Page 179 of Devoured

She sighs. “Fine. Text me when you need me to send a car.”

“I can find a cab—”

“What’s the point of being a regent if I can’t chauffeur my friends around? I’ll send a car.” She must elbow Portia, because Portia groans and they begin to bicker. It makes me smile wider, brighter. Most of all, it makes me grateful that I’m not there to referee this fight.

“Love you,” I tell them.

“Love you!” Portia shouts.

“Love you,” Evie echoes, but I don’t hear it.

I don’t hear it because there is a man watching me. Sheltered beneath the palm-frond awning of a bungalow a few yards away, he crosses his arms and stares. I hang up the phone, ready to extend my claws and fangs.

Surely Sin didn’t set this up as a trap. Surely I’m not going to die here.

But after spending five years as a werewolf, I’ve learned danger remains around every corner. There is little time to relax. I lift my chin, bracing for a fight and ignoring the protein bar I desperately need. I dare the stranger to approach. To threaten me.

No one has gotten the jump on me in years.

And if they try, it’s not too hard to use my Truthweaver powers and undo their decision. The same powers that paint a target on my back are the same reason why no one else stands a chance against me. Well, my powers—and being friends with two wolf regents.

The man steps away from his bungalow. He walks onto the sand and strides toward me.

My heart stops. It seems to wink out of existence in that moment as my hands fall limp to my sides.

But I’m—I’m imagining things. It can’t be real. He can’t be here.

He can’t be he can’t be he can’t be.

“I thought I heard your voice,” he says. “It’s softer than I remember.”

Not a stranger at all.

Oh god.

At one time, I knew his reflection as well as I know my own. At one time, he was one of the only people I could trust. And it’s like plunging into the Arctic. It’s like falling through a sheet of ice, straight to the magma center of Earth.

Suddenly, I’m not almost twenty-two. I’m seventeen again. I’m inside the walls of Castle Montgomery—Castle Severi—and those red eyes are burning through mine.

I stumble back a step. He recovers the distance easily.

“You okay, Hart?”

Calix Severi smiles, and his cheek dimples, and his plum-red eyes soften in the corners.

He’s taller than I remember. His voice is deeper. His hair is messier, blacker, and his skin is darker. He’s so much more beautiful than anything I imagined in my mind.

“Calix,” I say, testing the name on my tongue.

Five years. I haven’t seen him for five years. I didn’t even know where he went once he left Castle Montgomery. Portia tried to find out, but she couldn’t track him down. All the werewolves in North America couldn’t hunt down Calix Severi, and looking at him now, it’s obvious why. Power ripples off him. His muscles coil as he crosses his arms and stares at me as if he can’t believe his own eyes.

His gaze roves my face, the six piercings in my left ear, the small diamond stud in my nose, and the loose tank top I threw over my bathing suit. He shakes his head, and I flush. Or maybe that’s just sunburn because I forgot my damn sunscreen.

“You dyed your hair,” he says finally. “The purple—”

“Wasn’t really me,” I say, touching my chocolate-brown waves. “I went for something more natural.”

“It looks… good,” he says.