Page 96 of Devoured

Underneath his hardened exterior, Calix is just a boy terrified of being alone.

He thought he wanted vengeance, but he hasn’t faced the horrible reality that we can’t remove Cora from this court without removing Sin too. Or maybe he has faced it, and he’s just in denial.

Either way, Sin joining us is a near impossibility. The odds are better that he shoots himself out of a cannon before betraying his mother. Even for Calix. Even for me.

Which only leaves one possible ending for him.

“Do you love him?” Calix asks. The question startles me so thoroughly that my knees buckle. Calix leverages a hand against my waist. “Do you love him, Vanessa?”

The answer comes easier this time.

No. No, I’m not in love with Sinclair.

Part of me will always love the good, protective part of him. Part of me will always recognize the way our hearts beat in sync, the sunshine glimmer of his smile, the beautiful burgundy of his eyes. But he betrayed me. He manipulated me. And the boy who did those things isn’t a boy I know. That version of Sin is a stranger, and I can’t love him.

But I’m not sure Calix wants to hear that right now. He seems to be warring with something in his mind, and I don’t want to push him over the edge.

“I don’t know why you’re even asking me that. This has nothing to do with Sin. We’re trying to kill Cora. We’re trying to save the world.”

“Fine. Answer a different question instead.” He licks his lips, and my gaze drops again. This is the Calix I know. Wrathful and vicious and as deadly as a viper. Beautiful like a tornado or a hurricane. Destructively, devastatingly beautiful. “Why in the ever-loving fuck would you tell me this?” His fingers curl into my waist, the start of his claws piercing through my sweatshirt. “Answer me, Vanessa.”

I loose a shaky breath. “We need you. Evie and Portia and I—we’ve been scrambling, always two steps behind Cora and her court. We need a plan. A strategy. We need someone who knows what they’re doing in a war. Without you, we’ll never win. We need you,” I repeat hoarsely. “I—I need you, Calix.” I slide a hand around his tense bicep, and his eyes snap shut. “Please,” I breathe. “Please.”

His eyes open again, and the fire inside them ruptures.

I think he might say yes. I think he might yell some more. I think a million things at once, but I never expect him to lean in.

Wrenching a hand in my hair, rough and gentle all at once, Calix Severi kisses me.

32

VANESSA

OUR BODIES COLLIDE AS WAVES CRASH AGAINST THE seawall and lightning streaks across the starless night sky. A low rumble of thunder reverberates between us, but it doesn’t tear us apart. Nothing could tear us apart. Time has stopped, and the castle behind us has vanished. There is only right now. There are only his lips, his hands, and the inevitability that this will one day cleave me in two.

One day, but not tonight.

Calix pushes me inside the wooden shack, or maybe I pull him. Either way, darkness envelops us. Shadows cloak his lips on mine, hungry and impatient as my nails curl into his chest. He kisses me as if he’s consuming me.

It scorches through my core, his brutal touch reducing me to cinder and ash. I burn, and god, it feels good.

He arches my head back, trailing wicked lips down the curve of my throat as I gasp for air. A primal instinct hooks my legs around his waist, and he reacts immediately. Moving one hand to my thigh, he lifts me in his arms. It’s not the first time we’ve been in this position, but I don’t want to remember that now. I don’t want to remember how we were before this moment, in the darkness, as his tongue laves my neck and I moan.

Calix stills at the sound. “Vanessa—”

“Don’t stop,” I breathe. And before he can question this—before either of us can acknowledge that what we’re doing is wrong—I kiss him again.

Sliding my fingers into his hair, my lips brush softly against his. He tastes like the ocean, like salt and mist and crushing summer storms, and suddenly I can’t swallow his rage fast enough. He growls, deepening the kiss. It becomes a battle. For control, for dominance, for our souls. Calix carries me farther into the shack, until we slam into a hard surface and he sets me on the edge of a ramshackle table. It nearly buckles under my weight, either too old or too poorly constructed to withstand me, but Calix keeps my legs tight around him.

“Hold on to me, Vanessa.”

Freeing his hands from my thighs, he twines desperate fingers in my hair, trails his other hand up, under my sweatshirt, feeling the smooth curve of my hip, then the hard ridge of my spine. Each touch feels as if he’s memorizing me, tracing me, as if he knows this won’t last forever.

“We shouldn’t be doing this,” he says.

He’s right, but I can’t stop. I don’t want to stop. I’ve spent months inside this castle, hollow and alone, but his pulse thunders against mine now. His touch reminds me that I’m alive. We are both alive.

“It’s—it’s nothing,” I argue, need pooling hot in my core. “It doesn’t have to mean anything.”