“You mated to Hudson right after, so the healer is pretty sure his soul wrapped itself around yours and is holding yours together, so you’ll be okay. But I’m…”

“Alone,” I fill in for him, my entire body crumbling under the weight of my own fear and guilt and sorrow.

“Yeah. And without anything to hang on to, the pieces of my soul are dying one by one.”

Flint makes a terrible sound. Luca shushes him, but it’s too late. The sound has pain sparking deep inside Jaxon’s eyes, has shivers running up and down my spine.

“What does that mean?” I demand. “What can we do?”

“Nothing,” he answers with a shrug I know he’s far from feeling. “There’s nothing to do, Grace, except wait for my soul to die completely.”

“What happens then?” I whisper.

His grin is bitter. “Then I become the monster everyone’s always expected me to be.”

101

UnBreak My Heart

This can’t be happening.

This absolutely, positively cannot be happening. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve thought that since coming to Katmere, but this time is different. This time I really mean it, because I can’t do this.

In the last few months, I’ve learned that I can handle almost anything. But not this. I can’t handle this happening to Jaxon. Not now, when we’re so close to maybe, finally finding a way to end Cyrus’s evil rule.

Not now, when I was actually beginning to think that things might truly be okay.

Not now, and not to Jaxon. Please God, not to Jaxon. He doesn’t deserve this. He doesn’t deserve any of this.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask.

“Why would I?” he answers. “There’s nothing you can do, Grace. There’s nothing anyone can do.”

“I don’t believe that.” I look around at our friends, all of whom look as horrified as I feel. “There has to be something.”

He shakes his head. “There isn’t.”

“Don’t say that. I don’t believe it. There’s always something, always some loophole or some magic. Someone who knows something that we don’t. The Bloodletter—”

“Has nothing. Do you think she wasn’t my first stop when I got back from Court? She has no suggestions, nothing that she thinks we can try. She cried, Grace.” He shakes his head. “I figure when the Bloodletter is in tears, it’s a pretty good sign that it’s game fucking over for me.”

Rage explodes through me at the idea that that monster just gave up on him. She caused all of this and then, when he needs her, she just throws him away? She just cries a little bit and says too bad, so sad?

I don’t think so. I don’t fucking think so.

“That’s not good enough,” I tell him.

“Grace—”

“No, don’t you Grace me. Do you know how many times I’ve beaten the odds since I’ve gotten to this school? How many times I should have died and didn’t? Jesus, two people in this room alone have tried to kill me, and I’m still here.

“That’s not even counting Lia and Cole and fucking Cyrus. We beat them all.” I look around, gesture to our friends. “We beat them all, and if you think that now, when you need us, we’re all just going to lay down and let this happen to you, then you’ve got another think coming.” I look at Flint, at Mekhi, at Hudson. “Right, guys?”

“Of course.” Macy is the first one to speak up. “We’ll figure it out.”

“Damn straight,” Mekhi adds. “No offense, but you’re scary enough as it is. None of us needs the soulless version, thank you very much.”

“Not to mention, it’s been a week since anyone tried to kill us,” Flint jokes. “I figure that means we’re about due, right?”

Jaxon smiles and, for a second, I get a glimpse of the old Jaxon, the one who sent me Twilight and used to tell me corny jokes. The one I used to love.

My heart breaks all over again when I realize the truth—that I used to love. I try to take it back, try to convince myself that it was just an errant thought. That it doesn’t mean anything.

And then I realize that it really doesn’t have to mean anything. I can fix this, and I can fix Jaxon. All I have to do is fix what shattered his soul to begin with.

I need to find the Crown, just like Hudson and I planned. And once we do, we can use it to break our mating bond, just like we talked about all those weeks ago.

My heart twinges at the memory of the last few days with Hudson, but I ignore it. Tell myself it doesn’t matter, just like the tears burning behind my eyes don’t matter.

Maybe it won’t come to that. Maybe if we find the Crown, we’ll be able to use its magic to put Jaxon’s soul back together on its own.

But if that doesn’t work, if the choice comes down to staying with the boy who wants me but will be just fine without me and the boy who needs me and who will descend into madness without me, well, there really is no choice. Not for me. And not for Hudson, because if I’ve learned anything about him, it’s that he’ll make the exact same choice.

Jaxon is his little brother, the boy he carved a horse for. The boy he spent so much of his life missing. There’s no way he’ll let him lose his soul if there’s anything he can do about it.

It’s that thought that has me turning around to find Hudson. And as our eyes meet, I realize he’s already there. He’s already accepted what I’m just coming around to—that the universe is asking us to choose between our bond and the boy we both love. The boy we’ll lose forever if we make the wrong choice.

That in and of itself proves there is no choice. Maybe there never was.

I’m sorry, I mouth to him.

Hudson doesn’t say anything back. He just nods before turning and walking away.

As I watch him go, I can’t help remembering the day he told me he’d never make me choose between them, because he always knew I wouldn’t choose him.

It’s not until right this moment—when the choice is well and truly out of my hands—that I realize I had begun to hope that maybe I could prove him wrong. That maybe I could choose him after all.

And as Hudson walks away, as he disappears down the hallway that leads to his room—the room I was supposed to spend the night in with him tonight—I tell myself it doesn’t matter. And that the breaking I feel deep inside myself is just my imagination.

102

Hot Pink

Is Hereditary

After All

I don’t sleep all night.

I’m exhausted—physically and emotionally—from everything that has happened these last few days, and still I can’t sleep. Still I lay awake, staring at the ceiling and going over all the different things that could go wrong at any given moment over the next twenty-four hours.

As if that isn’t enough, every time I close my eyes, I see Jaxon’s soulless orbs staring at me as he rips out some innocent person’s throat. Or Macy’s throat. Or my throat.

I used to think it was awful having to relive Xavier’s death over and over again, but the ambiguity of this—the not knowing what’s going to happen or how or when—is even worse.

So yeah, no sleep, despite my never having needed it more. At some point today, Cyrus and Delilah are going to show up, along with Aiden and Nuri. What happens at that point is going to be an absolute shit show, I have no doubt.

And hanging over it all is the specter of graduation—and what happens once we have our diplomas in our hands. How long can Hudson reasonably stay at Katmere before he’s forced to head to his lair? And how long can Cyrus afford to hang around outside Katmere’s grounds hoping to catch him?

I’m afraid the answer to the latter is forever, especially since Cyrus doesn’t have to hang around personally. He only has to leave a couple of guards here to arrest him.

And what happens then? To both of us? And if we end up in prison for who knows how long before we can break out, what happens to Jaxon?

Is it any wonder I can’t sleep? My brain is about to explode.

Macy gets up around nine—she tossed and turned, but at least she slept—to say, “Take a shower and try to clear the fog out of my brain.”

I wish her good luck and stay right where I am. Even though I know I should get up, too, and at least make an attempt to decide what I’m going to wear under my cap and gown, I instead spend fifteen minutes trying to harness my anxiety and find the will to move, all at the same time.

The struggle is oh so very real.

I’m about to throw myself out of bed when there’s a knock on the door.

My stomach jumps, and I immediately wonder if it’s Hudson. But when I finally open the door—after taking way too long to arrange my hair in the nearest mirror—it turns out to be Uncle Finn…and a giant bouquet of wildflowers.

“Oh my gosh! They’re gorgeous!” I tell him, scooping them into my arms.

“They are, aren’t they?” he says with a grin and a wink.

“Thank you so much,” I tell him. “I really—”

“Oh, no, Grace! They’re not from me. They were laying outside your door when I got here. My guess is a certain vampire wanted to surprise you.”