Crave (Crave, #1)

by Tracy Wolff

“Textbook landing.” Maybe if that textbook is a horror novel. One he’s reading upside down and backward.

All that’s missing is the wicked witch cackling that she’s going to get me and my little dog, too. Then again, at this point, that would probably be redundant.

I can’t help wondering if my eyes are deceiving me or if there are gargoyles—actual gargoyles—protruding from the top of the castle walls.

“More like, welcome to hell. Now get the fuck out.”

I hate that he’s bested me, and I hate that being this close to him makes me feel a bunch of things I shouldn’t for a guy who has been a total jerk to me. I hate even more that the look in his eyes says he knows exactly how I’m feeling.

“There’s not much to be afraid of when you’ve already lost everything that matters.”

“Nah. You’re so little, I won’t even notice. Now, are you going to get on or am I going to pick you up and toss you over my shoulder?”

“Oh, gross!” I reach to wipe away the blood. “Let me—” He laughs, cutting me off. Then brings his thumb to his lips and—holding my gaze with his own—sticks his thumb in his mouth and slowly sucks off the blood. It’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen, and I don’t even know why. I mean, shouldn’t this be totally creeping me out?

Neither Lia nor Jaxon was wearing a jacket.

Behind her, something catches my eye, and my mouth goes dry. “Yeah, well, that might be a problem.” I barely manage to get the words out past my suddenly tight throat. “And why is that exactly?” “Because I’m not going anywhere.” Jaxon’s low, amused voice cuts through my cousin’s umbrage, has her eyes going wide and her skin draining of color. “And neither is Grace.”

“Quiet down or you’re going to give away our hiding place,” he tells me as he starts climbing the tree like some Alaskan version of Spider-Man, hands and feet practically sticking to the tree’s bark as he carries me up the gigantic trunk. “And don’t drop the snowballs.” “You should have thought of that before you decided to hang me upside down,” I snark at him. But I tighten my grip on the scarf.

Jaxon shoots both of us an incredulous look as he helps me to my feet. Then, without a word, he swoops me into his arms.

“Grace?” he interrupts. I wait for him to say something, but when he doesn’t, I answer, “What?” in what could, perhaps, be described as not the nicest tone. “Shut up.”

She glows under his praise, and it’s all I can do not to make a teasing comment. But seriously, if she’s not careful, she’s going to turn into one of his minions. So much for you can tell me how he hurt you. Traitor.

“Stay away from Flint, Grace. He’s not what you think.”

“This is going to be a lot of things, Grace. Easy isn’t one of them.”

“Before I saw how he looks at you.” She closes her eyes and makes a sound very close to the one she made when Jaxon smiled at her. “I wish Cam would look at me like that.”

“I want him to look at me like it physically hurts him not to be touching me.”

I mean, he’s never been anything but gentle when he touched me, but it’s as plain as the scar on his face that Jaxon isn’t like the other boys I’ve known. Every single thing about him screams danger—of the dark and brutally wounded variety. It’s in his eyes, in his voice, in the way he holds himself and the way he moves.

Jaxon: What do you get when you cross a vampire and a snowman? What? A joke? From the perennially serious Jaxon Vega? I can’t answer back fast enough. Me: I have no idea. Jaxon: Frostbite

Except…except it is from Jaxon, and my heart is actually threatening to burst out of my chest. I don’t know what you like yet, but I figured you were hungry. Stay off that ankle. Jaxon Oh my God. OmigodOmigodOmigod.

“I said it would be better if we weren’t friends, not that I didn’t want to be.”

“Rest that ankle,” he tells me as he opens the door. “If it feels better tomorrow, I’ll take you to my favorite place.”

Deep down, I am not different from you. I dreamed you, I wished for your existence.

“Well, then, you should reassure them. Be friendly. You know, show them that you’re harmless.” I feel ridiculous even before that left eyebrow of his goes up. “Is that what you think? That I’m harmless?”

One, this closet is really well stocked. Two, the door into the art classroom is wide open. And three, Jaxon is standing in the doorway, face wiped completely blank of expression. My stomach drops at my first glimpse of his clenched fists and the wild fury burning in the depths of his eyes—not because I’m afraid but because it’s obvious that he was.

“I tell you to stay away from Flint, so you go into the tunnels with him?” he demands.

Because, apparently, when I’m with this boy, I lose all common sense. And part of losing that common sense means doing exactly what I shouldn’t—in this case, following Jaxon straight out the window and onto the parapet.

“Who did that Klimt sketch remind you of when you bought it?” “You.” The answer comes fast and honest. “I just didn’t know it yet.”

Then he leans down and presses his lips to mine. It’s not a passionate kiss, not a hard kiss, definitely not a wild kiss. It’s just the brush of one mouth against another, as soft as a snowflake, as delicate as the permafrost that stretches in all directions.

Macy sighs. “I’m a witch, Grace.”

At this point, I’m pretty sure I’d rather drink rat poison. “I think I’ll pass, thanks.”

“I keep trying to tell you, but you won’t listen. Someone is trying to kill you, Grace.”

“I swear, talking to you about boys is as bad as trying to talk to Macy about them,” he says with a roll of his eyes. “Every time I ask her about Cam, she acts like I asked her to swallow eye of newt or something. But fine. No talking about boys. Except I do need to warn you that Jaxon is—”

“I’m not making it because of Jaxon. Or at least, not just because of Jaxon.” This, too, is true. “I’m making it because of Macy. And you. And even Flint. I’m making it because I miss San Diego and my life there, but that life is over. My parents are dead, and if I stay there, if I go back to the same school and the same life I had—minus them—it’s going to be a slap in the face. A reminder, every day, of what I lost.

“And I don’t think I can do that, Uncle Finn. I don’t think I can heal there, driving by my old house on the way to school every day. Going to all the places my parents and I used to go—”

“When I hit on you, it’ll be because you want me to. And we’ll both know exactly what’s going on when I do.”

“There are a thousand ways to get somewhere, but not all ways are the correct one.”

“It doesn’t matter what you wanted to do,” I admonish him. “It only matters what you did. You never once lost control when you were going after Cole—in fact, I’ve never seen anyone more in control than you were in that lounge. The power you wield…it’s unfathomable.” He quirks a brow at me even as his shoulders tense, as if preparing for the next body blow. “And terrifying?” “I’m pretty sure Cole was terrified.”

“You don’t scare me, Jaxon.” “I don’t scare you.” His tone is half sardonic, half disbelieving. I shake my head. “No.”

Not going to lie, the idea that I scare Jaxon Vega fascinates me on all kinds of different levels. “What the fuck is happening here?” he demands after the silence between us has gone on too long. I have no idea.

“Good. What do you call a dinosaur that—?” He cuts me off with a kiss and a yank. The kiss curls my toes, but the yank…the yank curls everything else. Especially when he pulls me over so that I’m on top of him, my knees straddling his hips and my curls forming a curtain around us. Jaxon takes hold of a lock of my hair, then watches as the curl twines around his finger. “I love your hair,” he says, pulling on the curl just to release it and watch it boing back into place.

If You Can’t Live Without Me, Why Aren’t You Dead Yet? The irony of that statement

He reaches a hand out to me, and I take it—how could I not? Right now, there isn’t anywhere I wouldn’t follow this boy.

“I know you are.” He grins. “But I have something I want to do first.” “What could possibly be more interesting than kissing me?” I joke. “Absolutely nothing.”

“You’re in my room. Where else would I be?” “I don’t know, but I’m not taking any chances.” I narrow my eyes at him. “You have a bad habit of disappearing whenever things get…interesting.”

“It’s a mystic topaz. Some jewelers call it the aurora borealis stone because of the way the colors flow together.” “I can see why.” The cut of the stone is incredible, each facet carved to highlight the blues and greens and purples within it so that they bleed into one another even as they stand out. “It’s gorgeous.”

Lia just sighs. “I knew I should have made the tea stronger. But I was afraid it would kill your little pet, and I couldn’t let that happen. At least not yet.” She shrugs, then says in a kind of singsong voice, “No worries,” right before she pulls a gun out of her pocket and shoots Jaxon straight in the heart.

Plus, I’m getting really sick of being dragged around by supernatural creatures.

I hit the ground shoulder-first and am now seeing stars of the very not-good variety. Plus, I can barely move my left arm. A problem that’s compounded by the fact that I am also still bleeding from my wrists, my ankles, my fingers, and now my arms where the dragon was holding me. And, oh yeah, I’m being stalked by a crazy-ass vampire with ritualistic murder in her eyes. And here I thought Alaska would be boring.