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“Basement, I’m guessing?”

Galen nodded. “We have three different subjects, all of them scheduled for execution. One is a wolf—newly changed. They were picked up only two days ago and had to have been changed only a week or less before that. We have a panther who had good control for a few years before this happened. They seemed unable to control their beast one morning. Lastly, we have a raven who is at least three hundred years old. Again, they’ve never struggled with control before, with resisting urges. I chose these three cases as they are all so different. All came from the California/Nevada/Arizona region, so we could get them here sooner. No connections that I could find between them.”

The raven caught my attention.

There were no werecrows, that much I knew. I’d asked Galen about it before, wishing that I could find others even a little like me. It might not be perfect, might not be exact, but a black bird was a black bird, right?

I tried to hold off on my excitement, to not let it show. I didn’t need them to realize how much that meant to me. For one, they’d only make fun of me.

Neither of them understood just how isolating and lonely it really was to not have others of my kind, to not have anyone who understood me.

I had Knot, but he wasn’t any help. He disappeared whenever he wanted—as he’d done since that last cryptic meeting we’d had—and he never made me feel less lonely. If anything, he annoyed me, since I was desperate for answers and connection where he seemed to hate both.

Galen lifted one of his eyebrows, telling me he’d caught my excitement. He’d explained to me before, after realizing I was from an entirely different clan, that I’d have nothing more in common with any were bird than I would with any bird from nature. I’d never cared to listen to good advice, though, so I smiled at him as though to tell him I’d be happy if I fucking wanted to be.

He let out an audible sigh before walking toward the basement. I let him go first because I wasn’t anywhere close to equipped to deal with strays. If they’d broken out or were feeling especially hungry, I’d much rather they run into Galen first.

We headed down the stairs, a slight anxiety eating at me from the last time I’d been here. I’d had a crazed werebear threaten me—and not just a little, ‘hey, maybe I’d like to kill you’ sort of threat, but the kind where he’d grabbed me and could have done exactly that.

So I wasn’t a fan of what we might find down here—black bird or not.

“You know,” I said, the words escaping me faster than my brain could keep up just to break those nerves inside of me. “You bring a lot of people to your dungeon basement. I never figured you were a kinky type. A basement dungeon would be something I’d expect from Kelvin, not you.”

“Do I really have to listen to kink talk?” The rough voice came from the dimness just past the light that spilled in from the stairwell. It sounded like a dry throat, one that hadn’t had their thirst quenched in days.

Which made me wonder if Galen was starving these Weres? He didn’t seem unnecessarily cruel type, but it was hard to be sure about anything anymore.

People constantly surprised me, and rarely in a good way.

We reached the bottom of the stairs and the person who spoke became clear. Thankfully, the cell looked less horrible than it had when Trey was here, back when he’d been so crazed that no furniture would survive. Instead, all the cells had blankets, mattresses on platform stands—probably so they couldn’t pick them up and throw them. It wasn’t that cold down here, either, which suggested that Galen had it heated.

A bottle of water sat inside the cell, beside the woman who had spoken. She had a pixie cut and oddly wide eyes, with freckles that spanned her cheeks. She was pretty in a strange, ethereal way. “Since I don’t think I get to participate, I’d rather you didn’t talk about such things,” she added, seated on the mattress, her legs stretched out.

“Is she not drinking water?”

Galen rubbed the back of his neck. “She is, but she roars so much that it strains her vocal cords.” Galen stopped in the center of the room, then pointed to each cell.

The pixie cut was the panther it seemed—I wasn’t sure if that was any more fitting—an older woman was the wolf, and that made the raven the young man who sat cross-legged on his bed, eyes closed.

It was strange to be reminded again that the age people appeared had nothing to do with their actual age. It was a lesson I struggled to learn time and time again. I still found myself surprised each time I spoke to some who looked young enough to possibly still need to ride in the back seat of a car only to discover they were hundreds of years old.

I doubted it would ever feel quite natural.

And, given they were Weres, all of them were significantly stronger than me.

Annoying.

Porter walked first to the older woman, suggesting he probably wanted to check on them in order. He said nothing, as though they were beneath him or not worth his time.

Or, more likely, he only spoke to people whom he deemed he had something to say to. It was less about respect and more about efficiency.

He set a hand out, palm flat and toward the woman. Nothing shot from hand—no cool colors or flames—but a strange sensation moved through the air, as though sparks of electricity ran through it. I shivered.

Porter had used little power in front of me. He’d freed the wolves Kelvin kept at his property, but that was it. Other than that, a part of me wondered why he was head of their clan. It didn’t make a lot of sense, all things considered. He didn’t seem anywhere near as powerful as the others.

Then again, neither did I.

This reminded me yet again not to judge people by what little they chose to show me.