Page 29 of Bookish Girl’s Emergency Contact Is a Lycan King

The lights flicker.

I grip the blanket tighter, and Mario makes a small sound of complaint at the disturbance.

“Please tell me you have a generator.”

“I have a generator.”

“That you know how to use?”

“That I know how to use.”

The lights flicker again, and then go out entirely, plunging the house into darkness.

7:43 p.m., says my brain, which has apparently been tracking the time without my permission. The power went out at exactly 7:43 p.m.

“Orion?”

“I’m here.” His voice comes from somewhere to my left, calm and steady. “Don’t move. I’ll bring light.”

I don’t move. Mario doesn’t move either, though I feel him tense on my lap, his head turning toward the windows like he’s tracking something I can’t see.

A match strikes in the darkness, small flare of orange, then warm candlelight spreading across the room as Orion lights a candelabra that looks like it costs more than my bookstore’s monthly revenue.

“You have a candelabra,” I say.

“Inherited.”

“From who, Count Dracula?”

“Great-aunt. Similar aesthetic.”

He moves through the room lighting more candles, and I watch him with the kind of attention I usually reserve for books, cataloging details, filing away observations. The way he navigates the dark without hesitation. The way his movements are precise, economical, like he’s done this a hundred times before. The way the candlelight catches his features and makes his jaw look even sharper, his eyes even grayer. The way it finds his throat when he tilts his head, the long line of it, the slow shift of tendon as he swallows, and I have to look at the fire instead, because apparently I’ve reached the stage of whatever this is where a man’s throat is a problem for me.

It’s the storm. Ambience-induced insanity. It will pass.

It does not pass.

He looks like a character from one of my books. Gothic romance. Mysterious lord of the manor. Secrets hidden in every shadow.

“You’re very calm about this,” I observe as he lights the last candle. “The storm. The power outage. The whole situation.”

“I like storms.”

“That’s ominous.”

“Is it?”

“Yes. Normal people don’t like storms. Normal people tolerate storms at best.”

He sets down the matches and turns to look at me, and in the candlelight his eyes look different. Warmer, maybe. Or just more visible, more present, without the artificial overhead lights washing everything out.

“I’ve never claimed to be normal.”

No. No, you definitely have not.

The thunder cracks again, closer this time, and a gust of wind shakes the windows. Mario’s head snaps toward the sound, and I feel his claws extend slightly into my leg, not painful, just alert.

“He doesn’t like storms either?” I ask.