The Bibliophile and the Beekeeper (Galactic Librarians)

Chapter 1

IRIS

The Grand Library of M’mir should feel like paradise.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve dreamt of places like this—a whole planet packed full of knowledge, where the books hum with quiet, alien magic, where stories stretch endlessly through polished corridors of light and shadow.

Here, wisdom isn’t just kept. It’s alive.

The shelves rise in sweeping spirals, curling toward floating lanterns that cast a warm, golden glow. Hidden glyphs pulse beneath the bindings of tucked away tomes, whispering secrets and waiting to be catalogued—books from every planet, every known world, every far corner of the galaxy.

I should be happy. I should feel whole.

But something is missing.

Even after six months, this doesn’t feel like home.

I sigh, cracking open the next book to be catalogued and put away.

The script glows faintly–that’s a new one–and I gingerly place my fingertips on it to skim them across the words.

I have to be careful; the last time I touched a mystery book like this, I passed out for a second when it basically carried out a psychic attack on me.

It doesn’t–not this time.

I just still feel that nagging sense of ennui.

I press my lips together, focusing on the words instead of the past, but today especially, I can’t get those days out of my head–days on Convergence Earth.

I think I might miss the sense of urgency, the danger, even though I really shouldn’t.

Maybe that makes me crazy. Maybe—definitely—I need therapy.

Or maybe it isn’t the danger I miss, but the camaraderie.

My squadron of fellow preservationists, racing to protect books from the Borean Empire. My friends.

One friend.

I shake my head, pushing the thought away. I have a job to do, and standing here like an idiot lost in nostalgia isn’t going to make this place feel like home.

I close the book and load it into a little hovercart, the soft golden glow of energy underneath it. I press a button and it lifts up—then I move through a curtain of vines and into the Grand Library proper.

The sight still takes my breath away.

The towers of shelves…books of every size and color, rising up up up. Golden glow lamps hover all over the place, scholars of myriad species talking quietly in so many languages.

The scratch of pencil on paper…the tap of claws on marble, heartbeats, growls.

I smile to myself, even as it makes me a little lonely. My cart hovers beside me as I walk through the stacks, searching for the section on Ka’reth cuisine—

—and I nearly run right into someone…into him.

A giant of a man—quite literally. My eyes are at waist level when I come just inches away, finding a spun gold tunic and a ridiculously muscular leaf green arm. I stumble back, my cart abruptly dropping to the floor, and I look up into a familiar face.

“Iris?” he says.

My face breaks into a huge smile. “Garrik?”

It’s been months since I last saw him, but something about the sight of him shakes me.

He looks…the same, I guess, but not. Whereas he used to wear armor and traveling clothes back on Earth, he’s now wearing a golden tunic that stretches across his broad shoulders, the soft fabric tucked into a dark leather belt slung low on his hips.

His leaf-green skin glows warmly under the lantern light, dark emerald hair messy and tousled and framing two short antennae.

They’re pink at the tips, like he’s blushing.

And those eyes—deep, impossible gold—are locked on me.

I don’t think. Maybe I should, but I don’t.

Instead, I just…fling myself at him.

Garrik bends to catch me, grunting slightly as he hauls me into his arms in a bear hug.

His arms close around me, solid and warm, one massive palm spreading across my back, the other settling just beneath my thighs as he lifts me up like I weigh nothing.

I grip his shoulders, and for a moment I let myself sink into him, into the warmth, the familiarity of him.

Suddenly, I don’t feel so lonely.

I press my face into his neck like a weirdo, inhaling the scent of honeycomb and spring flowers.

“Garrik,” I sigh. “I missed you.”

He rubs my back in a big circle. “I missed you too.”

I pull back, grinning so hard my cheeks ache. “Is it just me or have you gotten bigger?”

His lips twitch. “Maybe you’ve gotten smaller.”

I swat his arm—which is more like smacking a tree trunk. “Shut up.”

Garrik laughs, a low rumble that I feel resonating in his chest. He doesn’t say anything for a second, looking at me like he’s still trying to figure out if I’m real—like he’s memorizing the shape of my face, the way my arms are slung loosely around his neck.

I get it.

I really, really missed him.

…and then I realize how freaking awkward this is.

I clear my throat and let him go, and Garrik sets me down gently in front of him. I crain my neck to look at him as I step back, ignoring the strange pang in my chest at the lack of contact.

“What are you even doing here?” I ask, nudging my hovercart back to life. “I thought you were all settled in with the fam in the Arborium, living your best beekeeper life.”

Garrik’s hands drop to his sides. “Had business near the library.”

I narrow my eyes suspiciously. “Awfully convenient that you have business and run into little old me.”

He smiles. “Figured I would stop by to see an old friend. The librarians were very helpful in pointing me in the right direction.”

“That’s librarians for you,” I nod. “Helpful.”

“Too true.”

“Well,” I put my hands on my hips. “Since you’re here…you may as well help me reshelve some books, huh?”

His golden eyes sparkle. “Sounds good.”

We weave between the endless spirals of bookshelves, following the soft glow of the floating lamps overhead.

The library is quiet enough that I can hear the occasional rustle of pages turning, the soft hum of whispered conversations, books sliding off of and back onto shelves.

For a few minutes, we walk in companionable silence, with me handing Garrik a book every so often to put on the highest shelves.

I hand him a book, he tucks it effortlessly onto the highest shelf, and I pretend I’m not watching the way his biceps flex when he does it.

It’s stupid. He’s always been this big, this effortlessly strong. But something about seeing him here, in the quiet peace of the Grand Library instead of on some battlefield, throws me off balance.

I think back to when I met him…when I was just twenty-two, a kid really, desperate for companionship after I lost my parents in an attack on the New York Public Library. Garrik zoomed in with a squadron of M’mir’i preservationists and he never left my side for ten years.

The best friend I've ever had. Of course I miss him.

I don’t realize I’m staring until he turns his head toward me, catching me in the act. I snap my gaze away, suddenly very interested in the book in my hands.

Garrik is still watching me.

I can feel it—the weight of his attention, the way it lingers.

“Tell me about the Arborium,” I blurt out, desperate for something—anything—to break whatever this is.

Garrik leans against a nearby shelf, arms crossing over his broad chest. “It’s quiet.”

I raise an eyebrow. “That’s it?”

He glances down at me from the corner of his eye. “What else do you want to know?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. What’s it like? Are the bees treating you well? Have you named them all yet?”

He chuckles. “I don’t name the bees, Iris.”

I gasp. “Missed opportunity.”

“They wouldn’t remember their names.”

I squint at him. “That’s a cop-out.”

“It’s practical,” he counters.

I tilt my head, watching him tuck another book into place. “You’re telling me that in six months, you haven’t even gotten attached to one? Not even, like, a particularly fat and clumsy one?”

Garrik’s hands still for the tiniest fraction of a second.

Then, so soft I almost miss it: “There’s one.”

I whirl on him. “Aha! What’s their name?”

He sighs, placing the next book just a little slower than necessary, clearly stalling. “It’s not a name.”

“Garrik.” I grab onto his arm—his massive, ridiculous arm—and shake it. “Tell me.”

He exhales through his nose, like he’s bracing himself. “I call her Little Wing.”

I blink. That’s…adorable.

“…Little Wing,” I repeat. “That’s—”

“Don’t.”

I stop short. “What do you think I'm going to say?”

He shrugs. “Well…cute or something.”

“That's because it is,” I laugh. “Is that so wrong?”

He groans. “Not sure if I'm ready to go from ‘big strong warrior' to ‘quaint beekeeper.”

“Oh,” I say. “Garrik…”

“Yes?”

“For what it's worth, I've never thought of you as a big strong warrior.”

He snorts and we both fall into a comfortable silence once again. Once my cart is tidied up—necessary books put away and others prepared to go back to storage—I shrug my shoulders.

“Work day's over,” I say.

“It is.”

“So do you have someplace to be or do you want to grab a drink?”

Garrik hesitates—just for a second, just long enough for me to notice.

I tilt my head. “Oh no, you have someplace to be, don’t you?”

His antennae twitch. “No.”

I squint at him. “Are you sure? Because that pause was very suspicious.”

“I don’t have someplace to be,” he repeats, slow and careful, like he knows I’ll pick him apart if he says too much.

Which…I will.

But he never used to hesitate when I asked him to grab a drink.

Back on Earth, after a long day of hauling books and dodging Boreans, I’d drag him to whatever ramshackle bar we could find.

He’d let me babble, let me press close when I was tipsy, let me use him as my personal heater when the nights got cold.

The idea that he might say no now feels weirdly off-balance.

I poke his arm. “Then come on, beekeeper. First round’s on me.”

He exhales through his nose—that deep, measured way he always does when he’s giving in. Then, finally:

“Alright.”