Author's note: Hello and thanks for reading my werewolf romance. A new chapter will be released every Sunday night. BUT, you can read each chapter two days early by subscribing to my Ko-fi. For further updates on my writing, feel free to join my Discord. The next chapter will be released on September 29.

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I’m not sure how long we stared at each other, me on my ass and her hovering above the table of my library’s newly-discovered basement chamber. She seemed patient enough to wait for my brain to come back together into a cohesive form.

And at last, when I found words, I gave them to her.

“Phenna, was it?”

“Indeed. That is what I am called. Who am I making the acquaintance of this fine day?”

I shook my head a little. Her speech was. . . antiquated, but only partially so. And her voice was so heavy with smoke and weighed with magic.

“L — Lilith, ma’am. My name is Lilith.”

A finger stroked her chin as her smile grew.

“It’s my pleasure to know you, Lilith. And ma’am? Goodness me. It’s been centuries since I was called anything by a flesh-and-blood mortal, but even in my day it was rare that I be addressed with such language.”

I just sat there and listened to her, not wanting to stop the woman who’d previously been on fire before my very eyes.

“Only Lord Wylde addressed me in the manner I preferred. I don’t suppose he was ever found, was he?”

For what felt like the millionth time, my jaw dropped to the floor.

“Lord Wylde? Lord Jameson Wylde? You knew him?”

Phenna’s face flushed a little, and she giggled.

“Well, of course, I knew Jamie. And he knew me, the real me. He didn’t call me Peter. He addressed me as Lady Phenna. And as thanks for him being the only one to see me, I dedicated my life to Understanding to help him solve the mysteries that surrounded his new town. Lord help me, I was so distraught when he went marching into the woods and never returned. Was he ever found?”

Holy shit. How old was this book lady? I tried to remember back to last night, prior to being thoroughly assfucked by my werewolf mate. When did the historical society say Lord Wylde went missing? Like — the early 1800s? And Phenna knew him?

“I don’t mean to sound rude, Lady Phenna, but. . . what are you? And I don’t mean in a sense of sex. I mean — like, in the sense of fire and book imprisonment.”

It was only just now occurring to me that Phenna said other people called her Peter. Did that mean what I thought it meant?

She cocked her head to the side and then laughed. Her smoky chortle filled the basement room.

“Oh, no, you certainly don’t have to call me Lady Phenna. Just Phenna is fine. Lady Phenna was what Jamie called me. And I certainly wasn’t imprisoned in the Mágissa Biblia. It became my home when I shed mortal flesh to supersede my physical limitations and consume all manner of arcane thought.”

I held up a finger, indicating that I’d be right back. Fucking a werewolf was one thing. But this shit was making my head hurt. I walked upstairs to the breakroom, pulled out an ice tray from the library’s antique refrigerator, and poured a glass of water. Then, I downed it. I repeated the process, and all the while my brain was abuzz with Phenna’s words.

Mágissa Biblia. Lord Wylde. Arcane thought. This was all too much.

Taking a deep breath, I returned to the basement with my third glass of ice water. Without thinking, I offered it to Phenna who politely declined with a simple gesture.

When I started sipping on this third glass, I nodded.

“Okay. So. . . you’re a trans witch who lived in the 1800s. It’s 2024 now, by the way. I’m sorry if that shocks you, but given all that I’ve seen and learned in the last 10 minutes, I think it’s only fair to return some surprise.”

Phenna’s eyes drew wide.

“Oh my. So many days have passed. And you’ll forgive me for wrinkling my nose at the term ‘witch.’ That terminology doesn’t come close to describing what it means to truly Understand the arcane properties of the Five Realms.”

She paused for a moment, seeming for the first time like she didn’t understand part of what I’d said. Her eyes narrowed, and Phenna pursed her lips.

“What is trans?” she asked. “You used the word as an adjective, but I’m unfamiliar with how it further describes the term ‘witch.’”

I scratched the back of my head.

“What is trans? Hell’s bells. I asked that exact same question the first time my high school visited Denver for a class field trip to its nature and science museum. We passed a trans woman, and some classmates were snickering about it. But I couldn’t stop staring at her. She had this confidence and poise as she walked down the sidewalk, as though her ego were surrounded by a castle their jabs and laughter couldn’t touch.”

Phenna’s confusion didn’t abate.

“So trans is a modifier for witch and woman?”

I cleared my throat.

“Sorry. Your question brought back a memory from the day my egg cracked a little.”

“Your. . . egg?”

Rubbing my forehead, I realized that my words weren’t helping.

“Sorry. A phrase of modern culture. I’ll order you a Blåhaj later. Um, trans is a modifier used to mean a person’s gender identity doesn’t quite match up with the sex a doctor assigned them at birth. It has roots in words like transexual and even earlier transvestite.”

At last, we cracked the language barrier of this one word, and understanding filled Phenna’s expression. The floating woman nodded.

“Ah! Yes. I see. In my day, they just called us ‘masqueraders’ and other pejorative terms I’ve long since banished from my lips.”

Phenna kept hovering there, and I found myself wanting to know so much more. It was as though her very vestige drew forth a hunger within that I’d not witnessed before. She had power. I felt it from the gooseflesh on my arms to the marrow in my bones.

I licked my lips, and she grinned wider, continuing to make eye contact. It was strange to see her so patient. There was almost something inhuman in the way she just waited for me to ask questions or make idiotic statements or terrible jokes. Time hadn’t mattered to her for the last couple of centuries. Why should it start now? With no flesh to decay, what was time to a being whose only hunger was. . . spellcraft? What she’d called arcane knowledge. Something about five realms?

Phenna’s eyes glowed with confidence, in herself? In her knowledge? In her abilities? A part of my soul unhinged its jaw and ran to devour even a morsel of that same confidence. A shred of that power.

I spent so much time every day wondering what it’d be like to walk around without wondering if someone was going to haul off and smack me for no good reason. And how many headaches had I suffered through facedown on my bed as dysphoria sent lightning bolt after lightning bolt through my head carrying words like “not feminine enough” and “still a man.”

But Phenna? She didn’t show any sign that these things were still a problem for her. As she floated in a veil of power, still anticipating my next sentence, I kept opening my mouth and then closing it.

Each time I did that, I swear her lip twitched upward.

I didn’t feel like prey standing in her line of sight, nor did I feel like a wayward soul being graced by a guardian angel. It was more like. . . I’d opened the book and set her loose. And now she was plenty content to hang around until. . . until what? Did I get wishes? Was she here to guide me? Would Phenna become my fairy godmother?

“Are you scared?” I asked, stupidly. Of all the words to escape from my lips, I’d settled on those? C’mon, Lilith. You’re smarter than that.

Phenna raised an eyebrow.

“Not particularly. Should I be? Do you have a hungry woman in a candy house waiting to devour children stashed around here?”

I smirked.

Hey, I understood that reference, I thought. Cultural bridge constructed.

“You seem pretty powerful. I just wondered if you really feared anything when you had that much power.”

“Understanding,” she corrected.

Cocking my head to the side, I waited for her to explain why she kept using that word.

“You keep throwing around all these words. Confidence. Power. Magic. But it all boils down to Understanding, truly knowing how the Five Realms work. Arcane knowledge is what stripped away the fear I found myself so eager to shed when I was your age.”

My tongue felt dry. The air in the basement seemed to be making me even thirstier, and not just for the dripping glass of ice water in my hand. Still, I downed the water and cleared my throat.

Without much prompting, my thoughts turned to Mars. She had power and confidence. It was what made it so easy to submit to her and fall headfirst into all this fated mate stuff. A pretty woman strolls up to me with biceps that could raise the Titanic and says I’m her one and true mate? Yup. I’m sold. No further evidence needed, Your Honor. We, the jury, find the defendant fuckable in the most extreme sense.

Outside on the street above, a diesel truck roared by and rattled the concrete foundation of the library. I rolled my eyes.

Phenna didn’t seem to pay it any mind.

“Is it possible for someone like me to become as powerful as you, Phenna? Half as powerful?”

The floating woman flashed me a look of annoyance, flicking her tongue with a sigh. And I realized I’d fucked up.

“Sorry — that was a dumb question.”

No. . . it was poorly worded, I thought, eyes widening with an awakening thought.

I was starting to realize there might be rules to what the book woman could answer or how her sentences had to be formatted. Rules and structure could very well be key pieces of the foundations to her — whatever it was she had that I so desperately craved right now.

Stolen novel; please report.

Setting my empty glass down on the table, I took a few steps back.

“How do I gain Understanding like you, Phenna?”

What cogs had to spin through my mind before I could possess and set figurative fingers to the secret knowledge she possessed? Because I wanted it. My soul was thirsty and ravenous for what Phenna had. And the longer I looked at her, the more difficult to ignore those cravings became.

I could have sworn I saw recognition in her eyes. She knew my hunger for power, to be sure that I’d find happiness one day that couldn’t be stripped from me or maybe even a way to make my own.

“Now we’re getting somewhere,” Phenna said, throwing back her head and cackling. Then, without missing a beat, she stopped and stared at me with a deadpan expression. “Understanding does not come without time and sacrifice, good woman.”

I squared my shoulders even as I felt my stomach drop at those words. Maybe if I looked unafraid, I would be.

“How long did it take you? What did you sacrifice?” I asked, crossing my arms.

“I think the second question has an obvious answer judging by how you found me and the fact that I’ve yet to set foot on the ground yet, sweet thing.”

My cheeks flushed. Something was seriously warped in my mind the way my heart fluttered when an older woman called me some form of “sweetie.”

And while Phenna was obviously centuries old, she looked to be in her 40s. If I hadn’t just found my mate and been marked by her (which was still so incredibly hot whenever I thought about her teeth imprints on my chest), I might have been fawning all over Phenna to drag me into that book of hers and do things to me with “magic.”

I’d wager she could make me arrive at an understanding pretty fucking quick.

“As for your first question. . . there’s only so much I’m allowed to say for one who has paid no price save for opening the Mágissa Biblia. Before anyone can begin to Understand, their heart must beat to the rhythm of the Unseen Worlds. Understanding begins by binding your soul to the Yggdrasil Tree and continues with forming a bridge to The Maiden, The Mother, and The Crone. It took me almost a decade to do those things. A year to figure out how to even read the Mágissa Biblia and another seven or eight to walk into the — well, in your tongue the place’s name translates to Blood Valley.”

Running my hands through my hair, I bristled at the options before me. Wait a fucking decade to even start learning magic? It was getting access to HRT all over again. Or sacrifice my flesh to live in a book.

I rubbed my chin.

Actually, with the way my dysphoria makes me feel some days, sacrificing my body to become a fiery cougar who floats through the air doesn’t sound half bad, I thought, rolling my eyes.

“Sorry to sound extremely American here, but. . . is there a shortcut? Like — what if I want to microwave my magic instead of warming it up in the oven?” I asked, squinting even as I asked the question.

And where I expected more annoyance from Phenna, she merely flashed me a look of what I could best describe as morose caution.

“It is because I still remember having a beating heart in my chest that I give you this warning once and only once, Lilith.”

I flinched at her words.

Well shit, I thought. It seems we’re done with “sweetie” this and “sweetie that.”

“You’re hungry. I feel it rising from you like steam from a fresh loaf of bread. That hunger to learn, that craving to discover, that itch to know arcane knowledge. . . won’t ever go away. In fact, once you taste the fruit of the Yggdrasil Tree and welcome the chilled embrace of The Maiden, The Mother, and The Crone, it will only grow worse. And there are only so many things you can give away before you’re left with nothing.”

A shiver ran from my heart straight to my toes, faster than a bullet train. But as her warning tempered my appetite for something I just discovered minutes ago, a dark question formed in the back of my mind.

“What. . . exactly could I do with Understanding? Could I. . . not sacrifice my flesh, but merely reshape it to my liking?”

Phenna leaned forward now, seemingly floating on her stomach. The book woman folded each arm, resting her chin on her wrists. Gone was the expression of warning. It’d been devoured by a face that I’d describe as “cat ate the canary.”

What is WITH this woman? I thought. She’s all over the place.

The way I couldn’t get a solid read on her left me all the more unnerved. It was like one moment she wanted me to run screaming from the path she’d chosen and the next, Phenna was practically throwing wide the gate for me to enter her domain. Is that what being locked in a magical book for centuries did to your mind?

“I can’t say what you’d be able to do with Understanding. But I can tell you from a purely historical note that the Mágissa Biblia contains 57 smaller books compiled by sorceresses through the ages. And one of them, written by a woman who lived 2,500 years ago, deals with advanced concepts of flesh made clay.”

She’s telling me “yes” without saying “yes,” I thought. Looking down at my hands and sighing at the hours and days I’d lost wishing for different chromosomes, I made a snap decision right there and then.

“Fortuna iuvat,” I muttered, clenching my hands into fists.

I was done wishing. It was time to roll up my sleeves and make something happen for once.

“Ooooooo, quoting Virgil. Oh, Lilian. You truly must be a librarian,” Phenna giggled. “Which means nobody has moved this book since I forsook my flesh years and years ago.”

I nodded.

“You remain within the Pine Springs Community Library, built by your own Jamie in 1823. Now, in exchange for that knowledge, I’d like you to grant me passage to the Blood Valley,” I told Phenna as I crossed my arms and put on a stern face.

But she merely laughed.

“Bravo! You really took a swing there, you mortal doll. But I will not grant you something that took me eight years to learn for knowledge that took you eight minutes to gain. Where is the equivalent exchange?”

Probably with a short blond boy wearing a red coat and wielding a metal arm, I thought, bitterly.

I rubbed my hair again and looked around the altar of this room given breath again for the first time in decades. Had Phenna studied down here trying to puzzle out how to alter her own flesh in the 1800s? What was her relationship to Lord Wylde that she called him “Jamie”? And what did she ultimately gain from sacrificing her flesh to live in that book?

Too many questions. Not enough knowledge. Not enough Understanding. I didn’t need all the answers right away. I just. . . I required an on-ramp to speed down to the interstate. What could I offer Phenna for her eight years of studies? I racked my brain, feeling like I was staring at a keyhole. Only, instead of looking for the key, I was trying to solve a riddle, as if riddles opened doors. Well, doors not made by dwarves, anyway.

For the life of me, the only thing I could hear in my head was music. Brass, woodwinds, strings, percussion, and me seated in the middle of it all holding my — my eyes snapped open. I knew what to offer Phenna for my bridge to the ultimate femme triumvirate.

“Eight years you studied the Mágissa Biblia to gain access to the Blood Valley, yes? Then eight years of study I offer you, Phenna.”

The floating woman dreamily tilted her head to the right while she waited for me to explain.

“Oh?” she asked.

“In Ninth grade, I started playing the trumpet in my high school’s marching band. And it provided a music scholarship for me all through college until I’d earned my four-year degree. That’s eight years of musical study I can offer you.”

She didn’t need to know that I hadn’t touched my trumpet since I heard the magna cum laude give his speech in a basketball arena with a crowd of hundreds of other college grads.

“Clever. You’re sure you won’t miss that musical skill? Growing up, I knew girls who rehearsed for years to memorize their scales and sightread music. You’d trade all that away just to START your path to Understanding?”

I took a deep breath and nodded.

“Having the right body is more important to me than knowing the finger positions for B-flat. Getting a head-start on learning the arcane knowledge necessary to reshape my flesh is worth this sacrifice.”

Phenna’s expression spun all the way back around to a stern warning before she spoke, and I felt my flesh itch under her glare.

“Simply eating fruit from the Yggdrasil Tree doesn’t grant you a completed painting, Lilith. It merely gives you a few colors and a brush for your canvas. Everything else is up to you. And sacrifices for shortcuts only get more tempting as time goes on. Many a practitioner has grown impatient in their studies before convincing themselves they can live without something. Eight years studies, eight years gone, young one.”

As she said that, Phenna blew out a small cloud of smoke over her fingers. When it cleared, her hand grasped a polished champaign glass.

I just sat there blinking.

“A toast to my first bargain?” I laughed, nervously. Her glass was empty. She didn’t smile.

“There’s a legend about a wolf who bargains with a raven that I think you really should learn someday. But nonetheless, your price is paid.”

“Will this hurt?” I asked, dread suddenly welling up in the pit of my guts like serpents made of tar and bile.

Phenna shook her head.

“Making the sacrifice is the easy part, sweet thing. Understanding what you actually gave away is the hard part that comes later. It arrives in the long hours of the night when you’d give anything for your eyes to close and your mind to finally stop thinking.”

Before I could retort, my eyes started to water. Only. . . I wasn’t crying. I didn’t feel like I was crying. But my vision grew blurry all the same. And I watched as bubbles leaked from my eyes like tears, growing the longer they floated through the air.

The fuck? I thought, blinking several times.

But each time I wiped my eyes, more bubbles leaked out and drifted lazily over toward Phenna’s glass. When I focussed on the bubbles, I realized that each contained something. . . a narrow black form.

Only when the soft music struck my ears did I realize a single musical note bounced around inside each bubble as if they escaped the staff they were written on and hitched a ride in these bubbles to make their getaway.

And they just kept leaking from my eyes. I heard a trumpet performing different pieces of different songs within each bubble. No. . . not A trumpet, but MY trumpet. These were songs I’d played!

“Holy shit! That’s Gustav Holst’s Second Suite in F!” I hissed, staring at four bubbles flying close together. “That’s March. And that’s Song Without Words. We played that at a regional competition. Oh! Song of the Blacksmith! And that’s Fantasia on the Dargason!”

Memories of the hours and hours of rehearsal came rushing back as I sat between Regan and Tristen, second chair trumpet during most of my senior year.

Phenna’s expression softened as each bubble popped over her glass and filled it a little more. She listened to me talk.

“We ended up taking. . . the. . . well, it doesn’t matter. It’ll come back to me. We won a big trophy.”

The floating woman tilted her head to the other side as more tears became bubbles before my very eyes.

“Oh! I recognize that one, too! That’s In a Gentle Rain by Robert W. Smith. Gods, I fucking loved that piece. I think we played it in. . . tenth grade? No, maybe my junior year? My brain is farting all over the place.”

My joy faded a bit more with each song I recognized. My head felt lighter and lighter the more I tried to grasp at my memories. As they twitched, trying to recall whether trumpets played in treble or bass clef, my heart sank.

Another bubble’s music hit my ears as I recognized another piece called And the Fire Raged by Ted Ricketts.

Before I knew it, Phenna’s glass was full. And I. . . I couldn’t recall a single marching formation, despite the many hours in the summer blistering sun I’d spent standing on tiny wooden tiles to memorize my movements for football games to come later that fall.

Phenna swirled the glass around, watching my memories and sold skill carefully. Then she downed it one gulp, as though it were a moderately priced wine at a nice restaurant.

“I’ve never played a musical instrument before. This will be interesting to experiment with.”

My shoulders drooped, and a feeling of further dread began to worm its way through my guts as her words came back to memory clear as she’d spoken them.

“Making the sacrifice is the easy part, sweet thing. Understanding what you actually gave away is the hard part that comes later.”

I started to shake and feel cold as Phenna ate her champagne glass like it was a candy bar, glass crunching on her teeth. Then, she swallowed it.

“You feel it now, yes? The weight of a bargain struck in haste?”

I nodded, glum and wanting to kick myself.

“Now imagine you have no flesh,” she said, rising again to a standing position in the air.

Before I could ask about regaining those lost memories, Phenna’s eyes lit anew.

“Oh, look at that, sweet thing. A doorway.”

Turning to look behind me, I followed her gaze. My eyes fell upon a red door in the shape of a pentagon with a little gold knob in the center. It’d been fitted perfectly into the wall that collapsed to reveal this chamber.

“Better get moving, Lilith. You have mythical fruit to devour and ancient sorceresses to embrace. I truly hope what you find in the Blood Valley is what you were looking for. If you need me, I’ll be practicing Into the Storm. Do you recall who arranged it?”

I shook my head without turning back to the floating woman.

“Robert W. Smith, of course. You just told me his name a couple of minutes ago.”

Had I? Fuck.

If I felt this shitty now, how much worse would I feel in the long hours of the night when my mind refused to quiet no matter how tired I felt?

Well, speaking of sleep, I’d made my bed. Now, it was time to lie in it. Taking a step toward the weathered red door, I suddenly yearned for the den I’d woken up in this morning with Mars’ warm arms wrapped tightly around me.

Double fuck, I thought. I’ve been a werewolf’s mate for a day, and I’ve already made a bargain with a witch imprisoned in a book for a little magic. Sorry — Understanding.

All that was left to do was taste this supposed fruit. I wondered how literal Phenna was being when she talked about the tree. Only one way to find out.