Some of their kind didn’t believe they should dilute the bloodlines. Whispers spread from clan to clan. A sense of unrest was building with the discovery of mates found with humans. Before, their biggest concern had been with the rogues and the rogue ex-king Dyson. Somehow, Dyson impregnated human females against their wills without there being a full mating bond. They discarded the human females without a care. Rogues were the scum on the world and needed to be stopped.
That’s what Viper should do; hunt down Dyson and his followers. Instead, he was running errands that any human could do. A waste of his abilities.
Sighing, he turned to head back to the ranch. He might as well get this over with. Maybe the library would be closed and he could just drop the box off on the porch. It wasn’t the library itself he had a problem with, but the librarian.
Chapter 3
“So I shall die,” said the little mermaid, “and as the foam of the sea, I shall be driven about never again to hear the music of the waves, or to see the pretty flowers nor the red sun. Is there anything I can do to win an immortal soul?”
“She needs to find her prince!” a little girl with red curls called out.
“No, no! Kill the evil old woman. She’s the sea witch Ursula!” Little Benjamin yelled.
Shy Shannon Cooper shook her head. “Killing the witch before Ariel breaks the spell will do no good. Don’t you know anything?”
Callie smiled at the group of six-year-olds who sat in a half-circle listening to her read the Little Mermaid, one of her favorite fairy tales. The local school reserved story time on Wednesday afternoons. The first-grade teachers would bring the students to her small-town library, and then the parents would pick them up from there once it was over.
The library was something Callie inherited from her great-uncle Wayne a few years ago. She had moved back to the small town to help take care of him when he started chemo treatments for his cancer. Unfortunately, the cancer was in the late stages and he didn’t win the battle. She loved her uncle Wayne. She remembered coming every summer to help him and her aunt with the local library, which was the first floor of their Victorian home.
The bottom half of the home with a banquet room and kitchen was occasionally rented for group gatherings like senior church brunches. Her aunt and uncle had turned the back half of the second level into a private apartment years ago.
The apartment had a cozy living room open to the kitchen and dining area. Two small bedrooms shared an enormous bathroom. Callie could access the apartment two ways; using the stairs in the downstairs kitchen and the backside balcony staircase from the backyard. There was a locked gate around the back of the property for security. Overall, the house needed work, but it was home.
She glanced up to notice that all the parents were waiting patiently on the other side of the room. “Okay, kids, time to go.”
“Aw, do we have to?”
“You didn’t finish the story.”
“I don’t want to go yet.”
Callie cleared her throat. “We will finish the story next Wednesday. If any of you can’t wait until then, you can always check out a copy to take home.”
Hearing the complaints about leaving pleased Callie. She felt the same way every time she had to go home to her fighting parents at the end of the summer. Mark and Dawn Sinclair were not the best parents or role models; they divorced when Callie was ten.
But her aunt Mabel and uncle Wayne were the best people she had ever known. Her aunt died a few months before her uncle. Her aunt and uncle’s friends said that he couldn’t go on without his Mabel. It was a sweet thought, and it made sense if anyone ever met her aunt and uncle. They shared a genuine love. Unfortunately, Callie had met no one that touched her heart and soul like that. She wasn’t sure it existed outside of fairy tales.
She placed the book on the seat she had been sitting in and walked over to talk to a few of the parents. Callie helped find books that the parents were looking for and checked them out. She was so busy that she didn’t notice the sudden tension fill the room until Mrs. Potter leaned over to ask her in a low tone.
“What is he doing here?”
He? Callie looked to the front entryway, and her breath caught in her throat. Holy smokes!
*****
Viper should have just placed the box on the floor and left. But he couldn’t move, the sound of the woman’s voice was so entrancing. He moved closer to get a better look. Viper knew who it was. He had seen her around town a few times. Caroline Aline Sinclair, Callie to her friends, the human librarian.
The woman was a mix of contradictions. Her voice was curious, strong, sure, and sexy, but her outer appearance gave off the impression that she was timid and shy. Gorgeous was what she was, and nothing she did could hide it. Her waist length dark blond hair hung over one shoulder in a thick braid. Her brown-rimmed glasses perched on her nose, partially hiding a pair of baby blue eyes that no painter could replicate. She smiled at something one kid said, and it was like staring into the sun too long. She enraptured him.
Whispers from the other humans in the room brought him slamming back to reality. He wasn’t human, and he didn’t belong there. He knew it, and so did everyone there.
*****
“It’s one of the King R Ranch guys. The one with all those tattoos,” Mrs. Potter added in a whisper.
“Yes, I see that.” Callie finished, helping the parents
