Staying in the cell for a whole day had made her antsy, and after talking it through with Sin and Karma while Crescent took a morning shower, we decided the Library was a quiet enough place to visit with Crescent. Meanwhile, Karma and Sin would head to the gym with a few allies to blow off some steam.
She’d rushed to grab something from her nest and I heard a faint jingle of metal on metal, but she pushed the object into her pocket quickly, turning to face me.
She was already thrilled.
Would she be this eager when she found outwherewe were going?
I’m not sure what things Crescent might like to read, but the Archiva pack had acquired a little bit of everything over their years running the library.
“Where are we going?” She bounced on her heels as she trailed behind me.
We were flanked by two members of the Emerald pack, Vandle taking up the rear to watch our backs. With the Redgraves’ protection, we shouldn’t find any trouble walking the halls unless we ran into a particularly feral alpha.
I grabbed her hand, only getting the fabric of her sweater until she yanked the sleeve up and let her fingers tangle in mine. “A surprise.”
“A good one?”
“Why would I give you a bad surprise?” I snorted.
Her cheeks heated. “I dunno. Maybe I did something wrong.”
I hauled her against my side, rubbing my chin across the top of her head to mark her with my scent. It wasn’t the same as when our scents mixed, because her sweet velvet rose and cocoa was smothered by blockers right now, but I loved the claim despite that.
“You could do a thousand things wrong and I would still never give you a bad surprise, Little Omega. Anyone who would do that is an asshole.”
She hit my chest with an adorably weak thump. “Language!”
A grin teased at the corners of my lips, but I didn’t want her to think I was being patronizing. “Sorry, they would be a mean person.”
“I must have met a lot of mean people, then.”
I clutched her closer, giving in to the urge to swing her up into my arms in a princess hold. She stared up at me with wide eyes as I carried her down the hall past cells full of alphas who peeked out to catch a glimpse of her. My omega had met way too many assholes before finding us.
Because really, they weren’t just ‘mean people’. They were fucking dicks.
But I’d keep my language clean for her sake.
Turning down a side hallway without any cells in it, I knocked on the solid metal door at the end. It had a mail slot labelled ‘returns’ in the middle of the door, and a small square window at about head height. There was no glass in the window, but it did have a metal backing preventing anyone from seeing inside until it slid open with a creak.
A man with greying hair stared at us through the window, his eyebrows drawn together.
He gave us a once-over, scanning Crescent without any of the hunger most of the alphas had, and then shook his head. “Nah, no fucking way.”
The small window had slid halfway closed before I could react.
“You owe me, Jared,” I rushed to say.
The grizzled alpha’s eyes narrowed, and he opened the window again. “That was before you made yourselves the talk of the goddamn prison. If you think I’m going to risk Tyler’s safety over this, you’re crazy.”
“I just want to get her some books to read, man. Not asking for your protection, or for you to go out of your way. Just books.”
Crescent looked up at me with her lips parted in surprise. “They have books here?” She sounded so excited, I thought I might just have to kill Jared if he didn’t let us in. “I was only allowed to read the holy books at the Convent. Are all the books holy here, or do they have…” She slid her gaze to Jared through the window, then leaned in close, like she could whisper quietly enough he wouldn’t hear. “Do they have fairy tales?”
I tilted down to kiss her head. “All kinds of books.”
“And I could get whatever book I want?” she asked.
I nodded toward Jared in the window. “You’re going to have to ask him. He’s the librarian, so he decides what you’re allowed to borrow.”