Lycan King’s Rejected Bookish Mate (Possessive Small Town Alpha Kings #6)

Chapter 1

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Wen

Halloween night, and my bookstore looked exactly how you’d expect a bookstore owned by someone with questionable decorating skills to look.

Fake cobwebs draped from every surface, LED candles that definitely weren’t fooling anyone, and a cardboard skeleton I’d named Gerald propped in the corner.

The aesthetic screamed “Party City clearance section,” but I was weirdly proud of it.

The Society of Edward’s Sparkles was currently sprawled around the reading nook in various states of post-book bliss.

Yes, that was really what we called ourselves.

No, we weren’t ashamed. We’d been meeting every last Sunday since freshman year of high school, and if you thought we were going to change our name now just because we were adults with degrees and responsibilities, you were wrong.

This month’s pick had been some demon romance that was basically porn with a plot stapled on. We’d finished it twenty minutes ago, and the debrief was going exactly as expected.

“I’m just saying, emotional constipation is hot when he’s also seven feet tall and could bench press a car.

” Krystin examined her black nail polish without looking up.

She’d come dressed in full goth mode tonight - black everything, from her hair to her lipstick to the combat boots she’d propped on my coffee table.

If you didn’t know her, you’d think she was the rebel type.

You’d be wrong. The woman had graduated with honors from nursing school and cried at animal shelter commercials.

Bella made a noise that might have been agreement or might have been a stroke. Her face had gone so red her freckles were vanishing into the flush. “Can we please stop talking about... about chapter seventeen? My face is on fire.”

“Chapter seventeen was tame compared to twenty-three,” I pointed out, reaching for my coffee. Third cup of the night. Sue me.

Bella squeaked and buried her face in her oversized cardigan. The girl was drowning in fabric, her blonde curls escaping in every direction. She looked about twelve, not twenty-three. “I can’t believe I read that in public. What if someone saw?”

“Pretty sure the demon wouldn’t care about your reputation, Bells.” I took a long drink. Still hot. Perfect.

Daphne, who’d been quiet up until now, finally chimed in with the kind of observation that made me remember why I loved her. “There’s actually a beautiful gothic quality to forbidden romance during a storm. Very Bronte. The darkness outside mirrors the darkness of desire within.”

I choked on my coffee. “Did you just compare demon porn to classic literature?”

“All romance is literature if you’re pretentious enough about it.

” Daphne’s smile was serene. She’d worn all black too, but in that effortlessly chic way that made her look brooding and mysterious instead of trying too hard.

Her dark hair was pulled back in a bun, and she had a leather journal on her lap that she’d been taking notes in throughout the discussion. The girl took book club seriously.

Thunder rumbled outside, and rain started hammering against the windows. The universe apparently agreed that tonight needed atmosphere.

I loved these three idiots. When that mandatory freshman survey had paired us together based on our shared love of reading, I’d immediately started a heated debate about Team Edward versus Team Jacob.

These three had backed Edward without hesitation, and that was it.

Friendship for life. We’d survived high school, college applications, going our separate ways for school, and coming back to Ryeville one by one.

Six months ago, my grandma’s heart had given out.

My grandpa followed three weeks later because apparently they were that disgustingly in love that even death couldn’t separate them for long.

I’d driven back from the city with one duffel bag and a heart that felt like ground meat.

These three had been waiting at the bookstore with wine and terrible decisions.

They’d held me while I ugly-cried. They’d helped me sort through decades of my grandparents’ belongings. They’d shown up every single Sunday without fail to keep our book club tradition alive, even when I could barely function enough to read.

The bookstore itself was a mess. My grandparents hadn’t told me how bad things had gotten before they died.

The place had been closed for months. I was hemorrhaging money trying to keep it afloat, but this store was the last thread I had connecting me to them, and I’d be damned if I let it go under.

But tonight wasn’t about financial anxiety or grief I was aggressively ignoring. Tonight was about demon dick and picking our next read.

I clapped my hands together, making Bella jump. “Alright, sparkle squad. New plan. We each scatter and find a book to nominate. Make it good. Make it spicy. Make it something that’ll have Bella combusting by chapter three.”

“I hate you,” Bella muttered, but she was smiling.

“You love me.” I stood, stretching. My joints popped. Twenty-three going on eighty. “I still haven’t catalogued half the stuff Grandpa left in the back, so consider this an adventure. Bring your phones for flashlights because the wiring in this place is older than God.”

Krystin hauled herself up, boots thudding on the floor. “If I find a spider, I’m burning this place down.”

“Cool. Insurance money would help.”

We split up, each heading to different sections of the store. I grabbed my phone and headed toward the back, to the section Grandpa had always called “the archive.” It was really just a creepy corner stuffed with books so old they probably had opinions about the Civil War.

Thunder crashed again, loud enough to rattle the windows. The lights flickered.

This was fine. Totally fine. Nothing creepy about wandering into a dark corner of a bookstore during a storm on Halloween night. I was basically the protagonist of a horror movie, except I’d survive because I was too stubborn to die.

The archive was exactly as welcoming as I remembered. Dust everywhere. Shelves packed so tight the books looked ready to stage a revolt. The smell of old paper and leather and time itself. My phone’s flashlight cut through the gloom, but barely. The LED bulb situation back here was desperate.

I muttered to myself about needing to hire an electrician I couldn’t afford when thunder cracked so loud I was pretty sure God had just dropped his bowling ball.

I jumped. My hip slammed into a lower shelf. Books immediately betrayed me, tumbling down in a cascade of literary treason.

“Oh, fuck me sideways!” I threw my hands up, trying to protect my head. A particularly chunky tome smacked into my palm. I caught it, barely, but the corner sliced right across my index finger.

Pain bit through my hand. Blood welled up immediately, hot and red.

“Perfect. Just perfect. Death by antique literature. Grandpa would be so proud.” I hissed through my teeth, watching blood drip onto the book’s cover.

But then I actually looked at what I was holding.

Okay. This was kind of cool.

The book was massive. Leather-bound, cracked but somehow still soft, worn in that way that meant it had been loved. There was no title. Just weird symbols pressed into the cover. Symbols that almost seemed to shimmer, but that was probably the storm playing tricks with the lighting.

The pages were gilded. When I cracked it open, everything inside was handwritten. Elaborate script that looked impossibly precise. More symbols. Illustrations of moons and stars and geometric patterns that made my eyes hurt if I stared too long.

Was that a wolf?

My finger kept bleeding, leaving red smears across the pages, but I was too fascinated to care about tetanus. This was peak Halloween creepy. Exactly the vibe we needed.

“Oh, you’re definitely coming with me, you weird, creepy, perfect thing.” I tucked the book under my arm and headed back to the reading nook.

The lights flickered again as I walked. Thunder boomed. Very atmospheric. Very ominous. Very much the kind of warning sign people ignored in movies right before they died horribly.

I was grinning when I got back to the others.

They were already gathered around the coffee table with their finds.

Krystin had a first edition of something I couldn’t read from here.

Daphne had what looked like a poetry collection.

Bella was clutching a romance novel with a shirtless man on the cover and refusing to make eye contact.

“Guys!” I announced, dropping my book onto the table with a satisfying thud. “Drop whatever you found because mine’s going to blow yours out of the water.”

They crowded in immediately. Krystin leaned over, eyebrows raised. “Is that blood?”

“Yep. The book attacked me. We’re bonded now.”

“Should we be touching this?” Bella’s voice had gone up an octave. She was leaning in but keeping her hands carefully away. “It looks cursed.”

“Bells, literally everything in this store looks cursed. That’s part of the charm.” I flipped open the cover. “Look at this. It’s all handwritten. These symbols are insane.”

Daphne made a noise that was almost a gasp. Her fingers hovered over the page, not quite touching. “This is beautifully haunting. Dark Academia meets witchcraft. Wen, where did you find this?”

“Grandpa’s creepy corner. I’m pretty sure it’s been there since the dawn of time.”

We flipped through pages together. The script was old-fashioned, swooping and elaborate.

Mixed in with English were phrases that might have been Latin.

The illustrations grew more complex the further we went.

Moons in different phases. Herbs I didn’t recognize.

Geometric patterns that seemed to shift when you weren’t looking directly at them.

Outside, the storm kicked into high gear. Rain pounded the windows. Thunder made the building shake. The lights flickered again, staying off for a beat too long before coming back.

“This is a spell book,” Bella whispered. She’d gone pale. “Wen. This is an actual grimoire.”

“Of course Wen finds a spell book on Halloween.” Krystin laughed, but even she looked unsettled. “Your life is a YA novel.”

“I live to entertain.” I kept flipping pages. My bloody fingerprints were all over them now. Oops. “Look, there are protection spells. Divination. Summoning circles. And oh my god.”

We’d reached a section that was clearly dedicated to love spells. Because of course. The universe had a sense of humor.

Daphne started reading aloud in her most dramatic voice, the one she used when she wanted to sound like a gothic heroine. “‘To call forth the one whose soul mirrors thine own. To bind across realms what fate has joined. To summon thy true match through veil and void.’”

I was dying. Actually dying. This was the most ridiculous thing I’d ever seen.

“Oh my GOD. It’s a ‘summon your soulmate’ spell. We have to try it. For science.”

Krystin snorted. “Science. Right.”

“I’m serious! When else are we going to get the chance to test if magic is real? It’s Halloween. We have a spell book. I already gave it a blood sacrifice.” I waved my still-bleeding finger. “We’re like ninety percent there.”

Bella was shaking her head, eyes wide. “Maybe we shouldn’t mess with this. What if it actually works?”

“Bells. Baby. Magic isn’t real. The worst thing that happens is we feel silly.

” I found the main page. It was more elaborate than the others.

A full illustration of two figures reaching for each other across what looked like a tear in reality.

Symbols surrounded them. At the bottom, in slightly more readable script: “To call forth the one whose soul mirrors thine own.”

I couldn’t stop laughing. This was too perfect.

Daphne was already on board, her eyes bright. “We have to. The aesthetic alone demands it.”

Krystin looked amused. “I can’t believe I’m the voice of reason here, but sure. Let’s summon Wen a boyfriend. God knows she needs one.”

“Rude but fair.” I cleared my throat dramatically, finger hovering over the page. My blood had left smears across the symbols. “Okay. Here goes absolutely nothing.”

I started reading. The words were old-fashioned and formal, but I hammed it up anyway, putting on my best witch voice. “‘By blood and bone, by moon and star, I call to thee across the far...’”

The lights flickered harder. Thunder crashed.

“‘Through realm and veil, through space and time, I summon forth this soul of mine...’”

My finger traced the symbols without thinking. The ones covered in my blood. They felt warm under my touch, but that was probably just because I was bleeding on them.

“‘What fate has bound, let now appear. I call my match, I draw thee here.’”

The lights went out completely.

Everyone screamed. Including me. We grabbed for each other in the darkness, phones fumbling.

Then came the sound. A massive, catastrophic CRASH from the back of the store. The noise was wrong. It sounded less like furniture falling and more like reality itself had just torn open.

The lights flickered back on. Off. On again.

We heard cursing. Grunts. Growls that definitely didn’t sound human.

“What the fuck,” Krystin breathed. She had her phone out, flashlight swinging wildly toward the back of the store.

The sounds got closer. Stumbling. More cursing in a voice that was deep and rough and male. More of those growling noises that made every hair on my body stand up.

And then he appeared.

A man. Massive. Easily six foot nine. Completely naked.

Bleeding from a dozen wounds across his chest and arms. His skin was covered in what looked like fur in some places, disappearing in others.

Tattoos decorated his body, shapes and swirls and intricate drawings that wrapped around his arms and across his chest, making him look equal parts dangerous and delectable. His eyes-

His eyes were glowing red.

Actual glowing red.

He stumbled into the reading nook, and those eyes locked onto mine with the focus of a predator. His chest heaved. Blood dripped onto my floor. He opened his mouth, and when he spoke, his voice was a growl that vibrated through my bones.

“Mate.”

Then his eyes rolled back, and he face-planted onto my bookstore floor.

The four of us stared at the unconscious naked man bleeding all over my hardwood.

Nobody breathed. The storm raged outside. My finger was still on the spell book page, blood smeared across the symbols.

Krystin broke the silence. “So. That just happened.”

I looked down at the book. At my bleeding finger. At the massive, naked, probably-definitely-not-human man on my floor.

“What the actual fuck did I just do?”