Crush

by Tracy Wolff

  “Cheers to that,” Flint says, raising his soda. “Besides, sometimes—”

  “Careful just doesn’t get the job done,” Jaxon joins in with a huge grin.

  “Damn straight.” Flint nods with satisfaction at what must be an inside joke between the two, before clapping his hands together. “So, just to be clear, we’re doing this thing tomorrow morning?”

  “Damn straight,” Eden agrees, and everyone nods.

  “Wait a minute—aren’t we getting ahead of ourselves?” I ask. “I mean, we don’t even know where the Boneyard is yet, do we?”

  “We do,” Flint says, exchanging a glance with Eden. “I talked to my grandma about it, but I also asked Eden to talk to her grandma the other day when you asked me, and she got the deets.”

  “The good news is, we won’t have to travel very far,” Eden says. “The bad news is, Grand-mère says only someone with a death wish would go there. Almost no one makes it out alive.”

  78

  Talk About a

  Bone to Pick

  “No one makes it out alive?” Macy says, eyes wide. “Wow, that sounds like fun.”

  “Don’t worry, Mace,” Xavier answers. “We can handle a bunch of old bones.”

  “It’s a little more complicated than that,” Flint tells him.

  “But we can do it,” Eden says. “I know it.”

  “On the plus side, it can’t be worse than going after a beast that’s impossible to kill,” I interject. “Just saying.”

  “Love that optimism,” Mekhi tells me. Then looks out at the group. “I say we go for it.”

  “Tomorrow, five a.m.,” Jaxon orders before asking Flint and Eden, “Where do we need to meet?”

  “The tunnels,” Flint answers, and my stomach drops. But it is what it is. Sometimes you just have to put your head down and get the bad stuff done, even if you don’t want to.

  “Sounds good to me,” Xavier says as he picks up his box and soda can and throws them in the recycling container at the top of the stairs. The rest of us follow suit, and the party breaks up soon after.

  The tournament took a lot out of all of us, and no one wants to stick around for a late night. Except me… Hudson is sound asleep now, so spending a little time with my mate without his brother butting in every ten seconds sounds like heaven.

  I wait until Flint leaves—no reason to rub things in—before I settle on the sofa next to Jaxon and lift his hand to my mouth. He watches me with blazing-hot eyes for several seconds, then wraps his arms around me and pulls me against his body.

  We both sigh at the contact. “You feel really good,” he tells me.

  “So do you.” I lift my head and wait for him to kiss me, but he just drops a peck on my lips. Which is nice, but definitely not what I’m going for here.

  I stretch up and kiss him this time, but again he pulls away after a second.

  I can’t decide if he’s doing it on purpose because he’s trying to be funny or if there’s a problem I don’t know about. But when I search his face, he smiles warmly, like he’s having a great time.

  And that’s when I decide to take matters into my own hands. Standing up, I hold out a hand to him and say, “Come on, let’s go”—I add air quotes for what I’m now thinking should be our forever secret code for “make out”—“watch the aurora borealis.”

  He looks confused. “You want to go see the northern lights? Now?”

  “Yes, now!” I would stomp my foot like a petulant child, except I’m afraid the sudden movement will wake up Hudson. And that’s the last thing I want.

  “O-kay.” Jaxon gives me a weird look as we move toward his bedroom—and the parapet outside his window. “Any particular reason why? I mean, I’m fine with it. I just—”

  I grab him by the sweater and yank him down toward me so that I can slam my lips onto his.

  “Oh,” he murmurs in surprise. Then a deeper, “Oh,” as he wraps his arms around me and picks me up and carries me to his bed, our mouths still locked together.

  He turns so that he’s the one who hits the bed first, and I land on top of him. I straddle his hips with my knees and start kissing my way along his neck, relishing the way he feels against me. Hard. Strong. Perfect.

  Jaxon groans and tilts his head back to give me better access, even as his hands mold my hips. “Wait,” he gasps as I kiss the razor-sharp edge of his jaw. “What about Hudson?”

  “Asleep,” I answer, my hands sliding underneath his shirt to stroke the warm skin of his stomach.

  He groans and then rolls us until I’m stretched out underneath him. “Why didn’t you say so?” he asks, leaning on his elbows right above me.

  “I tried. What do you think the whole ‘aurora borealis’ thing was all about?”

  He looks confused. “What do you mean—” He breaks off as understanding dawns. “Wait a minute. That was your move?”

  “I wouldn’t exactly call it a move.” I frown at him, but he’s already shaking his head and laughing.

  “I never would have guessed it. The aurora borealis as a move.” He gives me a nod of respect. “That’s smooth. I like it.”

  “Obviously not that smooth,” I tell him, “since we’re talking about it instead of kissing under it.”

  “Well, by all means, let’s get back to it, then. I’d hate to disappoint you.” He waves a hand and his curtains slide out of the way, showing the aurora borealis shimmering just beyond his window.

  And then he’s kissing me and it feels so good. So right. His mouth moving on mine. His hair tickling my cheek. His hands slipping under my sweater and sliding against my skin.

  I arch in to him, tangling our legs together as he skims his lips down my neck and across my collarbone. I tilt my head to the side, offering him my neck—offering him my vein—and his fangs scrape gently against my skin.

  Anticipation slides down my spine. I’ve missed this so much. I move against him, tangle my hands in his hair, and—my phone alarm goes off, blaring obnoxiously in the silence.

  Jaxon pulls away with a groan. “What is that for?”

  “I’m supposed to FaceTime with Heather tonight.” I sit up and pull my phone out so I can swipe off the alarm. “Let me just text her and say I’ll call in a little—”

  “It can’t be morning already,” Hudson complains with a groan.

  “And fuck, just fuck. Hudson’s up.” I flop back down on the bed and stare up at the ceiling.

  Jaxon takes one look at my face and does the same. “He always was a light sleeper. Even when we were kids.”

  “Yeah, well, it comes from never knowing if your father was going to come into the room and try to kill you or your younger brother,” Hudson snipes back, his voice a little stiff as he must figure out what was going on while he slept.

  “That’s awful,” I whisper, my opinion of Cyrus—and Delilah—sinking even lower, and honestly, I didn’t think that was possible.

  I can feel Hudson shrug in my mind.

  “What’s wrong?” Jaxon asks, rolling onto his side so he can get a better look at my face. “Are you nervous about tomorrow?”

  I take the out, not willing to betray Hudson’s confidence. “I am, actually. What if it’s as bad as Eden’s grandmother says?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Jaxon answers with a confident smile. “I’ll protect you.”

  “That’s not the point.” I sit up, annoyed by his sudden “I’m the guy; I’ve got this” attitude. “The point is we’re asking a lot of people we care about to risk their lives to help me. I don’t want to see anyone get hurt.”

  “I’m telling you, I’ve got this,” Jaxon says. “I can protect all of you. It’s what I do.”

  “And I keep telling you that I don’t want someone to protect me. I want to stand on my own two feet, beside my mate, not behind him—” I break off as the FaceT
ime ring starts coming from my phone.

  “What?” Jaxon asks, looking confused.

  I don’t answer him. Instead, I hold my phone up and say, “I’ve got to take this. I haven’t talked to Heather in forever.” I drop an absent-minded kiss on the top of his head before walking through the alcove toward the stairs. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “I’ve gotta say, Grace,” Hudson tells me as I swipe to answer Heather’s call, “you never cease to surprise me.”

  79

  Talk About a

  Trust Fall

  The next morning, I fire off a couple of quicks texts to Heather as Macy and I hustle down the last hallway toward the tunnels.

  Me: So good to FINALLY talk to you last night

  Me: Can’t believe your parents bought you a ticket to Alaska for your bday!!!!! Can’t wait to see you xoxoxo

  It was so good to talk to her last night that I never wanted to hang up. I miss her so much and can’t believe she forgave me for my four-month absence as easily as she did. I was totally prepared to grovel.

  Instead, I found out she’s going to come visit me for spring break…if I survive the next few days, anyway. And if I can figure out how to break the news to her that paranormals exist and that I’m a gargoyle. I could try to hide it, but there’s no way I’m bringing her here and treating her the way they treated me when I first got to Katmere. No damn way.

  Heather: Me too!! Also, calculus sucks balls

  “We’re here,” Macy says, just as she and I step into the dungeon where Eden had texted everyone to meet her. I’ll admit my heart stuttered last night when I realized that must mean the Dragon Boneyard was beneath the school—near the dungeons.

  Although honestly, once I thought about it, it wasn’t entirely unexpected. I mean, I’d already guessed Katmere was more closely tied to the dragons than any other faction, what with the jewels embedded in the tunnel walls and bone corridors. In one of my hours of research in the library, I’d stumbled upon a whole history of the school.

  Turns out Katmere hadn’t always been a school.

  It had started as a dragon lair.

  And not just any dragon lair but the original ruling family’s lair. They’d sided with Cyrus in the Second Great War, though, and as a concession after their loss, the lair had been claimed and Katmere established to foster interspecies relationships by making all the factions school together.

  I’d asked once what happened to the original family, since I knew it wasn’t Flint’s parents, but Flint just shrugged and said most of them died in the war, and no one really knew where the rest scattered.

  So much loss and tragedy in this supernatural world. And for what? So one group is in charge and another isn’t? Is it really all about power?

  “It rarely is,” Hudson says, and I walk over to where he’s idly running his fingertips along the jeweled walls. He’s been in a funk all morning, and I’m going to need him to check his attitude at the door if I hope to keep my wits about me in the Boneyard. Hudson can make me forget everything else in a blink when he pushes my buttons. Zero to sixty in 2.8 seconds.

  “What are you, a Bugatti?” he asks. “That’s the only car in the world that can go that fast.”

  “When you start bugging me, yeah,” I answer, and he groans.

  “Worst. Pun. Ever.”

  “I do what I can,” I tell him with a grin before glancing back at the group. Jaxon and Flint are discussing potential issues before we enter the Boneyard, Macy is checking her wand and swapping small potion bottles back and forth from her backpack to a pouch wrapped around her waist, and Eden and Xavier are betting each other over who can carry back the heaviest bone. My heart fills with pride at my newfound family.

  At least until Xavier demands of Macy, “Are you wearing a fanny pack?”

  Macy doesn’t even spare him a look as she answers, “It’s my potion accessory kit.”

  “Don’t you mean your potion ASSessory kit?” he shoots back with a sly, wolfish smile.

  We all laugh, even as I turn to Hudson and say softly, “You know we’re risking our lives for you, right?”

  “Yeah, that’s why you’re all doing it,” he scoffs. “More like to stop me from feeding on your precious Jaxon.”

  I shake my head. “Well, it’s why I’m doing it.”

  That makes him pause. He stares at me for several long seconds, his indigo eyes blazing into mine with a dozen emotions I can’t begin to name. I wait for him to put a voice to one of them, wait for him to say something—anything—that will help me understand why he’s being so difficult right now.

  And for a minute, it looks like he’s actually going to do it. Like he’ll open his mouth and say something that has some emotional depth to it.

  But in the end, he just shakes his head and looks away. Shoves a rough hand through his hair. Does anything and everything but actually talk to me about something that matters.

  He does, however, say, “Then by all means let me get my pom-poms ready.”

  And there we go. Zero to one hundred and sixty. “Fine. And to get you out of my damn head so I don’t have to listen to you ruin my mood ever again.” I huff and give him my back. We’re all very likely about to die. Would it really kill him to just say thanks?

  Jaxon motions everyone over, steps into the first cell, and starts to plug the code into the door so we can get to the tunnels. But Flint stops him with a hand to the shoulder.

  “That’s not how we get to the tunnels that lead to the Boneyard.”

  “What do you mean?” Macy asks. “I thought you said the only way to find it is through the tunnels.”

  “It is.” Eden grins. “Just not those.”

  Flint motions for all of us to join him at the back of the cell, where one of the walls appears to have several gemstones embedded in a crude circle of emerald, ruby, sapphire, obsidian, amethyst, tourmaline, topaz, and citrine. He taps each gem as though entering a safe code, then steps back.

  A couple of seconds later the floor under my feet rumbles ominously, and then the huge stones inside the circle of gems move back one by one, until we’re all staring at a small, round tunnel in the middle of the wall.

  “So who wants to go into the creepy hole first?” Macy jokes, and everyone laughs, but no one rushes to raise their hand.

  “Well, you’re all in luck, because I think it’s going to have to be a dragon.” Flint’s eyes twinkle with devilish excitement. He turns to Eden and asks, “Should we tell them what’s on the other side? Or more specifically, what’s not?”

  Eden rolls her eyes at him. “Yeah, I’m not risking a werewolf bite or fang to the neck in panic.” She turns to address us. “As you know, these tunnels were built for dragons…who can fly. So on the other side of this tunnel…there’s no ground for a bit. For Grace, who can fly—and Jaxon—when it launches you into the air, obviously, do your thing and you’ll be fine. For the rest of you, just count to thirty before each person goes in, and Flint or I will catch you on the other side.”

  She nods as though that’s that, grabs the small ledge above the hole, and swings her whole body inside in one fluid motion, feet first. And then disappears.

  Flint jokes, “I love this part,” before he, too, jumps into the hole and disappears.

  The rest of us just stand there, looking from one to the other, wondering if they’re messing with us or if we’re really expected to just jump and let gravity do its thing. Either way, none of us is particularly excited about being the first one to jump.

  Jaxon grabs my hand and says, “Hey, no worries. I’ll catch you.”

  Before I can point out that I actually have wings and can “catch” myself, thank you very much, Xavier responds with, “Dude, she has wings. You better catch me instead. No way do I want a dragon’s talon through my heart.”

  Everyone nervously laughs, and we tacit
ly agree as a group that yeah, Jaxon should be the one to “catch” everyone without wings, so he jumps in the hole next. I wait to hear a scream or a splat or something, but this is Jaxon, so…nothing.

  Since I’m the last one of those left who can fly, I take a deep breath and walk up to the hole and peer in. It goes down pretty far pretty fast… My heart starts racing for all the wrong reasons.

  “Don’t worry,” Hudson says with a deliberately smug look on his face from the spot where he’s been leaning against a wall the whole time, “Jaxon will catch you.”

  And that does it. I glare at him and lift my chin right before I turn back to the hole and jump straight in.

  80

  A Gargoyle’s Guide

  to Antigravity

  I try to play it cool, but it’s a long, long, long way down, and I end up screaming before I hit the first turn. Beneath me, the stone is smooth and slick, and that only helps me pick up speed as I zip around each crook and bend, still heading on a massive descent. Honestly, it kind of reminds me of a slip-and-slide water park in San Diego, and I’m grinning madly by the end…at least until the bottom gives way and the tunnel ejects me out into a dark and yawning void.

  Black hole anyone?

  My lungs—and everything else—tighten up as terror rips through me, but somehow I manage to shift in midair, my wings catching me before I fall more than a couple of feet. I can tell the cavern is small in the near-pitch-darkness, because I can hear the echo of our wings flapping, but not much else. Also, there must be water somewhere nearby, because wet, musty air coats my skin within seconds.

  I can feel Flint and Eden hovering next to me, but I can’t see them all that well as a shiver of fear skates along my spine. This place does not want me here; I can feel it in my bones. My inner voice is all but begging me to get the hell out of here, and I’ve never wanted to listen to it more.