Covet

Covet begins five days after the end of Crush, and it does not give its characters a break. Grace Foster is recovering from Cyrus's bite. Xavier is dead. The mating bond that tied Grace to Jaxon has been severed, and a new bond has appeared between Grace and Hudson, Jaxon's older brother. Grace still loves Jaxon. She is also drawn to Hudson in a way she cannot explain. The novel takes that impossible emotional situation and drops it into a quest for a lost crown, a prison break, and a war with the vampire king.

This is the third book in Tracy Wolff's Crave series, and it assumes you have read the first two. Katmere Academy, the boarding school in Alaska, is still the home base. Grace is still the only gargoyle anyone knows about, or one of the last. Her friends are still the same: Macy the witch, Flint the dragon, and a rotating cast of vampires, wolves, and other supernatural students. The difference is that the stakes have moved from school politics to the future of the supernatural world.

At Xavier's funeral, the grief is heavy. Macy, who has been the book's most exuberant character, becomes quiet and gray. Grace is trying to hold herself together while her body heals and her bonds pull her in two directions. Jaxon is cold and distant. Hudson is present, intense, and careful with her. The love triangle is not a light romantic complication. It is a question about fate, choice, and whether a bond created by magic can make a relationship real.

The bond

Grace learns that no known mating bond has ever been broken while both mates were alive. The Bloodletter severed hers with Jaxon while Grace was dying, and Hudson's bond with Grace appeared at the same crisis point. Jaxon's behavior changes. He pulls away, then ends the relationship, telling Grace that staying together causes pain for everyone.

The Bloodletter eventually admits the truth. She engineered the bond between Grace and Jaxon as part of a bargain with witches, including Grace's father, who wanted gargoyles restored to the world. The bond could activate only because Grace and Jaxon were emotionally open to it. That does not make their feelings fake, but it does make the relationship less a matter of destiny than Grace believed. The Bloodletter cannot restore the old bond or sever the new one. She points Grace toward the Crown, a lost artifact said to grant authority over the Seven Circles.

The Crown is not just a weapon. It is a possible answer to the bond problem, a way to save Jaxon, and a political prize that Cyrus wants. Grace's search takes her through the Firmament, the Dragon Court, the Crone, and the Aethereum, a supernatural prison. The quest structure gives the book its momentum, but the emotional engine is Grace's attempt to choose without abandoning anyone.

The Firmament and the dragons

Hudson suggests asking the giants of the Firmament for help. Grace uses her earth magic to find a hidden city of metalworkers in a Pacific Northwest redwood forest. There they meet Falia, the mate of Vander the Blacksmith. Vander has been imprisoned in the Aethereum for a thousand years, framed by Cyrus. Falia's grief and endurance show what the prison does to the people left outside. The visit also gives Grace a concrete goal: find Vander, get him to forge a key, and use it to free the prisoners.

Cyrus issues a warrant for Hudson. The Watch arrives to arrest him, and Grace uses tree roots to fight them off. The scene is a showcase for her growing gargoyle power. It also leaves her exhausted and unconscious, which is a useful reminder that she is not invincible. Her body pays for every display of strength.

The group goes to New York for the Wyvernhoard festival, where Queen Nuri offers information about escaping the Aethereum. Nuri also arrests Hudson to avenge her son Damien, whom Hudson killed. Grace argues against the cycle of vengeance and wins Hudson's temporary release. The alliance with Nuri is uneasy. Nuri is not a friend, but she is useful, and she has her own reasons for wanting Cyrus weakened.

Nuri explains the Crone, an ancient witch who helped build the Aethereum. The Crone once helped a dragon escape by removing the dragon's heart. The heart is the source of a dragon's ability to shift. Losing it saves the dragon from the prison but permanently ends its ability to transform. That information matters later, when Nuri makes her own sacrifice.

During the dragon festival, Grace and Hudson become physically intimate. Hudson tells Grace he loves her while he is asleep. Grace cannot say it back yet. Their relationship is not a simple case of the new mate replacing the old one. Grace is angry at Hudson for keeping secrets, attracted to him, and guilty about Jaxon. Hudson is trying to be a partner rather than a protector, which means letting Grace make her own choices even when he disagrees with them.

The Crone and the truth about Jaxon

The group travels to a remote Pacific island to find the Crone. The Crone refuses to help Jaxon, calling him soulless. She gives Grace enchanted butterfly-weed magic in the form of tattoos. The magic simulates death and may provide a way out of the Aethereum. The Crone is one of the book's best inventions: ancient, unpredictable, and more interested in her own rules than in the heroes' urgency.

After the visit, Jaxon attacks Hudson. He explains what the severing did to him. Both Grace's and Jaxon's souls shattered when the bond was cut, but Hudson's soul wrapped around Grace's and held her together. Jaxon has no anchor. His soul fragments are disintegrating. Grace realizes that the Crown may be the only way to save him. The love triangle becomes a race against Jaxon's death, which raises the stakes beyond who Grace will choose.

At graduation, Nuri arrests Hudson under a new law, and Grace invokes her right as his mate to go with him. Cyrus also has Flint arrested. Grace, Hudson, and Flint enter the Aethereum with their powers suppressed. They are placed with Remy, a young warlock born in the prison, and Calder, a manticore. The prison is a society with its own market, its own rules, and its own violence.

The Aethereum

The Aethereum is the book's most ambitious setting. It is a prison where punishment is psychological as well as physical. Inmates endure the Chamber, a series of spins or nights in which they relive their worst acts. Grace is protected by Remy, but Hudson, Flint, and Calder deteriorate under their nightmares.

Grace enters Hudson's nightmare through their bond. She sees the prison's repeated image of Hudson murdering her. She helps him face his guilt and tells him that she trusts him. The scene is important because it turns Hudson from a mysterious bad boy into a person who is afraid of his own power. It also shows Grace choosing to enter his pain rather than waiting for him to be healed.

In the Pit marketplace, Grace obtains a magical tattoo that can store and channel power. The group reaches Vander and gives him Falia's message. He agrees to forge a key. Charon, the prison's enforcer, forces Grace and Hudson into a gladiatorial fight against giants. They use teamwork and the environment, including chandeliers, to kill the giants. Grace channels Remy's hidden magic through her tattoo, which lets Remy remove the prisoners' enchanted bracelets. The escape is a team effort, not a solo victory. That is one of the book's strengths.

The Beast's island

The escape leads to the Unkillable Beast's island, where Cyrus's forces ambush Grace's allies. Luca dies protecting Flint. Flint loses his lower leg. Cyrus gives Jaxon another eternal bite, leaving him apparently dying. The victory turns into a disaster. The prison break was real, but Cyrus was using it as a distraction.

Jaxon asks Grace to drain his remaining life force into Flint. She does it, then tells Hudson that she chooses him. She also refuses to give up on Jaxon. She will find another way to save him. Hudson releases his destructive power and forces the surviving attackers to retreat. The choice is not neat. Grace chooses Hudson romantically, but she does not pretend that Jaxon is nothing to her. The novel lets her love both of them in different ways while committing to one.

Nuri removes and sacrifices her dragon heart, placing it on Jaxon. He revives, and his soul is restored. Nuri permanently loses her ability to shift into dragon form. The rescue is inseparable from a major irreversible cost. That is the pattern of the book: every solution takes something from someone. Grace frees the Unkillable Beast with Vander's key. The Beast does not hand over a convenient Crown. He transfers a Crown mark to Grace's palm and tells her to deliver it to his mate. Then he becomes inert or turns to stone. The mark's meaning is not explained.

The survivors return to Katmere and find the academy destroyed. Students and staff have been kidnapped. The battle on the Beast's island was a diversion so Cyrus could take the school. Hudson and Jaxon temporarily set aside their rivalry to oppose their father. The Beast's reference to "her" is another unresolved mystery. In the Hudson-perspective epilogue, Hudson plans to tell Grace about an emerald-green string he sees inside her. Its meaning is left for the next book.

What works and what does not

Covet is a big, messy book. It has a lot of plot: the bond, the Crown, the Firmament, the dragon festival, the Crone, the prison, the escape, the ambush, the sacrifice, the destroyed school. The pacing is uneven. Some sections, especially the Aethereum, are vivid and propulsive. Others feel like setup for the next installment. The third act is crowded, and several revelations arrive in a rush.

The romance is the part that will decide whether you like the book. Grace and Hudson have real chemistry, and their relationship is more interesting than a simple fated-mate story because it asks whether a bond creates love or only reveals it. Grace's choice of Hudson is not presented as a betrayal of Jaxon. It is presented as a decision about who she is now. Readers who are attached to Jaxon may find that hard to accept. Readers who have been waiting for Hudson will be satisfied.

The supporting cast keeps the quest from feeling like a solo mission. Macy's grief turns her from comic relief into someone quieter and harder, and the change is one of the novel's most affecting threads. Flint's loyalty costs him dearly. Remy and Calder bring new energy to the prison arc, and Nuri's grief gives the dragon queen a motive that is more than political. These characters make the world feel populated, even when the plot is moving too fast to give them all the attention they deserve.

The world-building is inventive but under-explained. The Aethereum's rules are vivid in the moment and fuzzy in retrospect. The Crown mark is a classic cliffhanger device. The novel ends on a major status quo change, with Katmere destroyed and everyone kidnapped, which makes Covet feel like the middle chapter it is. It is not a standalone, and it does not try to be.

I would recommend it to readers who are already invested in the Crave series and want the emotional fallout of Crush to matter. It is dramatic, romantic, and willing to hurt its characters. It is also long and sometimes scattered. The best parts are the quiet ones: Grace and Hudson in the library, Grace entering his nightmare, Nuri's sacrifice, the moment Grace chooses a future she did not expect. Those moments give the cliffhanger some weight.