Page 170 of Devoured

She knew exactly how she wanted to use me.

“Cora was the same, wasn’t she? When she lost the black of her regent eyes, her gaze changed back to what it’d been before. It was almost a dark, midnight blue.”

Lyra looks up at the moon. “In times of true transmutation—not simply shifting into a werewolf but becoming something else—our souls must open. It doesn’t last for long, just long enough that another soul could slip through.

“It’s not the same as being Bitten. It’s not an amputated limb simply being replaced with another. It’s more like an implantation. An egg becoming an embryo. It only ever happens with love, and rare love at that. Soulmate love.” Her gaze shifts to mine, and her tattoos spark on her skin. Glowing white as stars now. “It doesn’t always have to be romantic, but it must be true love.

“When Cora killed her lover, her soul was being shredded. Her regent powers were being stripped from her. And a bit of her lover, of Jack, mended her. Through him, she was never really alone. She only lost so much of herself because she kept biting and transforming humans.” She nods. “And when you were Bitten, a bit of Celeste went into you. She kept you alive, and she made you stronger. She is the reason you are so special, Vanessa. Your love for her, and her love for you.”

Her words slam into my chest. It doesn’t feel like a revelation, however. It feels as if I’ve always known this.

“And the purple eyes?” I ask.

“Celeste,” Lyra says. “The color of her soul mixing with the truth of your werewolf abilities. You were meant to be an Alpha until Celeste’s death intervened. Just as Cora was meant to be an Omega once her regent powers were stripped. Until Jack’s death intervened.”

An Alpha. A piece of Celeste’s soul.

I blink, wishing I could have appreciated my eyes from the start. Wishing I could have appreciated all this as the miracle it was. No, not the worst parts. But I survived that night on the beach thanks to Celeste, and now I’m in an enchanted forest with an oracle.

Because of Celeste, I’m alive.

“Thank you for telling me all of this,” I say to Lyra. “It makes breathing a little easier.”

She smiles at me, wiping her muddied palms on her gown. “I thought it might.”

“Of course you did.”

She laughs. I laugh. And there, in the back of my mind, I feel Celeste laugh too. Not really. Her physical manifestation isn’t here. But she would love this moment. More than anyone on this Earth, she would want to run through the willows and collect wisteria in her fists and hurl petals in the air. She would spin and dance and shout at the top of her lungs.

And just because she can’t do those things anymore doesn’t mean I shouldn’t.

For her, I can appreciate my time on this Earth.

I stand on trembling legs. I smooth my hair behind my ears. And I move toward the willows. I pick flowers from patches of earth, gathering dahlias and starflowers and purple roses in a bundle before handing them to Lyra. She humors me, staying with me for all of it. I listen to the bumblebees buzz in their hives. I try to skip a rock on the pond. I take my time and I breathe and I remember.

All of it. Every single second inside this castle.

I remember Sin lacing up my corset. I remember Sin forcing Calix and me to dance. I remember Calix and me in that wooden shack. I remember Evie and Portia throwing a flower crown back and forth. I remember laughter, even when it felt as if I might never laugh again.

Even in the darkness, there was light. So much more than I noticed at the time.

Even in those worst moments, I wasn’t ever really alone.

A moon-white spider the size of a house cat skitters up the trunk of a tree in front of me, and I smile at it. I smile because I don’t think I could scream if I tried.

“Evander,” I say. “Have you run out of people in the castle to frighten?”

He arches a pedipalp toward my chin. “Kitten,” he purrs in greeting, his voice stranger—silkier—in this form. “Are you enjoying the bounties of my lovely forest?”

I roll my eyes. “Your forest?”

Lyra pokes the stem of a rose into my hip. “Don’t listen to him. Most faeries aren’t quite this arrogant.”

“And isn’t that a shame?” Evander tethers himself to a branch and dangles upside down from a thin web of spider silk. “Regardless, before the others moved in, I did have the forest all to myself, and it was fabulous.”

I throw a handful of petals in his face, and he hisses a venomous laugh. “I wasn’t sure whose side you were on, you know. You could’ve told me earlier that you were some benevolent god come to save us all.”

“Ooh. I like when you call me god. Say it again.” He winks half his eyes, but when I growl, he says, “You’re no fun.”