Chapters (155)
- Copyright
- Dedication
- 1 Nearly Gutless Grace—Grace—
- 2 Head Space, Talk Space, Give Me Some Space—Grace—
- 3 I Do Like a Good Cup of Hurl Grey—Grace—
- 4 Every Little Thing He Does Is Not Magic—Grace—
- 5 Hot and Not So Heavy—Hudson—
- 6 In One Head and Out the Other—Grace—
- 7 Burning Down the Louse—Hudson—
- 8 Eat, Drink, and Be Wary—Grace—
- 9 From One Blink to the Necks—Grace—
- 10 Burning Your Britches—Hudson—
- 11 Sleep Like the Undead—Grace—
- 12 Grace on a Platter—Grace—
- 13 My Life Is an Open Phone—Grace—
- 14 Diary of a Vampire Kid—Grace—
- 15 The Best Defense Is More Defense—Hudson—
- 16 No Vamp Is an Island—Grace—
- 17 This Is How My Cookie Crumbles—Grace—
- 18 Trying to Lair Low—Hudson—
- 19 Put a String on It—Hudson—
- 20 All the Sizzle, None of the Heart—Hudson—
- 21 I’m Not RSVPing for This Pity Party—Grace—
- 22 All Cry, No Punishment—Grace—
- 23 Welcome to My Jungle—Hudson—
- 24 Dividing the Room in Styles—Grace—
- 25 I Mo, You Mo, We All Emo—Grace—
- 26 Re-Tweeting—Grace—
- 27 De-Briefing—Hudson—
- 28 It Dunks to Be Me—Grace—
- 29 How Do You Say Good-Pie?—Hudson—
- 30 Uneasy as Pie—Hudson—
- 31 Stalks and Bonds—Grace—
- 32 Some Bonds Can’t Be Unbroken—Grace—
- 33 Fake It or You Don’t Make It—Grace—
- 34 I Read You All Wrong—Grace—
- 35 Running Down a Nightmare—Grace—
- 36 Please Don’t Start the Fire—Grace—
- 37 You’re Dragon Me Down—Grace—
- 38 Waking Dawn—Hudson—
- 39 Keep Calm and Don’t Carry On—Hudson—
- 40 Don’t Farm It In—Grace—
- 41 Crop Till You Drop—Grace—
- 42 She’s Giving Me the Smokey Eye—Grace—
- 43 One Direction Is Not Just a Band—Hudson—
- 44 I Can Dish It Out If You Can Make It—Hudson—
- 45 Don’t Let the Bedvamps Bite—Hudson—
- 46 I Like to Sleep Tight, But Not This Tight—Grace—
- 47 You Really Stuck My Landing—Grace—
- 48 No Farm, No Foul—Grace—
- 49 Re-Veg Is Sweet—Hudson—
- 50 I’m Oh So Swan-Yay—Grace—
- 51 A Not So Savage Garden—Grace—
- 52 There Has to Be an Udder Way—Grace—
- 53 Suck It Up, Buttercup—Grace—
- 54 He’s Got Hangry Eyes—Hudson—
- 55 Afraid of My Own Shadow Queen—Hudson—
- 56 Baby Got Piggyback—Grace—
- 57 Cliffs Notes Got Nothing on Me—Hudson—
- 58 I Cave It My All—Grace—
- 59 I Know a Prick When I Smell One—Grace—
- 60 Tastes Like Teen Spirit—Hudson—
- 61 Carpe Drink-Em—Grace—
- 62 Dimples and Curls—Grace—
- 63 Tic-Tac-Toe and No Chill—Grace—
- 64 If I Could F(lie)—Hudson—
- 65 Live and Let’s Run—Grace—
- 66 Good Will Hugging—Grace—
- 67 The First Rule of Fright Club—Hudson—
- 68 I Have Friends in High Places—Grace—
- 69 Color Me Purple—Hudson—
- 70 Way Too Hidden Talents—Hudson—
- 71 Inn-stant Gratification—Grace—
- 72 Gone Wishin’—Grace—
- 73 My Lady in Red—Hudson—
- 74 1D-reams Come True—Grace—
- 75 Café Lotta Say—Hudson—
- 76 The Choux on the Wrong Foot—Grace—
- 77 Ah-Choux—Hudson—
- 78 All LinkedOut—Grace—
- 79 Getting the Red Ribbon Treatment—Hudson—
- 80 Starfalling for You—Hudson—
- 81 All’s Fair in Love and Ring Tosses—Grace—
- 82 Star Light, Star Bright—Grace—
- 83 On Top of the (Other)World—Grace—
- 84 It’s a Knock-Down, Dragon Fight—Hudson—
- 85 Dragon Me Over the Coals—Grace—
- 86 Go Stone or Go Home—Hudson—
- 87 Let Me Change into Something a Little More Stony—Grace—
- 88 Feather or Not, Here I Come!—Grace—
- 89 No One Wants to Catch These Cookies—Grace—
- 90 Sucker Brunch Me—Hudson—
- 91 I Know How to Hold My Drink—Hudson—
- 92 Drinks Are On Me—Grace—
- 93 I’m Spooning Over You—Grace—
- 94 Talk Dirty to Me—Hudson—
- 95 We Roll with the Brunches—Grace—
- 96 No Such Thing as a Free Brunch—Grace—
- 97 Time After Time Dragon—Grace—
- 98 Let’s Talk About the Time Dragon in the Room—Hudson—
- 99 Distrust but Verify—Hudson—
- 100 Whine and Dine—Grace—
- 101 Covering None of the Bases—Grace—
- 102 Between a Rock and a Hard Grace—Grace—
- 103 Passing the Pouspous—Grace—
- 104 How to Rock and Not Roll—Grace—
- 105 A Whole New Meaning to Stone-Faced—Grace—
- 106 Always Look a Gift Mayor in the Mouth—Grace—
- 107 Good Girl Gone Mad as Hell—Hudson—
- 108 I Want You to Want Me—Grace—
- 109 50 Shades of Fangs—Grace—
- 110 Need You Tonight—Grace—
- 111 Amateur Astronomer—Hudson—
- 112 Waiting for the Other Dragon to Drop—Grace—
- 113 One Surprise Deserves Another—Hudson—
- 114 Sending Out Smokey Signals—Grace—
- 115 The Tail End of the Deal—Grace—
- 116 Ripping the Scales—Hudson—
- 117 From Smokey with Love—Hudson—
- 118 It’s a Hack Job but Someone’s Got to Do It—Grace—
- 119 Big Disco Ball Energy—Grace—
- 120 Death on the Dance Floor—Grace—
- 121 This Is How You Skew It—Hudson—
- 122 Love Is a Red-Ribboned Thing—Grace—
- 123 Grin and Grace It—Hudson—
- 124 Now You’re Inn for It—Hudson—
- 125 Kiss My Asset—Grace—
- 126 A Not-So-Tastee Freeze—Grace—
- 127 Statue of Limitations—Grace—
- 128 Here’s Your Horns, What’s Your Hurry?—Grace—
- 129 Gargoyle Girl Gang—Grace—
- 130 A Shot in the Dark—Hudson—
- 131 The Story of Tonight—Grace—
- 132 You Bite It, You Buy It—Hudson—
- 133 Cross My Heart and Promise Not to Fry—Grace—
- 134 The Wheel of Misfortune—Grace—
- 135 BDSM: Bondage, Dragons, Stone, and Magic—Grace—
- 136 It’s Darkest Before the Dawn—Hudson—
- 137 Where the Wild Things Really Are—Grace—
- 138 Buggin’ the F*ck Out—Grace—
- 139 Don’t Trust Her as Far as I Can Throw Her—Hudson—
- 140 It’s Not Even My Third Rodeo—Hudson—
- 141 Is This a Bad Time?—Grace—
- 142 Full of Light,Full of Grace—Hudson—
- 143 What Grace Around Comes Around—Grace—
- 144 Out of the Shadows, Into the Light—Grace—
- 145 It’s All Coming Back to Me Now—Grace—
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR
- Sneak Peek: Last of the Talons, by Sophie Kim
- Stealing Infinity, by Alyson Noël
- The Valkyrie’s Daughter, by Tiana Warner
- The Liar’s Crown, by Abigail Owen
- The Gravity of Missing Things, by Marisa Urgo
- Ember of Night, by Molly E. Lee
I’ve failed her. I’ve failed everybody here. And worse, my failures have cost people their lives—have cost everyone here people they care about. What is there to love about me if I can’t even think far enough ahead to anticipate something as major, as terrible, as this?
“You shouldn’t,” I tell her, pulling away from the hug that suddenly feels like torture. I know she’s trying to comfort me, but every kiss, every hug, every soft word she whispers in my ear reminds me that I don’t actually deserve it. Reminds me that Grace really is slumming when it comes to me, vampire prince or not.
“Don’t say that,” she says, but she finally gets the hint and drops her arms.
I don’t have anything else to say to her—or anybody, for that matter—so I don’t argue with her. I just keep my mouth shut and my eyes pinned on Smokey’s red ribbon.
It’s better this way. It has to be. I’ve already fucked up so much, what the hell do I have to offer? People died because I couldn’t get my shit together, because I was too focused on being happy for the first time in my life. I dropped my guard, started to believe in fucking fairy tales and now…and now people who trusted me are dead.
Smokey is dead. Oh my God. Smokey is dead.
All she wanted in this world was to be near me. To love me.
And it was my job to protect her. To keep her safe.
I fucking let her down.
I let everyone down.
Grace reaches for me again.
She keeps talking to me, keeps touching me and kissing me and telling me how sorry she is when she’s got absolutely nothing to be sorry for. She didn’t do this. I did.
I start to go deeper inside myself, the way I used to while in my crypt. I try to blank my mind, try to make myself float away. If I can just disappear, I won’t feel like this anymore. The guilt and pain and rage will just melt away, will become nothing as I become nothing.
I’m almost there, can feel the strange lassitude that used to invade my body right before it happened. The emptiness and the surcease of pain that makes disintegrating so worth it—whether it’s for a month or for a year or maybe for even longer.
I close my eyes, try to take the last part of the journey. But before I can, Grace is there, her hands cupping my face, her voice calling to the deepest parts of me.
“I know what you’re doing, Hudson,” she tells me, “and this isn’t the way. This isn’t like before. This isn’t a way out of the pain.”