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 23.

___________________________

The old pickup truck lumbered to a stop in front of the Pine Springs Public Library, an old brick building on the outskirts of downtown. She was old, but she was mine. Literally. I was the only one here to take care of her, one of five recipients of the Maine Rural Librarian Grant.

In an attempt to make sure small communities across the Pine Tree State had access to literature, public internet, and other community resources, a whopping $160,000 was awarded via grant by the Legislature each year. It paid the meager salary of small-town librarians like me.

For the promise of a musty building, old books, and a $32,000 salary, I traded my small hometown in eastern Colorado for Pine Springs. I couldn’t afford to live alone, so I found a shitty spare bedroom in an old house and became roommates with a stranger named Alan.

I groaned inwardly thinking of facing him again.

“Hey, Earth to Cottontail. You good?”

Snapping back to reality at the voice of my mate (a word I still wasn’t used to), I shook my head a few times.

“Sorry. I was just lost in my thoughts. What were we talking about?”

Mars rewarded me with the deep rumble of a chuckle and stroked the side of my head, pushing hair away from my face. I leaned into her touch and closed my eyes, grabbing her wrist.

“That’s my good girl. You remember my touch. Keep the feeling of my flesh against yours in your mind all day.”

“I will,” I moaned, feeling her strong hand slide down to the side of my face. Her thumb rubbed against the bottom of my lip, and I bit it. Not hard, mind you. More like a love nibble.

Mars effortlessly pulled me into a deep kiss, finding yet another great use of her werewolf strength. I stifled another moan as her tongue met mine and pushed it down. Even here, I submitted to her.

When she finally pulled away, a small line of saliva bridging our lips, I paused. Mars grinned and then leaned back over, licking it up.

“Don’t want to waste a drop of my mate’s taste,” she whispered before bumping her forehead to mine.

My cheeks flushed as heat rushed to my face.

“Do you remember everything we talked about at breakfast this morning?”

“I think so. Um, don’t freak out if ‘strange’ things start happening around me. Being claimed as a werewolf’s mate brings uncertain and unpredictable magic into my life.”

She nodded.

“If I feel threatened or scared by anything, you’ll be able to sense it,” I said, trying to recall the highlights of our conversation over the waffles and bacon an hour ago.

“Good. And the other major thing?”

I closed my eyes to think, taking in the warm farm scents Mars brought into the truck after running through a couple of small outdoor chores while I did my makeup this morning.

“Ummmmm,” I mumbled, struggling to focus.

Mars kissed the tip of my nose.

“Gods, you’re cute. The last thing I need you to remember is to be careful around other people’s dogs. They’ll smell me on you, and depending on any number of factors will be inexplicably sweet or outright hostile to you. Werewolf scents don’t seem to leave any middle ground in man’s best friend. They either love us or hate us.”

I nodded, still feeling like the moment I got out of this truck would end the pleasant dream I’d found myself in since Mars rescued me from that creep at the art gallery last night. My fingers hesitated on the worn metal door handle.

As I shifted uncomfortably in the patched leather bench seat of Mars’ antique truck, I took in the smell of alfalfa and protein pellets that seemed to blanket her this morning.

Seeming to sense my hesitation, Mars grabbed my chin and turned my face to hers.

“Easy now, Little Cottontail. You’ll see me again tonight for dinner. Remember? I’ve gotta drive out to Lubec today to drop off a few things. Want me to pick up some lobster tails to grill tonight?”

My mouth was suddenly watering at the thought of, not just seafood, but seeing Mars in one of those cheesy, “kiss the cook” aprons while standing over a charcoal grill.

“Yes please,” I said.

“Good. Bring your appetite. I’ll never let my mate go hungry.”

Without thinking, my voice spit out some words that left Mars momentarily stunned.

“I know firsthand how good you are at stuffing me.”

My mate froze and then burst out a raucous belly laugh.

“Your puns are terrible, but your one-liners just make me want to drag you back to my bed and fuck you so hard that the only words you’re left with are gibberish.”

I leered at Mars until she kissed me again.

“See you tonight, my mate,” she said as I climbed out of the truck. And it occurred to me that I’d never had someone looking forward to seeing me before. Certainly not this far in advance. Most of my hookups came in the moment when I drove out of town to hit up a bar. But here? I knew a pretty woman was not only excited to see me, but to welcome me into her home again.

Warm butterflies fluttered in my tummy, amidst the waffles I’d devoured. And for at least a minute or two, I stood there gaping on the sidewalk. Dumbfounded over my sudden smittenness, I shuffled around my purse awkwardly the key to the front door.

Walking inside the single-story library, I took a deep breath. The scent of old books and tired carpet greeted me.

There was nothing quite like the feeling of being surrounded by books. I didn’t like to think of myself as some sort of cliche soul who romanticized the printed word, but the truth was, few things could seduce me faster than talking about what one was reading or how many books they had on their shelves at home.

And I wanted to hear about it all. Audiobooks, graphic novels, ebooks, what you bought at Narnes & Boble, your interlibrary loan orders, anything you were reading. I wanted people to have access to stories, biographies, reference material, comics, and anything they needed to let their minds escape the dull tedium of this world for even a few minutes. Heaven knows that’s why I first started sticking my nose in books. It’s harder for dysphoria to fuck you up when your mind is busy processing the words and images of an author.

When I was thirteen and lamenting the smells of a boyish body hitting puberty, I’d bury myself in lotions I stole from Mom and escape to Earthsea to travel on magical adventures with Ged and Tenar.

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

Sighing and shaking the old memories from my noggin, I flipped the lights on and watched three large chandeliers begin their daylong hum, bringing light to my sanctuary.

The front desk stood about ten feet from the front door, and I tried to keep it mostly clear. Only my laptop, a barcode scanner, and a basket for book returns covered the heavy oak furniture.

I booted up the laptop and waited for that familiar field of grass background to appear. It took several minutes as Windows was slow to wake some mornings.

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” I mumbled, launching our checkout software as the hard drive clicked and whirred.

The old Dell computer was a leftover from the state that had been graciously awarded to this library a few years ago. Unfortunately, it was old even then. I’m pretty sure this laptop hit store shelves when Obama was still in office.

When the checkout system was finally open, I walked to a basket full of books that’d been dropped in the overnight return chute. Quite a few people who came to Wylde Night took the opportunity to drop their books off, seeing as they were already downtown.

I picked up a biography of Teddy Roosevelt, a couple of Louis L’Amour westerns, a self-help programming guide from a writer who simply published it under the pseudonym of “Soph,” and a few volumes of Inuyasha.

Taking the titles to the front desk to check in, I found myself curious about the programmer and looked her up on Foogle. I found her website easily enough.

“Of course she’s trans,” I chuckled. “Statistically, eight out of ten programmers will find themselves dissatisfied with their gender and ascend to a new form.”

After I got the books checked in, I added them to my trusty beige cart that squeaked like nobody’s business and started reshelving books.

The library was broken into two wings when you walked in. The right side was divided between nonfiction and fiction sections. The left side was filled with children’s books, bean bags, toys, and a cozy corner where a drag queen from Bangor drove in to read to kids once a month.

A few patrons had grumbled about it, but surprisingly, nobody had organized a protest yet. I didn’t exactly make a big show of advertising it. Belinda Books randomly hopped into my inbox one day, offering to make the drive and read to any interested kids. She did it all on her own dime because the state sure as hell wasn’t going to pay storytime readers to visit the Pine Springs Public Library.

She showed up after I spread news of the event by word of mouth to some chill parents who frequented the library. And to my surprise, Belinda always had a crowd of at least a dozen kids who loved to hear her silly voices and colorful stories. (Colorful, as in, the art on the pages had bright colors. Not colorful, as in, explicit).

The morning went on rather quietly, and I ate a quick lunch Mars had been sweet enough to pack me.

While the library was still closed for my lunch break, I unlocked the door to the basement and descended to our media storage section. We kept DVDs, CDs, and audiobooks on a bunch of dusty white shelves about half my size.

You never knew when a Boomer would wander in asking about checking out season four of Everybody Loves Raymond or the last season of The Sopranos. I pulled the drawstring and a pendant light clicked on, bathing the exposed stone walls in pale amber light. It swung back and forth while I shelved a DVD copy of Star Trek: Nemesis that’d been returned while I was eating my sandwich.

Turning to leave, I heard something crack to my right. My eyes focussed on a small brown mouse sliding out of a hole in the ancient wooden wall. It plopped to the dirty floor and bounced a few times before scurrying off into a dark corner.

“That thing probably needs to be inspected for stability,” I mumbled before the crack grew longer and louder, spreading in two directions from floor to ceiling.

Oh shit! I thought before two wooden panels on the library’s original wall fell loose, clattering to the ground.

I jumped and covered my ears, never a fan of loud noises.

A cloud of dust slowly cleared, and I wiped my eyes noticing what appeared to be some sort of room or chamber beyond the wooden wall.

“What the actual fuck?” I asked, daring to scoot a few feet closer. It was dark, but I could make out a table maybe?

This building had just celebrated its 200th birthday last year, and I knew it’d had very little restoration work done to keep the original structure as intact as possible. I’d worked here for a few years now and had never once noticed a second room in the basement.

I mean, the basement always seemed smaller than I expected. But a hidden chamber? Part of me expected Mr. Barlow the vampire himself to come stumbling out. Actually, come to think of it, now that I knew werewolves were real, a vampire walking out of the secret room of my library’s basement was at least 27% more likely.

“H — hello?” I called stupidly into the darkness.

And I flinched when a strange clattering noise greeted me. My heart hammered like a jackhammer in my chest as adrenaline did its job and tried to convince me to fight or fly.

With a few deep (and dusty) breaths, I stepped toward the rattling noise. It sounded bigger and heavier than the mouse that climbed out of this decrepit wooden wall.

Placing a hand on the 18th-century lumber where the panels had collapsed, I was greeted with an old and chalky sensation, as though the very air in this room hadn’t budged in over a century.

The rattling grew louder as I turned on my phone and used the light to make sense of my surroundings.

A stone floor stretched out for at least 20 feet in all directions before me. The walls had no windows and a large candelabra stood on top of a shelf full of antique glass jars and powders to my left.

Slanted wooden beams held the ceiling up about five feet above my head. They appeared to be holding steady, unlike the piece of wall that collapsed to let me in here. The entire room smelled of dry lumber, ancient herbs, and chalk.

Ahead of me against another wall sat an honest-to-god caldron and some sort of an altar topped with long-ago melted candles, small metal tins of ingredients, and finger bones that appeared to be from someone’s hand. The good thing about being From Away? I knew the skeletal hand belonged to nobody I knew.

“My bad. I didn’t know we were opening a Spirit Halloween in the basement. That shit really will spawn anywhere, won’t it?” I said to myself, mostly to calm my nerves.

Did the historical society know about this? If not, they’d definitely want to. Fuck, a secret occult chamber found in the basement of the library would be the front page of the Pine Springs Gazette tomorrow. The Bangor TV station would probably send over a young reporter to do a story on it. And I say young because Bangor was a tiny-ass news market, and reporters who wanted to work in Portland typically had to cut their teeth in the Queen City first. At least, that’s what a reporter I hooked up with at a club in Portland told me she had to do. It seemed kind of tedious to me. Books were simpler.

And speaking of books, that rattling noise had only grown louder as I stepped further into the room.

My eyes flew to a center table that appeared to be hand-carved from mahogany. And despite how old everything else in here seemed to be, the table looked as sturdy as the day it was chiseled and hammered together.

In the table’s center, on a worn, loosely folded black cloth sat a book. Then again, “sat” probably wasn’t a strong enough verb to describe the book’s activity. It was shaking every few seconds like a phone on vibrate.

The leatherbound tome was the size of a college notebook and sealed shut with a buckle on the side. Gooseflesh crept over my arms as it continued to rattle and dance in my presence.

Every single lick of common sense I’d built over the years as a librarian was telling me to leave and call someone whose job it was to deal with hidden basement rooms. Then again, in some twisted way, wasn’t this my job? I was the librarian. And here was a book. My entire career was built around books. Why should this one be any different? Intense rattling aside, I mean.

My hand almost seemed to stretch toward the book without my knowledge. And while I probably should have stopped it. . . I didn’t. The past 24 hours had seen me become a werewolf’s mate, and I was warned unpredictable magic and madness were to follow. Why bother trying to avoid it?

As my fingers traced the leather and iron buckle, the book suddenly sat stone still. The binding felt. . . warm, pulsing with life, even.

Aw shit. I’m gonna open this thing and wind up with a chainsaw for a hand, I thought, unlatching the book.

“Groovy,” was the last thing I said before the tome spilled wide open. Without warning, an invisible force slapped me backward and sent my ass sliding across the dusty stone floor. Some arcane power burst forth with a near–deafening boom.

A queer static and blinding golden light seemed to fill the entire chamber afterward. Even grimacing with my eyes shut, I saw the powerful illumination.

It took a few tries to sit up and open my eyelids. Everything that had once been dark was now bathed in yellow light, all tracing back to a single source.

Hovering a few inches above the tome of fluttering pages stood a woman made of pure fire. Long blonde hair wafted around the book-bound entity, and her solid white eyes opened wide, searching the room around her.

Gradually, the flames died down a bit, revealing a more human flesh underneath. The woman, who appeared to be in her late 30s or early 40s stretched and yawned.

My jaw was practically on the floor as I gaped up at her fiery form.

When she finally noticed me, the hovering woman spoke with a smoky voice that seemed to slide into my ears as easily as a cotton swab.

“Greetings. My name is Phenna. And it is about fucking time someone opened my book. I beseech you, good woman. Tell me the year of my freeing. And share with me your name.”

I sat there dumbfounded, unable to even remember how speaking worked.

Well, I don’t think this woman wants to shop smart at S-Mart, I thought, picking my jaw up and trying to make sense of what madness and magic I’d just set loose.