Page 62 of Bookish Girl’s Emergency Contact Is a Lycan King

“Yes, my king.”

“This is Tuesday, Theo. This is what Aaron does. He finds something to object to, makes a fuss, and eventually accepts that I’m going to do what I want regardless of his opinions.”

“With respect…” Theo’s voice drops slightly. “This feels different. He’s rallying support among the older generation. There’s talk of… formal challenges to the selection of a human queen.”

The word queen hits me somewhere unexpected. I haven’t thought of it in those terms, haven’t let myself think that far ahead, because thinking ahead feels like tempting fate. But of course the pack would think of it that way. Of course they would see Fable as a potential leader, not just a potential mate.

“He can challenge whatever he wants. The selection of a mate isn’t subject to pack vote.”

“He knows that too. But he’s setting the stage for… discontent. Making your position harder.”

“My position has been hard for three centuries. I’ll survive Aaron’s latest tantrum.”

“And if it’s more than a tantrum?”

I meet Theo’s eyes. He’s loyal, has been loyal since I pulled him from a battlefield in 1863, offered him a choice between dying human and living something else. But loyalty doesn’t mean blind agreement. It means telling me hard truths even when I don’t want to hear them.

“Then I’ll handle it,” I say. “The gathering happens. I’ll be there. But Aaron doesn’t get to dictate terms, and he doesn’t get to make Fable feel unwelcome in her own territory.”

“Understood.” Theo hesitates. “For what it’s worth… she seems good. For you. For all of us.”

I don’t respond. The observation sits between us, a fact of nature, obvious, requiring no acknowledgment.

“Go,” I say. “I’ll be in touch.”

They disappear into the trees, and I’m alone with the sound of the wind and the ever-present pull in my chest, tugging me toward the woman upstairs who has no idea what she is to me.

I stop resisting the pull.

Her kitchen is small. Cluttered. Chaotic in ways that should stress my brain but somehow don’t, as if her particular brand of disorder has carved out an exception in my compulsions, a space where mess is acceptable because it’s her mess.

Every surface is covered with evidence of how her mind works: sticky notes in color-coded clusters, half-finished lists, books with pages marked by receipts and napkins and what appears to be a very flat piece of candy. The refrigerator is papered with reminders, the counter is stacked with mail she hasn’t opened, and there’s a coffee mug by the sink that’s been there long enough to develop what might be a small ecosystem.

I love it.

I love everything about this cramped, impossible space, the way it reflects her, the way it feels alive in a way my pristine house never does. I love that she’s sitting on the counter, legs swinging, watching me cook with a look that can’t decide between fascination and confusion.

“You’re doing that thing again,” she says.

“What thing?”

“The organizing thing.” She gestures at the cutting board. “You’ve arranged the vegetables by color.”

I look down. She’s right. Red peppers, orange peppers, yellow peppers, a gradient that pleases something deep in my brain. I didn’t even notice I was doing it.

“It’s more efficient this way.”

“It’s more pretty this way. Efficient would be just chopping them in whatever order you grabbed them.”

“Pretty and efficient aren’t mutually exclusive.”

“Spoken like someone who alphabetizes their spice rack.”

“I alphabetize by cuisine type first, then alphabetically within each category.”

She stares at me. “That’s either genius or insane and I genuinely can’t tell which.”

“Both, probably.”