“She’s not dead,” I tell them again as I stare into her beautiful face. Her eyes are closed just like they were in that last second in the hallway, but that doesn’t matter. I don’t need to see her eyes to know how she feels about me—it’s written all over her face. She loves me, almost as much as I love her.
“If she’s not dead—and I agree with you that she’s not,” Dr. Veracruz says, “then the only other option is she’s choosing not to come back.”
“You don’t know that. She could be trapped—”
“We do know that,” Amka reminds me firmly. “Gargoyles can’t get trapped in their stone forms. If they don’t change back to human, it’s because they don’t want to.”
“That’s not true. Hudson’s doing something to her. He’s—”
“Jaxon.” Foster’s voice slices through my denials. “Do you really think Grace would change back if she thought she was bringing a threat to Katmere?” The headmaster holds my gaze, eyes somehow both solemn and fierce at the same time as I will him not to say what he’s thinking—what we’re both thinking. “Or to you?”
Pain slices through me, destroying me. Eviscerating me where I stand. I can barely think, barely breathe, through the agony of knowing that he’s right. Of knowing that Grace might very well be suffering at this very moment—to save me.
I told her about Hudson, told her about my mother. She knows how much killing him nearly destroyed me. If coming back means bringing Hudson back with her, if it means making me kill my brother again, then there’s no way Grace would do it. No way she would let me face that.
“She’s saving me, isn’t she?” I whisper, barely loud enough for myself to hear it.
But Foster hears it, and he braces a hand on my shoulder. “I think she might be.”
There’s no might about it. Because Grace loves me. She’s already saved me once. I have no doubt that she’ll stay locked in stone for as long as she has to. She’ll stay locked in stone for as long as it takes to keep everyone she cares about here at Katmere safe.
And she’ll stay locked in stone forever if it means saving me again.
My heart starts racing at the realization. My hands shake, my breath turns choppy and it takes every ounce of strength I have to stay on my feet.
I can’t let her do it. I’ve barely made it through four days without Grace. No way can I make it through eternity without her.
For a moment, just a moment, I let myself remember all the little things I love about her. And ignore the fact that every memory breaks me a little more.
The way her eyes go all soft whenever she’s touching me.
The way those same eyes narrow when she’s about to call me out on my crap.
The way she laughs when she tells those awful jokes.
How do you cut the Roman Empire?
With a pair of Caesars.
That was a bad one. Hell, they were all bad ones, but that didn’t matter when she giggled up at me, so proud of herself.
Fuck, I miss her.
I miss her sugar-cookie-and-strawberry scent.
I miss her softness, the way her ridiculously hot body always curves so perfectly into mine.
I miss her curls.
This time when I reach out, it’s not to stroke her hair. It’s to cup her stone-cold cheek the way she always cupped mine.
And tell Foster something that I desperately hope Grace can hear, too. “I’m going to find a way to separate her from Hudson. And I’m going to contain or kill him or do whatever I have to, to make sure he’s never a threat to anybody ever again.”
“That might not be enough, Jaxon,” Amka says. “She might choose—”
“It’ll be enough,” I tell them. Because she loves me. Because she knows that I can’t last much longer without her.
I lean forward, press my forehead to hers for one second, two. And whisper, “I’m going to find a way to stop him, Grace. I swear. And then you’re going to come back to me. Because I need you. I need you to come home to me.”
I close my eyes and swallow down everything else I want to say. Because it doesn’t matter. Nothing does without Grace.
She has to make it back. Because if she doesn’t, I’m going to shatter. And this time, I’m not sure I’ll be strong enough not to take the whole world with me when I do.
End of book one
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look at three chapters from
Jaxon’s point of view.