Memories so devastating, all I want to do is run away and hide.
“Hey, everything is going to be okay,” Macy says, voice tentative but eyes concerned.
“‘Okay’ might be a stretch.” I roll over so that I’m staring at the ceiling, but I barely see it. Instead, all I see are their eyes.
One dark pair, one light.
Both tormented.
Both waiting for something I don’t know how to give them and an answer I don’t even know how to begin to find.
I know what I feel. I love Jaxon.
And Hudson, well, that’s more complicated. Not love, which I’m worried is not what he wants to hear. Yes, my pulse races when he’s near, but objectively, the guy is next-level gorgeous. Any person in their right mind would be attracted to him. Plus, there’s now this mating bond between us that is causing me to feel things that aren’t really there as well. At least not that I want them to be.
After everything he did for me, after the bond I realize we built over those weeks trapped together, I don’t want to disappoint him and tell him I don’t feel more than friendship for him.
I groan again. There I go, assuming Hudson even wants to be mated to me. He might be as mad at the universe as I am for putting us in this awkward situation.
Macy lets out a long sigh, then climbs off her bed and settles onto the end of mine. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to push.”
“Your pushing isn’t what upset me. It’s just…” I trail off, not sure how to vocalize the confusion roiling around inside me.
“Everything?” She fills in the blank I left, and I nod, because yeah, everything is a hell of a lot.
Silence stretches between us, long and uncomfortable. I wait for Macy to give up, to go back to her own bed and forget about this dumpster fire of a conversation, but she doesn’t move. Instead, she leans back against the wall and watches me with a calm patience that isn’t exactly her normal modus operandi.
I’m not sure if it’s the silence or the way she’s watching me or the need to spill my guts that’s been building all day, but the tension ratchets higher and higher until finally I blurt out the truth I’ve been trying to hide from everyone, even myself. “I really, really don’t think I’m strong enough to do this.”
I don’t know exactly what reaction I expect Macy to have to my confession—in a split second I imagine everything from her lavishing sympathy on me to her telling me to suck it up, buttercup with a hard edge that has nothing to do with me and everything to do with how things are going pretty awful for her, too.
In the end, though, she does the one thing I don’t expect. The one thing I’ve never even considered. She bursts out laughing. “Well, no shit, Sherlock. I’d be worried if you actually thought you could deal with all of this on your own.”
“Really?” I’m flummoxed. And maybe a little insulted—does she really think I’m so incompetent? Just because I know I’m a mess doesn’t mean I want everyone else to know, too. “Why?”
“Because you’re not alone, and you don’t have to go it alone. That’s what I’m here for. That’s what all of us are here for—especially your boyfriends.”
I narrow my eyes at her plural use of the word—and the emphasis she put on it. “Boyfriend,” I correct, stressing the hard d on the end. “One, not two.” I hold up my index finger just to make sure she gets it. “One boyfriend.”
“Oh, right. One. Of course.” Macy shoots me a sly look. “Sooooo, just to be clear. Which vampire is that exactly?”
2
My Achy Breaky Bond
“You’re obnoxious,” I tease. “But would you mind if we focus on what really matters? Graduating high school?”
Between losing my parents, transferring schools, and missing four months while I did my best impression of a waterspout, I’m about as behind as I can get and still be a senior. Which means if I don’t finish the extra projects I’ve been assigned and pass all my finals, I’m going to be a senior again next year, too. And that is not acceptable, no matter how much Macy would like me to stick around another year. I mean, if Hudson can make up classes after being dead, for God’s sake, I can make them up, too.
“You know that’s the real reason I’m burying my head, don’t you?” I finally admit. “Because there’s no way I can deal with the ridiculous amount of work I have to make up and try to figure out what to do about Cyrus or the Circle or—”
“Your mate?” Macy smiles ruefully and holds up a hand before I can protest. “Sorry, couldn’t resist. But you’re right, as much as I’d wish it otherwise, you seem to really want to graduate.” She walks over and grabs her laptop off her desk. “So, as your self-appointed best friend, it’s up to me to make sure that happens. You’ve got a presentation due for Dr. Veracruz’s class on magical history, right? I heard some other seniors talking about it.”
“Yeah.” I nod. “Everyone had to pick a subject discussed in class this year, then write and present a ten-page paper about some aspect of that topic we didn’t have time to go over. She says it’s so that we all get a more well-rounded knowledge of the different parts of history, but I think she’s just trying to torture us.”
Macy climbs back on her bed and types something on her laptop. “I know just the topic for you to research!”
“Oh yeah?” I ask, rolling over and sitting up.
“Yes,” she says. “You guys discussed mating bonds, right? I’ve been dying to take this class just for that reason. Well, you’re a walking example of something not discussed in class.”
I shake my head. “Unfortunately, I missed that lecture, but Flint told me it’s possible to be mated to more than one person in your lifetime. I’m not the only person to ever have more than one mate.”
Macy pauses her typing and looks up at me, one brow arched. “Yes, but you’re the only one to ever have a mating bond severed by something other than death.”
“It’s never happened to anyone else?” I repeat, my heart pounding in my chest. “Really?” It seems so hard to believe, but also too terrible to believe. If no one has ever experienced this before, how are we going to fix it? What are we going to do? And why, why, why did it happen to Jaxon and me?
“No one,” Macy reiterates. “Mating bonds never break, Grace. They just don’t. They can’t. It’s a law of nature or something.” She pauses and looks down at her hands resting on her keyboard. “Except, somehow, yours did.”