The Lycan Collapse (The Flux Age Book 2) by Steven J Shelley Page B

her losses were permanent.
    “How you feeling?” he asked softly.
    “Like I need to brush my teeth,” Florence said blearily. “Aside from that, on top of the world.”
    Julian nodded and smiled. Florence would open up when she was ready.
    Within half an hour the bus had pulled into the weed-ridden stop at Madison. Florence beckoned for Julian to follow her out.
    “The lycans own a farmhouse here,” she explained as they headed down the main street of a quaint New Hampshire town. They passed through to the open fields on the east side of Madison. A salt-laden wind pushed through from the direction of the pink sky.
    “Atlantic is only half a click that way,” Florence said.
    Before long they turned down an elm-lined avenue and east again down a dirt track. The red brick lycan farmhouse was nestled in a grove of yew trees. It looked comfortable enough, if a little decrepit.
    “Hasn’t been used in a while,” Florence commented as the door almost came off its hinges.
    Once Florence had seen to the old, rusted fuse box and Julian had collected some firewood for the open hearth, the farmhouse was very liveable indeed. Florence found some trashy paperback novels on a shelf and handed a particularly bad one to Julian.
    “You lycans don’t keep lore in your safehouses?”
    “Probably too great a risk,” Florence said defensively. “We don’t want just anyone coming in here to learn about us.”
    “You’re not great at sharing, are you?” Julian asked. “Lycans in general, that is.”
    Florence gave Julian a hard stare. He reminded himself never to get on her bad side.
    “Lycans have good reason to be wary,” she eventually said. “We’ve collected plenty of enemies over the centuries.”
    “I don’t doubt it,” Julian said with a placating gesture. “And I must admit that the Mother’s decision to refuse Hector has since proven to be the right one.”
    Florence nodded sadly. “Not that it did us any good,” she said with a sigh. “Use this time wisely, Julian. Rest up by the fire and we’ll see if we can work out a way to fix that wing of yours.”
    Julian did indeed spend much of the day perched by the fire. It was difficult to push the cataclysmic events of the previous night out of his head. Florence seemed restless, pacing up and down and hesitant to use her phone even though she clearly wanted to. At length she said she’d run a perimeter of the property but Julian suspected she just needed to be on her own for a while.
    When he was alone, with nothing but the crackle of the fire to keep him company, Julian thought he might tease out some of the strands of the madness of his current situation. Just what did it all mean?
    Firstly, his mentor Hector must have seen something in him early on, otherwise the older man would never have committed to teaching him the ways of the aquila. Just when did Hector lose faith in Julian? Or was it more likely that Hector knew that Julian would never agree to such wanton violence against the other Flux species?
    Whatever the case, there was no going back to the aquila now. Which made Julian an outcast. On the surface, that represented a miserable situation indeed. But was it really? Julian had felt very close to Hector and had some good friends among the aquila, but the reality was that he’d only been aquilan for two years. One of the first eagle men to be divined under Hector’s guidance, Julian remembered his awakening as if were yesterday. Just how much emotional investment had he made in Hector’s aquilan regime? Not so much that Julian felt the same as Florence, who had effectively lost her family.
    Besides, Julian was still as much an aquilan as he could be. The events of last night merely changed the politics of his situation, not who he was. Feeling strengthened by his reflections, Julian picked up his trashy book and slowly drifted off to sleep.
    Night had long fallen when he woke. Florence was asleep a few yards away, wrapped in a shaggy blanket.