Page 17 of Flock Around and Find Out (Flocking It Up #3)

“This is really boring.” I knew I wasn’t helping, that my whining wasn’t making anything better, but that didn’t stop me from doing it.

Anything that kept me at least mildly entertained.

“That’s good, isn’t it?” Ruben asked.

“Porter got me all ready for us to be avoiding danger at every turn and shit like that. I was ready for action. This is more boring than when my mom makes us take walks after Thanksgiving dinner because she read it was good for people.”

“I said to be cautious. We’ve been here for two hours. Are you really this impatient for chaos?”

I turned around to look at Porter, amazed as ever at how natural he could look out here. “Do you recall what clan I belong to? Come on, what’s it called?”

He sighed but repeated it as though he knew I wouldn’t shut up until he did. “Chaos Clan.”

“There you go. So no, I can’t help it, and yes, I am that impatient. This is terrible—it’s just waiting for something to happen.” I looked forward, toward Galen who walked at the front. “Are you sure we’re going the right way still?”

“Yes. I can feel it,” Galen said without turning. “It’s up that way, toward that mountain.”

“That one?” I pointed at what had to be ten miles away. “Why couldn’t we open the fucking portal a little closer?”

“It’s not that far,” Ruben said. “We’ll reach the base by tonight.” He looked over at me. “Well, by tomorrow at least.”

“ Wow. Rude much? I’ll have you know that I’m not that useless.”

“Yes, you fought a weretiger—I heard.”

“She what?” Porter asked.

“Oh, you didn’t hear?” Kelvin perked up as though amused. “Yes, apparently she fought a weretiger while naked . Our little bird right here is quite the live wire. You’re still new to this entire scene, but I can assure you, no matter how ridiculous something she does seems, she can make it worse.”

“I didn’t mention I was naked! Who told you?” As soon as I asked, I got my answer. There was only one person who was there, only one person who could have told him about that little detail.

I glared at Galen’s back. “You snitch. I had no idea you all were so close.”

“We’re best buddies. We spend hours on the phone every night,” Kelvin said while Galen ignored me.

The conversation was good for one thing, at least, which was distracting me. It didn’t seem so bad when we had this banter going back and forth, after all. In fact, it almost felt like a family outing.

A weird family, sure, and a super incestuous one, but still a family of some sort. I wasn’t sure if the bantering was natural or if they did it to help me out, to keep me distracted, but I appreciated it all the same.

“What was I supposed to do? Not fight the tiger? Because that option led to death and I wasn’t aware you all wanted me dead that much.”

“You know the real problem?” Ruben pointed out. “Most people don’t have to make decisions like that. They don’t live their lives in such a way where fighting a weretiger naked is even an option they have to choose between.”

I didn’t argue back that time because what was the point? The fact I was here at all proved that my life was a little fucked up, a little messy, and they sure didn’t mind when they benefited from it. That meant I thought it was crazy for them to get so upset when it went a little sideways.

Our back and forth went on, however, as we walked. It relaxed me, helped the time to pass.

Much of the greenery around us seemed the same as when we’d first gotten inside this place. Each time I glanced around, however, the fact we weren’t home became more painfully obvious.

The smells were wrong, the sounds off. It was like that uncanny valley thing, where things that were almost human but weren’t freaked us out the most.

And, yes, ignore the terrifying idea that there was something that looked almost human that posed a big enough threat that that shit got hardwired into our DNA.

The fact was that this place was close but not right. The trees were here, but different. The breeze existed, but seemed to switch direction so much that it was impossible to follow. Light covered the space, but it had no source, no sun, nothing that created it.

It all told me that I did not belong here.

That light—wherever it came from—started to dim as we walked.

Porter peered around, slowing his steps. “We should probably wait here. I don’t know how dark it will get and trying to travel without light isn’t ever a good idea.”

Galen stood near the front, stopping but not turning toward us. Just staring at him told me that he wanted to go, that he didn’t want to stop. In fact, I suspected it took all his control not to go at a full run—and I’d seen just how fast that bastard could run.

I called his name as I approached, but he didn’t move. Did he even hear me?

I reached out and touched his back with the flat of my palm, trying my hardest not to scare him, but he didn’t seem to even notice me.

Sure enough, as soon as I made contact, he jerked away and spun. Pain echoed through my wrist, and it took a moment to realize he’d swung his hand to knock me away.

His eyes were wide, the color having shifted to a bright amber, which was so not a good sign.

I tucked my hand behind me, not wanting him to see that it hurt, that anything had happened. “Hey.” I kept my voice steady, as though everything were fine despite the fact that he looked as ready to take my head as a Karen who couldn’t use her coupon. “We’re setting up camp until the light comes back.”

He blinked rapidly, as though the action could clear his head. After a long, tense moment, he nodded. “Right. Sure.”

His gait was uneven, forced as he turned to follow Ruben, trailing behind the Justice like a puppy who’d gotten in trouble. It would have been funny at any other time.

It wasn’t that funny right now, not with the throbbing of my wrist.

“Let me see.” Kelvin’s voice was dark.

“See what?”

His expression proved to be darker still. “Come on.” He turned his back and headed off in the opposite direction as the others, and I had a feeling if I refused, he’d just put me over his shoulder.

Of course, not having to walk any farther might have just been worth that. I didn’t understand people’s hatred of being carried. Seemed like a benefit, if anything.

We didn’t go far, just enough that the trees would muffle our voices and give us some privacy.

Kelvin pointed at a rock. “Sit.”

I did so, like a good little pup, and even managed to keep the smart-ass comments inside my head.

He kneeled before me and held his hand out, waiting. His grip was cool, as usual, when I put my hand in his.

He turned my hand, examining it, running his fingers along the wrist joint, moving it to see what hurt. He didn’t ask me anything, seeming to instead take his cues from my reactions—no matter how hard I tried to keep them from occurring.

Finally, he sighed. “It isn’t broken, but it’ll bruise. Why’d you hide it?”

“You saw him—he didn’t mean to.”

“So? If I dared to bruise you, you wouldn’t just let it go. You’re far more vindictive when it comes to me.”

I blew out a long breath as I stared down at where Kelvin held my wrist. “It’s not like that.”

“Isn’t it? You’ve always held me to a higher standard.”

“Or maybe you’ve just always managed to fall beneath that line of acceptable behavior time and time again?”

He held my wrist, and I realized after a moment how nice the coolness was against the throbbing. Was that why he did it?

Then again, that felt quite like Kelvin. He was rarely outright kind, rarely did things anyone would think were romantic or sweet, yet he managed to be there for me in a way that actually mattered.

Not that I trusted much else he said or did…

It got me speaking more honestly. “You’ve never been out of control,” I said. “You’ve never been out of your mind like that, so I’ve never needed to forgive you for something like that.”

His gaze lifted to my neck. “I was once.”

“And I forgave you.”

“Did you? You still haven’t accepted me after that, so I’m not really sure you can say you’re over it.”

I pressed my lips together, unable to deny it. I hadn’t slept with him again, hadn’t agreed to it before he’d bitten me. That meant I still had something holding me back, some part of me that refused to give into him fully.

Maybe he was right. Maybe I was still angry.

My crow seemed to flutter her wings at that.

Right. He had bound me to him against my will, or at least attempted it. He’d done it to save my life, of course.

I thought back to that night, to how lost I’d been, how devastated by my inability to fix any of this, how I’d realized that even if he hadn’t meant for it to go that way, he’d been behind it. Once I put that aside, however, once I looked past it and to him, I had to admit… he’d seemed just as lost.

I recalled his pinched features, his pained voice. He’d been facing losing me, and he’d done the only thing he knew to try to keep me alive.

Was he really not just as out of his mind as Galen was now? Maybe for a different reason, maybe in a different way, but it wasn’t that different.

It had me moving forward, the action pushing Kelvin backward so he sat on the ground. He was careful with my wrist, ensuring I didn’t accidentally put pressure on it, always mindful no matter what else was going on.

It was like a portion of his brain was always locked on me, always on my well-being regardless of the chaos around us.

He lifted an eyebrow, but didn’t stop me when I straddled his waist. I used my free hand to tip his face up toward me, to take his lips in a deep kiss. I didn’t hold back, didn’t stop myself.

Kelvin had fucked up—more than a little—but hadn’t I, also? We’d both screwed things up, over and over again, and there was no good reason to keep beating us up over it.

Why destroy my future because of a blip in my past?

“I don’t need to feed yet,” Kelvin breathed out softly.

“So? I don’t want to do this again for the first time just because you have to feed. We need it to mean something more.”

That seemed to flip some switch in him, like they were the words he’d wanted to hear, had needed to hear.

He kept one hand on my wrist—never too tight, just enough to cool the injury and keep me from hurting it worse—and used the other behind my neck to pull me closer, to deepen the kiss. He teased the seam of my lips with his tongue, the touch somehow gentle despite how not gentle everything else about him seemed.

His aggressive hand at the back of my neck, his hard cock that ground into me—or, wait, I might have been grinding against him, actually—and the deep sound that rumbled from his chest.

Wasn’t that just like him, though? The dichotomy between him, the fact he was dead, yet in many ways was more alive than anyone else I knew. He was constantly moving in the shadows to gain control, yet walked around as though he had no secrets at all. He was the last person I would believe a word from, yet I trusted him more than almost anyone else.

And just like that, I knew the truth. I couldn’t ignore it anymore, couldn’t pretend that it wasn’t true just because it wasn’t all that convenient.

I loved this idiot. I had for a while, and I was tired of trying to act as though I didn’t. Sure, I might very well regret it at some point, but fuck it—I regretted lots of things in my life.

“The others aren’t very far away,” Kelvin whispered, though he didn’t pull away from the kiss, the words muffled by my lips.

“So?”

He groaned and pressed his forehead against mine, as though grappling for some shred of self-control. His chest rose and fell in quick succession, another sign that he wasn’t holding himself back easily.

Which was perfect for me.

I didn’t care if anyone heard. It wasn’t like anyone didn’t know we were fucking at this point. We could keep our voices low—maybe—but we were adults and if anyone didn’t like it, well, they should have brought earplugs.

So I reached with my good hand and yanked at the laces of my boot until I could slide it off, then undid the button of my pants with a flick.

It seemed all that self-control didn’t last long, because when I pulled back enough to stare into Kelvin’s eyes, I knew he’d lost that battle.

His eyes glowed red, bright, intense. This was the real him, behind all the games he played, behind his schemes and manipulations. Maybe that was one of the reasons I actually did like being like this with him, because I got to see a side of him I had a feeling few ever saw, the person beneath the power and the ambition.

This man wanted me—nothing else mattered.

And that was one heady feeling.

Kelvin

I fucking give up. Every time I tried to stand against Grey, it never worked. I could bend the rest of the world to my whims, could make it all dance for me if I just pulled the right string, if I leaned on the right note, but Grey?

Nothing ever worked as I expected it to. She defied all attempts to control, to even push in a certain direction.

For example, I would have never thought fucking her in a strange realm not more than a hundred feet from others would be a good idea, yet here we were, prepared to do exactly that. No matter if I resisted, I’d give in at the end.

She got the best of me in every situation, and, to be fair, at the end of it I wasn’t even mad about it. Somehow, she led me in the direction I wanted to go.

I mean, we’d ended up bonded at the end of what was arguably her biggest fuck up.

I’d had a perfect plan to get rid of that old man, to take over, to finally get into power, and what did she do?

Put herself right in the middle of the crosshairs.

And yet, in the end, it brought us closer than I thought possible.

It meant that now that she wasn’t resisting, now that she wasn’t trying to escape it, I couldn’t hold myself back. The best I could manage was to ensure I didn’t hurt her, to keep my hand in a loose brace around her wrist, to keep track of my strength. That was easier than I would have expected, as though her safety were part of my own instincts.

I used my free hand to help pull her jeans off, taking her panties with them, stripping them off the leg that had no boot on. They hung on her other ankle, which was fine. We weren’t in the sort of place where we had the luxury of laying her out, of teasing her to my heart’s content.

When we got back, however, the next time I fed from her, there was no chance of me resisting that. I wanted to spread her thighs, to ensure not a stitch of clothing could obscure an inch of her body, and I wanted to explore every last part of her. I wanted to trace my tongue along her body, to find every last crevice, every mountain, every valley, every spot she felt self-conscious of and lavish attention until she understood just how much I adored it all.

Since that wasn’t in the cards currently, however, I kept her in my lap. She undid my pants, and I lifted myself just enough to expose my cock, shifting up so I rested my weight on my knees, so my shins were flat against the ground. It offered a better position, for her legs to spread around my hips as she hooked her free arm around my shoulders for balance.

I guided my hard cock into her, and she lowered herself at the same time. It made this feel like a dance, like we both worked toward the same end, that we both wanted the same exact thing, that we craved it with equal hungers.

Which was nice.

I was an orphan in the vampires, a vampire born to no sire, an outcast, someone without family. Most of us didn’t even survive because we didn’t have the ability to grow as strong, didn’t have anyone to protect us. Me, however? I’d scratched and struggled and made a name for myself even if I didn’t have someone to give me one. I’d dug my own place, hollowing it out of those who had thought they could take me down, who thought me not worthy of survival.

I didn’t give a fuck what they thought, not anymore, and I had been content to live on my own, to do as I pleased without thought or care toward anyone else.

When Grey moved like this, though, when her snug cunt swallowed my shaft, when her arm held me tight, it was the rare time I didn’t feel entirely isolated. It was when I thought there was a place for me in the world beyond the one I’d made for myself. She was the only creature beyond myself who had ever made space for me, made room for me in her life even if she got nothing out of it.

She hadn’t accepted me because she wanted something from me. In fact, in many ways, I’d made her life more difficult over the years. Still, she welcomed me, her warmth, her humor, even her temper, it all made me feel less alone in a very large and empty world.

So I set a hand on her hip, my other holding her wrist still, almost as though we were holding hands, and I fucked her. I didn’t do it gently or sweetly—though we’d never been those things to start with. Instead, I took her with an intensity that I hoped she understood, a need that I’d tried to leash for so long but couldn’t anymore.

I took her roughly, quickly, bottoming out with each thrust so I could ensure that there existed no space between us. I bit at her full bottom lip, then moved my mouth to her throat. Her pulse danced just beneath the surface, but I held back.

Her words echoed in my ear, the desire to have me like this, to have us like this, not clouded by biology, by a feeding, by my venom, but instead having it just be us, just our wants, just whatever we had cobbled together out of bad decisions and good jokes.

She took every thrust and moaned, her voice nowhere near quiet enough to even hope that the others wouldn’t hear. I didn’t care, and she didn’t seem to either, so I took that as a win. I’d accept that everyone could know—fuck, I rather liked it to be honest. I wanted to claim her in some way, to ensure that at the end of the day, she was mine and everyone knew it.

I could share, but I wouldn’t be pushed out. And, that petty part of me didn’t mind the idea that others would want what I had, that I would be the enviable one.

I wanted them to be jealous, to recognize what I had with Grey, mostly because it had been so hard fought to get here. Despite all the things I had in my life, I doubted any meant nearly as much to me as this woman, so I wanted people to know.

I took her hard, fast, rough, and she rolled her hips to ensure I didn’t miss anything, to keep going no matter what.

Words stroked the back of my lips, desperate to escape, to tell her exactly what she meant to me, that I wouldn’t let her go, especially not now. Despite the problems with the Graves, the vampires making ploys against me, no matter all the dangers going on, only she really mattered.

I could let the rest of it go for her. I didn’t think that was a claim I would ever be able to make, that I could ever care for anyone that much, that I could ever need someone in this way, but I did. I would let the rest of the Graves burn, would hand it all over to someone else if that was what it took to have her, to keep her safe, to keep her with me.

I kept the words inside, not because I was afraid of them. She already knew how I felt, how serious I was, but I didn’t want to burden her, didn’t want to force her to take on that sort of pressure.

Grey was the sort of girl who liked to run, and I was sick of chasing her. So I swallowed those declarations, not wanting to risk sending her running again just because I was a little too upfront. She required slow movements—after all, it had taken us five years to get here, to reach this point.

I could wait as long as it took to go further, to have more of her.

So I raked my teeth across her pulse, my end close, chasing the little sounds she made. I held off just long enough to feel her cunt tighten around me, to feel her squeeze down on my shaft.

She held me closer with that arm, her fingers digging into my shoulder, gripping me as though afraid I’d disappear if she didn’t.

Stupid woman. Nothing could have dragged me away.

I followed her over that edge, came deep inside her as though that were a claim. It had taken far too long to get back to this point with her, to achieve this level of comfort again, and this felt like some sort of final proof that things had returned to normal.

No, better than normal.

I wasn’t hiding anything from her.

Well, nothing important, at least, nothing that was going to get her killed.

I pressed my face against her neck, riding out the aftershocks, the way her still-squeezing cunt tightened around my cock and made me wonder if round two was possible.

No matter what we faced here, I knew I’d do everything it took to make sure we got back safely.

That was a promise I damned well intended to keep.