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“We’re here, children,” Gideon grumbles, and Grayson feels the dream slip away. It’s the third one he’s had today, and it’s hard not to lay the image of Grayson’s King over Gideon’s smirking face; it’s been getting more and more difficult to ignore the genuine feeling that they are both reality.

There are small, warm fingers wedged into the top of his sweatpants. That familiar feeling of “recharging” surges, and again, the wordmagicslips through his mind. It is hard to ignore this time, and yet it’s something he hasn’t been able to bring himself to seek with purpose. It’s just too ludicrous.

The wolf doesn’t think so, though, and Grayson has to clamp down hard on his co-pilot to pull him back from chasing the heat and magnetic power that immediately retreats in his chest when Nix pulls his fingers out to runthem through his fluffy brown hair.

“Again: the plan is the same, but this time, let’s try not to blow anything up or draw any attention to ourselves,” Gideon murmurs and opens his car door. He doesn’t even ask for any agreement, and maybe Grayson should have taken that as a sign of how impossible any single one of those requests was going to be to keep.

The University of Florida’s Rare Books and Special Collections is housed in the Smathers Library Building. The short walk across campus makes his wolf’s ruff stand up, even though he settles somewhat once they clear security. It took umbrage with scanners and pulses of invisible energy, but the metal detector proved benign, unlike the MRI not an hour ago.

The calm doesn’t last for long, however—the scents of old books, stressed students, and cleaning chemicals ramp up Grayson’s annoyance.

“Smells like dead trees in here,” Grayson mutters. Why Wolf would think this library smells any different from other ones, or even the museums and galleries Grayson frequents on a weekly basis at home, is a mystery.

He can tell Gideon is holding back the snarky,yeah, it does because books are in fact dead trees.But maybe his wolf is feeling off, too.

“You’re right! It also smells like…blood?” Blood!? “Not fresh, though. Old.”

Nix sticks his tiny nose in the air and slips his hand into Grayson’s with a squeeze.

Grayson can’t smell it, but Wolf is preoccupied with the scents of too many humans and a few Weres at a desk by the window, the latter of whom spot them right away. Florida’s population of Weres is smaller compared to Tennessee, and the foursome Rhodes Pack must stand out. Grayson merely nods and ushers his mates further into the Library proper, following Finn’s lead toward the office to the left of the main circulation desk.

He points to a bench beside the circulation desk near the office, where the wordsHead of Acquisitions and Library Scienceare etched into a brass plaque on a heavy wooden door.

“Okay, stay here for a minute. I’m going to figure out where I can find what I’m looking for and see how far Lauren’s connectionswill get me on Level One. Do not cause any trouble.”

Grayson wants to argue that none of the trouble before had been intentional. Okay, maybe the snarky attitude had been a bit intentional. But the eventual coffee hadn’t taken the edge off the wolf’s agitation, Gideon’s snark, or the itchy feeling in the back of Grayson’s brain. When Grayson had described it as not liking the MRI machine, the phrase had been an understatement.

The confined space and the noise were one thing, but the surges of magnetic energy stimulated the wolf in new ways—and where he’d described the sensation as a ping, it was more like a deep pulling. Not at all dissimilar to what he’d felt from that human magic user, except the machine hadn’t been trying to use Grayson’s soul, or follow it, or drag it somewhere where he could see Grayson better. He knows how ridiculous it sounds, he really does, so he kept the worst of it to himself.

There’s a connection there that Grayson’s missing; it’s just out of reach, on the edge of his consciousness. Leaning into Gideon while they wait, the alpha stiffens at the distraction from his surveillance but throws an arm around him just the same. It’s comforting, and when Grayson thinks about it, he recognizes that this feeling of being grounded and cared for is born of a million lifetimes, not just this one.

“Gid—” Grayson begins, not sure what he was going to say, but Finn is quickly moving toward them, a key card in his hand and a tiny smile of success on his lips.

“Okay, let’s go before she changes her mind. She does not want us in the Were archive, for whatever reason.”

He leads the way to the end of the main floor, where there is a set of open stairs from the lower levels to the fifth floor. They’re primarily for show, since most people use the elevators. A stained-glass full solar system revolves over the five-story opening, catching the light of the afternoon sun and shooting a kaleidoscope over all the walls.

“Wow, look at that! Do you think it rotates in synchronized orbit with the actual moon?” Nix whispers.

“No idea, but that would be cool,” Grayson responds.

Nix gives him the biggest smile as a reward. He will never get used to how his mate looks at the world as if it’s his first time living, with awe and joy at even the smallest things. If Grayson weren’t seventy-five percent sure it wasn’t…well, regardless, Nix is a gift to him in this life and whatever other lives his brain is cooking up. He’s unsurprisingly unworried about that aspect of his delusions, at least.

It’s darker and cooler on the lowest level, and they walk past the Florida University Press to the doors to the Special Archives. Using the card he was given, they enter a virtually silent, sterile modern area where there are display cases with bound manuscripts and old books on stands.

“What are we going to find here?” Gideon asks.

“I was thinking the same thing. You never said what you were looking for.” Nix runs a finger over a long table.

“What we want isn’t in here. It’s in there.” He nods his head to the door that is glowing at the back of the room. It saysStaff Only, but the plaque under those words saysWere Rare Collections. It has to be spelled for the human curators not to notice, and a tingle of anticipation sets the hair on the back of his neck standing straight up.

They enter cautiously, their footsteps muffled by the thick carpet and the sheer weight of the place, as though afraid to disturb the silence. Grayson’s eyes widen at the scale of the shelves towering above him, his gaze drifting up to where the light seems to fade into shadowed heights.

Magic.

There’s no outward sign that the library structure they entered could house the vast array of texts and artifacts in glass cases that stretch into the darkness in front of them, spanning so many floors.

Nix’s curious nature would usually have him grinning beside Grayson, the dim light catching the bronze strands of his hair, but even he is subdued by the quiet majesty of the room. Gideon pauses just inside the doorway, hands stuffed into his pockets, taking it all in with his usual suspicion and distrust.