Page 27 of Bookish Girl’s Emergency Contact Is a Lycan King

“Harmless mostly?”

“They don’t come near the house.”

“How do you know?”

“We have an understanding.”

I stare at him. He stares back. He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t react. Doesn’t show any sign that a wolf howling maybe fifty feet from his windows is anything worth worrying about.

Normal people react to wolves. Normal people at least look concerned.

“You’re weird,” I say again.

“You said that already.”

“It bears repeating.”

The howl comes again, closer this time, and I swear I see something flash in his eyes, a flicker of gold, there and gone, but when I blink, they’re gray again. Normal. Steady.

“Stay for dinner,” he says, one more time.

And somewhere in the dark woods beyond his windows, the wolves answer for him.

6

— • —

Fable

That same evening, with a storm rolling in over the ridge, the cat appears from nowhere.

One moment I’m standing in Orion’s living room, wrapped in an alpaca blanket that costs more than my rent, processing the fact that wolves apparently howl outside his windows on a regular basis. The next moment, there’s a streak of orange fur launching itself at my legs, and I’m being climbed, apparently mistaken for a tree, by the angriest cat I’ve ever encountered.

“What the…”

Claws dig into my sweatpants, then my sweater, then my shoulder as the creature scales me with the single-minded determination of a mountaineer on a deadline. He’s enormous, not fat, just big, with copper-penny eyes and fur the color of a sunset filtered through smog.

He reaches my neck and settles there, a living scarf, rumbling with what might be a purr or might be a threat.

“Oh my god,” I whisper, freezing in place. “Oh my god, you’re perfect.”

Orion is staring at us, and I can’t parse the look on his face. It might be betrayal. It might be resignation. It’s definitely something.

“That’s Mario,” he says.

“Mario,” I repeat, reaching up carefully to scratch behind an orange ear. The rumbling intensifies. “Hi, Mario. I love you. You’re the best thing that’s happened to me all week.”

“I rescued him,” Orion continues, and now I can definitely hear betrayal in his voice. “From a storm drain. He was dying. I nursed him back to health with an eyedropper. Weeks of my life. Weeks of bottle-feeding and veterinary bills and…”

Mario turns his head, looks directly at Orion, and yowls.

It’s not a meow. It’s not a cry for attention. It’s a full-throated sound of pure theatrical betrayal, like Orion has personally wronged him in ways too numerous to list.

“…and that’s the thanks I get,” Orion finishes flatly.

“He doesn’t like you?”

“He tolerates my presence.” The words are dry, measured. “That’s his thank-you. That’s all I get.”