“Are you kidding me?” Jaxon jerks away from me, shoots me an incredulous look. “He and his friends tried to kill you on numerous occasions, then he pulled that stunt down in the tunnels that made everything worse, and you think he was just trying to do the right thing?”

“He was, bizarre as it sounds. And I mean, I’m not happy with him. But I’m glad he isn’t dead.”

“Yeah, well, that makes one of us,” he mutters as he lies back down against me. “I should have killed him when I had the chance.”

I hug him as tightly as my injured shoulder will let me. “I think we have enough blood on our hands right now.”

“You mean I have enough blood on my hands, don’t you?”

“That’s not what I said, is it?” It’s my turn to push away from him, but only because I want to be looking him in the eye when I say this. “This isn’t your fault. It isn’t my fault. And it isn’t Flint’s or the rest of the shifters’ faults. It’s Lia’s fault. She’s the one who devised this plan. And she’s the one who caused everything that happened.” My voice catches in my throat. “Did the shifters tell you? About my parents?”

“Flint told me. He and Cole told Foster and me everything—including why they didn’t trust the witches or the vampires with what they knew.”

“The vampires because they thought you might all be colluding for God only knows what reason,” I guess. “But why not the witches?”

“You aren’t a witch, but your family is. They didn’t think Foster would be able to see past the fact that you’re his niece to the danger having you here at Katmere posed to everyone.”

I roll my eyes at him. “Yeah, well, I’m pretty sure the danger here at Katmere has all been to me and not from me, thank you very much.”

“I should have figured it out sooner.” Jaxon looks tortured.

“You planning on having that god complex of yours looked at any time soon?” I snark. “Or are we all just supposed to live with it?”

“Wow. You’ve been awake fifteen minutes and you’ve called me a drama queen and now accused me of having a god complex.” He raises his brows. “You sure you aren’t mad at me?”

“I’m sure,” I tell him, pulling his face down to mine so I can kiss him.

But he flinches a little when my hand touches his scar, per usual, and damn it, we’ve been through too much for this to keep happening. I pull away before our lips so much as brush.

“What’s wrong?” He looks wary.

I sigh as I stroke my fingers along his jaw. “I know I have no right to tell you how to feel, but I wish you could see yourself as I do. I wish you could see how gorgeous you are to me. How strong and powerful and awe-inspiring you are.”

“Grace.” He turns his head, presses a kiss into my palm. “You don’t need to say that. I know what I look like.”

“But that’s just it. You don’t!” I reach for him and hold on tight, ignoring the pain that shoots up my arm at the movement. “I know you hate your scar because Hudson gave it to you during the most horrible moments of your life—”

“You’re wrong,” he interrupts.

I stare at him. “About what?”

“About everything. I don’t hate my scar, I’m humiliated by the fact that I let it happen. Hudson didn’t give me the scar, the vampire queen did. And the worst moments of my life weren’t when I killed Hudson. They were when I finally regained consciousness on that altar and realized I’d taken too much of your blood. That moment—and all the moments it took for me to get you here? Those will always be the worst seconds, the worst minutes, of my life.”

There are so many important things in what he just said that I don’t know where to start. Except… “Your mother? Your mother did this to you?” I whisper as horror slithers through me.

He shrugs. “When I killed Hudson, I interfered with her plans. I needed to be punished.”

“By tearing up your face?”

“It’s hard to scar a vampire—we heal too quickly. By doing this, and ensuring I didn’t heal, she left a mark of weakness on me for the whole world to see.”

“But you could have stopped her anytime. Why didn’t you?”

“I wasn’t going to fight my mother, and I certainly wasn’t going to hurt her any more than I already had.” He shrugs again. “Besides, she needed someone to punish for what happened, someone to hurt so that she could feel better. Better me than someone who bore no responsibility for what happened.”

I can’t keep the horror from my face, but Jaxon just laughs a little. “Don’t worry about it, Grace. It’s all good.”

“It’s not all good.” I do my best to swallow the rage that’s swelling inside me. “That woman is a monster. She’s evil. She’s …”

“The vampire queen.” He fills in the blank for me. “And there’s nothing any of us can do about it. But thank you.” It’s his turn to whisper as his lips brush over my hair.

“For what?” I nearly choke on the words.

“For caring.” He lowers his head for a kiss.

But our lips barely have a chance to brush before there’s a knock on the open door. “Sorry to interrupt,” Marise says as she sticks her head in the doorway. “But now that you’re awake, I want to check out my favorite patient.”

I glance around the empty bay. “Your only patient, don’t you mean?”

“Yeah, well, you give me a lot of business. Plus, I had Jaxon and Flint in here for at least a day. You just require a little extra attention, that’s all.” She grins at me.

“Yeah, well, the whole being human thing really bites around here.” Deep inside me, the voice wakes up. Whispers that I shouldn’t be so fast to call myself human. Which is laughable, except…except Lia’s words haunt me, about how much trouble she had to go through to find me and get me here.

Which leaves me with the question of why am I so special? Even if I am a witch—and I’m not sure I am—there are a lot of witches in this school to choose from. Is it because I really am Jaxon’s mate? And if I am, what does that even mean in his world? But how would she know that? And why would that matter anyway? What does who Jaxon loves have to do with raising Hudson from the dead?

Now that Lia is gone and her plan foiled, I have even more questions than I did before she died. I want to ask Jaxon if he has any of the answers, but now isn’t the time to think about it, not with Marise flashing her fangs as she quips, “That’s not the only thing that bites around here.”