Chapter 10 Never Bring a Warlock to a Vampire Showdown
“What the fuck!” I roar, throwing him off me and leaping to my feet the second we hit the ground.
“Did you really think that was going to work?” he snarls. “You steal my mate and then when she doesn’t come running to you, you fucking kidnap her?”
“Jaxon, that isn’t what happened!” Grace says, trying to get between the two of us.
Not that we let her. She may be a gargoyle, but we’re both vampires. And we’re a hell of a lot faster than she is.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” I snarl as we circle each other. “Then you can just go on thinking I’m the bad guy. Go on thinking you were right to fucking try to kill me.”
“I did kill you,” Jaxon growls right back.
He rushes me again, but this time I see it coming and step aside, giving him a kick in the ass to send him flying several feet in the other direction.
He lands on his feet in the middle of a huddle of witches and springs right back to where I am. I fade several feet to the side to get out of his way, but he manages to change course in midair and still lands on top of me.
I fall to my knees under the sudden force of him slamming into my shoulders and start to throw him off. But somehow, he gets his hands around my throat and starts to squeeze, the arsehole.
And fuck. Just fuck. I knew this showdown was coming, but this was not how I wanted it to go.
I wanted to be in control of it, so no one actually gets hurt.
Right now, he’s completely out of control and I’m being forced to react to whatever the hell he’s doing instead of controlling the situation.
It sucks, but if this is how Jaxon wants it to go down, then fine. I’ll fucking adjust.
“Jaxon, stop!” Grace yells, trying to pry him off me.
She doesn’t stand a chance, but since he’s currently choking me, I can’t exactly say that. What I can do, however, is suck it up and let him choke me until Grace finally takes a step back. The last thing I want, after all, is for her to get hurt in the middle of all this.
She holds on longer than I expect her to, but the second she finally goes to readjust her grip, I move. I flip Jaxon over my head and send him slamming onto the ground in front of me as hard as I can.
Students are crowding around us from all sides, but I’m too busy punching my fist into my brother’s face to pay them any attention. “You didn’t really think I was just going to let you kill me again, did you?” I taunt. “You only get one free pass on that.”
I hit him again and again, but on the fifth punch, he manages to move his shoulders to the side and throws me off him.
I slam into a nearby tree and hear the trunk snap from the force of the hit. It knocks the breath out of me for several seconds and, while I’m struggling to breathe, Jaxon lands in front of me.
“Everything was better when you were dead,” he says as he delivers a solid kick to my ribs. “Why didn’t you just stay that way?”
He kicks me again.
“So sorry to inconvenience you by being alive,” I wheeze when I can finally breathe. And when he lifts his foot to kick me a third time, I grab on to it.
“What the fuck—” he starts but doesn’t get the chance to finish because I send him soaring over the heads of the gathered crowd.
He lands a few feet in front of the bonfire and skids across the ground. It takes him a few seconds to roll over, and by the time he does, I’m already standing over him.
“Fuck you!” he yells as the ground trembles beneath us. “You don’t get to act like the victim here.”
“Neither do you!” I shout back. “You’re walking around, whining like a bloody wanker, and I put up with it because I get it. You’re hurting and you’re pissed. But you’re not the only one in pain, arsehole. So get the fuck over yourself so we can end this.”
“I’d rather kick your ass,” he says, pushing to his feet like it costs him.
I narrow my eyes at him, shake my head. “If that’s the way you want this to go down, then fine.”
“It’s the way it is going to go down,” he answers. And this time when he throws a punch, I don’t dodge. Instead, I catch it with my hand an inch in front of my face and squeeze it until the ground around us starts full-on shaking.
Jaxon starts to throw a punch with his other hand, and I catch that one, too. And squeeze and squeeze and squeeze until I hear bones grind together.
“Hudson, stop!” Grace says, and this time I’m the one she grabs on to. “Don’t do this. Please!”
I want to shake her off, want to put an end to my brother’s bravado once and for all. But I can’t ignore Grace when she asks me for something, especially not when I can hear the tears in her voice that she’s trying so hard not to shed.
So I do the only thing I can do in this situation. I push Jaxon away, letting go of his hands as I do.
“Just stop!” I say as he starts toward me again. “That’s enough!”
“You don’t get to tell me what’s enough,” he sneers.
“Maybe not,” Foster shouts out as he rushes down a path toward us. “But I do.” And with a wave of his hand, he sends both of us flying in opposite directions.