“It’s no one’s fault,” he answers. “Jaxon has more power than you do, so I automatically get more power from him.”

“What about what just happened?” I demand, eyes narrowed. “When he stumbled? I know you did something to him. What did you do?”

He sighs. “I took an extra burst of energy. It wasn’t even a big one.”

I narrow my eyes at him. “It felt like a big one. I thought he was going to fall in the hallway.”

He doesn’t answer for the longest time, and when he does, he sounds totally cavalier. “Normally I’m careful not to take too much from either of you. Maybe this time I wasn’t so careful.”

“I knew it!” Anger rockets through me. “Why would you do that to him?”

“He’s fine,” Hudson tells me, voice and eyes completely flat.

“How do you know?”

“Because he has more power. He can take it.”

“Because you say so?” I demand, furious and scared at the same time. What if something happens to Jaxon and it’s because of this? Because of me? It’s a terrifying thought.

“Would you rather I fed off all of your energy?” Hudson asks, brows raised. “Or would you rather I didn’t feed at all and just died?”

I don’t answer him, but that just means he draws his own conclusions, his eyes going bleak for one brief second before his normal sardonic look returns. “I guess that’s exactly what you’d prefer. Too bad we’re tied together, then, huh? All your problems would be solved if you could just let me die.”

65

No Exit: A Biography

It’s the first time Hudson’s death has ever been put so starkly before, and I don’t know what to say to him—or even what to feel. I mean, Jaxon’s arguments for killing him were real and valid and important, and I understand why he did it. I also understand that it was the hardest thing he’s ever had to do, whether he admits it to himself or not.

“Oh yeah. Of course. Let’s feel sorry for Jaxon in this equation. I’m so sorry it hurt his feelings to murder me.”

Everything about that sentence sets me off, because no. Just no. He doesn’t get to play the victim here.

“You really should stop trying to rewrite history,” I tell him. “It’s not like Jaxon just woke up one morning and decided to kill you. You caused hundreds of paranormals to attack one another. For fun. For some ridiculous plan of born-vampire supremacy.”

“No.” Hudson glares at me. “No, no, no. I have done a lot of shitty things in my life, and I take responsibility for every single one of them. But I do not take responsibility for that.” He begins pacing around my room.

I don’t have the energy to process what he just said. My mind is still racing, remembering all the times over the last few weeks that Jaxon’s looked tired. And all because of Hudson feeding on him, using the mating bond. I know he doesn’t mean to hurt Jaxon or me, but that doesn’t make it any easier to hear. Not when I’m responsible for the fact that something—someone—is hurting my mate right in front of me. I suddenly feel sick and stumble over to sit on the edge of my bed. I have to fix this.

My head feels like it’s going to explode. Then again, for the first time, so does my heart. I close my eyes and reach inside me for the dual-toned mating bond string I’ve become so familiar with over the last few days. I take it into my hand and squeeze, sending wave after wave of energy to Jaxon, remembering every single time he had dark circles under his eyes and I’d thought he just needed sleep. The tight lines I’d ignored around his smile. The faded black of his bottomless eyes.

This was all my fault. So many times I’d focused on my own problems instead of seeing how my mate was suffering and trying to hide it—right in front of me. And that’s when I realize something else… Jaxon knew Hudson was feeding on the bond. And he didn’t say anything.

My chest feels cleaved open. He didn’t want to make me feel guilty. And more, he didn’t want to make me have to choose.

“You need to stop.”

I don’t think I can. Because this is bad. This is really, really bad.

“Grace!” Hudson’s voice thunders through my head with an urgency I can’t ignore. “Stop!”

“You’re the one who got me thinking about all of this and now you want me to stop?” I demand incredulously. “Screw you.”

“I mean the energy!” he tells me as he puts an insistent hand on top of mine. “You can’t give him any more or you’re going to be drained. You need to stop.”

He’s right. I feel like I could sleep for a year. So I let go of the black-and-green string, though it leaves me feeling even more bereft.

“Goddamn it,” Hudson growls. “You’re going to kill yourself if you’re not careful. You can’t just play around with this stuff.”

Before I can answer, he feeds me a burst of his own energy to make up for some of what I gave Jaxon.

“You didn’t have to do that,” I tell him, even as I feel his power surging through my veins, grounding me. Making me feel solid again.

“Someone has to,” he snarls, “since you seem incapable of thinking of yourself in any given situation.”

“That’s not true!” I tell him.

“It sure feels true. And the fact that my brother lets you get away with it is a bunch of bullshit on his part, too. That’s not what the mating bond is supposed to be about.”

“Oh, really?” I stare at him incredulously. “Taking care of each other isn’t what the bond is about?”

“Each other being the operative words in that sentence,” Hudson snaps.

My phone dings, and I pull it out of my pocket and read the message from Jaxon:

Jaxon: Please don’t ever do that again.

Three dots blink and then disappear, then start blinking again, as though he’s reconsidering what he was about to text. Finally, my phone dings again.

Jaxon: Thank you

I text back a quick love you and good night, then put my phone away.

“He thanked you for giving him your strength?!” Hudson throws his hands in the air. “Quite the mate you’ve got there, Grace.”

I whirl on him. “You know what, you’ve got a hell of a lot of nerve talking to me about the mating bond when you were okay with letting your mate die to bring you back.”

Rage explodes within me, pure, towering rage that threatens to melt every single part of me. It’s mind-numbing, stroke-inducing, completely catastrophic, and for a brief moment all I can think about is tearing the world apart.

Seconds later, it disappears, just like that. And that’s when I realize, it wasn’t my fury that I was feeling at all. It was Hudson’s, and it was incandescent.

It takes a few more seconds before he’s willing—or able—to talk, and when he does, it’s in a voice that is eminently reasonable and twice as terrifying because of it.

“First of all,” he tells me, “I didn’t ask Lia for a damn thing. Do you think, for one second, I wanted to end up here, like this? A prisoner in your head, a front-row spectator to whatever the hell it is you and Jaxon have going on? Alive but not?

“Second, Lia was not my mate. And third, you have a hell of a lot of nerve accusing me of anything when you have no fucking clue what you’re talking about.”

And just like that, my brain melts all over again. This time, it’s not from anger, though. This time, it’s because the pain underlying all that fury is all-encompassing—and impossible to witness without flinching.

It burns away my own anger, leaves me feeling bereft and anxious and like there’s something I just don’t understand.

The fact that I want to understand is shocking enough. The fact that I want to help is mind-blowing. Except, also not.

“Hudson?” I reach out quietly, hoping to find a way to break through the pain.

But even as I call his name, I know that he won’t answer. I know that, trapped in my head or not, he’s already gone.

66

Frenemies Are

Forever

Once Hudson disappears, I’m at loose ends. I have so many thoughts, so many feelings, that I can’t process them all, so I end up pacing around my dorm room for, like, ten minutes. Eventually, I figure out that he’s not coming back anytime soon, so I do the only thing I can think of to help myself get to sleep. I take a hot shower, hoping, if nothing else, that I can drown all the bizarre feelings roiling around inside me.

After a long shower that does absolutely nothing to settle my nerves or my stomach, I put on a tank and pajama shorts before heading back into the bedroom. Macy’s there, sitting cross-legged on her bed with her earbuds in and a notebook open on her lap. She waves at me but doesn’t try to talk, which means she must be studying.

It works for me, because I don’t have much to say right now. I have so many emotions whirling around inside me that it’s a miracle I can even think, let alone speak.

But then I realize Hudson must have come back while I was in the shower, too, and somehow that makes the emotions better and also worse at the same time. I don’t question it, though. Not now.

He’s slouched in the chair by my desk, the book he was reading earlier open on his lap but his gaze trained on my every movement. He looks wiped, and one glance tells me he feels the same way I do—too raw to want to discuss what was said earlier.

“So, No Exit isn’t quite the scintillating blockbuster you made it out to be?” I ask archly.

Hudson shoots me a relieved look. “I’ve already read it. Several times. Existentialism is so…”

“Last century?”

“Please, have you seen the world news lately?” he asks dryly.

“Good point,” I agree as I walk over to the bathroom sink and squeeze toothpaste onto my toothbrush.

When I’ve finished brushing my teeth and putting my dirty clothes in the hamper, I gratefully flop myself down on the bed. Training for the Ludares tournament with the others was more fun than I’ve had in a long time. But now, after that and sending Jaxon energy, I’m totally exhausted.