Defying the Lycan King

Jessica speared the last piece of chicken on her plate and wondered if it was possible to die from too much excitement. Probably not, she decided, or Odelia would have expired last week when they first stepped off the bus and saw the actual size of Aethelwulf.

The apartment Odelia’s cousin had found for them was small—two bedrooms, one bathroom, and a kitchen that seemed to have been designed for people who enjoyed bumping elbows—but it was clean, and the window actually closed properly, and nobody had ever been groped in it.

"This place is insane," Odelia said, for approximately the fiftieth time since they had arrived. She was sitting opposite Jessica on the small table in their kitchen, eating rice and chicken. "Did you see the houses on Creek Drive? Actual mansions, Sid. With gates. And gardens. And probably indoor swimming pools filled with champagne."

"It’s civilised," Jessica agreed, nodding solemnly. "Very civilised. Not like Orange Grove, where the height of luxury was a bar stool that didn’t wobble."

"I saw a man in a tuxedo today," Odelia continued, her eyes going slightly dreamy. "Black tie, proper shoes, the whole thing. At eleven in the morning, just walking into a building like it was completely normal to look that delicious before lunch."

Jessica giggled, covering her mouth with her hand. "Odelia Maris. Are you here to work or to catch a rich husband?"

"Both," Odelia said, without a hint of shame. "Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it. A nice man with a nice house and a nice habit of forgetting to check how much I spend on shoes."

"I thought about it," Jessica admitted. "Then I remembered I don’t actually know how to be a rich person. I’d probably insult someone’s butler or use the wrong fork at dinner and end up back in Orange Grove by popular demand."

They both laughed, the sound filling the small room with something warm and hopeful. Jessica set her fork down and stretched her legs out under the table, feeling the pleasant ache of a real day’s work in a real job where she would be paid actual money.

"My boss knows I’m called Sidonie," she said, apropos of nothing. "First introduction, and she got it right, like a normal person talking to another normal person."

Odelia clutched her chest dramatically. "Romance. True romance. Better than the tuxedo man, honestly. A boss who remembers your name. I might swoon."

"Your job’s not bad either," Jessica pointed out. "All those pretty clothes. You must be in heaven."

"I am feeding my eyes," Odelia confirmed. "My bank account is weeping, but my eyes are very well fed. And the customers—" she fanned herself with her hand, "—some of them could stop traffic. In a good way. In a please-look-at-me-I’m-dying way."

They were still laughing when someone knocked at the door.

"Who is it?" Jessica called, already half-rising.

"It’s me." Sebastian’s voice came through the wood, slightly muffled. "Brought supplies."

Jessica opened the door to find him standing in the hallway with two paper bags in his hands. He looked tired, she thought, in a way he tried to hide. The lines around his eyes were deeper than they had been in Orange Grove.

"Seb!" She stepped back to let him in. "Come in, we’re just finishing dinner. What are these?"

"Things you two won’t have bought." He handed them over and stepped inside. "Because I know you, and I know you’ve been living on bread and optimism."

"That’s slander." Odelia peered into one of the bags and immediately amended her position. "That’s accurate slander. Sit down. Join us. We’re celebrating our first day as proper city women."

Jessica was already dishing up the remaining food and pushing it into his hands before he could argue. Sebastian sat, but there was a stiffness in the way he did it, the way a man sits in a room he has decided in advance not to approve of.

"Thank you," he said.

He still wasn’t happy she’d left Orange Grove. He hadn’t said so directly after she settled, but it was written across him every time he saw her. They settled into eating. After a few bites Jessica set her fork down.

"That reminds me."

She told them about the man in the shopping centre — the one in the white suit who had come running through the crowd shouting the name Jessica at the top of his lungs. She described the group of large men behind him and how she had decided, very wisely in her opinion, to run rather than wait and find out what they wanted.

Sebastian’s fork stopped halfway to his mouth. His whole body went still. "Did he hurt you? Did he try to grab you? Did he harass you?"

"Seb, relax." She frowned at him, at the sudden intensity. "For about ten seconds I honestly thought he was coming for me, and I legged it, obviously. But I never saw him again after that. So clearly it wasn’t me he wanted. It was the middle of a shopping centre in broad daylight. Nobody’s going to do anything to me in front of all those people."

"You need to be careful here," he said. "I never liked the idea of you coming here."

Jessica sighed and put her fork down. "Seb. We talked about this."

"I know we did." He put his fork down too, spreading his hands on the table. "But Aethelwulf isn’t Orange Grove. The rules are different. The dangers are different."

Jessica rolled her eyes, but not unkindly. "I’m not a baby, Seb. I can take care of myself."

"I know you can." He said it too quickly, as if trying to get ahead of her irritation. "I just want you to be aware. This city—" he glanced at Odelia, who was watching them with careful neutrality, "—this city has shifters. Lycans, specifically. And they don’t behave like the rest of us."

Jessica’s eyebrows rose. "The rest of us?"

"Humans," Sebastian said, and there was something strange in how he said it, something almost careful. "You don’t know this city. I’ve lived and worked here a long time. Shifters here are mad, Sid. The lycans especially. They walk around like they own every room they stand in and the worst part is that a lycan can do more or less whatever he wants in the open and walk away from it whistling."

Odelia leaned forward, her earlier levity replaced by genuine curiosity. "Why? I mean, why are they feared like that, and why can’t they be asked to stay away?"

Sebastian shrugged one shoulder. "Mutual respect, supposedly. They’re stronger, but humans have guns, resources, ways to fight back if it came to that. But mostly?" He picked up his fork again, turning it over in his fingers. "Mostly it’s because their Queen won the war with the Shadow King. Everyone respects the Lycans now. Everyone’s afraid to be the one who starts something."

Jessica felt something shift in her chest, some combination of awe and something else she couldn’t name. "Wow, their queen must be really strong," she said, and meant it.

"She is." Sebastian’s voice had gone flat. "She has powers that make her untouchable. Supernatural abilities beyond what normal Lycans possess."

"Wow." Jessica sat back, imagining it. A woman so powerful that an entire city bent around her presence, yet choosing not to terrorise the people beneath her.

"She must be humble. To have that much strength and not use it to dominate everyone. Most people would be unbearable within a week. I’d be unbearable within a week. I’d be making people carry me places."

"You would," Odelia agreed, giggling. "But she’s right, Seb. That’s decent of her."

Sebastian said nothing at all. He carried on eating.

They finished dinner in easier silence, Odelia filling the gaps with her own stories. When they were done, Jessica walked Sebastian to the door, aware of Odelia’s deliberate attention to the washing-up behind them.

"Take care of yourself," Sebastian said, his hand on the doorknob. "And don’t go wandering about, especially at night. Not on your own. If you need to go somewhere after dark, you come and get me."

Jessica smiled. "I promise," she said. "I’ll stay in. I’ll be careful."

He looked at her for a long moment, as if searching for something in her face. Then he pulled her into a hug that lasted slightly too long, and pressed a kiss to her forehead that lingered slightly too much.

When the door closed behind him, Odelia appeared at Jessica’s shoulder with the speed of someone who had been waiting.

"You know he likes you, right?"

Jessica sighed, leaning back against the wall. "I know."

"Then why—"

"He’s controlling, Odie." The words came out more tired than angry. "Everything has to be his way. Where I go, when I go, who I’m with. He frames it as protection, but—" she shook her head, "—sometimes I feel like I’m still being spoonfed."

Odelia was quiet for a moment. "Or... that’s just how he protects people. Some men don’t know any other way to say it." She nudged her with an elbow. "Give the poor man a chance."

***

Kai walked into his office on Monday morning prepared for approximately seven different varieties of nonsense. What he found exceeded all reasonable expectations.

His assistant was not at her desk. This was unusual but not unprecedented—people got sick, trains broke down, life happened. What was unprecedented was the woman sitting on his desk, legs crossed at the ankle, wearing a dress that seemed to have been designed specifically to make him uncomfortable.

"Alicia."

She smiled, slow and satisfied, as if he had announced her favourite song. "Good day, Kai. You look tired ."

He walked around her without responding, dropping his bag on the chair behind his desk and wondering if it was possible to have an entire office removed and replaced with a different one. Probably not before lunch.

"I was expecting Margaret," he said, which was not quite a question.

"Margaret called in sick." Alicia uncrossed her legs and recrossed them in the opposite direction, a manoeuvre that seemed to require more attention than it received. "Something about a stomach bug."

Kai ignored her, taking out his phone from his pocket.

Alicia’s brows creased. "You’re not even going to speak to me?"

Kai looked at her. Really looked at her. "I’m not in the mood for this," he said, and heard the roughness in his own voice. "Whatever you’re doing, I’m not participating."

Alicia’s smile flickered and she flinched. Genuinely flinched. He had never once used that tone on her in his life, not in all the years they’d known each other, and it landed like a slap.

She stood up, and when she turned to face him, her eyes were bright with anger that matched his own.

"You don’t get to do that," she said, her voice low and trembling. "You don’t get to act like I’m the problem here. I’m trying to fix this, Kai. I’m trying to make things right after you cancelled our engagement without explanation, without warning, without—" she broke off, breathing hard, "—without apparently caring what that does to me."

Kai closed his eyes and counted to five. When he opened them, Alicia was still there, still furious.

"I’m sorry," he said, and meant it. "That was—I’m frustrated, and I’m taking it out on you. You don’t deserve that."

He reached for the office phone, intending to call down to the restaurant himself, find someone who could send up coffee without requiring him to navigate this minefield first.

"Your assistant called in sick," Alicia said again, more calmly now.

Kai looked up. "I was calling the restaurant. For coffee."

"I already ordered coffee," Alicia lifted her chin slightly. "It should be here in ten minutes."

"Thank you," Kai said, and sat down in his chair. Something in his shoulders came down half an inch.

Alicia moved then, crossing to perch on the edge of his desk, close enough that he had to look up at her.

"Now," she said, and her voice had shifted into something softer, more intimate. "Let’s talk about us. And the engagement."

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