The Lycan King's Knotting Class for His Bookish Mate

1. Lynn

— ? —

Lynn

The mythology section smells like dust and old paper and a quiet that makes my brain go haywire.

I shove my earbuds deeper and crank the volume on my “Focus You Disaster” playlist, a carefully curated mix of lo-fi beats and the occasional Britney banger because sometimes a girl needs Toxic to shelve books about toxic masculinity in ancient Greece.

The cart squeaks as I push it down the aisle, and I mouth the words to myself like a prayer.

“Okay, Lynn. Three more carts. That’s like… sixty books. Sixty books is nothing. You’ve read sixty books in a month. You can shelve sixty books in-” I check my phone. “Two hours. Cool. Cool cool cool.”

My phone buzzes.

Mom: baby are you free??

I’m not free. Free people aren’t prisoners of the Dewey Decimal System and their own poor life choices.

Me: working til close, what’s up

Mom: nothing just miss you!! your aunt is here she says hi

Me: tell aunt marge I said hi back

Mom: she wants to see your face hold on

No. No no no-

The call comes through anyway. Video. My mother’s face fills the screen, slightly too close, the way she always holds the phone like it’s a suspicious piece of mail.

“There she is! My baby! Margaret, come look at my baby!”

“Mom, I’m at work-”

“You’re always at work. Or class. Or studying. When do you sleep? Are you sleeping? You look tired. Doesn’t she look tired, Margaret?”

Aunt Marge’s face appears over my mom’s shoulder. “She looks beautiful. Lynn, honey, you’re glowing.”

I’m fluorescent. The library lighting makes everyone look like they’re dying of consumption in a Victorian novel.

“Thanks, Aunt Marge.” I prop the phone against a shelf and keep sorting, because if I stop moving, I’ll never start again. “How’s everyone? How’s Dad? How’s the coast?”

“Foggy,” Mom says. “Your father’s been trying to fix the porch railing for three weeks. I told him to call someone but you know how he is.”

“Stubborn,” I say.

“Impossible,” she corrects. “Speaking of impossible, how’s that mythology class? The one you actually like?”

My stomach drops.

The email came through this morning, sandwiched between a library schedule update and a reminder about my ADHD accommodations renewal. I’ve read it seventeen times. No, I’ve read it several times. A normal amount of times.

“Actually, um.” I stop pretending to sort. “Professor Hargrove is leaving. Like, leaving leaving. She’s going to backpack through Europe. Effective immediately.”

Mom’s face goes carefully still, the way it does when she’s trying not to react too hard because she knows I’ll spiral.

“It’s fine. It’s totally fine. I’m sure whoever replaces her will be great.

It’s just-” My voice cracks, which is stupid, which is so stupid, she’s just a professor.

“She was the only one who got it, you know? The way my brain works. She never made me feel broken for needing extensions or forgetting things or-” I wave my hand. “Whatever. It’s fine.”

“Lynn-”

“I have to go, there’s a patron.” There is no patron. “Love you, bye, tell Dad I said fix the railing, bye!”

I hang up before she can see me get teary over a woman I’ve only known for three semesters. God. God. This is why I don’t tell people things.

I shove my phone in my pocket and attack the cart with renewed aggression. Shelving is good. It’s mindless, and it doesn’t require me to have feelings about anything.

The library is nearly empty now, closing time in forty minutes, and most students have already fled to their dorms or the bars downtown or wherever normal people go on Tuesday nights.

I’ve got the mythology section to myself, which is exactly how I like it.

Just me and the books and the gentle hum of the heating system and-

“Oh my god, is that her?”

I freeze.

“It’s totally her. I told you she works here.”

Brittany and Jessica materialize at the end of the aisle like perfectly highlighted demons. They’re both wearing those expensive puffer jackets that probably cost more than my entire wardrobe, their matching ponytails swinging as they approach.

“Hey, Lynn,” Brittany says, her voice dripping with false sweetness. “Working hard or hardly working?”

“Shelving,” I say flatly. “It’s my job.”

“Right, right. Your scholarship job.” She exchanges a look with Jessica. “Must be so hard, having to work while the rest of us actually get to enjoy college.”

I take a deep breath. In through the nose. Out through the mouth. Don’t punch her, don’t punch her. Don’t punch her.

“Can I help you find something?” I ask, because customer service is a mask I can wear even when I want to scream.

“Actually, yes.” Jessica reaches past me and plucks a book off my cart, my personal book, the monster romance I’ve been reading on my breaks, the one with the werewolf duke and the annotated margins and the cover I keep face-down for a reason. “What’s this?”

“Give that back.”

“‘His fangs grazed her throat as he-’” Jessica reads aloud, her voice a mocking falsetto. “‘ - claimed her as his mate.’ Oh my god, Brittany, she reads werewolf porn.”

“It’s not-” I reach for it. She holds it higher. “That’s mine, give it back-”

“This is so sad,” Brittany says, shaking her head with theatrical pity. “Like, genuinely sad. You can’t get a real guy so you have to read about fake monster ones?”

“At least the monsters in my books have personalities,” I snap. “Which is more than I can say for-”

“Whoa, whoa.” Jessica’s eyes go wide with mock concern. “Someone’s getting emotional. Is this an ADHD thing? Like, do you need to go take a pill or something?”

The words land, and my face goes hot.

I’ve heard variations of this my whole life, the jokes about being scattered, the comments about how I’d be so smart if I could just focus, the teachers who called me lazy before anyone thought to test me.

I’ve built calluses over those wounds. But the way Jessica says it, casual and cruel, like my brain is a punchline-

“Give. It. Back.”

“Make me.”

I’m opening my mouth to fire back when a voice cuts through the aisle, sharp enough to stop all three of us.

“I believe that belongs to the lady.”

We all turn.

The man standing at the end of the mythology section looks like he walked out of one of my books.

Tall, stupidly tall, tall enough to make the shelves look shorter, with ink-black hair and a jaw that could cut glass and eyes that are…

I blink. They’re green, but for a second, in the fluorescent light, I could’ve sworn they flashed gold.

He’s wearing a dark coat over what looks like an actually tailored sweater, and he’s looking at Brittany and Jessica like they’re insects that wandered onto his dinner plate.

“Who are you?” Brittany asks, and I can hear her recalibrating in real-time, her voice going softer, her posture shifting. Even Jessica straightens up.

“Someone who finds it curious,” he says, moving closer, “that two grown women would corner another in her workplace to mock her reading material and her neurology.” His voice is deep and unhurried, like he has all the time in the world and intends to use it making them uncomfortable.

“Is this how you typically spend your evenings? Harassing library employees?”

“We weren’t harassing-”

“You’re holding her property hostage while commenting on her medical accommodations.” He stops in front of Jessica, close enough that she has to look up. “I believe the word for that is harassment. Unless the definition has changed since this morning?”

Jessica’s face goes red. “We were just-”

“Leaving.” He holds out his hand, palm up, and something in his expression makes it clear this isn’t a request. “The book.”

She hands it over.

He doesn’t even glance at it, just passes it directly to me, his fingers brushing mine in the transfer. His hand is warm. Warmer than it should be. I feel the touch all the way up my arm.

“Ladies,” he says to Brittany and Jessica, “I’m sure you have somewhere else to be. Somewhere that isn’t here. Bothering someone who’s simply trying to do her job.”

They leave. They actually leave, without another word, their ponytails swinging in matching retreat.

I stare at the man. He stares back.

“You didn’t have to do that,” I say, because I’m an idiot who doesn’t know how to accept rescue gracefully.

“No,” he agrees. “I wanted to.”

Up close, he’s worse. There’s an old-fashioned stillness in the way he holds himself, formal and intent, a man long used to being watched. And those eyes, definitely green, dark and deep, stay fixed on me as if the rest of the room has quietly stopped existing.

“I’m Lynn,” I say, because apparently my brain has decided we’re introducing ourselves now.

“I know.”

“You - what?”

“Your name tag.” He nods at my chest.

Right. Right. The name tag. Obviously.

“And you’re…?”

“Passing through.” His mouth curves, just slightly. “Are you all right? Those two seemed… dedicated to making you miserable.”

“They’re committed to the craft,” I say. “Very method. I think one of them might be going for an Oscar.”

He laughs, a real laugh, surprised and warm, and my stomach does a slow, traitorous roll.

“Are you a student here?” I ask, trying to be normal, trying not to notice the way his laugh made his whole face change. “I haven’t seen you around.”

“Something like that,” he says, amused.

“That’s not an answer.”

“No,” he agrees. “It isn’t.”

We’re standing close. When did we get this close? The mythology section is narrow, sure, but this feels intentional, like he’s taking up space specifically to be near me. The correct move is to step back. The extremely correct move.

I don’t step back.

“You have good taste,” he says, glancing at the book still clutched in my hands. “In reading material.”

“Do I?”

“Mythology. Monsters. The intersection of desire and the inhuman.” His eyes are doing that gold-flicker thing again. I must be imagining it. “These are… interests of mine as well.”

“Are you flirting with me over werewolf romance?”

“Is it working?”

Yes, my brain screams. Out loud I say, “I’ll let you know.”

He smiles like I’ve done something delightful, and I feel it in my knees. Which is embarrassing. No, mortifying. He’s a stranger. A gorgeous, well-dressed, book-defending stranger, but still-

I take a step back, catch my heel on the cart, and pitch backward.

His hands are on my waist before I register falling. He moves too fast, impossibly fast, and suddenly I’m pressed against him, his grip warm through my clothes, his face inches from mine.

“Careful,” he murmurs.

“I - yeah. Thanks. Sorry, I’m-”

But he’s not looking at my face anymore.

He’s looking at my neck.

“You,” he says, and his voice has gone rough, strained, like he’s fighting something. “You smell-”

He buries his face in my throat.

I should scream, or push him away, or do any of the things a reasonable person would do when a stranger puts their nose against their pulse point and inhales.

Instead, I grab his shoulders and hold on, because my legs have stopped working entirely.

He groans against my skin, a low, desperate sound that vibrates through me, and then I feel it: his tongue, hot and wet, dragging up the column of my throat.

“Mate,” he growls.

“I - what?”

He pulls back like I’ve burned him. His eyes are gold. Fully, unmistakably gold, burning in the dim light of the stacks.

“I have to go,” he says.

“Wait-”

But he’s already moving, already at the end of the aisle, and then he’s gone, and I’m standing alone in the mythology section with a racing heart and a damp throat and a question I can’t stop asking:

What the hell just happened, and how do I make it happen again?