Mated to the Alpha and His Beta (Lanie Stanton) novel Chapter 377

Chapter 377
Lanie
The thud of someone dropping a heavy book startled me into full consciousness. I was back in the library.
Lily had retreated. The Moon Goddess was nowhere to be seen…
But the lingering scent of pine needles still tickled my nose.
I hadn’t fallen asleep and dreamed it. She’d come to me in a vision with a message, one clear enough that I didn’t have to fight to figure it out. I sent up a grateful prayer with a small, embarrassed chuckle at how hard
she’d had to work for me.
“Sorry, Lily,” I murmured to my wolf, who’d also been doing her very best to get me to see the message.
There was a book in this library that would tell me everything I needed to know. Now, I just had to find it. It was probably wrong to fold up the sheaf of papers into a fat square and shove it into the pocket of my jeans, but I was willing to take that risk. I returned the small stack of books I’d been reading and forced myself to get
into concentration mode.
If finding that book was as easy as looking it up by the title, I’d have found it already. That meant it was
somewhere on these shelves but it had been misplaced, either by accident or maybe on purpose.
But it was here, I knew it in my heart.
There was no librarian here. People who wanted to check out books simply wrote their names and the book titles in a ledger, along with their address in the enclave. I started there, skimming the list of titles just in case someone had checked the book out. I ran my finger down the lines, page after page. I came up with
nothing. That was good…unless someone had taken the book without checking it out.
I wouldn’t let myself believe that. The Moon Goddess was guiding me. I had to trust in that guidance!
But…where to begin? The library itself wasn’t huge, but all four walls had shelves from the floor all the
way to the ceiling, so tall there was a ladder on a rail that you had to climb to get to the very top shelves.
Long rows of other shelves filled the center space with cubbies crammed full of books in the corners, too.
There were also shelves that formed small reading nooks like the one I’d been sitting in.
Thousands of books. No idea where to begin. I thought about what I’d seen in my vision. The size of the
book was a good clue to start with. It had been about the size of a big photo album, not small like a
paperback novel.
Also, it was leather-bound with gold leaf. Many of the books I was looking at had paper covers. I could
eliminate them easily. Even so, it was going to take me a few hours to comb through all of the books.
A quick glance at the big clock on the wall told me I didn’t have hours. I wanted to pick up the pups from
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school and spend time with them before everyone else came back to our quarters.
Mason and Xander hadn’t told me what time they’d be back from the leadership meeting. I didn’t know where Zane had gone, and my mother-in-law kept her own schedule, too. She’d also been distant from me lately. Still helpful with the children but not as chatty with me as she’d been before.
Sometimes, it felt like she was studying me when she thought I couldn’t see her. Hopefully, finding this book would help with that. The more knowledge I had, the better off we’d all be.
The only thing I could do right now was start my search. And if I didn’t find the book I needed, I’d have to come back tomorrow and the next day until I did. I decided to make it easier on myself by starting at the library’s far corner, on the bottom shelf. There weren’t many other people browsing here, but I didn’t want to attract any extra attention by climbing those tall ladders.
However, the Moon Goddess must still have been gulding my feet and my hands, because the moment I crouched down to run my fingers along the row of books on the lowest shelf, I felt the nubbly, rough leather cover of a book much bigger than all the others there.
My heart leaped into my throat. I refused to rush and yank it out, instead pulling it out slowly and carefully in case the book was fragile. It had looked really old in the vision. At last, I held it in both hands.
Oversized, the book filled my entire lap. Just as I’d seen it, the gold foil title said Celestial.
For a few seconds I almost couldn’t bring myself to
open it. I was so afraid I’d find out something I didn’t want to know…but at the same time, I desperately wanted to be prepared to face whatever was coming our way.
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