“Do you care if I kinda zone out and do my own thing?” Lydia asked, slight embarrassment coming through her voice. “When I start looking things up I lose myself a bit, the librarian has had to kick me out a few times.”

“Oh, yeah! Sure! I’ve got my own books to look for, I can keep busy for hours! Not a problem!” Darryl smiled his lopsided grin before wandering to the recommendation section by the entrance.

~

Lydia let out a huff when she plopped her large stack of books onto the counter. Darryl jumped and quickly stuffed the book he was just handed into the bottom of the clothing satchel, rummaging around as he did so. The librarian gave Lydia’s pile a knowing smile and reached to draw it closer to her.

“Has Darryl told you he wants to work in this field?” Lydia asked, she gave the ID card a glance, Sylvia shook her head.

“No, but with how often I see him it doesn’t surprise me. I’ve had to expand the size of my recommendation shelf so there’s still some left after he comes in.” The three exchanged more smiles of assorted degrees of happy and embarrassed before she holds up a finger. After disappearing into the small office with a large dark window, she comes back with some papers. “Most people don’t realize how much goes into being a librarian, or how many jobs there are in the field of books, so I have two lists here, the first is ‘Jobs for book lovers’ and the second is a list of schooling and experience requirements for the different jobs in a library.”

“You just had these ready?” Darryl asked, taking the papers reverently with two hands.

“I actually have them ready for numerous fields,” she shifted her gaze to Lydia, “Anything for yourself?”

“I haven’t thought about it yet.” She admitted.

“She will probably be an advocate of some sort,” Darryl joked, but Lydia looked thoughtful.

“I don’t actually have a list like that,” Sylvia’s voice trailed off thoughtfully. She suddenly reached for a stick-it note and jotted something down. “Ask me again when you return those, and I should have something whipped up!”

A few more pleasantries were exchanged before the two headed out. Darryl was reading the title of the top book he was carrying and was about to ask a question when her phone rang.

“Mom! Hi! – Yes, I am actually just leaving the library now if you want to give us a ride. I kinda went overboard again. – only a block away, I can wait at the corner for you. – I haven’t yet, no. – I’m with Darryl. – I’ll ask.” Lydia tilted her face from the phone she pinned between her cheek and her shoulder to ask Darryl, “Do you want my mom to pick us up for a late lunch?” He beamed his reply. She twisted sightly to face the phone more, “Yeah, that would be awesome!” Lydia hung up and turned around to go the few steps back to the corner to wait.

“You have a smart phone, right?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Well,” Darryl lowered his chin submissively. “I had this webcomic story I wanted to look at to see if it was any good, and I don’t have one and Sara’s been working on the computer a lot lately,” he trailed off, looking the opposite way.

“Yeah! No problem, I don’t ever read things like that but you can borrow my phone whenever. There is plenty of space if you need to download an app. I use it so rarely I only had it with me because my mom put it in my wallet.” Lydia’s words halted suddenly, “Speaking of, you didn’t have your library card did you? How did you check out a book?”

“I come that often,” Darryl said, beaming. “I basically have VIP privileges.”

~

After stomachs were full. The two brought back one suitcase packed with clothes and one with a few personal effects in Terrance’s truck when he collected them to bring them back home. They were now sitting on the front porch looking over the Native American history books and other mythologies of interest, discussing what Darryl knew to be true about the general history of Spiritdancers. Lydia felt Willow stir in excitement. Lydia reached out to graze Darryl’s hand to alert him without looking from the book she was skimming, but the moment her fingers touched his skin a deep growl erupted from the base of the steps and Lydia ended up grabbing onto his hand instead.

As she lifted her head to see exactly whom she expected, his eyes blazing with a jealous rage and kettle-corn scent spreading, she realized that her method of alerting Darryl had not been optimal.

“Dominic,” Darryl said respectfully after letting out a small whimper of surprise, his head lowering in submission and his hand extracted itself from his sisters to be tucked into his lap. Meanwhile Lydia clamped down on her restraints, nostrils flaring as she tried not to taste the scent on the air. It was a disorienting combination.

Dominic snorted, smug expression clearly showing he thought this was an adequate response from Darryl before he turned his full gaze on Lydia.

“I have come to deliver word in person about the final decision for you to stay. I am to apologize for my disturbance yesterday,” he stated pompously.

Lydia sat silently, trying not to sneeze, making a blatant show of providing eye-contact, Darryl cleared his throat subtly when he could no longer bear the silent pressure, but she refused to acknowledge it, instead prodding in a purposefully innocent voice, “Go ahead,”

To all their surprise, Dominic staggered back a step and asked, incredulous, “Excuse me?”

“You said you were here to apologize, so I was waiting.” The stare down that commenced had Darryl trembling next to her, a tiny, partially stifled whimper eked out as his knees began lifting in the chair to fold more fully in on himself.

She started to reach out for him on reflex, but he flinched away.

She cocked her head in question, still maintaining eye contact with Dominic. “Sorry, I am new here and having to learn everything from scratch,” she put on her brightest fake smile, “Darryl was being so kind as to give me a history lesson. The only etiquette lessons I have had have been in requirements for speaking to Beta Gregory.” She tilted her head a bit more and widened her eyes in a dramatic attempt to look innocent and confused, silently hoping it didn’t make her look panicked. “I haven’t learned anything about being apologized to by someone else, am I supposed to invite you in for a drink of water?” She stood without thinking and gestured to the door, as he opened his mouth to reply she quickly continued while scooping up Darryl by the armpit, “But I am only a guest here, Darryl, may we come in for a drink of water?” She finally broke eye-contact to give her brother a sincere look with a gentle smile. It gave him enough resolve to answer.

“Yes. Anything.”

Stifling a sneeze that she disguised as a curt nod, Lydia strutted into the house towing Darryl. Lydia trapsed through the living room to the kitchen where Sara was washing some dishes. She stopped hauling Darryl at this second doorway before opening the fridge wide praying they kept some form of water in there. That was a negative, so she switched to the freezer for ice. Pulling out a tray she turned around and asked, “Could you switch the water to cold Sara?”

She pulled out four glasses from the cupboard, lining them up on the counter and dropping a few bits of ice into each. Sarah was standing very still next to Lydia as she filled the glasses and Darryl was still outside of the doorway watching carefully, barely visible as he peered in.

The ominous weight in the room was growing and growing as more and more pheromones filled that air, bidding her to stop, notice him and acknowledge his presence. Regardless, Lydia was managing to act less and less aware, the only sign was when she had a large but contained sneeze after passing over the guest’s glass. “Excuse me,” she apologized, catching it in the crook of her arm.

Everyone saw the working of his jaw, heard his deeper breathing as he tried to maintain control, and felt a jolt when the crack slid up the glass where he had gripped it too hard.

Lydia’s eyes flashed with awareness; she couldn’t believe that her self-control was higher than this boy whom it was just explained to her would be helping lead the pack. Before she could make more stupid choices on her power trip, the front door burst open in an explosion of sound and Terrance stepped in, his earthy smell doing nothing to clear out the kettle corn scent surrounding her. Willow called out to her brother, and Lydia let her, ignoring their mental conversation about what did she think she was doing. Lydia showed no outward signs of a reaction except to step quickly out of reach when Dominic’s hand started raising toward her.

“Dominic,” Terrance soothed once he had a grip of the situation, a pleasant smile adorned his face. Sliding into the role of host easily, “Welcome, what brings you here today?” His voice had that deep timbre to it again,

‘Maybe not so easily the host.’ Lydia thought to Willow.

“I came to speak to Lydia,” when nothing more was said, Terrance gestured to imply ‘go right ahead’.

Before the stare down could continue, Lydia resumed her character.

“Darryl was giving me a lesson in the lore of our kind and Donin- uh, Doman- umm,” Lydia pretended to forget his name, looking at him for the answer, acting as unphased as she could with Willow and Terrance mentally hollering his full name at her in frustration. Dominic only turned his face away from her question, too irritated to respond so Lydia rolled with it, “Dom came to deliver a message accompanied by an apology, and when it got a little bit awkward before the actual delivery of these, I figured that I must not know proper customs and invited him in for water. As this isn’t my home, I wasn’t sure how to do that. I believe I made things more awkward for everyone.” Lydia looked at Sara with a wide-eyed and dramatic look and Sara pantomimed that she should lower her head in panic, and so Lydia used this to her advantage and cried out, “OH!” while dipping into the position she had been taught to use with Beta Gregory the previous day.

While her face was down and well hidden, thank goodness for the island she placed between them while she spoke, Lydia worked her jaw and cheeks to stretch the cynical grin out of her muscles.

“For being a captive, she is sure expressive.” Was the surprising reply.

Lydia was ready, she threw on the happiest smile she had ever taken, making sure to squint her eyes slightly to match, and popped upright, trying to mime Darryl’s chipper attitude, “Books! One of my Caretakers smuggled me books! Only five or six times did I ever get anything as exciting as picture books, but there is so much to see! One time I even got a few magazines that were full of pictures from around the world, this was my favorite! So many people, clothes, they talked about different cultures and-” Lydia gushed as much and as fast as her mind could think up, thankfully she was interrupted just as she was running out of remotely convincing things to say.

“That is quite enough.” His voice had taken on a more disturbed tone, which, from what she knew of him was exactly what to expect. Form his perspective, she came to the pack under the same circumstances they would want to keep her under. Oppressed and unknowledgeable, but it was apparently executed poorly, and so she was tainted. It was obvious that he wanted a mate he could control and show as a trophy, not some unwary wolverine. Lydia had yet to show him the full extent of her spitfire resolve, he didn’t want a curious monkey, the current personality she was broadcasting. Intrinsically, she knew he wanted a duckling or a dog, someone who would follow, obey, and not question.

“Conditions of her tenure are receiving a proper etiquette education, testing for competence and aptitude. She will be required to take the same coming of age test as all the others on the next full moon. If she fails she will have only one other to prove herself before she is labeled Rogue and removed by force.” Dominic lifted his hand to cut off any replies. “While the second chance might sound lenient to you, I will be in charge of her schooling should she fail the first.”

Lydia long since dipped back into her bow to hide the anger and resentment at his message and the return of the pompous tone. She felt him approach her and her inner mind had to pull at all the nearby sticky chords to make a barrier in her which would keep Willow from responding. It literally made Lydia sick to her stomach as she mimicked her brothers submissive head duck as his hand approached her hair, knees bending slightly to keep out of his reach. He thankfully did not press forward, only said, “I apologize for assuming your ill intentions at our first meeting, something came over me.” Lydia was spasmodically tightening the muscles in her legs to cover the itch that overcame her. The smell rolled off him like a fog and completely blocked out that of her nearby family. She felt burgeoning panic at being trapped between the two forces of Dominic and Willow trying to reach out towards each other and enveloping her humanity in their weight. The blinding pain in her mind from holding Willow back made her hearing begin to fade.

“I look forward to working with you in 2 weeks’ time,” he said with a tone Lydia honestly couldn’t place. It sent such conflicting messages to herself and also to Willow.

In the battle to retain herself, Lydia missed when Dominic excused himself and left the building, but when Darryl grabbed onto his sister the relief was so great that she actually puked up her mostly digested lunch before once again violently sneezing out his pheromones, this time the chain of sneezed came with a few specks of blood.

Sara was right there, wiping her face with a moist cloth and Lydia was barely conscious of the large chest she fell asleep against while being carried off to some unknown part of the house.