My parents are dead.
My memory is gone.
My mating bond is gone.
Why on earth would I go in there to fight?
I’ve got nothing left to fight for.
The clouds creep ever closer, blocking out the last remnants of light as sleet begins to fall, the rain and ice stinging my skin, leaching the last little bit of warmth from inside me.
A heavy lassitude overtakes me. It has my eyes closing and my mind wandering and my breathing slowing to almost nothing. There’s a voice deep in my head telling me that it’s okay, that I can just stay right here. That I can rock shut as a seashell and let the stone take me.
I don’t remember the last three months. Maybe if I stay stone long enough, I won’t remember any of this, either.
I take one last breath and then let go.
108
Pom-Poms and
Pompadours
“Grace! Grace! Can you hear me?
“Damn it, Grace, can. You. Hear. Me?
“Don’t do this. Don’t you dare do this again. Don’t you fucking dare.
“Get up! Damn it, Grace, I said get up!”
“Stop it.” I don’t even know who I’m talking to; I just know that there’s a voice in my head, and it won’t go away. It won’t let me be. All I want to do is sleep, and it just keeps talking and talking and talking.
“Oh my God, there you are! Grace, please. Please come back. Please don’t turn to stone.
“Grace? Grace? So help me God, Grace, if you don’t wake up right now, I’m going to—”
“What?” I demand, cranky and pissed off and more than ready to bite the head off whoever it is who keeps bugging the hell out of me.
“Get up! I mean it. You need to get off this snow. You need to get into that arena. Now!”
I creak one eye open and see him staring back down at me with those ridiculous blue eyes of his. “Ugh, Hudson. I should have known it was you. Go away.”
“I will not go away.” His voice is all British again, dripping with perfect syllables and indignation. “I’m saving you.”
“What if I don’t want to be saved?”
“Since when has what you wanted even been of paramount importance to me?” he demands.
“You make a good point.”
“I always make a good point,” he snaps. “You’re just usually too busy hating me to listen.”
“I’m still too busy hating you to listen.” But I push myself up into a sitting position.
“Good. Hate me all you want. But get your ass up and get into that arena before you forfeit everything.”
“I don’t have a mate anymore,” I tell him.
He blows out a long breath. “I know the bond with Jaxon broke.”
“If by broke you mean it was ripped apart by fucking Cole, then yes. It broke.”
He looks down at me for long seconds, then sighs and settles on the snow next to me in his black Armani trousers and dark-red dress shirt.
“Why do you look so good?” I demand, feeling exceptionally annoyed by his ridiculously pretty face.
“Excuse me?” He lifts a brow.
I hold my hands up. “It’s sleeting. Why aren’t you wet? Why do you look like you just walked off a runway?”
“Because I’m not currently rolling around in the snow feeling sorry for myself?” he asks.
“You’re a douche.” I make a face at him. “You know that, right?”
“It’s a gift.”
“More like a curse,” I tell him.
“All gifts are curses in one way or another, don’t you think? Otherwise, why would we be here?” he answers.
I turn my head so I can get a good look at his face as I try to figure out what he means. But after a solid sixty seconds of staring at him, I still don’t have a clue. I do, however, know that his blue eyes have a lot of green flecks in them.
“You’re looking at me strangely,” he says, tilting his head questioningly.
“I’m trying to figure out if you meant that existentially or if you meant it—”
“No, I didn’t mean it existentially!” he barks at me. “I meant, why else would we be sitting out here in the bloody snow when your arse should be in that arena right now?”
“I already told you, I. Don’t. Have. A. Mate.”
“Who. Cares.”
“What do you mean?” I demand. “I can’t compete without a mate.”
“Sure you can. There is no rule on the books that says you have to take your mate in there with you,” he tells me.