to Mekhi,” Hudson urges. He appears behind me as the shift comes over me. “We can still save him, but it has to be now.”
I don’t question him—not about this and not when time is so precious. Instead, I shoot straight up in the air to disentangle myself from Flint’s tail.
He’s either too busy to notice or he trusts gargoyle Grace in a way he doesn’t trust my human form. Either way, he doesn’t come after me as I fly straight up, high above the melee.
Blood and destruction are everywhere—broken branches litter the ground, several trees are either uprooted or on fire, and people and animals are locked in hand-to-hand combat or lying dazed and injured on the ground.
A quick scan of the area shows that Mekhi is the only one of my group who is injured, thankfully. I race to him, dropping into a crouch beside him and shielding him with my wings as the fighting continues to go on around us.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Jaxon trying to get to us, but guard after guard is grabbing on to him, fighting him, trying to tear him apart. They aren’t having much luck—my mate is way too powerful for that—but they’re slowing him down, and every second they cost him could cost Mekhi his life.
“No, it won’t,” Hudson tells me. “We’ve got this.”
“How?” I ask even as I press a hand to Mekhi’s throat in a vain effort to stop the bleeding. I’m willing to do whatever he wants but unsure of what we can do. Mekhi’s already lost so much blood. I know he’s not human, but I can’t believe he’s got much time left.
“Break off a piece of your stone,” Hudson tells me.
“A piece of my stone?” I repeat, glancing down at myself and the thick, heavy pieces of stone that make up my entire body now. “How do I do that?”
Mekhi gasps and clutches at me, his hand wrapping around my arm and squeezing hard. At first I think he’s trying to break the stone off me, but then I realize he’s shaking his head, mouthing no, no, no as he grows more and more sickly looking.
“I have to, Mekhi,” I tell him. “You’ll die if I don’t.”
He shakes his head again, continues mouthing no to me, even as he runs out of air and starts to be strangled by his own blood.
“I don’t understand,” I tell Hudson, close to tears as I try to find a balance between what Mekhi wants and what I know is the right thing.
“It’s because you’re Jaxon’s mate,” Hudson says grimly. “He knows you’re going to be queen one day and, close friends or not, he can’t allow you to sacrifice a piece of yourself for him. It’s an etiquette thing, ancient rules that don’t matter until we get to a situation like this.”
“Fuck ancient rules,” I spit as I reach up and break off a piece of my horn. God knows I hate the damn things anyway.
Mekhi’s eyes widen, but I lean down and whisper, “I won’t tell if you don’t. Now, shut up and let me do what I can before it’s too late.” I turn to Hudson. “Tell me what to do. Please.”
“Cup the stone between your hands,” he tells me, “and let me do the rest.”
I don’t know what he means, but now isn’t the time to argue, so I do as he says. Seconds later, I feel a strange heat running down my arms and through my fingers.
A few seconds after that, Hudson says, “Okay, that’s enough.”
I lift my hand to find a fine stone powder cupped in my other palm. I want to ask how he did it—because I know, deep inside, that this was Hudson and not me—but there’s no time. “What now?” I beg.
“Pour it across his throat, covering the wound. Then hold your hand over it until you feel it set.”
If someone had told me an hour ago that I would be pouring stone into an open wound as a means of healing someone, I would have told them they were out of their ever-loving minds. But every hour in this world brings something new and exciting and terrible, and apparently right now is no different.
So I do what Hudson tells me and pray the whole time that I’m not making things for Mekhi a million times worse.
“Hold his throat,” Hudson tells me as soon as the last of the ground stone falls into his cut. “Don’t