Page 122 of Devoured

“She doesn’t have a soul—”

He shakes his head. “You antagonize her.”

“I didn’t even argue with her this time!”

“Exactly,” he says. “She was mad. She wanted others to be mad with her. Misery loves company and all that.”

I seethe at him. “So if I’d argued with her, she would’ve left me alone? If I just read her mind, then maybe she wouldn’t be torturing me so much? That’s bullshit!”

Two older women walking their dogs suddenly cross the street, but they see us arguing and freeze. Their bulldog barks. Their pug howls. I glare at both, my purple eyes flashing in the reflections of their glassy pupils, and the dogs immediately drop into a sit. They whimper. The women glance down in confusion, then worry.

Glaring at Evander, I wrap a hand in his sleeve and drag him up the sidewalk, away from the women and their slobbering dogs. “Is that how you survive Cora?” I hiss. “You just pretend to be her puppet?”

He doesn’t fight my grasp. “Ouch. I’m wounded.” He presses theatrical hands to his heart. “How deep you cut me, Vanessa Hart.”

Once we’re out of the women’s view—and farther inside suburbia—I release him with a shove. “You helped her torture Calix.”

His brow furrows, as if he can’t understand my anger. “She demanded I do so. You more than anyone should understand I had no other choice.”

“How?”

“Because that is the universe. There are choices written for us—”

“Not what I meant!” I’m tired of the divine psychobabble. So tired of destiny and fate and all that werewolf bullshit that hasn’t helped me at all. “How did you make Calix look like my father?”

“Oh. That’s easy.” He lifts his left hand to the sunlight. Without bothering to check that we’re alone, he pinches his right fingers and—and pulls. In a split second, his left hand morphs into a wicked claw. Not a typical werewolf claw either, but membranous and slender. A true nightmare.

He smiles at me and winks. His right fingers release the invisible thread, and the claw vanishes. His left hand reappears. “I am a Modifier, gifted with powers from the Chamaeleon constellation. I can change my—or another’s—appearance at will. Are you impressed?”

I inhale sharply. Modifier. Another gift I haven’t encountered before now. I stare at his smooth fingers, at the soft creases in his palm. The ability is impressive but not exactly threatening. “That’s all your power can do?”

He glowers at me. “It was enough to trick you, Truthseer.”

I shrug before leading us toward an abandoned building. An old dentist’s office that was destroyed years ago by a rough storm. Some of the boys at school smoke here at night, after the sun goes down. Once, Celeste dragged us after them, and I sat on the pavement while she laughed and flirted and pretended to bum cigarettes.

When I glance at the broken parking blocks now, I remember the memory, but it isn’t clear anymore. I no longer recall which boys were there, or how long we stayed, or even what shade of brown her eyes were. I don’t remember her laugh anymore.

My stomach pitches. My mouth dries. But I shake my head, forcing myself out of the horrible thought before it can break me. “Is that why Cora keeps you around? Because of your powers?”

“Yes,” Evander says. The lie incinerates my pain from only moments ago. He smiles wider. “Go ahead, Truthseer, call me on it. Call me a liar. Use those pretty powers of yours.”

“I couldn’t give a shit about your lies. In case you’ve forgotten, I have other things to worry about.”

“Like mating the Wolf Queen’s son?”

It takes everything in me not to wring his neck. “Like deciding if I’m about to kill my father.”

He laughs coolly. “You’re very attached.”

“I’m all he has. Had,” I correct quickly with a frown. I haven’t seen my father in nearly three months. I’ve started to forget the shade of his eyes too.

Evander leans up against the beige facade, avoiding a cracked tile near his feet, and whistles low. “What’s it going to be, Vanessa? Cora will expect us sooner rather than later, and as much as I’d love to walk to the ends of the Earth with you, we need an actual plan. Are we biting your father or your friends?”

“Your father or your friends.”

A snarl builds in my throat.

He’s right; we need a plan. But I already have one.