My Pack Cut Me Off, So I Reported to the Lycan King novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Applicant Rowe

The black wolf turns out to be the Lycan King. He walks her into Vane Tower, Dessa Quill signs her in, and in the dark a voice that is not from any pack says: Good. You came.

The wolf in the road stood up, turned, and walked into the pines without a sound.

I sat there with my heart pounding for a long time before I put the truck back in gear.

I drove all night and all the next day on gas station coffee and one stubborn idea.

I reached the Manhattan garage under Vane Tower at dawn, gray and starving, with a suitcase and a card.

The guard at the gate read the card twice.

"Name?" he said.

"J. Rowe."

"Pack?"

"None."

He didn't blink.

That told me something about the building already.

"Wait here, Rowe," he said, and stepped back to a phone.

The elevator doors across the garage opened before he lifted it.

A man walked out in a black suit with no tie.

He was tall, with dark hair and a scar that cut through his left eyebrow.

The guard stood straighter than any wolf I had ever seen stand.

I had seen that face once, on a Crown notice on my father's desk, and I knew it now without being told.

Ansel Tarrant, the Lycan King, who ruled every pack from Maine to Oregon.

He stopped in front of my truck and looked at me through the windshield.

My wolf rose in my chest the same way it had on the highway.

I got out before I lost my nerve.

"Applicant Rowe," he said. His voice was low and dry.

"Your Majesty," I said, because nobody had told me what else to call him.

"Ansel is fine upstairs. Majesty is for Alphas who owe me money."

"Was that you on the road?"

"Yes."

"You scared me half to death."

"You stopped," he said. "A lot of people would have run me over."

I almost laughed, and I hadn't done that in a year.

He took my suitcase out of the truck bed before I could reach for it.

"I'll take that," I said.

"You'll have your hands full of the elevator button."

"There's no elevator button in a truck bed."

"There's one in my elevator," he said, and held the doors open.

We rode up in silence.

He stood on the far side of the car, and I watched his hand close on the steel rail.

The metal bent under his fingers with a small creak.

"Are you all right?" I asked.

"Long day," he said, and loosened his grip.

I told myself that was all it was.

I also told myself my wolf had only leaned toward him because she was tired.

The doors opened on a wide floor full of bunks, a kitchen and a long scarred table.

A woman with short red hair and freckles looked up from a plate of eggs.

She wore a gray jacket with a silver crescent stitched on the sleeve.

"Dessa," Ansel said. "This is Rowe. She's a Warden now."

"Is she?" said the woman. "Does she know how bad the coffee is?"

"Not yet."

"Good. Let her be happy for another ten minutes."

Ansel set my suitcase down by the nearest bunk.

He looked at me for a moment longer than he needed to.

Then he nodded to Dessa and the doors closed behind him.

Dessa pointed her fork at the chair across from her.

"Sit," she said. "Eat first. Questions after."

She pushed a plate across before I answered.

I ate everything on it.

"Dessa Quill, captain of the Hollow," she said while I ate. "That's this floor. Everybody here is a Warden, and every Warden is either packless or cut off, so nobody asks about your pack."

"Why not?"

"Because someone threw you out, and nobody wants to say that over breakfast."

"Mine didn't throw me out," I said. "They cut the link and let me stay."

Dessa put her fork down.

"That's worse," she said quietly. "Welcome home."

The wolves at the long table had stopped talking.

Not one of them looked away, and not one of them pitied me.

A big man at the end slid the butter down the table without a word.

"Council sits in nine days," Dessa went on. "Every Alpha in the country, all in the hall downstairs. You'll hate it. We all do."

"I'll be here," I said.

"You'll be on door duty," she said, "which is the same thing, only worse."

That night I lay on my bunk with the whole Hollow breathing around me.

For a year I had slept alone in a silent house.

Here a dozen wolves snored, one of them argued with a dream, and somewhere a kettle clicked.

The low warmth in my chest was back, stronger than it had ever been.

I put my hand over it.

Then a voice spoke inside my head.

It wasn't a pack voice, and it wasn't mine.

It was low and dry and so close it felt like he stood at the foot of my bunk.

"Good," Ansel said. "You came."

← Chapter 1 · All chapters · Chapter 3 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend