Page 82 of Devoured

Of course, Calix always smells like Vanessa. There is always something sweet lingering on his shirts, his skin; it’s just stronger now. I try to ignore it. I try to breathe.

Pivoting away from Arielle, I arch a brow. “Where is she?”

“Who?” Calix mutters.

I roll my gaze toward the ceiling with a dramatic huff. He knows exactly who. “Now is not the time for you to be obtuse. Where is my mate?”

The word riles him, just as it always does. He tenses further, and I think I hear his teeth crack. Smoldering anger—thick and suffocating like smoke—rolls from him. It disguises the caramel and lavender. Calix’s head snaps to where Arielle stares between us. He jerks his chin toward the door. “Leave, Arielle. I need to speak to my cousin.”

“Have you forgotten your manners? That’s no way to speak to your ward. She’s yours to protect. She’s your responsibility—”

“I am begging you,” Calix growls through his teeth, “to shut up for a second. Can you manage that? One fucking second, Sinclair?”

I tip my head in acquiescence, and now I do force a smile. It’s what’s expected from the careless prince—from the golden traitor. Arielle waves to me, a limp twitch of her fingers, after she climbs off the bed and rubs her palms on her gray sweater. “Um—thanks. I’ll see you soon.”

I nod, maintaining my promise to keep quiet, and she leaves. Once the door shuts again, Calix turns. He locks it. And that latch clicking feels like a shock from a defibrillator.

“You’re not planning to murder me, are you?” I ask coolly, pushing a blond lock from my forehead. “If so, at least let me transform first. Give me a fighting chance.”

Calix stalks forward. Although he doesn’t approach me, his gaze flicks to the handle behind me. Vanessa’s door. “We both know you’re not a bad fighter. Drop the princely facade bullshit.”

I sigh. “There is no facade. I am a prince, Calix.”

Calix responds instinctively. Abruptly. “You’re a bastard.”

“Yes, I suppose I am.” Still, the words pierce my heart like bullets. How many times have others said the same of him? How many times have others used that as an excuse to beat him to a bloody pulp?

I clench my jaw. “So you’re not planning a parricide. Wonderful.”

He doesn’t respond. Instead, he stares at me, his scarlet eyes narrowing on my face. He doesn’t move closer, and he doesn’t speak. I almost don’t recognize him this way.

For years, I knew Calix’s reflection better than my own. I could anticipate his every thought, going so far as to torture him with wild scenarios I would concoct for us at midnight. Outside and under the stars.

“What would you say if I told you I adopted a bear?”

He turns to look at me, a twinkle of mischief in his otherwise stoic, golden gaze. “I’d call you a liar. Your mother would never let you have a bear.”

I splay my legs wide, knocking my shins against his own, and stare up at the night sky. It stretches vast above our heads—so many constellations and so much deep, dark blue that it feels endless. It makes us feel finite. “His name is Fitzgibbons, and he’s in my room right now.”

“Bullshit,” he says.

Only I say, “Bullshit,” at the same time, and he growls. Except I growl before he does.

This makes him snarl. So I snarl first.

I annoy him over and over this way—anticipating his every word before he can spit them out—until he rolls onto his stomach and punches me in the arm. I laugh then, and Calix laughs too. So loudly, so boldly, and then we can’t stop. We are just two cousins, two best friends, laughing in the midnight air.

The universe seems to crack open for us. And in this moment, maybe we are infinite too. Maybe we are just like those stars. Burning brightly forever in the here and now. Even when time speeds up, even when the years pass and Calix and I become grumpy old men, I think the forest will still contain this moment. It will replay for eons, an imprint on the earth and trees and sky.

Maybe we are stars too.

I miss that version of Calix almost as much as I miss that version of myself. I don’t think they survived the Ascension Rite.

I sigh again and pull the chair out from behind my desk. Sitting down, kicking my legs up onto the wood, I frown. “Where is Vanessa, Calix? I don’t think it’s unprecedented for me to want to know what you’ve done with my—”

“Mate?” Calix finishes. “You really love that word, don’t you?”

“It’s an accurate one.”