Page 61 of Bookish Girl’s Emergency Contact Is a Lycan King

“And?”

“We handed him to Sheriff Dutton with a story about attempted robbery gone wrong. His memory’s fuzzy enough that he won’t contradict it.” Theo shifts his weight slightly. “He’ll do some community service, pay a fine. Nothing that requires our… continued involvement.”

Good. Clean. Simple. One problem resolved in a way that doesn’t require teeth or territory disputes or any of the complications that come with supernatural justice.

“And the man at the shop, the one who put his hands on her?” I ask.

“Handled the same night.” Theo inclines his head. “Memory adjusted, cover story in place. He’s two towns over now, telling anyone who’ll listen he had too much to drink and bolted from a stray dog. Nothing that traces back to us. Nothing that traces back to her.”

Good. Another loose end closed before it could fray into something worse.

“There’s something else,” Theo says.

There’s always something else.

“The watcher. From the ridge.” Theo’s jaw tightens. “We finally crossed the trail while sweeping the property line after the storm. Followed it back.”

My attention sharpens to a knife’s edge. Weeks of that presence at the boundary of my awareness, always upwind, always careful, always gone before I could close the distance. Watching me watch her. “And?”

“Aaron.”

The name lands in my chest, a stone dropped into still water. Ripples of irritation spreading outward, familiar and exhausting.

Of course it’s Aaron. Not a threat, Aaron has never once in three centuries been a threat, he considers physical menace vulgar. He’s been perched on that ridge cataloging every hour I spend outside a human woman’s window, every grocery delivery, every deviation from tradition, building his case the way he builds everything: patiently, joylessly, and with footnotes.

“He’s been surveilling his own king,” I say.

“He’d call it ‘observing a matter of pack concern.’”

“He would. He’d cite the statute.”

“He did cite the statute. When we found him.” Theo’s mouth twitches despite himself. “From memory. All four clauses.”

“What now?”

“He’s been vocal.” Theo chooses his words with the care of someone navigating a minefield. “About the human situation.”

“Her name is Fable.”

“About Fable, then.” A pause. “He doesn’t approve.”

“Aaron hasn’t approved of anything since approximately 1650. His approval is not required for my personal decisions.”

“He knows that.” Another careful pause. “He’s calling for a gathering anyway.”

I close my eyes. Breathe in through my nose, pine, earth, the distant trace of her scent that clings to everything near her building. Breathe out through my mouth.

“He can’t call a gathering without my permission.”

“He’s aware of the protocol, yes.”

“And yet.”

“And yet.”

Silence stretches between us, filled with the sounds of the forest, birds, wind, the distant rush of water from the creek that feeds into the valley. Normal sounds. Peaceful sounds. Sounds that do nothing to quiet the anger building behind my ribs.

“Aaron is my uncle three times removed,” I say finally, keeping my voice level. “Eldest living member of the Halloran line. He has been disappointed in me for two hundred years, and he has never once needed a reason.”