Chapter 19
Hudson
My whole life, I’d known that my job as a Cursekeeper was to break or mitigate hexes, jinxes, and whatever other magical whammies came my way.
Curses created by the Garlands held the highest priority, of course, but ending lycanthropy as a whole—or even just the Garland wolves—was impossible, and every witch in the world knew that.
Rather ironic that my beating heart was the cure, even if it would only turn a single wolf back into a human. Fucking magic and the inherent poetry it wove.
But if that was my task and I was meant to ascend, taking on all the power and responsibility that came with becoming Sovereign of my line…
Why the hell was something this big hidden from me?
When we made it back to my house, I apologized to Malik for the way I’d acted at lunch.
I knew he meant no harm, sharing their stories as they’d been told, but every single thing I learned—every fucking secret my ancestors were trying to keep from me—made me less and less certain about claiming my place as the Garland Monarch.
I’d been poring over the grimoire for nearly twelve hours when Tyler and Emery flanked me in the altar room, making stupid logical points about how I was never going to figure anything out if I couldn’t think straight from lack of sleep and how I couldn’t get any reading done if my eyes refused to stay open.
So, I let them cart me off to bed, pouting the whole way and frustrated beyond all belief that I hadn’t found a single thing to set my mind at ease.
Emery pulled me close from behind, kissing my shoulder. “Are you okay?”
“No…” I whispered, screwing my eyes shut and shaking my head. “I… don’t want to believe them. What they said… what those witches did…”
But it all lined up. The blanks in my family’s history, made complete by a horror story.
“You’re not them, baby boy,” Tyler said softly as he sat on the bed beside us. “Hell, you tried to give Em his freedom, not even knowing if he was bound to you.”
“You did,” Emery said, nuzzling into my neck. “You’re so much better than that, Hudson.”
“For now…” I muttered, tugging the chain around my neck out of the baggy t-shirt I was wearing and lifting it over my head.
The small silver bar glistened in the moonlight, its faded markings barely visible.
“All it takes is a bit of desperation… and the bad things in this world evolve into monsters.”
“You never take that off…” Emery whispered, watching the pendant as it dangled in my face.
“Not for anything,” Tyler added, resting upright against the pillows.
“Grams made me promise,” I said, staring at the carvings I’d never been able to make out. “I was only fourteen when she gave it to me. She said it was my very first responsibility as a Garland to never leave it unprotected.”
“I never thought anything of it,” Emery sighed, transfixed as he reached out for it. “What is it made of?”
My heart leapt into my throat as Emery touched the bar, not even thinking. “Em, don’t, it’s—” His eyes met mine as he lay there, wholly unfazed as he held the pendant in his hand. “Silver.”
“I don’t think it is,” he said, gripping it tighter in his fist. “See? No ouchies.”
“Wh…” I plucked it from his palm, holding it closer to my face. “It’s definitely silver. It burned the first werewolf that attacked me back in Bay City. It was how I got the upper hand.”
“I’ve touched it plenty of times before, Hud.” Emery grinned at me. “Hell, your face was in my crotch yesterday, remember? It’s never burned me.”
Tyler took it between his fingers next, turning it over. “It’s magic, right? Maybe it like… knows Emery isn’t going to hurt you?”
“Magic…” I whispered, tugging the pendant out of Ty’s hand.
Silver was said to harm a plethora of cursed beings, though the reason escaped even the greatest of alchemists.
The Moon’s Metal, some called it. Crafted into bullets, it could shoot a werewolf dead, but it was entirely possible that its purpose was meant to protect and not to harm.
“There’s a page near the back of my grimoire with a sketch of this.
The writing is faded worse than these markings, but… I did make out mention of a curse.”
Emery ran his fingers through my hair. “You think it’s related to what Malik and Gage told us?”
“Maybe,” I said, sitting up to go check the page I’d found in the grimoire.
“Hudson Aleister Garland,” Emery chided, grabbing my shoulder as Ty leapt to his feet to block my path. “Get your cute butt back in bed. The book will be there in the morning.”
I growled in my throat, turning back to him with a glare. “Don’t you middle name me!”
They used to love teasing me with my full name, mostly because I was a witch and my initials spelled HAG.
“You need to sleep, baby boy,” Ty said, moving closer to cup my cheek.
My desire to fight them flickered out instantly. I was exhausted.
But I was still going to be a brat about it.
“Can’t a guy cast an accidental sex spell without growing two of the hottest tumors mankind has ever known?” I groaned, flopping back into the sheets with all the dramatic flair of a cartoon princess. “Who invited you jerks to stay in my bed night after night anyway? Go home.”
Ty and Emery locked eyes, smirks spreading over both their faces.
“Okay,” Tyler said with a bored shrug, turning to leave.
“Bye.” Emery leapt from the bed, slowly following behind him.
My jaw dropped as I stared after them. “No, don’t leave me!”
After a few hours of restless sleep pinned between my guys, I managed to untangle myself from their possessive hold.
I draped Emery’s massive arm over Tyler, getting a soft grunt and a furrowed brow out of him before slipping away.
The sun had barely risen above the horizon through the kitchen window as I made a pot of coffee, pouring half the carafe into a large tumbler before stealing away to the altar room to once again peruse the grimoire.
The more I dug into this ominous second curse, the harder that ache twisted in my chest. That churning over what I intended to do about my family’s magic, thudding behind my ribs.
The Garlands were the Cursekeepers, so why was our greatest legacy the fact that we created a variation of werewolves no one had been able to properly contain?
Why weren’t there stories of old Garland witches who rid villages of magical plague, or tales of my ancestors putting an end to one of the northern vampire remnants?
I had no idea what I was looking for, and my jerkface ancestors clearly weren’t interested in helping.
Anything that wasn’t a variation of the three most common methods to break a curse, records of the previous Garland Monarchs, or detailed sketches and weaknesses of anything my family had ever fought that went bump in the night would’ve been great.
My research went on for hours, long after the guys got up and started shuffling around the house. My growing irritation must’ve been palpable, because I’d heard one or both of them enter the sunroom behind me several times, but neither said a word.
Hours became days, a routine that had me up before sunrise and in bed only at the demands of Emery and Tyler.
The more I searched, the more convinced I became that something big had been covered up. Bigger than just some nasty monsters that had been born in the name of power. Something over a hundred years ago, bad enough to let future generations believe it had never happened.
I just needed something. Some small glimmer of hope.
Anything to prove we weren’t the real monsters.
“Hud?” Emery’s low voice from behind me gave me a start, and I nearly fell from the stool I’d been sitting on while scouring the grimoire.
“Fuck, Em!” I panted, grabbing my chest. “Make some noise when you walk, for crying out loud.”
“Sorry,” Emery chuckled, placing a hand on my shoulder. “I made lunch. Ty should be off his conference call soon.”
“‘Kay…” Dropping my jaw into my hand, I glowered down at the book, elbows propped on the pages, punishing the damn thing for being so unhelpful.
“Hudson…” Emery dropped down, crouching at my side.
He placed a hand on my thigh, squeezing.
“Why is this bugging you so much? Even if your ancestors did create this second curse, even if they forced others to fight on their behalf against their wills… you’re going to be so much better than that. You are better than that.”
“What if it was you, Em?” I muttered defeatedly, refusing to look him in the eye. “What if you’d been forced to fight a Garland war?”
“Well… that’s not really a fair comparison, Hud.” With a gentle shrug, he gave my leg another squeeze. “I wouldn’t be doing it unwillingly.”
“I’m serious, Emery.” I slapped the grimoire shut, pulling away from him to pace the small altar room.
Utmost frustration gnawed at my insides.
I curled my fists in my hair. “Anything my ancestors did… that becomes my responsibility if I accept my place as the monarch. How the fuck do you atone for something like that, especially when there’s no record of it ever having happened in the first place? ”
“I think—” Tyler said from the doorway, making both of us snap our heads in his direction. “—step one is vowing you’ll never let it happen again.”
My eyes swelled at his appearance. His usually perfect hair was a complete mess. The shirt and tie he wore over a pair of sweats to be somewhat presentable for a video call were disheveled, his poor tie barely hanging on. “Ty, what—”
“I’m fine,” he snapped, shaking his head. His eyes softened, giving me a weak smile. “Less than two more weeks of this shit, then I’m out. It’s fine, baby boy.”
“Two weeks?” Emery grunted, standing to rest his butt on the altar with a cocked brow. “Scheduled your resignation just in time for the blood moon, huh?”
Ty shrugged, grinning. “Couple days before. Might as well make our big changes all at once, right?”
“The blood moon…” I mumbled, my eyes turning back to the grimoire. Moving to Emery’s side, I opened it again, flicking through the pages quickly.
Tyler came up behind me, putting a hand on my shoulder. “Something click?”
“No—maybe, it’s just—” Giving a short sigh, I shook my head, finger trailing a page in the book regarding celestial events. “It doesn’t matter when a witch ascends. The sooner the better. So why am I meant to wait for the blood moon?”
“I mean, it kind of makes sense,” Emery said, reading the text as my finger ran across the page. “Blood moons weaken wolves. Doesn’t stop us from transforming completely, but it takes the edge off. If anyone wanted to stop your ascension, they’d be at a disadvantage.”
“Sure, but,” Ty added, meeting Emery’s eyes, “wouldn’t putting it off just leave him vulnerable for no reason? There’s gotta be more to it.”
“Ty’s right…” I whispered, scanning the text, not reading but lost in thought. I flipped further through the grimoire, seeking out the records of past Garland monarchs. “These are the dates of the previous ascensions in my family. If any of them occurred on a blood moon, it might give us a—”
Suddenly, the grimoire snapped shut of its own accord, nearly closing my hand inside.
“What the hell?” Emery growled, gripping my shoulders and pulling me back protectively.
“Oh, no you don’t, fuckers.” I reached for the grimoire, meaning to haul it away from the altar. The moment my hand touched the leather binding, the book flew across the room, thudding to the floor. “Seriously?!”
The walls of the house creaked in response, dust scattering into the air.
“Yeah, no, fuck you,” I snarled, stomping across the room to retrieve the grimoire.
“You don’t get to make demands of me, keep secrets, and hold back the magic that’s rightfully mine when it—ow, shit!
” The second I reached for the book, a massive gash opened across the back of my hand, pouring blood.
“Hudson, stop!” Ty raced toward me, wrapping his arms around my middle, holding me back from the grimoire. Emery was at my side, one hand on my shoulder and the other held up, ready to stop me from trying again.
“No!” I snarled, trying to wrestle free of their hold, ignoring the blood dripping from my hand onto the wood floor as I clawed at the space between me and the grimoire. “They’re hiding shit from me! I’m their future fucking monarch, and I won’t be their puppet!”
The grimoire rattled on the floor, creeping away from me toward the stone wall. The floorboards trembled. The entire house was shaking, my asshole ancestors attempting to frighten me into submission.
And I was having none of it.
“Hudson…” Emery breathed, staring at my face. “Your eyes…”
The blood pouring from my hand cascaded upward, red droplets floating in midair. Something old and beyond my control clawed its way out of my heart, ripping through every fiber of my being.
“GET—OUT!”
The moment the words left my mouth, the very second my intent was set free, the orbs of blood that hovered in the space compacted in on themselves.
Time stood still for a fraction of a second.
The droplets glowed bright red, exploding, vanishing with a furious pulse that washed over us, across the room, and out through the entire house.
The floorboards stilled. The grimoire stopped trembling. Everything became eerily quiet.
I stared, stunned, at my outstretched hand where it shook in front of me. The blood that had been there was gone. The wound slowly knit itself together. “What… What did I…”
“Hudson…” Emery pulled away from me, his eyes wide with terror and his voice broken. He wouldn’t even look at me. “That was…”
He was afraid of me.
Wresting myself from Tyler’s arms, I scrambled out of the room before he could finish the thought.
“What—Hudson, wait!” Tyler shouted after me as I bolted through the kitchen and into the parlor, darting out the back door. Gage and Malik turned to me from the shoreline, their faces full of worry as I ran past, going I-had-no-idea-the-fuck-where.
Just away.
Away from what I’d done. Away from whatever lies my now banished ancestors had kept. Away from that fear I’d seen in Emery’s eyes.
Away from the fact I’d just used blood magic.