Page 79 of Bookish Girl’s Emergency Contact Is a Lycan King

“Obviously.”

Her eyes go suspiciously shiny. “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me while destroying my entire understanding of reality. Continue. Tell me everything.”

Then I tell her the rest. The pack, the tiny lycan children, the casseroles, the chaos. I tell her about Mario riding Orion, tiny orange warlord that he is, while pack members took pictures with religious fervor. I tell her about Mira and the tropes, about the “three hundred years of scowling” comment, about the way Orion watched me across the lawn like I was the only person there.

And then I tell her about the bomb.

Winnie and her punch-loosened tongue. The word mate landing in the middle of the party, an unpinned grenade. The way the yard went church-quiet while my brain did a slow-motion record scratch.

“She said he’d known since the crash,” I say, and my voice is steady but my hands aren’t. “That I was his fated mate. That it was destiny or whatever. And he never told me.”

“What did you do?”

“I confronted him. At the tree line.” I close my eyes, remembering. “I asked him why. He said humans can reject the bond… that he was afraid I’d feel trapped, that I’d stay out of obligation instead of want. He said he’d rather have me slow and human-paced than risk losing me.”

“And you said?”

“I said he lied to me. That he omitted and withheld and let me fall for him without knowing I was already his.” My voice cracks. “Then I asked for space and I drove home.”

Millie is quiet for a long moment.

“Okay,” she says finally. “I’m going to do two things now. First, I’m going to torch him for the omission, because that was wrong. You deserved to know what you were getting into from the beginning, and keeping that information from you, even with good intentions, was a violation of your ability to make informed choices about your own life.”

“Thank you.”

“I’m not done.” She holds up a hand. “Second, I’m going to point out that a man who memorizes your panic-attack protocol from a single offhand mention is not a man running a con. A man who breaks down a door to save you from a creep, who shows up every night to stand guard, who laminated your coping mechanisms because he noticed they were falling apart… that’s not manipulation, babe. That’s obsession, sure. But it’s the obsession of someone who actually gives a shit.”

“He still lied.”

“He omitted. There’s a difference.”

“Is there?”

“Yes.” She turns to face me fully. “Lying is ‘I’m not a lycan.’ Omitting is ‘I’m not ready to tell you about the cosmic soulmate thing because I’m genuinely terrified you’ll run and I’ll spend the rest of my extremely long life mourning you.’ One is deception. The other is fear.” She pauses. “And honestly? If I found out the universe had assigned me a perfect match, and that person could reject me and leave me broken forever? I might wait to drop that bomb too.”

I open my mouth to argue. Close it.

“The thing is,” I say instead, and my voice comes out small, “I can’t tell if what I feel is real. He says the bond doesn’t create feelings… that it just recognizes compatibility. But how do I know? How do I know that I actually chose him, or if fate chose him for me and I just think I’m choosing?”

“Does it matter?”

“Of course it matters. I need to know my feelings are mine.”

Millie takes my hands. Her eyes are fierce and gentle at the same time.

“Fable. Did fate make you argue with him about potato chips being vegetables?”

“That was…”

“Did the cosmic soulmate bond force you to write him a handwritten FAQ with eight questions and a drawing of a wolf?”

“I didn’t draw… he drew the wolf. In his answers.”

“Not the point. Did destiny require you to call him ‘very pretty for a hallucination’ while bleeding from a head wound?”

“I was concussed!”

“You were yourself. You’re always yourself.” She squeezes my hands. “Babe, who cares who introduced you? The universe threw you together through a wrong phone number and a car crash, which is honestly the most chaotic meet-cute in the history of romance, and I say that as someone who’s read literally every book in your store. But the universe didn’t make you fall for him. You did that yourself. Every conversation. Every stupid argument. Every time you let him in when you could have locked the door.”