“Does it matter?” Hudson responds. “You were always going to pay for this, whether I was here or not.”
“She cheated. The rules are very clear—only a mate can help you pass the test, and she has no mate. Cole made sure—”
My heart stutters in my chest, rage and regret burning inside me at what Cyrus just revealed. He did know what Cole had planned—had maybe even put him up to it.
I want to say something to Cyrus, want to call him on the atrocity—or atrocities—he committed today, but I don’t have the strength to fight anymore. It’s taking every inch of strength I have left to try to follow what’s going on. Arguing is impossible. And it wouldn’t matter anyway—what’s done is done, and it’s not like getting him to admit his complicity changes anything. I just want him to leave me to die in peace.
Hudson doesn’t argue, either. He just stares his father down, face blank and eyes blazing, until it’s obvious that Cyrus starts to get uncomfortable, his face growing pale as he shifts back and forth. But still he blusters. Still he pits his arrogance against Hudson’s strength.
“You know the rules,” he says. “She cheated.”
“She did not cheat,” Hudson tells him. And neither says a word for a second, maybe more. “And I will find a way to heal her. She will rule the Circle one day.”
Cyrus turns pale and panicked at Hudson’s words, his eyes darting back and forth between us. “No gargoyle will ever rule the Circle again,” he tells us. “Just suggesting it is to invite genocide against your own species, Hudson.”
“No, that’s your trick. That’s what you brought to your people,” Hudson snaps back. “And to too many others. Besides, pretty soon you’ll be too busy healing to worry about who sits on the Circle and who doesn’t.”
“Healing from what? I’m—”
Hudson cuts him off with a wave of his hand.
And just like that, Cyrus screams in agony…as he seems to melt before my very eyes.
123
It All Comes
Crashing Down
“What was that?” I whisper, torn between trying to watch what happens to Cyrus and closing my eyes and resting my head against Hudson’s chest.
The closed eyes win, mostly because I’m so tired and everything hurts so much. But also because the little bit I just saw—Cyrus’s body literally caving in on itself like he imploded from the inside—might be the most terrifying thing I’ve ever witnessed.
“Nothing for you to worry about. The bastard’s bones will regrow…eventually,” Hudson answers softly and smooths the hair around my face. But when I lay my head on his chest and try to block out the stomach-churning pain, he tells me firmly, “Don’t go to sleep, Grace.”
“I don’t think vampire bites work the same way as concussions.” I drag each word from my screaming lungs, trying to make a joke so I can see Hudson smile one last time.
“Yeah, because that’s what I’m worried about,” he jokes back as he scoops me up into his arms and carries me across the field. “You having a concussion.”
Jaxon and Macy finally get to us, and Jaxon demands, “Let me have her,” but Hudson barely glances his way. He just keeps moving. He’s not fading, but he is striding out of the arena like a man on a mission.
The only thing he bothers to say is, “Push everyone back, make them leave this arena.”
I don’t know if Jaxon follows Hudson’s directions, but I no longer hear voices coming closer. Everything seems to be receding. Then again, that could be the poison working its way through my system.
“Grace, just hold on a little longer,” Macy tells me, her voice thick with tears. “We’ll figure this out. I swear, there has to be a spell, something. My dad is talking to all the witches and vampires on staff right now. They’re trying to find a way—”
She breaks off, unwilling to say what all of us are thinking, which is that it will take a lot more than a spell to save me now. Cyrus is too powerful, his bite too irrevocable. They can look all they want, but if what Hudson told me about his father the other night was true, they won’t find anything.
And much as I don’t want it to be true, the pain coursing through me right now says otherwise.
Still, I hate to see Macy like this. She’s devastated, her face crumpled and wet with tears she doesn’t even bother to try to stem. “It’s okay,” I soothe, because someone needs to. “You’re going to be okay.” I rub my hand against her arm, which is the only part of her I can reach.
“Where are you going?” Jaxon demands as Hudson continues to stride through the arena. “Where are you taking her?”
“I’ve got an idea,” he grinds out from between clenched teeth, his arms tightening around me. “It’s a long shot, but it’s better than sitting here waiting for her to die.”
The others wince, but I’m glad someone finally said it out loud. I’m going to die.
“What is it?” Macy whispers.
But Hudson isn’t listening anymore. Instead, he’s locked into the fury inside him, his wrath so great that it’s threatening to rise up and swallow us whole. I don’t know if the others can tell—his face is completely impassive—but I can feel it in the way he’s holding me. See it in his clenched jaw. Hear it in his ragged breathing and the too-fast pounding of his heart.
“It’s okay,” I try to tell him, but a stronger, deeper wave of pain chooses that exact moment to hit me, and I can’t stop myself from arching in his arms. From squeezing my eyes and fists and mouth shut as tightly as I can in an effort to stop the scream that wells in my throat.
“It’s not okay,” he growls as we finally step through the stadium doors into the snow and sleet.
The moment we do, there’s a wrenching sound behind us.
Macy gasps, her face going as white as the snow-capped mountains all around us. And a few seconds after that, the entire building starts collapsing in on itself. I watch over Hudson’s shoulder as wood and glass and stone and metal come tumbling down, the arena literally tearing itself apart piece by piece.
“What’s happening?” Macy squeaks out. “Jaxon, what are you doing?”
But Jaxon looks as ashen as she does as he shakes his head. “That’s not me.”
You don’t know what real power is.
Hudson’s words come back to me now, as does that moment when I was returning his powers to him—the moment when I realized just how infinite they really are.