Again, the wall trembles. Again, more cracks spring up, and I try desperately to patch them even as I work to calm him down. “Hudson. Hey, Hudson.”

He ignores me. He’s pacing back and forth in front of the circulation desk as he yells more insults at Jaxon—who is completely oblivious to the fact that his older brother has just called him a rat-arsed git.

Jaxon gets to his feet now—I guess it’s hard to miss that something is wrong as I chase Hudson around the front half of the library—fists clenched and eyes wild with concern as he stares at me. It’s obvious he’s trying to find a way to fight his brother without hurting me, but he can’t figure it out…because the only place Hudson really exists right now is inside me.

When he looks like he’s going to say something else, I hold up a hand to settle him back down. The last thing we need is for him to say something else that sets Hudson off again.

He doesn’t look happy, but he nods and slowly unclenches his fists. Convinced he isn’t going to say anything else, I turn and walk over to Hudson.

“Hey, now. Hey, look at me.” I put a hand on his shoulder. “Come on, Hudson. Take a deep breath and look at me, okay?”

He whirls around then, and the look he turns on me is filled with such fulminating fury, such absolute, abject betrayal, that I can’t help but stumble back a couple of steps.

I don’t know if it was the stumble or the look on my face, but whatever it is, it brings Hudson back down in an instant. He doesn’t apologize for his outburst, doesn’t try to explain it. But he stops swearing, stops looking like he wants to tear the entire library—and Jaxon—apart. And skulks off to sit in one of the chairs by the window, his back to me.

I turn around to find Jaxon staring, and there’s an edge in his eyes that has a chill working its way down my spine. Not because I think he’ll hurt me—Jaxon would never do that—but because it makes him feel far away from me, distant in a way I didn’t expect and don’t know how to handle.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I don’t mean to hurt you. It’s just hard to ignore someone throwing a tantrum in my head. I wish I could,” I tell him. “Even more, I wish he wasn’t there at all. But he is, and I’m trying, Jaxon. I’m really trying.”

The ice in his gaze melts at my words, and his whole body softens. “I know.” He reaches for my hand, pulls me close. “You’re handling so much right now. I wish I could take it all away from you.”

“That’s not your job.”

“I’m your mate.” He looks vaguely insulted. “If it’s not my job, whose is it?”

“Mine,” I whisper, going on tiptoes to press my lips, very softly, to his. “You’re just the moral support.”

He gives a startled laugh. “That’s the first time I’ve ever been given that role.”

“I bet. How does it feel?”

To his credit, he thinks about it for a moment before saying, “I don’t like it.”

I shoot him a fake shocked look, and he just laughs. Then says, “Do you want to hear about gargoyles or not?”

“I absolutely do.”

Jaxon leads me back to the table and we settle into our seats again, reaching for the books we’d started to read before Hudson’s outburst.

“Like I was saying, gargoyles are old—although not as old as vampires. No one knows how they were created—” He breaks off, thinks about it. “Or at least, I don’t know how. I just know that they didn’t exist before the First Great War but were around by the time of the Second. There are all kinds of origin stories, but my favorite ones always revolve around the witches bringing them into existence in the hopes of saving themselves and humans from another great war. Some say they used dark magic, but I never believed it. I always thought they asked a higher power for help, and that’s why gargoyles have always been protectors.”

Protectors. The word settles on me. It sinks into my bones, flows through my veins—because it feels right. It feels like the home I haven’t had in four long months and, conversely, the home I’ve been looking for my entire life even though I didn’t know it.

“What are we supposed to protect?” I ask, blood humming with the promise of what’s to come.

“Magic itself,” Jaxon tells me. “And all the factions who wield it in all their different ways.”

“So not just witch magic, then.”

“No, not just the witches. Gargoyles kept the balance among all the paranormals—vampires and werewolves, witches and dragons.” He pauses. “Mermaids and selkies and every other not-just-human creature on the planet—and also humans.”

“But why did your father kill the gargoyles, then? If they were the ones keeping everything balanced, why would he want to get rid of them?”

“Power,” Jaxon says. “He and my mother wanted more power, power they couldn’t just take with the gargoyles watching. And now they have it. They sit at the head of the Circle—”

“Amka mentioned the Circle to me. What is it?” I ask.

“The Circle is the ruling body that governs paranormals all over the world. My parents have the highest positions of power on the council, positions they inherited when my father instigated the destruction of all the gargoyles,” Jaxon explains.

“He instigated the murdering of all the gargoyles,” Hudson says from where he’s still near the window, “because he convinced his allies that the humans were planning another war, used the Salem Witch Trials to prove his point. And gargoyles were going to side with them.”

“He killed them all because of a war that never happened?” I whisper, horrified.

Jaxon turns the page in the book he’s currently thumbing through. “Well, this is what some people believe, yes.”

“He killed them all because he is an evil, selfish, power-hungry, cowardly arsehole,” Hudson corrects. “He’s drunk his own Kool-Aid and truly believes he’s the savior of our kind.”

I’m a little shocked—and a lot horrified—at how Hudson, of all people, describes his and Jaxon’s father. Hudson is the one who wanted to wipe the other species out of existence, so why does he sound so judgmental over the fact that his father did the same thing?

“I am nothing like my father,” Hudson grinds out, sounding more offended than I have ever heard him. “Nothing!”

I don’t contradict him, even though it seems absurd for him to try to pretend away the similarities in his agenda and his father’s. Sure, they went after different factions in their search for supremacy, but that doesn’t make them different. It just makes them two sides of the same coin.

And I would do well to remember this before I get us all killed.

Because Hudson won’t be in my head forever. And what he will do when he’s out is anyone’s guess.

Jaxon must be thinking the same thing, because he leans forward and says, “No matter what we have to do, we can never let my brother loose on the world with his power. My father killed the entire gargoyle race. Who knows what Hudson will do?”

44

Two Heads Aren’t

Better than One

I wait for Hudson to explode, but he doesn’t say a word. In fact, he’s so quiet that after several minutes of silence, I’d think Hudson had fallen asleep if I didn’t see the way his foot is tap-tap-tapping on the ground as he stares out the window.

I don’t know why he doesn’t respond to Jaxon’s words—maybe because he realizes everything Jaxon said about him is true. Maybe because he’s embarrassed. Maybe because he got his burst of anger out earlier. I don’t know. I just know that I expect some kind of response from him.

I’ve known Hudson for only a few days and already I know that it’s not like him to be quiet. And it’s definitely not like him not to have a comeback or six…

A sudden sadness swamps me, along with a wave of exhaustion that has me fighting back a yawn. Jaxon sees it, though—of course he does—and says, “Come on, the rest of the research can wait until tomorrow. Let’s get you back to your room.”

I want to argue, but I’m fading fast, so I just nod. “Don’t we need to clean up first?” I gesture to the table where the candles still burn.

“I can walk you to your room, then come back and clean up.” Jaxon starts gently herding me toward the library door.

“Don’t be ridiculous. It’ll take ten minutes, and then we can head back to my room.”

Turns out, it barely takes five minutes to get everything picked up and put away before we’re on our way to my room. When we get there, I know Jaxon expects to be able to kiss me like he did yesterday, but Hudson isn’t asleep now. He’s not talking to me, but he’s very definitely aware of what’s going on, and I can’t just make out with Jaxon when his brother is watching—especially not when he’s watching from inside my head.

The last thing I want is for him (or anyone) to know what I’m thinking when Jaxon kisses me…or worse, what I’m feeling. It’s personal and private and nobody’s business but mine.

So when Jaxon moves to set the huge vase of flowers on the floor beside my door, I put a hand on his arm to stop him. “Three’s a crowd,” I tell him.

He looks confused, but my meaning must register because he nods and steps away. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then? We can meet for breakfast at ten, then research at the library after that, if it works for you?”

“I can’t think of a better way to spend a Saturday morning than with you,” I tell him.

“Good.” He starts to hand me my flowers, but I wrap my arms around him in a huge hug first, pulling his face down to mine so I can give him a superfast peck on the lips.

“Thank you for tonight. It was awesome.”

“Yeah?” He looks embarrassed but also a little pleased. I’ll admit it’s an adorable look on him.