Page 181 of Devoured

“Um, no. Not really. I tried once, but…” I raise a hand between us. In the blink of an eye, with perfectly controlled restraint, I lengthen my claws. “Not great for smacking rubber balls, you know?”

“Not bad, Hart,” he murmurs, and I gnaw mercilessly on my lower lip. “So what else? If you’re not a volleyball Olympian, what have you been up to for the last five years?”

I roll my eyes and shove him. He doesn’t budge, but he does laugh.

“I stayed with Evie in Castle Lee for a year. It was nice, watching her become the regent and helping her make the place her own. But I felt so restless.” I shrug. “I woke up eleven months after we got there, and I realized I still wasn’t worrying about my future. And then I realized I’d done the same thing with Celeste. I have a tendency to build others’ lives for them instead of worrying about my own. So I sat Evie down to talk to her—which was terrifying, by the way—but she already knew. I think she’d known for a while.”

She said, “Enough about me, Hart. It’s time we focus on you. Let’s plan your future.” And in that moment, I felt more loved than ever before. I don’t know how Evie and I got lucky enough to find each other, but I wouldn’t be as strong as I am now without her.

“What did you do next?” Calix asks.

I wince, almost too embarrassed to admit it. “I decided to try mortal college.”

Immediately, he laughs. He tries to hide it behind his hand, disguise it with a cough, but I hear it. He knows I hear it. I glower at him, scooping up a pile of sand and hurling it at his chest. That only makes him laugh harder.

“Yeah, yeah. It’s very funny. But I was never able to finish high school, so it felt like the right next step. Evie helped me obtain a GED, and I went to school in Boston.”

“And then?” he drawls, knowing very well where this story is going.

“And then I realized that a werewolf does not belong anywhere near mortal education. My classmates’ laptops malfunctioned whenever I entered the classroom. My roommates complained because our fridge would randomly shut off at night. And I had to compel an entire library when I was studying for finals.” He raises a brow, and I explain, “I was so stressed, my claws came out. I accidentally impaled the table in front of three librarians.”

I don’t think I’ll ever forget their screams. I’d been sleep deprived for about two weeks, and it felt like a jolt of caffeine straight to my system. Which was good since I needed to compel about eight students and four librarians all on my own.

Calix brushes the sand from his shirt. Runs a hand through his messy hair. “A pretty productive few years.”

“What can I say? I was making up for lost time. After that, Portia helped me find a pack in South Carolina, but—if you can believe it—I didn’t really enjoy patrolling the city or stalking criminals. So I took some time off. I moved out on my own. Found an apartment in Charleston, and I just existed. I got a therapist. I took online courses with a laptop Evie had made for me. I visited Castle Lee a few times a year. And I started to feel like a person again. Not just a werewolf, but a human being. It was refreshing.” I glance at him and admit quietly, “I have to compel my therapist, though. To forget what we talk about. We really need to work on mental health services in the Realm of Superiority.”

“Yes,” he agrees. “My therapist made a world of difference—and I had to compel her too.”

I grin at that. He grins at me. The wind whips around us. And then it tangles my hair in my stupid spaghetti strap. In a hideous turn of fate, it ties itself in a damned knot. I curse, hiss, and move to undo it, but Calix reaches me first. In seconds, he pulls my strap, and he deftly untangles my hair. His knuckles skim over my bare shoulder in the process, and I shiver. He must think it’s from pain because he asks, “Did I get it?”

His words are a low rasp, and my gaze flicks, completely unbidden, to his lips.

“You got it,” I breathe.

His gaze descends, slides down my body before rising again. Slowly. Torturously slowly. “You lied.”

“What?” My heart lodges in my throat. “What do you mean?” I reach for my hair, but he stops me. He moves my hand and pulls on another tendril of my hair. He rubs it between his fingers.

A lavender tendril hidden beneath the rest of the brown.

“You kept some,” he says.

I shrug then, biting my lip. “A little. A little felt more like me.”

“I like it,” he says—and he’s telling the truth. He releases it, but he doesn’t step away. “Tell me the rest. What are you doing now? Where are you living?”

I blink, trying to remember what I was saying. Trying to think about anything other than the feel of his hands in my hair and on my skin.

“Word traveled—about my powers, I mean. After Cora hosted that supper…” I frown and kick a patch of sand away from me. “It started to become unsafe for me to live in the mortal realm on my own, so I moved back with the werewolves. But I found a position in this niche Historian pack. Valja actually sent me their information. I guess they were studying the Realm of Superiority in Antarctica, researching the different flora and fauna, and they didn’t mind accepting a new member who wasn’t a Historian. They’ve been pretty kind, actually. I work on the beaches. Along the different coasts around the world. And I still visit Evie and Portia. Multiple times a year. They are surprisingly needy.”

I wait for him to laugh at the joke, but he doesn’t. He just looks at me as if he’s surprised. As if he’s surprised that he’s surprised. I don’t understand until he says, “Marine biologist. That’s what you wanted to be before, right?”

My stomach flips. Something inside it flutters.

I can’t believe he knows that. Or remembers it. I wonder if he knows I’ve never forgotten any of the moments I spent with him either.

“Y-yeah. Marine biologist.”