The Lycan Society (The Flux Age Book 1) Read Online Free Page A

Hoping she wasn’t too late, Florence found a suitable perch up high on the opposite side of the street to watch the main entrance.
    As she waited, panting hard after her glorious run, her stomach growled irritably. Shifting always made her incredibly hungry. That was one of the downsides to being a werewolf - a strict vegetarian in ‘normal’ life, Florence was forced to endure intense cravings for fresh meat both during and immediately after shifting.
    Her keen nose picked up the smells of a hot dog stand somewhere nearby. She tried to tell herself that shifting was only temporary, that she would be regular, vegetarian Florence within the hour. That wasn’t long to wait, right?
    Growling at herself, Florence found the hot dog stand a block away. By the time she reached it she’d shifted back into human form.
    She inspected her jeans - a long slit down the side of the right leg. Not for the first time she wished she was wearing comfortable track pants and her favorite sweater. The ensemble made her look like an unemployed slob, but she liked it. Most importantly, track pants never split after shifting.
    Munching hard on her second hot dog, Florence scoped out the hospital on foot. Her inside contact hadn’t messaged her, which meant the girl hadn’t left the building yet.
    The lycan didn’t have long to wait. There she was, with her parents and boyfriend. Yasmin Silver , the latest beneficiary of lycan blood. Florence had heard the girl was pale, but the frosted luminosity of her porcelain skin surprised her. That, combined with her long platinum locks, gave her an ethereal, other-worldly sheen.
    She was certainly an interesting character. The lycan Elders clearly saw something unique in her - lycan blood wasn’t wasted on just anyone.
    The Society was kept a secret out of necessity. To be known by humans was to be hunted out of existence. Lycans were simply not trusted. It had always been the way and always would. Lycans had accepted this fact long ago, and therefore set themselves up as an underground community. Though there were lycan Chapters all over the world, lending the Society a truly international flavor, each one operated on the fringes, the shadows of society. They had collectively amassed a huge store of wealth, but chose to feed it back into human civilization in ways that benefited both human and lycan alike.
    Florence had been well schooled in lycan history but was still a little hazy on the reasons why lycans were so devoted to human survival. She knew it had something to do with humans being progenitors of lycans, having first provided them with most of their genetic material.
    Lycans therefore respected humans as some kind of vulnerable ‘cousin’. The fact that this ‘cousin’ invariably sought to kill lycans whenever possible was considered irrelevant. The lycans believed that the survival of the human race was critical to the continued health and vitality of the pack. In other words, if humans became extinct, so did lycans. The shifters were dependent on the human gene pool.
    Florence watched Yasmin Silver as she was dragged down the street by her family. Her parents looked hard and worn. Florence guessed they were immigrants who barely made ends meet. She was glad she came - she always liked to see the positive effect of lycan projects, particularly those that saved human lives.
    Her colleague Jack Foley, an enhanced lycan, had been the one to provide the blood that saved the girl’s life. In general Jack was a total jerk, sullen and full of himself. But in this case he had outdone himself. Not only had he volunteered for the task of saving Yasmin, he had committed himself to a brutal blood harvesting regime that left him drained and ill. Florence hoped he didn’t have dishonorable motives - Yasmin was certainly very pretty.
    She shoved the thought from her mind. Whatever his reasons, Jack Foley, on behalf of the Lycan Society, had performed a worthy service to humanity. And now this