Free Pale Stranger (PALE Series) by Mac Flynn Page A

insult. "Fine then, be that way. Is there anything else you might want, your Royal Highness?" The moment I saw the lecherous look cross his face I knew I'd made a terrible mistake. "Not that," I scolded him.
    Benson sighed. "Then I having nothing more for you to do today, Angel."
    I clapped my hands together. "That works great for me because I need to go to the library for some research."
    "College students still go to the library?" he wondered.
    I rolled my eyes. "Yes, we're not all Neanderthals," I countered. He gave me a disbelieving look, and I hung my head. "All right, the professor is making us because he wants citations from real books and not Wikipedia."
    "The class must have been devastated to learn the news," he mused with an evil smile.
    "You're telling me. I expected some of them to burst out crying because they had to leave their dorms to do it," I quipped. I glanced at my watch; almost four. "But anyway, I'll leave you to your exciting job on the phone and go to my exciting homework in the library."
    I whipped past him, but not fast enough to escape his hand that shot out. I turned and found him with a worried expression on his face. "Joking aside, if you want the money now I can pay you."
    I smiled and patted his hand before I removed it. "I'm sure I can survive for five more days," I assured him. "And I'll be back tomorrow, so don't worry about that."
    He grinned and nodded. Then I was free to go to my gas-guzzler of a car and drive back to campus. The college was a decent-sized place of a couple city blocks, and that wasn't including the dorms. Somebody had actually planned out this place and set the library in the middle of the campus to give easy access to all the degree workers. The library had three floors that were open to the public, and the fourth was closed off except with special permission. That floor held the dustiest and moldiest of the books, and thus they were the most expensive.
    Thankfully I didn't have any research that needed dusty books, and I wandered my way to the geology section on the second level. The floors of each level were slick linoleum except for the sitting areas with the tables. Those had carpets so the students couldn't slide the chairs around the tables in races. Now they took the trays from the food places and pulled those along the grassy areas like sleds.
    The floors were open in the center so being on the top floor you could look down over the railings to the other ones below it. The geology section ran along the balcony of the second floor, and like a studious student I went straight to it, but not without finding trouble on the way. The trouble was some rough-housing assholes whose brains were mush from all the alcohol. They decided the library with its maxes of bookshelves was the best place for a game of tag. I climbed the winding stairs that went straight up to all the levels, and collided with one of the players being chased by the tagger.
    They zoomed past, but I lost not only my patience but my balance. My hands flailed for the stairs railing and missed, and I felt myself fall backward into the abyss of a fall with a broken neck at the finish line. I had an angel on my side in the form of a tall, husky figure who caught me on the fall back and saved me from a long drop with a quick stop. I glanced up at my savior, a handsome young man of twenty-two with short blond hair and a smile that dazzled me. "Easy there," he teased me as he righted me onto the second floor. "It's a hard floor at the bottom."
    I shakily smiled and looked myself over for any bumps from the collision; everything was where it should have been. "I didn't really plan for a one-way trip down," I replied.
    "It looks like it. You'd better sit down." He led me over to the tables and I collapsed in one of the hard chairs. He sat down opposite me. "You need me to get you anything?"
    "No, but you can tell me your name so I know who to thank," I answered.
    "It's Will Tanner. Now are you going to tell me