There are so many important things in what he just said that I don’t know where to start. Except… “Your mother? Your mother did this to you?” I whisper as horror slithers through me.
He shrugs. “When I killed Hudson, I interfered with her plans. I needed to be punished.”
“By tearing up your face?”
“It’s hard to scar a vampire—we heal too quickly. By doing this, and ensuring I didn’t heal, she left a mark of weakness on me for the whole world to see.”
“But you could have stopped her anytime. Why didn’t you?”
“I wasn’t going to fight my mother, and I certainly wasn’t going to hurt her any more than I already had.” He shrugs again. “Besides, she needed someone to punish for what happened, someone to hurt so that she could feel better. Better me than someone who bore no responsibility for what happened.”
I can’t keep the horror from my face, but Jaxon just laughs a little. “Don’t worry about it, Grace. It’s all good.”
“It’s not all good.” I do my best to swallow the rage that’s swelling inside me. “That woman is a monster. She’s evil. She’s …”
“The vampire queen.” He fills in the blank for me. “And there’s nothing any of us can do about it. But thank you.” It’s his turn to whisper as his lips brush over my hair.
“For what?” I nearly choke on the words.
“For caring.” He lowers his head for a kiss.
But our lips barely have a chance to brush before there’s a knock on the open door. “Sorry to interrupt,” Marise says as she sticks her head in the doorway. “But now that you’re awake, I want to check out my favorite patient.”
I glance around the empty bay. “Your only patient, don’t you mean?”
“Yeah, well, you give me a lot of business. Plus, I had Jaxon and Flint in here for at least a day. You just require a little extra attention, that’s all.” She grins at me.
“Yeah, well, the whole being human thing really bites around here.” Deep inside me, the voice wakes up. Whispers that I shouldn’t be so fast to call myself human. Which is laughable, except…except Lia’s words haunt me, about how much trouble she had to go through to find me and get me here.
Which leaves me with the question of why am I so special? Even if I am a witch—and I’m not sure I am—there are a lot of witches in this school to choose from. Is it because I really am Jaxon’s mate? And if I am, what does that even mean in his world? But how would she know that? And why would that matter anyway? What does who Jaxon loves have to do with raising Hudson from the dead?
Now that Lia is gone and her plan foiled, I have even more questions than I did before she died. I want to ask Jaxon if he has any of the answers, but now isn’t the time to think about it, not with Marise flashing her fangs as she quips, “That’s not the only thing that bites around here.”
“So I’ve learned,” I answer with a smirk.
It only takes a few minutes for her to look me over, and her prognosis is pretty much what Alma already told me. A lot of cuts and bruises that it turns out Alma—who is a healing witch—has already put a lot of effort into minimizing. And a half-healed dislocated shoulder that will need to be splinted for a couple of weeks to finish what Alma already started.
There’s also the little matter of the blood transfusion, a little more than two liters, which I really wish she hadn’t mentioned in front of Jaxon. But all in all, I’m in good health and will probably get to go back to my dorm room in a couple of days, if my vitals stay steady.
Or so Marise says as she exits with a little wave.
“It’s not your fault!” I tell Jaxon the second she’s out the door.
“It’s entirely my fault,” he answers. “I nearly drained you.”
“Two liters is nowhere close to draining me.”
“It’s close to emptying you out enough that you die. Which counts as draining to me.” He shakes his head. “I’m so sorry, Grace. About hurting you. About your parents. About everything.”
“You didn’t hurt me. You saved me. Alma said you got me here before any permanent damage could be done.”
He doesn’t answer, just kind of shakes his head as his jaw works furiously.
“I gave you my blood, because you were going to die without it.” I take his face in my hands and look him straight in the eye so he can see that I mean what I’m saying. “And the truth is, it wasn’t a sacrifice. It was as selfish as I could get, because now that I’ve found you, I’m not okay with being in a world where you don’t exist.”