The Lycan King Has Overdue Library Fines

The library’s new system just sent an overdue notice for a book checked out in 1826.
This morning, the borrower came in to pay.
All six foot six of him.

I’m the librarian in a town too small for secrets, which is how I know Ambrose Blackpine hasn’t come down his mountain in anyone’s living memory. He came down for a library fine. Two hundred years late, and unreasonably calm about it.

He tries to pay in gold. I make him take his change.

Then he gets a library card.

He checks out one book at a time, and finds the romance shelf. He reads my favorites, all of them, and returns each one with notes in the margins. The notes are suggestions. The suggestions are promises. My cat, who tries to bite everyone, sleeps in his lap.

And the silver coming in at his temples? It started the moment he met me. His kind don’t age until they find the one they’ve been waiting for.

“Two centuries, little librarian. You were worth the late fee.”

The book he never returned is his pack’s courting law. On the intended line, in ink that hasn’t dried, is my name. Fate says I’m his.

He can keep the book. I haven’t decided if he can keep me.

A cozy, spicy fated-mates wolf shifter romance: a bookish heroine, a possessive alpha king who grovels in the margins, grumpy-sunshine banter, and no drama that outstays its welcome. No cliffhanger. Guaranteed HEA. Standalone.

Tropes: Fated Mates • Bookish Heroine • Grumpy Sunshine • He Reads Her Romance Novels • Groveling Hero • Heroine Holds the Power

Heat: Spicy (open door, explicit on the page, warmth-led) │ Tone: Light, funny, emotional │ POV: Dual first person, present tense │ Standalone │ HEA, no cliffhanger