Page 21 of Flock Around and Find Out (Flocking It Up #3)

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I held Grey against my chest, my arms around her, as the scent of poison spread through her small form.

It had started just past the edges of the shallow wound, but now it even hung on her breath with each exhale. It was a sharp scent, acidic, and it was increasing.

I’d chosen to hold her—over the arguments of the others—because it made sense. I was stronger than the Mind, but less useful in a fight than the others. At least, that was how I justified the choice.

The realities were that I disliked harming others, had a distaste for killing, but that didn’t make me incapable of it.

I just didn’t care for the idea of handing her over to anyone else.

It was strange to see her this way. She shook in my arms, soft whimpers escaping her lips with each step.

In the time that I had spent around her—limited as it had been—she’d always seemed so much larger than she was. Perhaps it was the attitude, the zest for life, but something about her made her appear bigger than any of those she was around.

She never wilted, not for a moment, even when things got difficult. Even when faced with execution, she hadn’t so much as flinched.

So having her trembling in my arms forced me to recognize her in a wholly different way. The truth was that I knew little about her, even still. I hadn’t known her prior to when she’d sought my help after she’d been framed for murder. I was still trying to understand her, to understand what she was.

We reached the base of the mountain, our pace having picked up greatly since Grey had fallen unconscious. She’d kept us slower before, but now? Now we knew we had to hurry. Even Galen appeared more focused, as if this had helped him grapple control back from this thing that had infected him.

“We’re close,” Galen said, his voice rough, betraying how he struggled. He turned toward a path that wound up the outside of the steep cliff. The path had crystals on it, as though almost made out of them fully. No dust coated the path, nothing that made it seem as though it had gone unused, but that didn’t mean much.

I hadn’t tasted dust on the breeze, either. Perhaps there wasn’t any here. This place didn’t follow the rules I knew about, so I dared to take nothing for granted.

I headed up the path, moving quickly, with Galen and Ruben at the front and Kelvin and Blake behind us. Even with our speed, I knew they watched for danger carefully.

It only took another ten minutes or so to reach a large cave opening, an amber glow spreading out on the path outside the entrance.

Galen’s eyes were wide and empty, nothing showing of the person he had been, of his human side. It seemed the wolf spirit within him had taken over entirely. There was nothing else left of him inside.

I’d never seen a Were come back from this far, but Galen was unlike most Weres. This was not a case of a Were losing his mind naturally. I could only hope that once we finished this, it would resolve the problem, that it would fix him as well.

I hoped that not only because I wanted to avoid the upcoming war, but because I didn’t want to see the Weres fall. Even if we solved the Were problem, I didn’t trust that an alpha other than Galen would manage to keep them in line, that he would avoid war and violence as best he could.

Those weren’t the only reasons, though. I thought about the pain Grey would face if we failed, or if we succeeded but Galen didn’t pull through. I didn’t want to watch her suffer in that way, the way she would blame herself, the way she’d hold that all on herself. None of that was what I wanted, so we had to find a way to bring him back.

Galen stepped first into the large cave, his gaze upturned like an acolyte ready to meet a god. It was strange to see him that way.

The inside of the cave was similar to the one Grey had spent the night in—the one with the creature—but this one had amber crystals everywhere, bathing it in that light, instead. It was larger, as well, with an opening near the back.

In the center of the cave was a pool of amber liquid, as though molten gold simmered there. The beauty stunned me, while it also warned me away.

It was the same part that felt that pull to go in another way, that warned me this wasn’t for me. Did it want me to follow the path to my own source? To the thing that had given me the energy that made me a Nature?

I ignored it. That didn’t matter, not right now.

What I carried in my arms was so much more important to me than whatever might rest at the end of that path.

Galen shifted into his wolf form, the stitches of his pants giving way, the scraps of fabric left behind, forgotten as he moved toward the water, drawn forward by something greater than him, than any of us.

That was one of the benefits of being a Nature—I didn’t tend to fall under the same delusions of grandeur as the other clans. My connection to the rest of the world made it far easier to understand my place, to see how grand other energies were, and how both great and small I was in comparison.

Just as he approached the water, when I wondered if he would leap in, if he would drown in the gold, a flash of light filled the space so bright I had close my eyes to escape it—and even then it felt as though it seared my skin.

“You idiots.”

I didn’t recognize the voice at first, even if it felt familiar.

Then, when I could open my eyes, when I could look across the space, I wouldn’t forget the man who stood there.

I held Grey tighter as Ruben stepped between us and Knot, the mysterious man who had created Grey, who had shown up to her trial to save her.

Even if he had saved her before, none of us trusted him.

“How are you here?” Ruben asked.

Knot scoffed as if the question were stupid as he came forward, not seemingly concerned at all about any of us.

When Ruben again got in his way, Knot raised his hand and swiped it. It wasn’t a physical hit that got Ruben moving, though, and instead seemed as though a wave of power struck out, knocking everyone back except me.

I had a feeling it wasn’t that he liked me in particular, it was simply that I held Grey. If he struck out at me, I might drop her.

He continued to come forward, his red hair bright and shimmering as though the amber glow in the room didn’t touch it at all. His eyes were the same stark blue as before, locked not on me—as though I were no concern of his—but instead on Grey.

“What did they do to you?” he asked, his voice soft, a tone I suspected he saved for her and her alone.

And it immediately made me wonder just what was between them. This was not the tone used between two barely connected people.

Did he show this to her? Or did he hide it, only exposing this side when he knew she couldn’t take notice?

He reached toward her, and I took a step backward, unwilling to let him touch her in this state.

He lifted his gaze to mine, any softness gone in an instant. Funny, given the way Grey had spoken about him, it had seemed as though he were a joke. If you listened to her, he never was serious, never clear, more like an annoying little brother than anything else.

Did that mean he hid this side of him?

Because there was no doubt that the man before me was nothing if not a hell of a threat. His gaze was steady, rage simmering deep inside his blue eyes, eyes the same color as Grey’s hair.

“Is this your fault? You let one of the pests bite her?”

“You know what bit her? How do we cure her?” All the questions about what he was and worries disappeared, because at least Knot appeared to understand what had happened. That was better than we’d had so far.

He cast me a withering look. “If you weren’t an idiot, you wouldn’t have brought her here in the first place. Do you have any idea what kind of place this is? The things that would kill her the moment they saw her?”

That made me think about that creature, the way it had locked onto her—not us.

But why?

“Why would anything care about her?”

“You don’t know anything but you come traipsing here, dragging her with you. This is why I told her to never get herself wrapped up in the problems of fools—it always ends badly and I knew she would end up paying the price.” He reached again, and this time I didn’t move away.

I didn’t know how to save her, and I was at least smart enough to let someone else try.

He stroked his hand over her cheek. “She’s burning up. If I didn’t sense her pain, if I didn’t come here right now, she’d have been dead within ten minutes.” He leaned forward, his lips pressing to hers.

At first, I nearly knocked him away. She wasn’t even awake, so how dare he kiss her like that? From what little I knew, even if he saw her that way, she hadn’t said or done anything that indicated she felt the same.

Except, just when I went to react, I noted something blue floating between their lips. It was like a fine mist, sparkles in it, like so much of what was here. The color matched his eyes and her hair, and it passed from his lips to hers.

The more she breathed in whatever that blue was, the less she shook, the more stable she seemed.

After a long, tense moment, she started to cough, shifting so much that she nearly fell from my arms. I guided her down to the stone floor, and she coughed so hard she gagged, then spat out something made of that teal color.

It shimmered on the floor, thick and smelling strongly of the venom. However, just as quickly, it fizzed and dissolved until only a damp spot on the ground remained.

Knot crouched, balancing on the balls of his feet as he rubbed his hand on her back. “Better?”

His voice had changed, from the rough threat he’d offered to me, and from the gentle tone he’d used with her when she’d been unconscious, to something much shallower and more joking.

Grey pressed her palms against the ground and lifted her head, looking as though she hadn’t just been moments from death. Her gaze found Knot, and a crinkle beside her eyes said her feelings about his appearance were complicated at best. “You always show up at exactly the right time.”

He smiled. “It’s part of my charm. Now, little crow, you want to explain to me just what the fuck you’re doing here?”

By this point, the others had gotten back up, circling around. They had to see that he’d helped her as well, which was the only reason they weren’t going for round two.

Plus, round one hadn’t gone that well.

Even Galen had pulled his focus from the water, from the chaos in his mind to Grey and Knot.

“I told you the Weres are sick. You were the one who told me how to get that book.”

“I told you so you knew what to expect, not so you could try to change it. You needed to know it’s happened before, that it’ll happen again.” He shook his head and flicked her forehead. “You’re always taking the wrong lesson away from every situation. You know that? Instead of realizing that you’re helpless, you decide that means you should come here?”

She swiped at his hand but missed when he pulled back. “I told you I wasn’t going to just let it happen. And besides, is now the time to get mad? We made it, didn’t we?” She gestured at the pool. “There it is—the source of the power!”

Knot turned his head to peer at the water, froze for a moment, then started to laugh. “You think that’s the source?”

“The story said it was a lake.”

“The story is a fable, Little Crow, it isn’t meant to be taken literally. That’s just a puddle. Sure, if a Were goes swimming, they’ll probably feel pretty good, but isn’t the source.”

“So what is?”

Knot turned back toward Grey, looking straight into her eyes without flinching. “The source is just past that doorway. Think carefully about the old stories, about what they all say created Spirits.”

I knew, of course. The Natures had always known the truth, even if we didn’t like it, if we tried to ignore it.

Knot smiled, though the expression was tense, as though it hid the deeper feelings beneath. “That’s right. Just that way is a god, the one who created the Weres, and I really would suggest we not wake him.”