Just like that, my anger drains away. Because it’s not Jaxon’s fault his brother is a douche who will use any means necessary to get his way.
“No, of course not. I’m so sorry. I think researching gargoyles is a great idea. I’ve been wanting to do that since I got back.”
“Are you sure?” Jaxon rests his hand over mine and squeezes gently. “I understand if you need to—”
“I need to be with you,” I answer, ignoring the residual tightness in my stomach left over from Hudson’s assholery. “And researching gargoyles—and how to get your brother out of my head once and for all—sounds like a really good idea right about now.”
“To be fair, figuring out how to get Hudson out of your head sounds like a really good idea to me all the time,” Jaxon tells me with a rueful shake of his head.
I laugh as I slip my hand out from under his. “You’re not wrong about that.”
I flip to the index at the back of the book and start looking for any topic that might be able to help us.
“So do you know anything about gargoyles?” I ask as I pull my notebook out of my backpack before settling down next to Jaxon. “I mean, surely some things are common knowledge, right? Like how even people who don’t believe in them know that vampires can’t come into a room uninvited or dragons like to hoard treasure.” I pause as I rethink what I said. “Actually, I guess I don’t know for sure that’s true about dragons—”
“Oh, it’s true,” Jaxon tells me with a grin. But the grin fades pretty quickly into a thoughtful look as he taps his fingers on the table and stares off into space for several seconds.
“There are a lot of stories about gargoyles from the old days,” he says eventually. “I’m not old enough to have met any—my father killed them all long before I was born.”
His last sentence falls on the table like a grenade, one that takes a full three seconds before it explodes—and takes me with it. “Your father killed them?” I ask, and I can’t keep the shock out of my voice.
“Yeah,” he answers, and I’ve never seen him look more deeply ashamed.
“How?” I whisper.
I meant how did he kill them all, but Jaxon takes my question literally. “Gargoyles can die, Grace. Not easily, but they can. Of course, for the gargoyle king, he decided to kill him personally with an eternal bite.”
Eternal bite? A shiver skates along my spine. “What’s that?”
Jaxon sighs. “It’s my father’s gift. One bite is deadly. Absolutely no one has ever survived. Not even the gargoyle king himself.”
I make a mental note to not get within biting distance of the king. Ever. “But the rest he just slaughtered the good old-fashioned way?”
“Well, his armies did, yes.” He chuckles, but there’s no humor in it. “Apparently a predilection for genocide runs in my family.”
The word “genocide” slams into me with the power of a set of brass knuckles. I can’t imagine anything worse for Hudson to have done, can’t imagine how depraved—how downright evil—
“Oi, you can bugger right off with that!” Hudson suddenly shouts, coming back into the main area from the shadowy aisle.
The sudden towering rage in Hudson’s voice has my eyes going wide and my heart pumping way too fast. It’s so huge, so overwhelming, that I can feel it threatening the barricade I put up in my head. Can feel the cracks deep inside as the wall trembles.
“Hudson?” I manage to choke out. “Are you—”
But he’s not done yet, his voice—and his insults—getting more British by the second. “Don’t you fucking come at me with that bullshite, you fucking wanker! You’re a daft bastard, and I’m fucking sick of you swanning around like the bloody little fucking bastard that you are!”
Again, the wall trembles. Again, more cracks spring up, and I try desperately to patch them even as I work to calm him down. “Hudson. Hey, Hudson.”
He ignores me. He’s pacing back and forth in front of the circulation desk as he yells more insults at Jaxon—who is completely oblivious to the fact that his older brother has just called him a rat-arsed git.
Jaxon gets to his feet now—I guess it’s hard to miss that something is wrong as I chase Hudson around the front half of the library—fists clenched and eyes wild with concern as he stares at me. It’s obvious he’s trying to find a way to fight his brother without hurting me, but he can’t figure it out…because the only place Hudson really exists right now is inside me.
When he looks like he’s going to say something else, I hold up a hand to settle him back down. The last thing we need is for him to say something else that sets Hudson off again.
He doesn’t look happy, but he nods and slowly unclenches his fists. Convinced he isn’t going to say anything else, I turn and walk over to Hudson.
“Hey, now. Hey, look at me.” I put a hand on his shoulder. “Come on, Hudson. Take a deep breath and look at me, okay?”
He whirls around then, and the look he turns on me is filled with such fulminating fury, such absolute, abject betrayal, that I can’t help but stumble back a couple of steps.
I don’t know if it was the stumble or the look on my face, but whatever it is, it brings Hudson back down in an instant. He doesn’t apologize for his outburst, doesn’t try to explain it. But he stops swearing, stops looking like he wants to tear the entire library—and Jaxon—apart. And skulks off to sit in one of the chairs by the window, his back to me.
I turn around to find Jaxon staring, and there’s an edge in his eyes that has a chill working its way down my spine. Not because I think he’ll hurt me—Jaxon would never do that—but because it makes him feel far away from me, distant in a way I didn’t expect and don’t know how to handle.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I don’t mean to hurt you. It’s just hard to ignore someone throwing a tantrum in my head. I wish I could,” I tell him. “Even more, I wish he wasn’t there at all. But he is, and I’m trying, Jaxon. I’m really trying.”
The ice in his gaze melts at my words, and his whole body softens. “I know.” He reaches for my hand, pulls me close. “You’re handling so much right now. I wish I could take it all away from you.”
“That’s not your job.”
“I’m your mate.” He looks vaguely insulted. “If it’s not my job, whose is it?”
“Mine,” I whisper, going on tiptoes to press my lips, very softly, to his. “You’re just the moral support.”