“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.
“Yeah, but I can’t hold the ball longer than thirty seconds, so what am I supposed to do if I don’t have someone else to throw it to?”
“You’re a smart girl,” he answers. “You’ll figure it out.”
“If that isn’t the most Hudson thing you’ve ever said, I don’t know what is.”
He sighs, then reaches over and straightens my jacket, flipping the collar over and smoothing out the sleeves. As he does, I keep waiting for him to say something, but he doesn’t. Instead, he just sits there waiting, like he expects me to say something.
Usually, I can wait him out, but I’m cold and wet and empty and a whole lot of other things I’m not sure how to identify right now, and I don’t want to play this game with him. Especially not when he’s looking at me with that ridiculous pretty face.
“What am I supposed to do?” I finally explode. “Just go in there and throw the ball until Cole eviscerates me?”
“You’re Grace Foster, the only gargoyle born in the last thousand years. I say, go in there and do whatever the fuck you want…as long as that includes kicking Cole’s skinny wolf ass all over that arena.”
“What should I do? Turn him to stone?” I ask sarcastically.
“Sure, why not?” he answers. “And then shatter him with a sledgehammer. I promise you the world will be better off.”
“I can’t do that.”
“That’s what I keep trying to tell you, Grace. You can do whatever you want to do. Who saved Jaxon from Lia? Who won the Ludares tournament for her team? Who figured out what was going on with the Unkillable Beast? Who channeled enough magic from the aurora borealis to light up New York and got all her friends home? That was you, Grace. That was all you.
“You don’t have to be a dragon. You don’t have to be a vampire. You sure as shit don’t have to be a werewolf. You just have to get off your arse, go into that arena, and be the gargoyle girl we all know and love.”
“But it’s hard.” I give myself permission to whine for one more second.
“Yeah,” he agrees as he stands back up. “It is. But life’s hard. So either get in there and do what you have to do or get the fuck off the ride.”
“I tried to do that, if you remember correctly.” I pull myself up to my feet. “You wouldn’t let me.”
“You’re right, I wouldn’t. Total waste of the sexiest gargoyle girl to walk this earth in a thousand years.”
“I’m the only gargoyle girl to walk this earth in a thousand years.”
He gives me an arch look. “Damn straight you are. Now what are you going to do about it?”
I sigh. “Go into that arena and get hurt a lot but then win in the end and shove a burning hot ball right down Cole’s disgusting, ugly werewolf snout.”
“Sounds like a plan,” he tells me as we walk toward the arena.
“Thank you,” I tell him, because if it wasn’t for him, I’d still be lying on the snow willing myself to turn into a statue forever.
“You’re welcome.” He smiles slyly. “Gargoyle girl.”
“Call me that one more time, and I’m going to eviscerate you.”
“You’ll have to catch me first,” he tells me.
“You live in my head. How hard could that be?” I counter. “Besides, I’d catch you even if you didn’t.”
“Oh yeah?” Both brows go up this time. “Why’s that?”
“Because I’m a gargoyle, bitch. And it may have been a thousand years since they’ve had to deal with one of my kind, but that ends now.”
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