plus side, at least now I know you’re wearing my favorite pair.”

My blush gets about a thousand times worse as it registers what he’s referring to, that I’m wearing the black lace underwear that he’d dangled from his shoe in the laundry room what feels like a year ago. “Are you seriously looking at my panties right now?”

“I’m looking at you,” he answers. “That my doing so means I can also see your panties seems like that’s more on you than me.”

“I can’t believe this.” Annoyance skitters through my embarrassment. “You ignore me for days, and now that I finally have your attention, this is what you want to talk about?”

“First of all, I believe it is you who has been ignoring me, wouldn’t you say? Secondly, I’m sorry, did you have a different topic in mind? Oh, wait! Let me guess.” He pretends to examine his nails. “How’s dear old Jaxon doing today?”

With anyone else, I would be apologizing for avoiding them. I’d be making a joke about the panties mishap and explaining that I’m not mad at them; I’m just mad. But Hudson makes it so hard sometimes, especially when it feels like he’s deliberately pushing my buttons. “Maybe you should ask him. I mean, if you can get over feeling sorry for yourself.”

He stills. “Is that what you think I’m doing? Feeling sorry for myself?” Insult—and injury—drip from his words.

But that’s fine with me, because I’m feeling pretty damn insulted myself. “Oh, I don’t know. Should we talk about your choice in reading material?” I glare at the book he left open on the table when he came over to help me.

For a second—just a moment—his blue eyes turn molten. Then, as quickly as it came, the heat fades away. In its place is his old too-weary-for-words, you’re-a-trial-to-my-very-existence expression, and I think I’m going to scream.

Yes, I know it’s his defense mechanism, know he uses it to keep anyone from getting too close. But I thought, after what happened the day of the challenge, that we were past all this.

“I was just doing a little bit of light reading.”

“With a book about a guy in prison? One who’s been sentenced to death for his crimes? What, was Dostoevsky a little too over-the-top for you?”

“A little too cheerful, actually.”

I snort-laugh, because how can I not? It’s the most Hudson response ever to what may be the most depressing book ever written. And my anger drains away, my shoulders sagging.

He doesn’t laugh with me, though. In fact, he doesn’t even smile. But there’s a gleam in his eyes that wasn’t there before when he glances over my shoulder at the table I’ve been sitting at for the last two hours. “What have you been working on so furiously over there?”

“My makeup physics project.” I pull a face. “I need to get at least a B on it, and a B on the final, if I want to have a chance of passing the class.”

“I’ll let you get back to it, then,” Hudson says with a dismissive nod that hurts more than I want to admit, even to myself.

“You really can’t even talk to me for ten minutes?” I ask, and I hate the plaintive note in my voice, but I can’t seem to do anything about it. Not today, not here, and most definitely not with him.

For long seconds, Hudson doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t even breathe. But eventually he sighs and tells me, “Honestly, Grace. What is there to talk about? You’ve obviously been avoiding me for a reason.” His voice is low, and for the first time, I see the weariness on his face…as well as the hurt.

But he’s not the only one who’s tired, and he’s definitely not the only one who is hurting. Maybe that’s why my own sarcasm is on full display when I answer, “Oh, I don’t know. What about that we’re—”

“What?” he interrupts, even as he stalks toward me with a sudden, predatory intent that has every hair on my body standing straight up in alarm. “What exactly are we, Grace?”

“Friends,” I whisper.

“Is that what you’re calling it these days?” He sneers. “Friends?”

“And—” I try to give him the answer he’s looking for, but my mouth is as dry and frozen as the Alaskan tundra.

“You can’t even say it, can you?”

I lick my lips, swallow. Then force out the word he’s clearly been waiting for. The word that’s been hanging in the air between us from the moment I walked into the library, even though he never so much as acknowledged my existence. “Mates,” I whisper. “We’re mates.”

“Yeah, we are,” he answers. “And isn’t that just a clusterfuck of epic proportions?”

10

A New Bond

Experience

I wince.

“I don’t know what it is,” I answer him as honestly as I’m able.

His eyes narrow, and for the second time tonight, I’m reminded that he’s not just the guy who lived in my head for a few weeks, then saved my life. He’s also a dangerous predator. Not that I’m scared of him, but…the danger is definitely there.