115

He Totally
Deserved That

Panic fills me—wild, overwhelming, desperate—as I realize this isn’t about the ball. It isn’t about the game or even about the Circle itself. This is about Cole and how much he despises me. More proof—if there was any doubt—that Cole has never given a damn about the Trial. He only cares about hurting me.

Which makes him a million times more dangerous.

Get up! the voice deep inside me says. Get him off. He’ll kill you.

I want to shoot back, Thanks, Captain Obvious, but the beast doesn’t deserve my snark. He’s just trying to help.

My hands are on top of Cole’s now, my nails scoring his skin as I try to pry his fingers from around my throat. But he’s a werewolf, with werewolf strength, and I can’t get him off me no matter what I do.

And I do a lot.

I twist and buck and kick and claw and try to roll over, anything to make him let go, anything to dislodge his grip for even a second, but he doesn’t budge.

Suddenly, I sense the weird feeling again, the one that says we’re about to exit the portal, and I brace myself for my one chance to run, to get away.

But even as the portal empties us onto the field, shooting us out, Cole’s fingers don’t dislodge.

We hit the ground fast and hard, and Cole grunts in pain. I take that one split second of inattention and try to run with it, body bucking wildly even as I reach for the platinum string inside me.

If I can change back to my gargoyle form, I can end this right now—he can’t strangle stone, after all—but no matter how hard I try, I can’t do it. Keeping Cole from tightening his fingers and crushing my windpipe is taking every ounce of energy and focus I have. Grabbing on to the platinum string takes concentration and precision, and I’ve got neither going on right now.

Suddenly, the ball flies out of the portal, too, smacking Cole in the side of the face. He doesn’t so much as flinch. To be honest, I’m not even sure he knows it hit him—once again reinforcing the idea that this Trial doesn’t mean shit to him.

Get up now! the Unkillable Beast orders me again.

I’m trying, I really am. But I can’t catch my breath, and I can barely think. Everything is going gray and cloudy inside my head.

There’s a part of me that knows Cam just ran by and scooped up the ball, so I have a fleeting thought that I’ve already lost this game.

And then another fleeting thought about how fucked-up everything is if that’s what I’m worried about right now, when death seems a much more imminent concern.

Desperate, I try to reach for Hudson’s power—pretty sure now’s the time to use it—but I can’t unlock it, can’t focus without oxygen to sift through the memories enough to find the one where he left—

“Grace!” Hudson’s shout echoes across the field. “Get up! Get away from him, now!”

I want to, I really want to, but I can’t. The darkness is coming over me, swallowing me whole, and I’m fading, fading, fad—

But before I do, I turn my head just a little to get a glimpse of Hudson, and that’s when I see them—Macy and Jaxon and Hudson on the sidelines of an arena gone silent with shaken spectators.

Macy is standing by the fence that separates the field from the stands, screaming at the Circle.

Jaxon still looks half dead, but he’s got murder in his eyes as he rests both hands on the magical wall. He’s sending quakes of energy to unseat Cole, but the witch’s magic is holding and he’s only shaking the spectators instead.

And Hudson… Hudson is laser focused on me. His eyes are pinned to my face with an intensity that makes it impossible not to feel him and imagine him still in my head.

“Get that bloody wanker off you, Grace!” he orders me.

I don’t know if it’s the Britishism or the intensity of his voice, but suddenly it feels like he’s inside my head again instead of all the way across the stadium. Snarking at me to stand on my own two feet, telling me I’m a badass, that I’m stronger than I think. Pushing me to try again, to reach inside me for my platinum string. And this time, even though I know it’s too far, that I don’t have the strength to grab it, I strain my fingers just enough to brush against its soft glow.

And with my last ounce of breath, I shift my knee into solid stone—and shove it straight into Cole’s balls.

He yelps like a kicked puppy, and I’m not going to lie, a part of me is disappointed he doesn’t disappear instantly from a mortal injury. I’ll just have to comfort myself with the image of him limping for a bit, and regardless, his hands are no longer around my throat as he falls over to cup his injured flesh, and I can finally, finally breathe.

I roll onto my hands and knees, coughing my head off as I suck air into my oxygen-deprived lungs. I tell myself I need to get up, I need to keep moving, but there’s a part of me that knows it’s already too late.

Cam picked up the ball what seems like a lifetime ago. He’s won.