“Why don’t you go visit someone else for a while? Bring your doom and gloom there?” I make an obnoxious face. “Oh wait, you can’t. That’s why we need to get the stone.”
He arches a brow. “You know that joke was old the first time you told it, right?”
“Yeah, well, you—”
“Not to interrupt what I’m sure is a scintillating conversation,” Jaxon says so coolly that I feel the chill in my bones, “but I thought maybe you might like to talk to me instead of my brother. I mean, since you’re actually in my room.”
Of course. Because what I need today is for both the Vega brothers to freak out on me, even if it is for different reasons.
“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t have to freak out if you would take your own safety a little more seriously,” Hudson tells me. “I can’t help you if you won’t help yourself.”
I didn’t ask you to help me! I answer in my head so Jaxon doesn’t get upset.
“Maybe you should,” he shoots back.
“Seriously?” Jaxon says. “You can’t stop talking to him for two seconds? I’m trying to have a conversation with you here.”
“Of course I can. I’m sorry.” I take a deep breath, blow it out slowly. “What do you want to talk about, Jaxon?”
“Has he always been this whiny?” Hudson demands. “Honestly, I don’t know how you stand it.”
“Stop,” I tell him and intentionally give him my back, determined not to engage with him any more right now.
But he’s not having it. He walks around Jaxon so I’m facing both brothers now. “I’m only trying to be helpful, Grace. I know better than most just how spoiled Jaxon can be.”
He’s not spoiled. I jump in to defend Jaxon instantly and then realize, almost as quickly, that I’ve just been totally played. Hudson was trying to get a rise out of me. You’re kind of a jackass. You know that, right?
“Know it?” He looks down his nose at me in a kind of snooty, kind of playful manner. “I pride myself on it.”
Yeah, but—
“So.” Jaxon looks really nervous. “What do you think?”
“About what?” I ask before I can think better of it.
“You weren’t listening?” He looks vaguely homicidal. “You didn’t hear anything I said?”
“I did. I just—”
He sighs disgustedly. “What I said was that there’s another way to get Hudson out of your head. Besides the spell with the five artifacts.”
“Seriously? And you’re just bringing this up now?” I grab on to his hand. “What is it?”
“It’s fairly drastic—”
“Yeah, because going up against something called the Unkillable Beast isn’t drastic at all,” I answer, totally deadpan. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier? I mean, we already have all four of the necessary—”
“Five,” Jaxon growls. “We need five items. There’s no way we’re bringing him back if he’s not human. No way.”
I think back to what the Bloodletter said, to what everyone has said about Hudson—except Hudson. Every time I start to think that maybe he’s not so bad, I force myself to remember what it felt like to be standing in that assembly with him and be unable to move. “Okay, okay. I know you’re right about the whole power thing. So what is this other way?”
Jaxon looks a little sick, and this time he’s the one taking the deep breath. Which makes my stomach plummet.
“What is it?” I ask, suddenly a lot more frightened than I was just a minute ago.
“We could break the mating bond.”
The words fall like a nuclear bomb between us, the shock and pain of them radiating through me in a way nothing ever has in my whole life—even my parents’ deaths.
“I don’t— I can’t—”
“Holy shit. Exactly how much does my brother hate me?” Hudson whispers.
I take a moment to answer Hudson and…also try to figure out how to breathe. Seriously? That’s what you’re asking now? I would assume a lot, since he, you know, killed you.
“Killing is pretty normal in our world. Trying to break a mating bond? That’s unheard of. Mainly because it’s literally impossible. Trust me, if it were possible, my mom would have definitely divorced her jackass mate.” Hudson starts to pace. “This must be some scary-as-shit magic if it can sever a mating bond.”
Wow. Okay, then.
I press a hand to my stomach, still trying to absorb the blow of Jaxon’s words. And worse, the fact that he brought this up at all.
“So…” I have a million things I want to ask but no idea how to ask them. So I start with the