“So I’ve learned,” I answer with a smirk.

It only takes a few minutes for her to look me over, and her prognosis is pretty much what Alma already told me. A lot of cuts and bruises that it turns out Alma—who is a healing witch—has already put a lot of effort into minimizing. And a half-healed dislocated shoulder that will need to be splinted for a couple of weeks to finish what Alma already started.

There’s also the little matter of the blood transfusion, a little more than two liters, which I really wish she hadn’t mentioned in front of Jaxon. But all in all, I’m in good health and will probably get to go back to my dorm room in a couple of days, if my vitals stay steady.

Or so Marise says as she exits with a little wave.

“It’s not your fault!” I tell Jaxon the second she’s out the door.

“It’s entirely my fault,” he answers. “I nearly drained you.”

“Two liters is nowhere close to draining me.”

“It’s close to emptying you out enough that you die. Which counts as draining to me.” He shakes his head. “I’m so sorry, Grace. About hurting you. About your parents. About everything.”

“You didn’t hurt me. You saved me. Alma said you got me here before any permanent damage could be done.”

He doesn’t answer, just kind of shakes his head as his jaw works furiously.

“I gave you my blood, because you were going to die without it.” I take his face in my hands and look him straight in the eye so he can see that I mean what I’m saying. “And the truth is, it wasn’t a sacrifice. It was as selfish as I could get, because now that I’ve found you, I’m not okay with being in a world where you don’t exist.”

For long seconds, he still doesn’t say anything. Then he shakes his head, swears. “What am I supposed to say to that, Grace?”

“Say you believe me. Say you know it’s not your fault. Say—”

“I love you.”

I gasp, then let out a slow, shuddering breath as tears I don’t even try to hide bloom in my eyes. “Or you could say that. You could very definitely say that.”

“It’s true,” he whispers. “I’m so in love with you.”

“Good, because I’m in love with you, too. And now that Lia’s evil plan is forever over, we can try being in love when someone isn’t trying to kill us.”

He stiffens, looks away, and the cold I thought I’d finally managed to escape skitters down my spine once more.

“What’s going on, Jaxon?”

“I don’t—” He breaks off, shakes his head. “I don’t think we can do this, Grace.”

At his words, the cold congeals, turns my body to ice. “What do you mean?” I whisper. “You just said you love me.”

“I do love you,” he answers forcefully. “But sometimes love isn’t enough.”

“I don’t even know what that means.” It’s my turn to glance away, my turn to look anywhere but at him.

“Yeah, you do.”

I wait for Jaxon to say more, but he doesn’t. He just sits on the bed next to me, arm wrapped around my shoulder, body snuggled up against mine even as he rips my heart out of my freaking chest.

“It won’t always be like this,” I finally whisper to him.

“That’s where you’re wrong. It’s always going to be like this. The fact that I love you means you’re always going to be a target. You’re always going to be in danger.”

“That’s not what this was about.” I turn to him, tangling desperate fingers in his sweater as I tell him, “You know that. You were just a complication—Lia said she wanted me. She said it was about me. Even the shifters were after me because they knew she wanted to use me to…” I trail off, more than happy not to mention Hudson’s name to Jaxon ever again.

“You don’t really think the shifters are going to let this go, do you? Now that Lia’s gone, they may not want to kill you at the moment, but that doesn’t mean they won’t reconsider the first time I—or my family—piss them off. Now that they know how important you are to me, you’re more at risk than you’ve ever been.”

Maybe his fears make sense, maybe they don’t. But the truth is, “I don’t care.”

“I care, Grace.” His gaze is shuttered, but it isn’t blank. Not this time. I can see the pain in its depths, see that saying these things is hurting him as much as it’s hurting me.

It’s enough to have me sliding my hands up to his face, enough to have me cupping his cheeks in my palms as I stare deep into those eyes that have captivated me from the very first moment I saw him.

“Yeah, well, you’re not the only one in this relationship,” I tell him as I lean forward and press soft, desperate kisses to his forehead, the corners of his mouth, his lips. “And that means you don’t get to make all the decisions for us.”

“Please don’t make this any more difficult.” He grabs hold of my hands where they still cover his cheeks, his fingers twining with mine even as he takes care not to hurt me. “I can’t walk away if you make it difficult.”

“Then don’t walk away,” I implore, my mouth so close to his that I can feel the heat of his breath on my skin. So close that I can see the tiny silver flecks swirling in his eyes. “Don’t turn your back on this—on me—before we even have a chance to try.”

He drops his forehead to mine, closes his eyes with an agonized groan. “I don’t want to hurt you, Grace.”

“So don’t.”

“It’s not that simple—”

“Yes, it is. It is exactly that simple. Either you want to be with me or you don’t.”

His laugh is dark, tortured. “Of course I want to be with you.”

“So be with me, Jaxon.” I wrap my arms—IV cord and all—around him, hold him as close to my battered, desperate heart as I can manage. “Be with me. Love me. Let me love you.”

For long seconds Jaxon doesn’t move, doesn’t answer, doesn’t even breathe as despair and hope battle deep within me. But then, just as I’m about to give up, he takes a deep breath, shudders against me.

And then his hands are on my face and he’s kissing me like I’m the most important thing in the world.

I kiss him back the same way, and nothing has ever felt so good. Because for right now, for this moment, everything is finally exactly how it should be.