Chapter 32
32
Devin came back to his body like red wine against a white tablecloth: a sudden, jarring splash. From the darkness, suddenly he found himself sitting on the stiff white couch in his living room as the sun set behind the wall of massive windows looking out over his backyard. The inside of his mouth was gritty with sugar as he ran his tongue across his teeth. He wore nothing but a thin pair of sweatpants, which appeared to be on backward for some reason.
Alex paced in front of his coffee table. She was talking to herself, her tone that of a pep talk well underway.
“This is silly,” she said, shaking out her shoulders. “Just say it.”
Her chest rose and fell with a long, deliberate breath.
If Devin thought her scent was appealing before, it was nothing compared to how she smelled now.
He could trace these notes in the middle of a hailstorm if he lost the use of his eyes and ears.
He could even, apparently, follow it back from the depths of his self-loathing.
Leaning forward, he inhaled, pulling the scent deeper into his lungs.
Alex didn’t spare him a glance.
Devin knew the scent was tied to something Alex was feeling, but like the wolf, he couldn’t quite place it. He had no frame of reference for this emotion.
“Even if this doesn’t bring Devin back,” Alex said to herself, “it’s not like it’ll be the most humiliating thing you’ve tried today.”
Instead of the glaring emptiness of amnesia that usually followed a transformation, fuzzy memories of the last twenty-odd hours flooded Devin’s mind like faded snapshots. He had the feeling it was the wolf showing him what he’d missed, opening the line of communication between them that usually went quiet after his other half took the wheel.
Devin’s neck heated. Oh god.
He’d absolutely peed on a thirty-thousand-dollar Japanese maple in the backyard.
He was only wearing these pants because Alex was surprisingly strong, and the wolf had been too afraid of hurting her to fight back while she wrestled him into them.
He felt like he’d come back home after a long journey. For the first time in days, he had distance from his emotions. He saw himself a week ago in Tompkins: happier, lighter, easier. Learning how to care about things, about people other than himself. Then he saw himself as he’d been since returning to LA: the sharp, metallic fear; the anger; the ache. He’d forgotten all he knew about being kind to himself and—bile rose at the back of his throat—to Alex.
Devin had hurt her as she was trying to help him. He’d hurt her as he frantically tried to convince her to stay.
The wolf’s behavior, fully feral, was less shameful than his had been by a mile.
But…Alex was here. He’d given her every reason to leave, and she’d come back. To take care of him after he’d done nothing to earn it.
Alex was still trying to save him. No, not trying. She had saved him. Her scent. This new feeling. Devin had been able to follow it back like a beacon.
“Alex,” he said, hoarse from the wolf’s abuse of his vocal cords. And it felt like a benediction. His first word, all over again. The effort, the importance of dragging the sound free.
She froze immediately, her gaze shooting to his face.
“Devin?” All the color drained from her cheeks. “You’re back? You’re you?”
“I’m so sorry.” He got to his feet, taking a few steps toward her before halting. She might be afraid.
Alex threw herself into his arms. He caught her with a soft “oof” as she smacked against his bare chest. Having her this close, smelling the way she did, made him dizzy.
“I hate your guts,” she said into his neck, the words muffled against his skin.
Well, that wasn’t true. He knew exactly what that smelled like.
Alex poked a finger between his pecs in a gesture that she surely meant to be threatening, but the effect was dampened by the fact that her hand was shaking.
“Do you have any idea what I went through while you were gone?”
“Yes.” Devin knew, and hated, the scent of her fear.
He caught Alex’s hand in his. Her palm was sweaty. Touching her was bliss.
“I missed you too.”
Alex huffed. But she didn’t try to take her hand back.
“I thought you’d dissolved into the ether.”
He wrapped one hand around her hip, letting his other cradle her jaw. “Not on your watch.”
Alex’s eyes were wide and dangerously glassy. “What the hell happened to you?”
Devin dropped his gaze to the ground and took a step back. He’d put her through the wringer.
“I don’t want to say.” He toed at the plush fibers of the rug under his feet. “It’s embarrassing.”
The way he’d behaved, yes, but even more than that, the way he’d given up.
Alex scowled.
“Do you see all of these feathers?” With her chin she drew attention to the snowfall of down littering the living room.
“Yes.”
“They came from that pillow”—she pointed to a carcass of Italian cashmere—“which I watched you destroy with your teeth about an hour ago.”
Okay, that was fair. Devin took a deep breath.
He’d been a product for as long as he could remember, his value fluctuating depending on how he looked, who he was seen with, whether or not audiences thought he could kiss and kill convincingly.
But here, right in front of him, was someone who, even after all he’d put her through, still wanted him around. He owed Alex an explanation. He owed her a lot more than that.
“So, you know how I like your scent?” Understatement of the century.
“I’ve come to recognize that general concept, yes,” Alex said with a dismissive little wave.
It was probably for the best that she didn’t think it was a big deal.
“Well, over time, I’ve gotten more and more used to being around you. I’ve built up some degree of tolerance.” So that he didn’t fly completely off the handle every time they were in the same room. “But the first time I caught your scent—undiluted by all those disgusting chemicals you work with—it hit me like an arrow through the chest.”
Even now Devin could feel the impact, the urgency, of that moment in the forest.
“I had to follow it. To find you.”
Alex’s brow creased. “We’re talking about that time you showed up at my dad’s house randomly?”
Devin groaned. “For the last time, I did not know he was your dad.”
“Yeah. Yeah.” Alex smirked. “Get back on track.”
Minx.
“Right. What I’m trying to say is something changed in your scent just now.” Devin shook his head to clear it. “I don’t know where I was—where I go exactly—when the wolf is in charge. It feels kind of like being in a dreamless sleep. Only this time I couldn’t wake up. But then, out of nowhere, it was like you were calling me. Like I was summoned. Finding you, getting back to you, was…essential.”
Devin knew it sounded impossible, silly even. He didn’t know what he’d do if Alex laughed at him right now. But she didn’t look at him like what he’d said was funny. If anything, she looked sheepish, her face going pink.
“And do you have any idea why my scent might change?” Her tone was careful.
It was a good question. Where previously Devin relied on Alex or TAF as the experts on his physiology, now his lived experience had gone beyond the bounds of the show bible. Devin himself was, alarmingly, the new de facto expert on a role for which he’d never been cast. He was the one who could, who must, define what it meant to be a werewolf from here on out.
“Your scent signature changes a bit whenever you’re feeling something particularly strongly.” Devin flipped through his sensory memories. He hadn’t picked up on it at the time, but on reflection: “The adjustment is usually more subtle than this, but the same kind of thing happens when you’re really pissed or you’re really horn—”
“Got it,” Alex said, cutting him off. “Thanks.”
“But I actually don’t recognize whatever you’re feeling right now.” Devin frowned. “Normally the emotions just kind of clock in my head. Like the wolf has got special receptors.”
“Receptors,” she repeated.
“I’m not a scientist, Alex.” The word seemed accurate enough. “It’s like—you know how birds can see more colors because they have more cones in their eyes?”
“Yes,” she said slowly.
“What?” Devin shrugged. “Sometimes I watch nature documentaries to fall asleep.”
Her mouth quirked to the side, Alex’s trying-not-to-smile smile.
“So you can sense feelings, and whatever I happen to be feeling right now somehow acted as a strong enough sensory lure to pull you back from the dark abyss?”
“Yeah.” That about summed it up.
Alex sat down heavily on the couch. “Oh my god.”
Devin followed her, standing awkwardly at her shoulder.
“Are you good?” She looked a little green.
Alex shook her head.
“Okay, well, as stated, you’re gonna have to spell out what’s going on in your head for me because I can’t tell if you’re like super mad or having a nervous breakdown or just like a form of hangry I’ve never encountered.”
“I’m in love with you,” Alex said, looking up at him.
“What? Now? ” Devin was appalled. He’d spent the last day and a half as an animal. “Didn’t you watch me eat an entire raw steak this morning without using my hands?”
“Yes.” Alex buried her face in her hands. “There’s something seriously wrong with me.”
Devin’s heart tore at the words.
“Alex.” He went to his knees in front of her. “I’ve fucked up so bad.”
She lifted her head to look at him. “It has been an eventful week.”
He almost laughed. “I know, but even before now.”
Saying the words hurt, but Devin had been carrying them around in the pit of his stomach since the town fair.
“Growing up, my parents made me believe I was worthless unless I could make myself into what other people wanted.” His voice came out as ground glass. “Even after they left me, I carried that belief around like a disease. And it’s bad enough that I let it poison my whole life. But it’s worse that I met you when you were young and impressionable and I passed that pain on.”
Alex started to shake her head, but they both knew it was true even if it wasn’t his fault.
“I don’t know if I’ll ever forgive myself for contributing to your idea that you aren’t good enough.” Devin cupped her jaw, his thumb caressing the crest of her cheek. “Because while it’s true that you’re one hundred percent a stone-cold weirdo, I am so fucking into it.”
“ What? ” Alex said, half laugh, half croak.
“You’re scary”—he kissed her brow—“and mean”—the underside of her chin—“and obsessive”—the tip of her nose. “And I cannot get enough of you.”
“You’re so bad at this,” she said fondly.
Ignoring the ache that had started in his knees, Devin tucked a lock of hair that had fallen from her messy bun behind her ear. “I don’t know if it was the moon or fate or the universe that made me a werewolf, but, baby, you made me human.”
Alex’s breath caught.
Kick rocks, Brian Dempsey. Devin could write his own damn lines.
Sure, he was still getting the hang of being a once-in-a-generation supernatural creature. And yes, even though he was working on managing his other half, he’d probably always be anxious and odd and desperate for approval.
His acting career was almost certainly over.
The only long-term personal relationships he’d ever known had ended in estrangement and/or divorce.
And yet…
“I was thinking, if you’ll have me,” he said softly, moving to sit beside her, “maybe we could die alone together?”
Alex pressed her hand over her heart, looking slightly dazed. “Devin Ashwood wants to be my boyfriend?” She stared into the middle distance about a foot from his face.
“You know it’s a little weird when you say my whole name like that, right?”
“This is real,” Alex said flatly. “This is happening.”
“Uh.” Devin waved a palm in front of her face. “I can’t actually tell if you’re saying yes.”
She whipped her head around to meet his gaze. “I don’t want to move to LA. I know in a lot of ways it would probably be easier, but I belong in Tompkins.”
“No, I know,” Devin rushed to assure her. “I was thinking, I could go back with you. I’m gonna start a horse sanctuary for Lou and the other abandoned racehorses. I’ve got this whole plan. Don’t worry about it.”
He didn’t need more proof than the charity game that being in this town, in a place with lists and constant cameras, where he was always trying to win someone over to succeed, was really fucking bad for him.
His parents had brought him to LA. It was Devin’s decision alone to leave.
Alex raised a skeptical brow, but he would fill her in on the details later. At the moment he wanted her to understand the choice wasn’t a sacrifice, not really.
“When I got the news about the Arcane Files movie, don’t get me wrong, it sucked real bad. But there was about twenty seconds before I lost my shit when I was just…so relieved. I’ve been hauling this show, this character, around like a ball and chain for two decades, and only seeing Brian Dempsey’s smug-ass face on Entertainment Tonight made me realize I’ve had the key this whole time.”
Alex took both his hands back into hers. “Is this you having a midlife crisis?”
Devin tilted his head. It was a fair question. He’d spent so much of the last two decades defining himself by Colby, by the success (and failures) of the show. The wound of finding out it was over, not for everyone else but for him, still sat as a dull ache behind his ribs. There was something very cliché about an aging actor moving to Florida and dating someone a decade younger.
“That’s what they call it when you wake up one day and you’re scared and dissatisfied with your old life?”
“Basically.” Alex chewed her lower lip.
“And so you make all these radical changes trying to figure out how to be happy?” Devin reached up and used the pad of his thumb to gently dislodge her teeth.
He had plans for that mouth later.
Alex’s pupils dilated as she nodded.
“Well then, yeah.” He placed a kiss on her jawline, right behind her ear where the scent of her loving him was strongest. “I’m probably having one of those.”
Thank god.
Alex traced the veins on top of his hand with her finger.
“Are you sure that you want to leave LA? I know Jade’s not your agent anymore, but I think she genuinely likes you. I’m pretty sure she’d help you figure out a next step in this town if you wanted, as your friend, if nothing else.”
Huh. Being friends with Jade might be nice. Devin could get the spinach-artichoke dip going again. But why was Alex trying to talk him out of this?
Oh. He should’ve realized.
“To be clear, I’m in love with you too.” Even though Alex said it first, saying it back still felt like jumping off the edge of a cliff.
She snapped her head up. “You do?”
He nodded solemnly. “Devin Ashwood is in love with you.”
Alex scowled. “You are not as cute as you think you are.”
“I want to take you on dates,” he clarified, ignoring that blatant slander. “And go grocery shopping together. I’ve got some really dirty ideas for sex positions that leverage my super strength.”
He grinned at the bridge of a blush across her nose and cheeks.
“I wanna be there to see how you finally spend my money.”
Alex’s eyes were getting suspiciously watery again. Who knew behind all those tats and piercings she was such a big sap?
“I like taking care of you,” he said gently.
As predicted, that snapped her from sentimental to mad in about two seconds flat.
“I don’t need you to take care of—”
“Yeah, I know, Xena: Warrior Princess. Relax. It’s not a need thing. I’m asking, Do you like it?”
Alex considered for a long moment.
“Yes,” she admitted reluctantly.
Sometimes Alex missed things that were simple. Clear. Good.
“Then let’s figure the rest out, okay? I don’t know about you, but I think we make a pretty good team.”
Thirteen seasons and Colby never got to be in love. Poor guy.
“I’d like that,” Alex said, smiling at him with that gap he wanted to write poems about. “All of it.”
“Yeah?” If Devin kept grinning like this, he was gonna sprain his jaw.
“Yeah.”
Later, after he’d taken a human shower and brushed his human teeth, he followed his nose to find Alex. He caught her in the hall, her arms full of laundry. He’d have to get her to show him how to do that sometime.
“Hey,” he said, doing Colby’s signature smolder.
“Hi,” Alex said, a little sheepish.
“What?” He dropped the smolder. “All of a sudden you’re shy?”
“You’re all wet,” she said delicately.
Devin looked down. He’d wrapped a towel low around his waist, and he supposed his chest was kinda damp and glistening. He inhaled.
Oh.
As it turned out, the best scent in the world was Alex loving him and wanting him to fuck her.
“Well,” he said, taking the laundry from her arms and walking toward the bedroom, “as you know, you just rescued me from a fate worse than death—”
Alex followed him. “Do we know that that’s true?”
“—and as my hero—”
“Devin.” A note of warning rang in her voice as she recognized some of the worst dialogue in The Arcane Files ’ long history.
“—you have won my favor.”
Alex tipped her head back and groaned at the ceiling.
“And my flower.” He dropped the laundry on a chair in the corner beside his bed as Alex came to stand beside him.
She opened her mouth against the pulse point on his neck to apply soft suction. “Who says I want your flower?”
“Doesn’t matter.” Devin’s knees threatened to buckle. “It’s yours.”
Vibrations from her soft laugh sent goose bumps trailing from his throat to his navel.
Alex guided him over to the foot of the bed and then shoved softly at his shoulders until his ass met the comforter. She knelt with her thighs bracketing his, and scraped her teeth across the tendons of his throat.
“Do it,” Devin said when he clocked the question behind the first hint of pressure from her jaw, the soft flick of her tongue against the thin skin.
Giving Alex permission to bite him felt almost as good as when she did it.
Devin grunted at the first flash of discomfort as her teeth pressed down.
“Harder.”
She indulged him.
Oh fuck. Oh fuck. Oh fuck.
He was shaking by the time she moved her mouth back to his, adrenaline spiking so hard he tasted copper.
Alex traced the marked skin with her fingertips as she kissed him, slow and filthy.
“Does it hurt?”
“Yes.” He sucked on her tongue, wishing he could drown in the taste of her.
In the dim room there was only the sound of her breath growing more ragged with each press of his lips, her heartbeat racing in his ears. Devin wanted to taste every part of her, leaving traces of himself across her skin.
Having her this close was almost too good, too much. He never thought he could be this happy.
Devin ghosted his own fingers over the imprint left by her teeth and groaned.
So this is what it feels like to belong to someone.