Devan blanked out his twitchy feet and tingling skin and refocussed on the paperwork he’d retrieved from her room. He’d already made up his mind to make it the first and last time he entered her space, but the raw grief in Zio’s liquid gaze had poured concrete on that decision. As long as he was here, Emma’s room would remain hers. He’d sleep on the damn couch.
And sleep was something he could no longer ignore. Days of fatigue caught up with him. He sent Dash a message to let him know he was safely ensconced with the wolf pack, then set Emma’s diligently kept paperwork aside for the morning.
He kicked his boots off and stretched out on the couch. Emma’s scent was everywhere, but light, barely detectable, as though it had been sprinkled through the house like fairy dust a long time ago. Zio’s scent was more potent, andconfusing. The addictive musk Devan had chased through the club was still there, but there were extra layers now, as though the earthy wolf scent had absorbed Zio’s disgust at discovering Devan wasn’t one of them and used it as a shield.
He doesn’t like me.
It was the last thought to cross Devan’s mind before he fell asleep.
Chapter Seven
Devan woke to darkness and a distinct absence of fresh scent—it was early, pre-dawn, and Zio had yet to return.
It felt wrong to be in Zio’s home without him, and the idea that he’d driven him out was unsettling. Once again, the beast within Devan called to him to shift, to break free and run with the sun as it rose, but aside from not wanting to invade Zio’s space any more than he already had, he hadn’t discussed shifting with Varian.
Maybe today.
Stretching, Devan stood from the couch and surveyed his surroundings with more interest than he had the night before, when his focus had been solely on the young wolf he was destined to share a home with for who-the-gods-knew how long. Zio’s presence had disturbed every instinct Devan possessed, and he could hardly fathom that he’d managed to sleep in a place he’d yet to pace out and assess.
No wonder you’re no soldier.
But Ziowasa soldier, and that frightened Devan. The young wolf was volatile and teeming with emotions that had no place on the battlefield. He was a ticking time bomb unless he found a way to let loose some of that rage.
Devan could think of many ways he could facilitate that, but none of them fell under the remit of a healer, and he could’ve done without the hot flash rioting through him as his imagination bolted the stable.Focus. His gaze fell on the paperwork stacked on the coffee table, but that could wait. First, he needed to take stock of his new home.
He left Emma’s room alone and inspected the bathroom. It was clean and tidy but smelt of bleach rather than Zio. Same with the kitchen. The fridge and cupboards were pretty much bare, and wolf scents were faint.
The living room had the three-seater couch Devan had slept on, a TV, and a Bluetooth speaker. Photo albums were stacked beneath the coffee table, but Devan left them alone. Shifter families didn’t always follow human customs, but logic told him he had no business nosing around in things like that.
Zio’s bedroom was at the back of the bungalow. The door was closed. Devan hovered outside, curiosity and the still bright craving forthat scentmaking his hands twitch. He wanted to slip inside and get a glimpse of the man who’d affected him so deeply, but at the same time, the reality that Zio would know Devan had been in his room the moment he came home kept Devan rooted to the spot.
He breathed in and out, filling his lungs with Zio’s scent, testing his reaction to it. Heat simmered in his veins. His heart skipped a beat, and the pull to shift and track Zio down was strong, but for what? For sex? Something else? Were his healing instincts connecting with his new pack already? After all, Zio was unhappy. Grieving for his best friend. It made sense that Devan would want to help him.
Devan retreated from Zio’s bedroom door and drifted to the kitchen, mulling over the theory that gave him a get-out clause for his current obsession with his surly housemate. It was... plausible, but it didn’t explain what had happened in the club. How Zio’s scent had overwhelmed him, robbing him of any coherent thought butwant want want. But perhaps the two weren’t connected. Perhaps Devan’s shifter instincts had reached out to the only other shifter present, drawing them together to protect them at a time when they’d both craved the same thing, leaving the fact that Devan was still drawn to Zio now irrelevant.
The hypothesis was about as farfetched as most humans believed supernatural science to be, but it suited Devan. Gave him a reason to throw caution to the wind and give in to the craving deep in his bones. He took a step towards the back door, but a knock sounded from the front of the house, pulling him back to the present.
Cursing, he darted through the bungalow to open the front door. Gale’s scent reached him long before he got there, and Devan found himself disappointed, though for what reason, he had no idea. It wasn’t as though Zio would knock before he entered his own home.
“Morning,” Gale said. “Varian sent me to invite you for breakfast at his house. He always cooks on a Saturday.”
“That’s quite domestic considering you’re at war.”
Gale shrugged. “We like to welcome visitors when we have them. Makes life easier for everyone. Besides, this is our home. Our families are here.”
Devan didn’t have a family to speak of outside of the healer commune, where shifters kept to themselves. Dash often invited him for meals when Luca was away, but those instances had grown rarer in recent years. Keeping the peace kept Devan’s alphas busy, and it had been a while since he hadn’t eaten alone. “Sounds good to me.”
He stepped out of the bungalow and locked the door behind him. Gale had retreated to the end of the path. Devan joined him, and they fell into step together as they walked towards Varian’s house. “Seeing as I’ve interacted more with you than anyone else, can I take it that you’re my pack contact?”
“I guess so.”
“Wouldn’t it make more sense for it to be Zio? Considering he’s a beta too and I live with him?”
Gale’s lips twitched, as though he wanted to grin but had thought better of it at the last second. “You’d think, but Zio’s... distracted at the moment. Maybe when you’ve been here a while and you know each other better.”
“He didn’t come home last night.” Devan regretted the words as soon as they were out of his mouth.
But if Gale thought the statement was out of place, it didn’t show. “He rarely stays still for long,” he said. “He’s nicer than he’d ever let you see, though.”