in knowing what’s going to happen and when it’s going to happen. She’ll be better off—”
“Grace will be better off,” I interrupt as annoyance bubbles to the surface, “if her uncle and her boyfriend start talking to her instead of about her. Since I have a semi-functioning brain and, you know, agency in my own life.”
To their credit, they both look shamefaced at the verbal slap down. As they should. I may not be a vampire or a warlock, but that doesn’t mean I’m just going to lie down and let “the menfolk” make decisions about my life for me. Especially not when both of them seem to be of the “wrap Grace in cotton and protect her” opinion. Which also really isn’t going to fly with me.
“You’re right,” my uncle agrees in a much more subdued tone. “What do you want to do, Grace?”
I think for a minute. “I want things to be normal—or at least as normal as they can get for a girl who lives with a witch and is dating a vampire. But I also want to figure out what happened with Hudson. I feel like we’ve got to find him if we have any chance at all of keeping everyone safe.”
“I’m not worried about keeping everyone safe,” Jaxon growls. “I’m just worried about keeping you safe.”
It’s a good line and, not going to lie, it melts me a little on the inside. But on the outside, I stay tough, because someone has to figure out this mess, and since I’m the only one with a front-row seat—even if I don’t remember what I saw from that seat—that someone is going to have to be me.
I clench my fists in frustration, ignoring the pain that shoots through my already abused fingertips as I do. This is important, really important. I have to remember what happened to Hudson.
Did I leave him chained up somewhere, a threat to no one?
Did he escape and that’s why my hands are so beaten up—because I tried to stop him?
Or—and I hate this idea the most—did he use his gift of persuasion on me and get me to just let him go? And if so, is that why my memory is shot to hell?
The not knowing is killing me, as is the fear that I’ve let everyone down.
Jaxon fought so hard to get rid of Hudson the first time. He sacrificed everything, including whatever love his mother had for him, in order to destroy his brother—and to keep Hudson from destroying the whole world.
How can I live with myself if we find out that I just let him walk away? That I gave him a chance to continue wreaking havoc on Katmere and the world?
That I gave him another chance to hurt the boy I love?
That thought more than any other feeds the fear inside me and has me croaking out, “We need to find him,” in a voice hoarse with concern. “We need to figure out where he went and make sure he can’t hurt anyone else.”
And we need to figure out why I’m certain I’m forgetting something very important that happened during those four months.
Before it’s too late.
7
What I Don’t Know
Will Hurt Me…
and Everyone Else
After Marise checks me over for what feels like hours, Uncle Finn finally lets Jaxon take me away. It’s obvious from the way both men and Marise fretted over me that no one was taking my health for granted, which was comforting. Marise even checked me for a brain injury because, well, hello, amnesia.
But I am unbelievably healthy, minus some scrapes and bruises on my hands, and deemed fit to reenter Katmere Academy. Apparently, being stone for four months could be the next big health craze.
As Jaxon and I walk casually back to my room, though, my mind can’t stop replaying a part of my conversation with Marise, when she was apologizing for not knowing more about gargoyle physiology.
“You’re the first gargoyle to exist in a thousand years.”
Fantastic. Because who doesn’t want to be a trendsetter when it comes to their basic physiology? Oh, right. Everyone.
Not going to lie, I have absolutely no idea how to process the information that I’m the first modern-day one of my kind, so I file it away in a folder marked: “Shit I Don’t Need to Deal with Today.” And another one titled “Thanks for the Heads-Up, Mom and Dad.”
Just then, I notice that Jaxon’s not leading me to my room but to his tower rooms. I tug on