Free Fierce Player (Sierra Pride Book 4) by Liza Street

Chapter One
    Shelves and shelves of books and information. They smelled like knowledge and possibility. The weak November sunlight arced through high windows, illuminating the large room. Maverick could hardly believe he’d finally gotten here. It had taken some arguments and the help of his new sister-in-law, Miranda, to convince his brothers that he deserved a chance at college. But now that he’d been here for a couple of months, Maverick couldn’t imagine being anywhere else.
    The location was ideal, too, and probably the only reason his brothers had agreed to let him go. NCCAS, the Northern California College of Arts and Sciences, was located east of Sacramento, far into the foothills, only three hours from his small hometown of Findley.
    Better than the location was the library. This library. It was majestic. The bookcases stretched for what looked like miles, and if he’d been in his mountain lion form, he’d have paced the length of them, rubbing his cheek up against the worn spines, marking this territory as his.
    His brothers would laugh at him now, if they saw him getting all wistful in the NCCAS library. He imagined he wore the same look on his face that he saw Gabriel, Jude, and Blake wear when they were with their mates. Love, and a constant yearning. They seemed to yearn for their mates even when they were right there next to them, and that was how Maverick felt about knowledge. He wanted it, he wanted all of it, and he knew he’d never get enough.
    Almost three months into the semester, and he was working his dream job in the library. He could shelve books all day long and never get bored. Especially when there were girls like the one who currently sat in the Clark room, not too far from where he was working. Her hair practically yelled for attention, with the dark pink highlights a shocking contrast to the white blond.
    She was also talking on her phone. In his library. It was as close to sacrilege as he could imagine. He frowned. Normally he’d tell someone to put their phone away, but he felt strangely intimidated by this woman, and he couldn’t even see her face.
    He searched his book cart for anything that belonged in the Clark room. Theories of Gaming and Game Developing for N00bs . Good. Now he had an excuse to go in there and take a closer look at her.
    Pushing his cart forward, he paused a few feet behind her. She smelled like the wilderness in springtime, like fresh pine and sweet blooms. He shook his head, trying to minimize her scent in his nostrils, because it made him want to get closer to her.
    Hell’s balls, his sister-in-law Miranda would say.
    She continued talking on her phone, oblivious to his entrance, all the while swiping text around on her tablet. “He’s after me, though,” she said, her voice hushed. “There’s no way, when I come around the corner, he’s always waiting.”
    Maverick looked around the room, searching for the danger. Surely she’d ask for help if she needed it, but she didn’t know help was so close.
    He angled the cart toward the shelves and slid Theories of Gaming into its spot.
    The girl barely glanced at him, and instead focused on her tablet. Her voice sounded higher in pitch, and he could detect notes of stress in it. Something wasn’t right. He stood, staring at her, until she finally glanced up and gave him a dirty look, scrunching her tiny nose. If her fingers hadn’t been so busy on the tablet, she’d probably be flipping him off.
    He shrugged and moved the cart down the bookcase, and that was when he saw the guy. He was the size of a football player, and he looked about forty. The guy sat rigidly on one of the window seats just beyond the bookcases, and Maverick would’ve bet his cherished Star Wars action figure collection that the guy had a clear line of sight to the pink-haired girl.
    So maybe she was in danger.
    Maverick wasn’t sure what to do. His first impulse was to tackle the guy and punch his face in, but Maverick didn’t take