Page 19 of Flock Around and Find Out (Flocking It Up #3)

I woke to a sound that my brain couldn’t identify.

No, wait, it wasn’t couldn’t, it was wouldn’t. It was like seeing something that was just too fucked up to even consider it could be real. It was like if humans suddenly saw a huge face in the sky speaking to us—we’d find a reason to believe it was a hoax just because we really fucking hated the idea of it being true.

We were excellent at lying to ourselves, after all.

So the skittering, the tiny little taps against stone that echoed through the cave was far too telling a sound for me to think deeply about. Instead, my brain protected me and told me it was the wind. It was anything other than what it sounded like—which was a million little spiders all rushing toward me, all creeping around me, close enough that it sounded as though they crawled just above my head.

When something brushed my cheek, I knew I couldn’t ignore it anymore, no matter how nice that seemed.

Instead, I forced my eyes open, wishing immediately I hadn’t.

The crystals in the cave had changed, still glowing, but now the teal shone bright while the others dimmed. It bathed the stone, tinting everything that color.

Of course, staring at the color was just an easy way to ignore the huge fucking centipede-like creature that spanned the length of the cave, curled around itself like a game of snake. It was made of joints that didn’t make any sense. Nothing about it made sense, in fact. It was the same teal as the glowing crystals, and I would have sworn its eyes were gems as well. Near the face it had mandibles that came away from its cheeks, and more legs than I could count lined down each side of its long, agile body.

Just when I thought this nightmare fuel couldn’t get any more disturbing, it reared back, using the end of its body as a counterweight, so it stood upright, tall enough that it could have easily looked Ruben in the eye.

Yeah, fuck this.

I didn’t like randomly calling for help, but I was pretty sure a huge crystalline bug creature was so outside of my wheelhouse it wasn’t even funny. This was not what I was cut out to deal with. I was made for other jobs—like eating a lot of tasty food, or mouthing off against things larger than me—but certainly not for fighting huge bug-like critters.

“A little help?” I called out.

The thing swiveled its head like an owl, the clicking of the parts moving even more unnerving.

“What the fuck is that?” Kelvin asked, the first to rush in. Despite his seemingly careless words, his attention had already locked on the thing, his eyes redder than before. He might seem casual, but he was ready to deal with the problem at hand.

“You said there was nothing in here,” Ruben snapped at Porter.

“I said nothing had moved here in weeks. There was plenty of residual energy. I have to assume that beast hibernates here for long periods.”

“Can we skip the science lesson?” I asked. “This isn’t a fucking documentary. We don’t need commentary. What are we going to do about it?”

“Try to come this way,” Ruben said. “Move slowly, inch by inch. If you don’t seem like a threat, it might let you pass.”

I did as he said, moving in the smallest shuffling steps I could, my hands down to show I wasn’t doing anything threatening. For the first time, I was thankful I seemed pretty harmless. It shouldn’t have any problem with me, right? “Nice bug,” I whispered, my voice soothing, as though I could talk it down from the ledge of wanting to bite my face off.

Except, before I got more than a foot or so, it twisted in a wide jerk, those legs working in tandem to move it around. It came closer but didn’t attack, instead closing off my path, further placing it between me and escape.

“Got another plan?” I asked. “Because this one doesn’t seem to be working too well.”

No one responded right away, making me think that, no, they didn’t.

And it wasn’t so much a question of how to kill it. The truth was that I’d bet they could easily rush in and tear the thing apart—no problem. The problem was more that it could probably do a lot of damage before they managed to get hold of it.

Seeing as that damage was directed at me, I didn’t really want to see that happen. I was not on board for any plan that had me playing up close and personal with Mr. A Million Legs over here.

“Can you stop it?” Porter asked, and for a moment I thought he meant me, until Blake answered him.

“No. I can’t sense its mind. It’s too different, or maybe it doesn’t really have a mind.” The frustration in Blake’s tone made me think he cared a little. Or maybe he cared about his paycheck. If he let me die, I suspected Harrison might not tip.

“We don’t have a lot of options here,” I called out. “It doesn’t seem to like when I move around much. What if we try to just run for it? Like, overwhelm it?”

“It has venom,” Porter said. “Look at the fangs near its mouth. They’re dripping something, and I would suspect you do not want to see what that might do to you.”

At his words, I focused in on the fangs that I hadn’t even noticed before, so distracted by the clicking mandibles as I’d been. I immediately wish I hadn’t looked. Yep, they were dripping something at a steady pace, as though almost salivating, and I was pretty sure Porter was right.

Nothing had fangs that dripped anything good.

Well, Kelvin…

I shook the thought away, because it was so not the time for that nonsense. Nope, I needed to find a way out of this situation, because if I didn’t, I wasn’t going to get to feel the good venom ever again.

However, I felt like we’d hit that bad spot in a plan, where nothing sounded good, and the idea of doing anything felt overwhelming. People over thought because they had no idea what else to do, because they didn’t want to risk making things worse.

Lucky for them, I was an expert at making things worse, so I didn’t much mind being the one to do this.

“Okay, we go on three.”

“Wait, go?” Porter asked.

“What does go mean?” Kelvin added.

“One,” I counted.

“We have a plan?” Blake asked, a bit of panic in his voice.

“No, but she’s always like this,” Ruben explained.

“Two.”

“Just figure it out,” Kelvin snapped.

“Three!” I called as I dove toward the sleeping bag, pulling it in front of me just as the creature lunged. I got the fabric in front of me in time to see those dripping fangs tear through the bag as though it were as thick as tissue paper. Worse, it drenched it in whatever dripped from those teeth.

A roar echoed through the cave loud enough to hurt my ears.

And I fucking recognized that as Galen. It was the unhinged Galen I’d seen more and more of, the one didn’t seem to know what the fuck he was doing or what was going on beyond his anger, his rage. I didn’t love that sound before, but right now I didn’t mind it.

The creature moved away from me, and I scurried backward to put distance between us. With the sleeping bag out of the way, I could see Galen—fully shifted—with his jaws around the midsection of the creature.

That really had no right being as hot as he made it out to be, right? Like, how unfair was it that he could look sexy as a fucking monster attacking a bug?

Completely ridiculous.

He twisted around it, but the creature was bigger. It wrapped part of its body around him like an anaconda, tightening and using the grip to gain the upper hand as it snapped with those fangs.

Kelvin and Ruben rushed in as well, quickly trying to help. Ruben grabbed the thing near the head, from behind, while Kevlin wrestled to get Galen free of the tail. It took all three of them before they got it somewhat restrained.

It thrashed still, managing to move them despite how strong the men were. It went to show the amount of power inside that thing. There wasn’t much that could stand against just one of these guys, let alone three of them, but this thing made a pretty good effort.

A hand thrust into my line of vision. Porter waited for me to take it, and when I did, when he pulled to help me up, I hissed.

What?

I looked toward the pain, the stinging in my upper biceps, near my shoulder. It was only then I noticed a large wound.

How had I not felt it? It wasn’t deep, but rather long, like a scratch just deep enough to bleed.

Porter’s eyes went wide and he pulled me closer, holding my arm up to examine it. He didn’t touch it, instead inhaling deeply and frowning.

A loud crack echoed through the cave, drawing my focus for a moment to see Ruben drop the creature, its heavy body striking the floor in a still heap. Neon teal blood poured from the wounds Galen had inflicted, and clung to his fur.

“She was infected,” Porter said, his voice careful and flat.

“Are you sure?” Kelvin asked, rushing over to grasp my arm as well. He held it gently. “Maybe it was just from the fall? Or she was scratched by it?” Even I could tell that he was reaching for anything that might explain it, that he didn’t really believe it.

“I can smell the venom in the wound.”

“Can we disinfect it?” Ruben didn’t give me the chance to even tense before he poured water right onto the wound, the chill causing me to let out an entirely undignified yelp. “Maybe we can flush the venom out.”

“That won’t work,” Porter said. “I can smell it’s already mixed into her bloodstream.”

“So what’s it going to do? Am I going to get superpowers? Because I wouldn’t mind also having a bug form…” I laughed at the stupid joke because I wasn’t sure how to deal with any of this. The nerves hit me hard, the uncertainty. I did what I always did, just going with humor to cover it up.

“I don’t know,” Porter answered. “None of these are creatures I know of. This one is connected to Natures, but not part of that clan. I have no idea what its venom might do. It could do nothing, it could shut down all her systems in ten minutes.”

“That’s a pretty fucking big selection,” I pointed out. “You really can’t narrow that down at all?”

“No. I wish I could, but creatures have venom for a number of reasons—mostly to slow down prey and to be able to take down creatures larger than themselves. Because of that, it could do any number of things.”

“We should get her back,” Ruben said. “There are healers we can take her to.”

“How are we supposed to get back?” Kelvin pointed out. “The entire plan was that the Weres were always returned after they did whatever they were supposed to do. We don’t know how to get back on our own. Even her bay portals aren’t working.”

“I’m really not feeling too bad,” I said, though no one seemed to hear me.

They kept speaking like I wasn’t even there.

“So what? We just pretend it didn’t happen? We ignore it?” Ruben asked.

Galen growled, still in his other form, that serving as his addition to the conversation. I didn’t understand what it meant, but the others responded as though it made perfect sense.

“I know that,” Kelvin snapped back, “but we don’t have another choice.”

I yanked my arm away to make them pay attention to me. “There’s no reason to just keep arguing like this, is there? We’re stuck here until we deal with the problem at hand, so let’s get to it. The sooner we finish this up, the better. It isn’t doing anything right now, and maybe it won’t. I’m weird and different, so who knows? Maybe it won’t affect me at all.” I shrugged, the idea nice even if I didn’t really believe it.

I wasn’t lucky enough for me to be unaffected by the venom of some other weird creature. In fact, it’d be a fucking miracle if I didn’t end up in anaphylactic shock or something over this. Since I couldn’t guess what would happen, however, I figured it was best to just keep moving. The sooner we worked this all out, the sooner we fix this and go back home, the sooner we could deal with whatever was currently sashaying its way through my body.

The men exchanged loaded looks that implied they didn’t really believe that, that they didn’t think I was being realistic, but none of them spoke up. Why would they? What would the point of that be? They might not like my idea, but it was all we had.

So we went about packing up our things, the light having returned. It was still a long walk and we had just been reminded that this place was far from safe, that we needed to keep our minds on our surroundings. Porter had warned us, the weretiger had warned us, but it hadn’t really hit me that this place had the dangers it had.

Like huge fucking bugs that liked to inject unknown venom into people, for example, as just the first thing to fuck us over so far.

I left the sleeping bag—between the venom and the rips, it was pretty much useless now, and headed off again.

The aching in my shoulder continued, but I ignored it. I couldn’t think about it, couldn’t get bothered by it or the others would notice and worry. Sure, I saw their side-eyes, the concern, but that was fine. No doubt they’d do that the whole fucking way, but I couldn’t show any signs of pain.

We just had to get through this, but the increasing pain in my arm made me worry we might have already been screwed…

* * * *

Ruben

“You need to get yourself under control.”

Galen cast me a threatening glare.

It was strange to see him like this. I’d known Galen for many years now, had always preferred working with him over most of the other Clan Heads. He thought things through, reacting less based on instinct and stupidity. It meant he understood the intricacies of negotiation.

Many alphas before him had been no better than beasts, simply wanting to pee on things to claim them as their own.

Perhaps that was why I struggled so badly to see him in this state.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he muttered.

“Of course I do. You’re entirely out of control. If you were anyone else, I’d say you had already gone feral.”

He snarled instead of answering, which wasn’t the best way to prove his point, all things considered.

“Is it that obvious?” he asked, lowering his voice. We walked ahead of the others, so Galen could lead us in the right direction.

“Perhaps not to everyone, but I have known you for a lot of years now.”

Galen peered to the side, as though he wanted to look over his shoulder but didn’t dare. The reason was obvious enough—Grey walked behind us, beside Kelvin. “Do you think she’s noticed?”

She’d be a fool not to. Grey and Galen were even closer than he and I were, so there was no chance that she hadn’t noticed the stark contrast in his behavior and attitude.

The only benefit of it all was that he didn’t seem to take it out on her. I had a feeling that if he dared to so much as growl in his direction, he’d find himself on the wrong end of a few of us.

“It would be hard to miss,” I said to lighten the blow. “How bad is it, really?”

He shuddered hard. “Bad. Worse since we got here. Before we came here, it wasn’t good. I felt on edge, close to snapping, but I could still breathe slowly and work it through. Here, though? It’s like my wolf suddenly has all the power, like I’m fighting to hold on to control of myself no matter what. It doesn’t take me being angry, doesn’t take anything and it’s wrestling the lead from me. I’ve never felt like this before.”

“It’s probably this place. It’s a source for Spirit energy, right? So it makes sense that there’s more energy here and that might make your wolf stronger. I’d bet Kelvin’s hunger is stronger, that Blake’s Mind abilities are more powerful, that Porter can do things he never could before we got here.”

“What about you?”

“Nothing new. I don’t think I run off the same energy signals you all do, so I don’t feel anything. In fact, I don’t even feel a pull like you do, like they do.”

Well, except for Grey. She didn’t seem to feel any particular pull in any direction, either. I didn’t know what that meant, why it would be different. She was a Spirit, after all, so why would she not feel the same? Wouldn’t she be drawn to the source of her energy?

I would have been more bothered by that all if it wasn’t for the fact that she never followed what she should have, that she was always breaking with the obvious constraint of how things should have occurred. It meant that when she yet again was different, it didn’t surprise me that much.

Intrigued? Sure. I wanted to understand what made her different, but I accepted that she was.

So instead of thinking much about that, I focused on the problem at hand—Galen.

“We need you to keep your head on straight so we can get through this,” I reminded him. “If anyone can do it, you can. This is about more than you, more than us. This is about your entire clan.”

My little pep talk didn’t seem to do a damn bit of good. Galen appeared just as distracted, just as on edge as before.

It made me wonder for the first time if we could lose him, if he could lose himself before we were able to find the source or solve this problem.

Maybe…

“You need to keep it together because if you can’t, it’ll probably be Grey who pays the price.”

And, yeah, the noise that left him was vicious.

Still, like it or not, that was the reality check he needed. He might not care if anything happened to him, if it happened to us, but Grey was another matter entirely.

It reminded me of what I’d already known, the thing he’d never had to tell me.

Had he told Grey that she was his mate? That his instinct had already picked her for him? It was only a matter of time before they bonded—if they could. The fact he hadn’t given in yet was astounding, really. It was to a testament of his control, of his ability to resist what he wanted.

However, with his current state, it would be best not to leave them alone together if possible. A Were’s instincts were strong, and I didn’t trust him to resist forever.

The selfish part of me didn’t want them to bond, either. The connection between her and Kelvin was bad enough, but to craft another such link?

As a Justice, I had nothing like that, no ability to lock her to me, no innate form of connection that ensured she remained mine. I lacked confidence that she might choose me for any other reason, that I had much of anything to offer her.

Worse, so far as I understood, Justices didn’t have relationships. They didn’t fall in love, didn’t settle down. We worked, we held the peace, we upheld the rules until something got the better of us or we took our own lives. Those were our only futures, so far as tradition and history said, and neither were ones I wanted her anywhere near.

“So you’ll keep yourself in line?” I asked, forcing myself to return to the subject at hand, to stay on task.

Galen didn’t answer right away. “I’m going to try,” he finally said, then added, his voice low and his gaze pinned forward, “If I can’t, can I trust that you’ll make sure she stays safe?”

“You should know you don’t have to ask that.”

He laughed, the sound tense. “Who would have thought we’d end up here, huh? After all those meetings, all those times we sat across from each other, yet here we are. Grey asked me one day what it all meant, that there had to be more, and I told her life was random. I told her that life was mostly what happened in the meantime. This really proves it, right? I wouldn’t have thought this is where I’d end up, half a snap from feral and running around some other realm with the likes of you all.”

“Are you sorry about it?”

He peered over his shoulder at Grey. “No, I don’t think I am.”

And I certainly understood that. It seemed the normal way that things went with Grey—it never went the way I expected, but I always found it worth it in the end.