Chapter 29
29
It didn’t matter how much Alex begged and bargained, her driver couldn’t get past congestion on the freeway any quicker. She cursed every Prius in the seemingly endless line of headlights ahead of them and tried Devin’s phone again, and again to no avail. There was nothing she could do for him trapped in this four-wheeled prison. It would all come down to the hours of training as Devin fought to stay in control of his mind while the moon called forth the full shift.
Alex sat back against the vinyl seat of the car with a sinking stomach, trying and failing to remain optimistic. She’d seen Devin go to pieces over much less than losing his beloved franchise. Alex couldn’t imagine the frantic man she’d seen at the basketball game deciding that a professional and personal betrayal like the one he’d suffered at the hands of Brian Dempsey was nothing more than a glancing blow.
Her phone vibrated on the seat beside her, and Alex’s heart flew into her throat.
Cam: We’ve decided to call parlay
Alex gasped, almost sick with fondness seeing her best friend’s name on her screen.
Eliza: Brian Dempsey green lighting a TAF movie without Colby is extenuating circumstances to your fandom probation
Eliza: this has nothing to do with the fact that you’ve got some kind of in with Devin Ashwood and might have gossip from an inside source
Desperately, Alex found herself smiling.
Cam: We’ve loved to loathe Devin Ashwood for the better part of our lives, but I’ve got to admit I feel bad. He made The Arcane Files worth watching and (indirectly) brought us together.
Eliza: His various humiliating exploits have provided us with countless hours of joy.
Cam: he might be a slightly delusional prima donna but he’s also our little meow meow.
Cam: besides, if anyone can keep him in line, it’s you, Law.
Alex couldn’t help the tears that blurred her vision. She hadn’t thought that she’d lost her friends forever—she wouldn’t have let them go without more of a fight—but to have them on her side again, now, shored up her flagging courage.
Alex: I’m on my way to his house
It felt surreal to type, like she was the y/n self-insert in a Devin Ashwood/reader RPF.
Alex: I know I fucked up keeping secrets from you guys. I can’t explain everything right now, but I swear I’m gonna find some way to make this up to you
Cam: we trust you
Eliza: I expect to read the entire saga in fic form, as penance.
Eliza: #blackcat/goldenretriever #Enemies-to-lovers #Agegap 300K Rated E
By the time they finally pulled up to Devin’s long, winding driveway, Alex had convinced herself that she could handle whatever awaited her at the top of the hill. That confidence wavered slightly when, about halfway up, the sound of a growl overtook the purr of the engine. The driver looked at her uneasily in the rearview mirror.
“That’s, uh…my guard dog,” Alex said, as confidently as possible considering the claw-shaped dents in the steel fence that wrapped around the property. “He’s a Great Pyrenees.”
At least she knew Devin was still in there. The security protocols designed to protect him from the rest of the world, utilized in reverse.
Her driver dropped her off and sped back down the hill, leaving tire marks outside the driveway.
Alex took a deep breath, steeling herself. She had handled Devin in a partial shift before, and the wolf had never shown violent tendencies toward her. That didn’t stop her body from breaking out in goose bumps. She pulled her Taser from her purse, just in case.
Alex entered the code into the gate security system with sweaty hands. The metal groaned as it receded into the stone walls of the perimeter fence, shooting sparks as the warped shape grated against the rock.
Across the vast yard, Devin was nowhere to be found. There was, however, a wave of destruction that signaled a previous appearance. Grass torn out in clumps, ceramic pots overturned. This had to be at least ten thousand dollars’ worth of gardening destroyed.
The back door, made of weatherproof glass, had been shattered by blunt force. Shards littered the deck like macabre confetti, along with a set of bloody paw prints that trailed back inside and then faded, as if the injured animal had healed in real time.
Alex tensed with worry but forced herself to stay calm. She made her way carefully through the foyer to find the living room in shambles, the TV on and blaring. She picked up the remote and turned it off, plunging the house into sudden silence. She realized the growling had stopped, departing with her Lyft.
On the kitchen counter she found the remains of Devin’s pulverized cell phone. Alex took that as a fair indicator that someone had broken the news about the reboot. By all evidence, he’d taken rejection about as well as could be expected.
“Devin?” Alex called as she made her way down the big, open hallway. Her voice echoed off the stark white walls.
She found him in her guest room with her red sweatshirt between his teeth. Alex took an involuntary step back.
She’d known what to expect, had seen the paw prints moments ago; still, her body tightened with shock. Oh, that’s a real live animal.
The wolf stared back at her, massive, with glowing silver eyes and a sandy-colored coat. The juxtaposition of the huge body curled up in the corner, his head resting on his giant front paws, stole her breath.
Alex had grown up around wolves. She knew the average adult male red wolf in Ocala could reach up to five and a half feet from nose tip to tail. Devin seemed about that size, maybe a little larger. It was hard to tell with him lying down. Thank god they weren’t dealing with Twilight -sized giants or he’d definitely have destroyed more than the living room and garden.
“Hi,” she said, inanely.
The wolf gave her a long look, then got up and turned, showing Alex his back as he once more curled around the sweatshirt. He seemed…grumpy. Sulky. His side-eye and huff somehow conveying the very human emotion of betrayal, the same one Devin had given her right before she walked out the door.
“Devin?” Alex said again, and the wolf’s ears twitched.
She didn’t know if that meant that he understood her or if he was just responding to the sound of her voice. At least he wasn’t in a defensive posture or showing any signs of aggression. She shoved the Taser back into her purse.
“If you can understand what I’m saying, blink twice,” she said, taking a few steps closer and crouching down.
The wolf pivoted again so his big furry butt complete with plumy tail pointed right at her. Alex took that as a no. So far, there was a surprising amount of indignity in trying to communicate with a werewolf.
It was strange to see the signs of the partial shift in his fully shifted form. The familiar silver irises set in his lupine face, a long white muzzle, a black nose, and whiskers.
It was a struggle to make her brain process that this giant natural predator was in fact Devin Ashwood, or at least part of him. The most the audience ever saw of Colby in the full shift was a comical CGI rendering.
Alex had guessed that this would happen, but guessing and seeing it for herself were two very different things. A sliver of moonlight came through the open window, for a moment casting Devin’s fur the same golden honey brown as his hair when he was human.
Upon closer inspection, the wolf was kind of filthy. Dirt covered his paws and legs, along with dark red dried blood. Alex didn’t see any open wounds. The wolf apparently enjoyed accelerated healing.
“Don’t think I missed your escape attempt,” she told him.
The wolf tilted his head as if trying to listen to what she was saying.
“I guess the security system thwarted you, huh?”
She was surprised he’d come back here, to her room instead of his own. You’d think every other space in the house would be more familiar, more comforting.
She stared down at the sweatshirt he’d curled around.
Oh. Right. He liked her scent. A lot. His response to her LA makeover took on burgeoning context, his insults becoming, somehow, a poorly delivered compliment.
“Were you…uh…looking for me?” The idea made Alex’s heart hurt. A fresh wave of guilt washed over her. She should have been here. They’d made all the preparations together, gone through all the training. She’d known he could be an asshole when she signed on to help him.
Since words didn’t seem to be getting through to him in this form, Alex crouched down next to the big animal’s body and tentatively reached out her palm.
The wolf allowed her to pet behind his ears, his soft fur moving like silk between her fingers.
He leaned into her hand. Apparently petting was an acceptable form of apology. His pointed ears relaxed, and he even turned to lick at the bare skin of her wrist.
“Oh, are we friends again?”
When Alex had imagined Devin during the Change, she’d certainly pictured more sinister scenarios than this. The wolf simply looked sad, weary. He sighed through his nose and once again lowered his big head to his paws. When Alex made to stand, to give him some space, he whined low in his throat.
“Don’t worry,” she said, folding herself into a seated position beside him, “I’ll hang around until you’re feeling more like yourself.”
Was this what lay beneath the core of Devin Ashwood with every learned social response removed? Had he really withstood pain and resisted temptation all in a desperate bid to hide the fact that deep down he craved comfort and companionship?
Alex could handle that. He’d taken care of her, more than once. Her insides twisted, remembering the tender way he’d held her when she was in pain. She could take care of him too.
First things first.
It took significant coaxing, including uncovering a jar of peanut butter from the pantry, to convince the wolf to climb into Devin’s massive marble bathtub.
He didn’t trust the rushing water coming out of the spigot and proceeded to both growl at and try to bite it in turns. That, more than anything so far, convinced Alex she was dealing with the wolf rather than Devin in the driver’s seat. The latter never would have allowed himself to look this silly.
Alex stuck her own palm under the water while he watched to try to prove it was safe.
“See? It’s nice.” She’d deduced at this point that he couldn’t understand what she was saying, but talking to him made her feel better. Plus, the sound of her voice seemed to soothe him.
The wolf gave her a brow-furrowed look that questioned her intelligence.
“You’ll thank me once your human counterpart returns,” Alex said as he sat, docile but clearly miserable, while she gently sprayed his feet clean with the detachable shower head. “This entire house is wall-to-wall white. You’ve already ruined several carpets.”
The wolf let out a soft grunt that said she better appreciate the privilege he was bestowing, allowing her to bathe him.
It figured that Devin Ashwood would be spoiled in every form.
When the opportunity arose, the wolf took great joy in retaliation, shaking his sopping-wet coat on the bath mat within inches of Alex’s crouched body so that she got thoroughly spattered. It was remarkably disconcerting to see Devin’s sly smile on the face of a predator.
After changing into clean and dry pajamas, Alex found the wolf curled up on the couch. She dropped down beside him and indulged his demands for ear scritches, which he conveyed by bumping his nose against her knee until she lifted her arm.
As both Alex’s and the wolf’s eyelids began to droop, she couldn’t help but think how differently this night might have ended if Devin had never become a werewolf. In the least conventional way possible, he’d managed to avoid the fallout of the TAF news, the inevitable onslaught of phone calls and requests for comment. Of course the reprieve would only last as long as the full moon. Alex didn’t have much hope the tranquility of tonight would carry over to morning, when Devin woke up forced to face a future without Colby.