no way an actual dragon might know anything about the Dragon Boneyard.
“The Dragon Boneyard?” Flint looks intrigued. “What do you want to know about it?”
“Everything,” I answer, linking one arm through Jaxon’s and the other through Flint’s. “So why don’t you come, too? You can help us figure out what we need to know.”
“Yeah, sure. What do you need?”
“We’ll tell you all about it when we get to Jaxon’s room,” I promise. Then I glance behind me at my cousin, who looks like she doesn’t know if she should follow us or not. “Come on, Mace. We need all the help we can get.”
“Awesome. Just let me text Gwen and tell her I’m not going to be able to hang out later.”
“Oh, never mind,” I tell her. “I forgot you had somewhere to be. Jaxon, Flint, and I can totally handle it.”
Macy shoots me a “stop talking now” look, then fires off a series of quick texts. “Too late,” she says, and then she’s darting in front of us to lead the way to the library.
It doesn’t take us long to gather what we need, partly because Amka has the books ready for us—at Jaxon’s request—and partly because she’s willing to loan us two of the library laptops so we can access the magic databases from anywhere in the castle and not just the library.
Flint helps by grabbing a few books on dragons that he thinks will help, while Macy runs back down to the cafeteria to gather snacks for our “marathon research sesh,” as she keeps calling it. In the meantime, Hudson just lounges around on whatever open chair he can find, calling out book titles that he thinks might help us.
“Where was all this information last night?” I ask him after my third run to the stacks at the back of the library.
“Last night I was too busy—”
“Trying not to vomit,” I fill in for him. “Yeah, yeah, I know the routine by heart by now.”
“Just because I’ve used it a few times doesn’t make it any less true,” he tells me with a definite tone to his voice.
“True, but it does make it lose its impact. At the moment, I’m pretty convinced you have the weakest stomach of anyone I’ve ever met, which is particularly interesting considering you don’t even have a stomach.”
“Sure I do,” he responds, and to prove it, he lifts up his T-shirt, revealing—not going to lie—one of the best sets of abs I’ve ever seen. Seriously. Which…I’m not quite sure how I feel about that. I mean, it shouldn’t matter. And it doesn’t. But…wow. Just wow. I’d have to be blind not to notice.
Hudson shoots me a smug look but doesn’t say anything as he lets his shirt drop back down. Then again, he doesn’t have to. The argument over whether or not he has a stomach has most definitely been settled…and I most definitely lost.
“You ready?” Jaxon asks as he comes up behind me with a giant armful of books.
“Yeah, of course. Can I help carry some of those?”
“I’ve got them,” he says with a grin, and he does—at least partly because his abs absolutely give Hudson’s a run for their money.
“I call bullshit,” Hudson grumbles as we leave the library. He’s walking a little bit ahead of us, but he’s turned around to face me as he walks backward. Not going to lie, there’s a part of me that would love nothing more than for him to trip and fall on his ass.
Petty? Yes. Mean? Absolutely. But I’d still pay good money to see it. Maybe landing on his ass will take him down a peg or ten, which is something he definitely needs. Arrogant prick.
“Don’t hold back,” Hudson says, and in the blink of an eye, he’s suddenly right behind me, his arrogant, smarmy voice right in my ear. “Tell me how you really feel.”
“I always do,” I shoot back as a shiver runs down my spine.
By the time we get to Jaxon’s tower, Macy is already there with a bag full of the least nutritious stuff Katmere has to offer. Chips, popcorn, and even a pack of ten-dollar Oreos.
“I stole them from my dad’s stash,” she says as she drops them on the table in the antechamber to Jaxon’s bedroom, where he does most of his studying.
The last time I saw the place, it was a total mess—Lia made sure of it before she dragged our drugged asses to the tunnels so she could torture the both of us.