“What did you just say to me?” she snaps back.

“I said, you’re pathetic. More, you’re a coward. You act like you’re so powerful, like you can take on anyone, but the truth is, you can’t do shit.” I nod toward Cyrus, whose eyes are gleaming as he watches this go down. “You gave in to a vampire—you gave in to Cyrus, who you hate—because you’re as weak and power-hungry as the rest of them.”

“Grace, stop,” Uncle Finn tells me, and there’s a warning in his voice—in his eyes—that I’m going too far.

But I don’t care. I’m sick of this woman and her lies, sick of this fucking world where everyone in power is just out for what they can get, not caring who they have to fuck or who they have to destroy to get it.

She rounds on me with rage in her eyes. “You are a naive, naive child.”

“And you are an even more naive woman.” I’m as angry as she is, but my rage is a living, breathing thing inside me, beating against my chest, begging to be set free. Begging me to give in and give up control. And I want to, more than I’ve ever wanted anything, but I know it will get us nowhere. So I take a deep breath and say with a biting chill, “Which is fine. You do you, Nuri. Protect who you want to protect and be as shortsighted as you want to be. But don’t come bitching to me when your little unholy alliance bites you in the ass. Because it will. I may only be eighteen years old—and half human—but I’m smart enough to know that you’re already over. You just don’t know it yet.”

“You’ve lost any support you might have had from me,” she hisses.

“Yeah, well, right back atcha,” I snarl. “And something tells me you’re going to miss my support more than I’ll ever miss yours.”

For a second, I think she’s going to explode. But then she takes a deep breath and turns to my uncle. “Do you have anything to say about this?”

“Except for telling you that the Circle is going to be hearing from my attorney within the hour?” Uncle Finn asks. “Not really, no.”

“What about you?” Nuri demands of Hudson. “Anything you want to say before we take you out of here?”

He pretends to think about it, then shakes his head. “Nah, Grace pretty much covered it and then some.” He grins at me. “Good job.”

Nuri bares her teeth, looking more like a dragon than I’ve ever seen her. “Take him away,” she grits out to her guards before turning back to Hudson. “You’ll be dead before you get out of that prison.”

Hudson looks at me then, and for one second there’s something in his eyes that rips my fucking heart out. But then he turns to her with a wicked grin and says, “Yeah, well, it wouldn’t be the first time.”

My heart is racing as the guards start dragging him away because—just like at the Dragon Court—the cuffs on his legs are so tight that it’s nearly impossible for him to walk. Nearly impossible for him to do anything.

I turn to follow his progress with my eyes and realize the rest of my friends have joined the ever-growing crowd…and they look as furious as I feel. Except for Jaxon, who just looks empty.

And no matter how much I want to stay here, no matter how much I don’t want to do what I’m about to do, I know this is it. It’s now or never.

“Wait!” I tell Nuri.

She’s back to ignoring me, refusing to so much as glance in my direction. Which I acknowledge is well deserved. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to let her get away with it.

“I’m his mate!” I say so loudly and clearly that it echoes off the trees, bouncing around the meadows. “It’s my right to go with him, my right to not be separated from him.”

She swings around to face me. “You want to go to prison?” Her tone implies that something is very, very wrong with me.

And as terror slides down my spine, I can’t say that I disagree. But I’m in too deep to go back now, and I wouldn’t change my mind even if I wasn’t. Too much is riding on this.

“I want to be with my mate,” I tell her.

“Grace, no!” My uncle Finn steps forward, tries to put himself between us. “There are other ways—”

Not to do what I have to do. I don’t tell him that, though—I can’t without tipping off Cyrus and the rest of his unholy alliance. “It’s going to be okay,” I tell him, leaning in to give him a fast hug and slip my father’s rune into his pocket. And to whisper in his ear, “Give Jaxon my rune. Tell him to hang on, that I’m coming back for him. Macy will explain everything. Listen to her.”

“All right, then.” Nuri swings around to her guards. “You heard her. Seize the gargoyle.”

And just like that, my life changes. Again.

105

If You Lay Down with

*ssholes, You’ll Wake

Up Completely Screwed

Nuri’s guards come at me like berserkers. I don’t know if it’s because they think “the gargoyle” is dangerous or if it’s because they’re pissed off at me for what I said to their queen. Whatever caused it, it still feels like my arms are going to be yanked out at my shoulder sockets as they pull my arms behind my back and slap thick cuffs on me.

“Hey!” Uncle Finn yells. “You don’t have to grab her like that. She hasn’t done anything wrong.”

“Just standard procedure when transporting people to the Aethereum,” Nuri tells him, voice neutral. But it doesn’t feel very standard when the guards grind down on my wrists so hard that I see stars.

Hudson, who has been remarkably cool through this entire thing, looks like he’s about to lose it for the first time. “Release her!” he snarls. “She’s mistaken. She’s not coming with me—”

“It’s not your choice,” Nuri tells him. “In fact, from here on out, nothing is your choice. Think about that while you spend eternity in prison.”

His eyes turn deadly then—and so does his voice. “I’ll be thinking about a lot of things while I’m in prison,” he tells her. “And I promise you, it won’t be for an eternity.”

“Take them both away!” Nuri grinds out over the shouts and protests of our friends and a bunch of other Katmere Academy students who have gathered.

But again, before we can even make it out of the clearing, the guards are forced to stop. This time by the vampire king himself.

“I’m sorry to interfere with the strict adjudication of justice,” Cyrus says, and I can’t help enjoying how pissed off he looks that he has to be talking to us while leaning on a cane while he still heals from Hudson’s attack—even one as impressive as the silver and black one he’s currently wielding. The rest of him is just as dapper as usual, however, in a patterned bespoke suit. “But the Circle issued one more writ of arrest during its special meeting this past weekend.”

“Meeting?” Nuri asks, eyes narrowed. “I wasn’t informed of any Circle business this past weekend.”

“It seemed inappropriate to disturb you during the most important dragon holiday of the year.” Cyrus is all benevolent, I have the right to make decisions like that dictator, and I can tell it’s hitting Nuri exactly as it should: in all the wrong ways.

“Next time, please don’t make a decision like that for me, Cyrus.” She glances down at the writ in his hand. “Who else has the Circle decided to arrest?”

“Who else is guilty of a crime, you mean?” he answers silkily.

“Yes, of course.” She shoots my uncle a steely look. “Apparently, Katmere Academy has become a hotbed of crime over the past several months.”

Uncle Finn doesn’t react, but he does look like he wants to turn her into a toad.

“The writ of arrest is for Flint Montgomery, and the charge is attempted murder of the last gargoyle in existence.”

For one brief second, no one responds. We just stand there, stunned at the charge—and at his audacity. Part of me wants to scream at him that he’s been trying to kill “the last gargoyle,” who he knows very well isn’t the last gargoyle, for a while now, so why the hell isn’t there a writ out for his arrest as well?

But before I can reconcile how I would say that—or even if I should mention the Unkillable Beast—Nuri loses her shit completely. She goes for Cyrus’s throat, her guards falling right into line behind her.

At first, I’m certain that we’re about to see who wins in a vampire vs. dragon fight to the death, but as Cyrus draws himself up for the fight—his silver cane now a seriously wicked knife—Uncle Finn uses magic to spin an unbreachable wall between them.

It’s the most magic I’ve ever seen him do—sometimes I actually forget he’s a warlock—but watching him do this is seriously badass. I guess I always figured he didn’t have much magic because he seems so…sweet, but the man in front of me has all the power. More than enough to keep Nuri and Cyrus exactly where he wants them.

“You can’t attack him, Nuri,” Finn tells her softly. “It’s what he wants—a chance to get you kicked off the Circle or put in prison.”