by Aidy Award
"No, they think I went to bed early because I was mad. I'm mad all right." She was making so much noise clomping her way down this little used path that every animal and beast in the place knew exactly where she was.
Maybe he should take her on a date to ninja school. Get her moving a little more stealthily. Max popped out of his cover and trotted down the path behind her. She was so absorbed in her rant about her parents and her phone call that he could probably go stand right in front of her and she wouldn't notice.
Gal stopped and looked to the left and then to the right. She giggled nervously. "Holy crap. Are you serious? Why didn't you say anything last week? Yes, yes, a thousand time yes. I'll start moving my stuff over in the morning."
A new scent wafted to Max's nose. Her relief and excitement was fruity and sweet. He growled soft and low, his wolf groaning at the enticing smell of her. It wanted a taste.
Gal whipped around, her eyes flitting from tree to bush to path. Max darted off the path and into the shadow of a big tree just in time. His wolf's reaction to this woman was going to get them both in trouble.
"No. I'm fine. I'll see you in like five minutes, okay? It's not that much farther to Sleepy Folk." Another pause and she laughed more genuinely this time. "Yeah get me anything with chocolate in it. Chocolate makes everything better. Even overbearing, overprotective parents' rants about finding a husband."
A husband? Over his dead body.
Gal sped up and her boots clacked onto the pavement of the parking lot at the edge of the Reserve. His family's bar was just another block away on the edge of the historic old town district. Even the Grimm pack knew better than to show up anywhere near the Troika owned businesses in town.
Hmm. If she was going to the Sleepy Folk, maybe Max would too. His father was going to be busy pissing all over the reserve for at least the next hour. He could slip away for a short time and...what?
It wasn't like he had time to hit on her. Sure, go flirt with her now and then leave her high and dry as she went back out on patrol for the rest of the night? No. When he flirted with Gal, he wanted her to be anything but dry.
He loped back into the forest and made his rounds, but everywhere he went he smelled her and it was driving him crazy. That was it. He had to get Gal LAST NAME in his bed and get her out of his system so that he could concentrate on being the heir apparent to the most hated wolf pack in the world.
Gal
Gal quickly slid the book she was reading underneath the newspaper at the desk and pretended to put the rest of the stack of children's books in order by their Dewey decimal number. They were almost all 398.45. Paranormal beings of human and semi-human form.
Ever since she'd seen that wolf in the Reserve not once, but twice she'd become obsessed. Sure, she'd started in 599.773 to look up wolves in general, but what she'd experienced didn't feel like natural behavior. It was the dumb conversation she'd had with the tweens that sent her to the folklore section of the library instead of the science shelves.
She was deep, deep down the rabbit hole of the myths and stories about werewolves and it all felt eerily real.
"Hey Miss Shirvan, whatchya reading?" Said tweens came up in their usual pack and invaded the desk. They were there for the after school snacks she kept in the desk drawer for them. Or at least she could distract them with food.
She pulled out a pack of chocolate covered granola bars and handed them out to the girls. "Here you go."
Tweenager number one ignored the proffered snack and pulled the corner of the book out from its hiding place. "Hey, I know this book. I read it like a hundred times in like the third grade. I was flipping obsessed with werewolves."
Tween number two clapped and squealed. "Oh my God, yaaass. Let me see."
The girls went through the entire stack, spreading them out across the desk and flipping them open to the pages with pictures. "Like, whatever. These are so fake. Werewolves are not like that at all. Haven't these people seen Twilight? They turn into wolves, not these gross half-man half-beast things. That's so 1980's."
"Dude, vampires do not sparkle. You have to read Helen Hardt's hot vamps."
"You guys, listen to the words that are coming out of my mouth. Dragons. Talk about sexy. Why are you not reading Aidy Award? She has wolf shifters too."
Well, at least these young ladies were interested in books at all. She couldn't get the older kids to do anything but come in for anime night.
"Miss Shirvan, you need to ditch these books and hit the romance novels. They're way better." All three girls looked at her and nodded.
Adorable.
"Okay thanks, ladies. Why don't you go pick some out for me." That would keep them busy for all of five or six minutes at least. The girls rushed off to the teen section, although one headed upstairs to adult fiction. Yikes. Did twelve-year-olds really read adult romance novels?
By the time she made the announcement that the library closed in fifteen minutes, Gal had a stack of about twenty books and three movies that were "OMG, totally not as good as the book." She had to read and report back to the girls about them all. She'd have to talk to the library director about starting a teen book club and having those three be on the advisory board. They could talk anyone into reading with their excitement for the stories.
She had to admit, she knew a lot more about wolf shifters than she had a few hours ago. The tweens were better than most research librarians she knew when it came to their encyclopedic knowledge of paranormal romance novel heroes. That more than anything had quashed her weird fantasy that some kind of supernatural beings lived in the Reserve.
Wolf shifters, indeed. So what if she'd thought that wolf's eyes had glowed when it looked at her. That had clearly been in her imagination.
Gal grabbed a couple of the top recommended books to take home, and put the rest on her cart to make a display out of for next week. The girls would be tickled by her use of their favorite topic for the rest of the library patrons.
She could dig into one soon because her walk home now that she'd moved into Zara and Heli's third room was even shorter than before. No more cutting through the Reserve to get to the bar on Friday or Saturday night. She would kind of miss that. Maybe when the moon was full again she should take an evening stroll.
Every time she'd seen that wolf, she'd been on the way to the Sleepy Folk.
She hadn't seen Max there since that first night. She hadn't seen him at all since then. So much for thinking he was interested and might ask her out. Hmm. That sucked.
A shiver took her body like someone had walked over her grave. Her stomach sank and all the hairs on her arms and the back of her neck stood up on end. Gal put her hand over her heart. It was hammering so hard she could hear it pounding in her ears. What in the world? She got that horrible feeling someone not very nice was watching her. She spun around, but didn't see anything.
The alarm on her phone went off with the reminder to make the five minute announcement and she jumped about three feet, knocking her chair over. There was no one here. She was all alone and acting like a little girl afraid of the dark.
She took a deep breath and told herself to stop being so silly. It was almost time to go home and she was tired, that was all. Gal picked up the CB radio type handset that they used for the library's PA system. "The library will close in five minutes. If you have items you would like to check out please head toward the kiosk now. Thank you."
A yawn over took her and she breathed in some much needed oxygen to keep her awake. She didn't mind closing on most nights because she had the last hour or so to herself and could usually take that time to prep her story time supplies for the week. She'd have to pull out one of the pre-made kits for tomorrow afternoon's program. Unless of course she did it on wolf shifters.
Yeah. A kids program on animals in their area wasn't a bad idea. Maybe there was a wildlife preservations group she could contact to see if they could bring some rehabilitated animals to the library. Not wolves of course. Well, maybe wo
lf puppies.
She really had wolves on the brain, because she was sure she just heard a wolf howl.
Uh, holy crap. There it went again. It sounded like it was just outside the library. Gal rushed over to the door to shut and lock it. Patrons would still be able to get out, but nothing could come in. She did that and made the closing announcement. Just like she'd thought, no one else appeared at the book check out kiosks or the front desk.
A rustling sound came from her right and two words popped into her head in a voice that was not her own.
You're safe.
Okay. If there wasn't anyone else in the library, why was she hearing things? There were lots of stories of haunted libraries, but the Rogue branch of the Bay County library system had never had any deaths. No one on staff had mentioned any ghosts. She closed up several times a week by herself and had never seen or heard anything before.
She was being silly. Too many paranormal romance back covers with their tales of fantasy were spurring her imagination. Either someone was here with her or she'd imagined the noise.
"Hello? Is someone there? The library is closed. Time to go home." She cautiously moved toward the shelves where she'd heard the sounds. "Hello?"
They did have a small but persistent homeless population that spent a lot of time here. Maybe one of their regulars didn't have a place to go and decided to camp out. She hated to call the police, but would if she had to. First she'd see what she could do to help if that was the case.
Someone, or something, definitely scampered away. She really hoped it wasn't anyone with children.
"Time to go. You can come back in the morning if you like. We open bright and early at nine o'clock. We even have family story time at ten."
More rustling, scampering, and maybe panting? Whoever it was had put themselves in a corner now. Gal quietly pushed one of the carts full of books to be shelved into the only other escape route and then slipped around the end cap of the shelf. Someone scratched at the metal like they were climbing up.
"I'm not going to hurt you. But you do need to come out now. It's time to leave." Time for her to quit being ridiculous and get her imagination under control.
"Grrr-ruff."
A dog? It must be a stray or someone had lost their dog and it wandered in here when she wasn't looking. Poor thing. "Here poochie-poo. Come on out."
The very tippy tip end of a wet black nose emerged from the edge of the shelf. Then the end of a gray snout. A big dog then.
She squatted down and made a kissy noise. Gal held out her hand and slowly scooted closer. She didn't want to scare him. "Here, pup. Let's be friends."
The nose sniffed the air and retreated. Damn. She got down on her hands and knees. If it was skittish, being down on his level would help ease his fear of her. She'd seen that in a movie once.
"Grrr-ruff." It barked again and the next thing she saw was a gray fluffy tail with a black tip sticking out, wagging back and forth.
Good it wasn't afraid. "Do you want to go walkies? Outside?"
The tail stopped its wagging and dropped. So no to the walkies. "Is it dinner time, pooch? I'm sure I've got a granola bar around here somewhere for you. If the tweens haven't devoured them all. Not as good as a hamburger, which I could really go for. Wanna go get a hamburger with me?"
"Grr-ruff. The tail wagged again and then disappeared. She heard the same scrabble of feet running in the direction of the book cart.
Shoot. "Don't run away, poochy. No hamburger for you if you don't come back here, right now." Gal climbed back on her feet and ran after the dog. It was a blur of gray fur until it reached the cart and leaped over it so gracefully it was he was floating through the air.
His huge, enormous, did she say huge, furry body landed on the other side of the cart and ran like lighting down the stacks and disappeared again. Gal trotted after it, wondering if she had really seen what she thought she had. That was no dog. Even great danes and bull mastiffs weren't as big as he was. His head had to come up to at least her chest. If she hadn't seen it leap over the cart, she would have said he was bear.
But bears weren't gray, with thick full coats, pointed ears, and long tails. No. That pooch was no dog or bear. It was a wolf. The same one she'd seen in the Reserve. Both times she'd caught a glimpse of the animal he'd been far enough away that she had no idea how big he was. But just like before, she hadn't felt any fear. Only a weird sense of being protected.
What the hell was it doing in the library?
Before Gal made it out of the stacks she heard the clack of the metal bar to push the front door of the library open from the inside. By the time she got to the lobby area the door was just swinging back to close. Smart wolf, he let himself out. She walked over to the door anyway and pulled it the rest of the way shut. She peered out the front window for a few moments to see if she could catch sight of the wolf. He was long gone.
She really should write up an incident report. If he'd shown up when any other librarian was on duty they probably would have freaked the heck out. Gal felt a little dumb that she wasn't scared. She wasn't normally a too dumb to live kind of girl. She'd taken self-defense, she had pepper spray in her purse. She knew to yell fire to get people running to help instead of running away. And she definitely knew better than to pet strange dogs.
She opted not to write the report. It was late and no one would believe her anyway. Somehow she knew the wolf wouldn't have come in for anyone else. No sense making the entire staff at her new job think she was insane only a month after she'd started. She wanted to make friends.
Gal turned off the lights, grabbed her bag and her cell phone and went out the back staff entrance. She headed toward home, but when she got out of the parking lot, she stopped. Straight ahead was home, where she could tell Zara and Heli all about her strange experience and not have them think she needed to be committed. To the right was old town, where she could get a drink at Sleepy Folk. And maybe run into Max. To her left, past the front of the library was the Reserve. The most likely place the wolf had gone.
Gal went left.
"Hey, Galyna. I was looking for you." Max, looking a little rumpled with his shirt half-tucked in and his hair all in disarray, hollered at her. He'd come from the front of the library, the direction she was headed. "I was hoping to catch you before you closed, but I got, uh, busy with something."
"Max. Hi."
You didn't happen to see a wolf running in this direction did you? Gal didn't say that out loud. Crazy is as crazy does. Chasing after some giant wolf she'd decided was her protector was absolutely crazeballs. Max had just saved her from making a huge mistake. "I was about to go home. Want to walk me?"
"I know it's late, but do you want to grab a bite to eat with me? I'm craving hamburgers for some reason." Max ran a hand through his hair, smoothing it down.
Was he nervous? Was this a date? Gal squealed a little to herself on the inside. Using her finely honed sorority girl skills, she was cool as a cuke on the outside. "Sure. Sounds great. I was just talking to someone about getting a burger."
"Burgers it is then." He grabbed her hand and they turned to walk toward old town.
An electric warmth shot through her fingers, palm, and arm from his touch. That squeal inside a minute ago - it was nothing compared to the roar of the crowd in her head now. Her girly parts were doing the wave. Max Troika, the cool-kid crush who'd barely given her the time of day six-years ago was holding her hand. Her giddy teenage self couldn't have been any more twitterpated than she was right now.
Those sorority girl skills escaped her now and she was left with awkward teenager self scraping her mind for a topic of conversation. She would not be lame enough to comment on the weather. "Did you know there were wolves in the Reserve?"
Uh, yeah. She'd just blurted that out. Oops. She hadn't meant to say anything to anyone. She wasn't even sure she was going to discuss that with Zara and Heli. But here she was letting the word wolves fall right out of her mouth. Too late to take it back n
ow.
Max didn't reply right away and Gal cringed. "I mean, uh, I heard that from the kids at the library. Crazy, right?"
Eye roll to herself.
Max looked at her sideways. "I have heard that. That rumor has been around town for a long time. It's where the name of the bar came from."
"Because folks are so sleepy they dreamt up wolves?" Geez. Could she sound any more of a twit?
Max laughed and that sound went straight to her girly parts. Such a sexy sound.
"No. Sleepy Folk was originally slepoi volk. It's Russian for blind wolf. Back in the day the bar was just called The Wolf. But when prohibition hit my, uh, family opened up the bakery and changed the name, but for the Russians in area, they knew where to go to get their drink on. Can't take a Russian's vodka away. Law or not."
"Whoa. That's so cool. You should have that on a plaque or something at the bar. I don't think anyone knows. The prohibition part sure, but not the rest. I love etymological history like that." Gal closed her eyes turned her head away so Max wouldn't see her embarrassment at being such a huge dork.
Because who doesn't flirt over etymology?
Max stopped walking and gave her hand a tug so she had to face him. He lifted her jaw with his knuckles and stared down at her. The light from the streetlamps reflected in his eyes made her heart skip a beat. "You're cute when you get your nerd on. I like it. You've got that sexy librarian thing down pat."
Something caught Max's attention behind her and he narrowed his eyes at the distraction. Before she got a chance to react and ask him what was back there, he looked back down at her, stared into her eyes and smiled in a way that melted her panties right out from under her skirt.
"I've always had a thing for nerdy girls." His voice had gone all low and husky.
"Then I'm your girl. I've got nerd tattooed across my rear end." Ha. Now her flirter was firing on all cylinders.