Page 34 of Bookish Girl’s Emergency Contact Is a Lycan King

“You threw yourself in front of a GUN.”

“Yes.”

“And turned into a WOLF to do it.”

“The shift was necessary. My lycan form is faster, stronger. I couldn’t have gotten between you and the bullet in human form. Not quickly enough.”

“So you just…” Her voice cracks. “You just decided to take a bullet for me. Without thinking. Without hesitating.”

“There was nothing to think about. He pointed the gun at you. Everything else was reflex.”

She stares at me. The fear is still there, I can smell it, sharp and metallic, but underneath it there’s a new expression now, one that looks like confusion, or wonder, or the particular bewilderment of a person whose entire understanding of reality has just been rewritten.

“Why?” she asks, and her voice is smaller now. Quieter. “Why would you do that for someone you barely know?”

Because you’re mine. Because you’ve been mine since before you opened your eyes. Because I’ve waited three hundred years for you and I didn’t even know I was waiting until you called me pretty while bleeding, and now I would burn down the world to keep you safe.

“Because I wasn’t going to let him hurt you,” I say instead. “The why doesn’t matter.”

“The why ALWAYS matters.”

“Not tonight.” I reach for the blanket on the couch, the one she was wrapped in earlier, before everything went sideways, and wrap it around my waist. It’s not pants, but it’s better than nothing. “Tonight, I’m going to take you home. You’re going to process. And tomorrow, or whenever you’re ready, I’ll answer every question you have. As many as you need. For as long as it takes.”

“I have approximately seven thousand questions.”

“Then I’ll answer seven thousand questions.”

“Starting with how you can possibly be three hundred years old.”

“Three hundred and change. And that’s question one.”

She laughs again, and this time it sounds almost genuine. Almost like herself, underneath the shock. “You’re insane. This whole situation is insane. I’m holding a cat in a serial killer’s murder cabin and I just watched him turn into a wolf and I’m somehow having a conversation about it like it’s normal.”

“It is normal. For me. It’s been normal for my entire very long life.”

“Well, it’s not normal for me. I sell romance novels and make laminated checklists and talk to myself in the mirror. This is…” She waves her hand vaguely, encompassing everything: the candles, the blood on my shoulder, the cat in her arms, the impossible truth of what I am. “This is not my normal.”

“I know.” I take a step toward her, slowly, carefully, giving her plenty of time to back away if she needs to. She doesn’t. “And I’m sorry. I didn’t want you to find out like this. I was going to tell you eventually, when the time was right…”

“Was the time ever going to be right? For something like this?”

“I don’t know,” I admit. “I’ve never done this before. Telling someone, I mean. Someone who isn’t pack. Someone who matters.”

Her face changes at that last word. Matters. Like she’s not sure she believes it, or not sure she should.

“Let me take you home,” I say again. “Please. You can hate me from the comfort of your own apartment.”

She looks at Mario. Mario looks at me and screams.

“Fine,” she says finally. “Take me home. But I’m keeping the cat.”

“I wouldn’t dream of separating you.”

The drive down the mountain is an exercise in restraint.

She’s in the passenger seat, Mario curled in her lap, and her knuckles are white on the door handle. I can smell her fear with every breath I take, not fear of me, exactly, that scent is different, sharper, tinged with adrenaline and the aftermath of shock. This is older than that. Deeper. It has nothing to do with lycans or bullets or impossible transformations.

She’s afraid of the car.