most basic. “You don’t want to be mated to me anymore?”
“Of course I want to be mated to you!” he exclaims, and this time he’s the one who grabs my hands. “I want it more than anything.”
“Then why would you even suggest…” There’s a strange ringing in my ears, and I shake my head to clear it. “I thought mating bonds were unbreakable.”
“I thought so, too. But I asked the Bloodletter—”
“You asked her? When we were there?” The pain deep inside me gets worse and worse. “When? When she put me to sleep? When she locked me in that cage?”
“No, not then. Of course not.” He gives me a pleading look. “It was way before.”
Somehow, that sounds even worse. “How ‘way before,’ considering I was here for a week, then gone for nearly four months, then here for a few days? When exactly did you ask her? And why?”
“I asked her after you first got here and I realized we were mated. I’d nearly killed you with the window… It just seemed like a really bad idea to be mated to a human who might die because of me. So I went to her and asked for a spell to break the bond.”
There’s so much to unpack there that I don’t even know where to start. And for once, Hudson is completely silent, absolutely no help at all. The traitor.
I still can’t believe Jaxon didn’t tell me up front that we were mated. I mean, I get why he didn’t say anything that first day, but why not after the snowball fight or when we started dating?
But I also can’t believe he was going to break the bond—without even asking me. He was going to do something so irrevocable, so painful, so terrible, and he wasn’t even going to get my opinion on the matter. It would have affected me, too, I’m sure of it, and he wasn’t even going to ask?
And now, after we’ve come so far, he brings up breaking the bond again because having Hudson in my head is an inconvenience to him? Even though we’re so close to getting him out another way? A way that leaves the bond completely intact?
“Did she give you the spell?” I finally whisper, because there’s so much to say, I don’t know where to start.
“She did,” he tells me.
My breath catches. “Seriously?” It feels like he just hit me again. “And you took it?”
“I was scared. I’d nearly killed you. I didn’t want to hurt you, Grace.”
“Yeah, because this is a picnic.” I look wildly around his room. “Where is it? Where are you keeping it?”
I don’t know why it matters, but it does. If he knows where it is, if it’s right at his damn fingertips…
“I threw it away.”
“What?” That’s not the answer I was expecting.
“I threw it away the same day she gave it to me. I couldn’t bring myself to do it, Grace. To either of us. Not before we’d even had a chance to try. Not without your permission.”
I blow out a breath slowly as the pain finally ebbs. It doesn’t go away completely, but it slowly dissipates. Because he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t break what was between us before it even got started, and especially without telling me. That makes a difference. If he could, if he’d kept it…I don’t know if I’d ever be able to get past it.
“We’re not breaking the mating bond, Jaxon.”
“It could starve him. Without the energy from the bond to feed on, he would die quickly, right? I think you’d be okay in that scenario. It’s the draining that is slowly killing us all.”
His words poke at all my still-tender spots. “And I’d have to sit by and watch him die. While also being traumatized at the loss of my mate.”
“You wouldn’t lose me. I’d still be here—”
“Just not my mate anymore.” I look at him with what I know is my heart in my eyes and whisper, “Is that really what you want?”
“Of course it’s not what I want!” he practically shouts.
“Good. Then don’t bring it up again.”
“Grace—”
“No.” I want to throw myself at him, to wrap my arms around his waist, but I’m still aching.
“I’m sorry.” He pulls me close, holds me as tightly as I wanted to hold him. “I was only trying to make things better for you.”
“I don’t need that kind of help,” I answer, even as I wonder if that’s really true. If making things better for me is the only reason