Page 22 of Flock Around and Find Out (Flocking It Up #3)

I wasn’t sure exactly what had happened after I’d passed out, but seeing Knot was both welcome and annoying.

He often managed to show up at the exact moment everything was going to shit. I appreciated it, of course—I hadn’t wanted to die from whatever that was that had infected me—but I also knew damn well that if he wasn’t always fucking gone , he might have kept this all from getting so bad.

That was the part that got to me, that he helped make the mess by not being a part of this shit from the start.

Like this, for example. He was so vague, to send me to find a book instead of just fucking telling me what was going on.

“A god?” I asked, incredulous at the information.

“Did you think that a pool of liquid could create Spirits? Really?”

“Oh, and talking about fucking gods is more realistic?”

“After everything, that’s the hard thing to accept? Werewolves and shifters and vampires and mind readers are all okay, but thinking that something more powerful than you is crazy?”

I hated that he was right. That wasn’t anywhere near the craziest thing that I’d heard or dealt with, so why was it so hard to believe?

Because I didn’t like the idea.

Also, because it made me think about Knot, about what that made him.

Nope.

I couldn’t agree with that nonsense. I couldn’t accept that he was a god. That just wasn’t possible.

“You said the god was sleeping,” Porter said. “What do you mean?”

Knot lifted his gaze toward Porter but he didn’t look thrilled at all about the idea of talking to the other man. He didn’t rise, didn’t appear bothered at all about any of them around him.

He turned his attention back to me as though he didn’t see the men as being worth speaking to. “Immortality is long, and longer still for those who have the most power. When it becomes too long, when gods grow tired, they like to sleep. Sometimes they feel forgotten by the world, and that is their next best option.”

“So the Weres are going crazy because the god who created them is napping?” I spoke slowly, the words clumsy in my mouth, like a sentence that my brain rejected because it made no sense.

“Basically? Yes. Spirits are created by the introduction of energy into humans. That energy is connected to the god, but if the god slumbers, the energy stops flowing. It turns bad, the energy corrupting, and the Spirit ends up going mad and dying from it.” He shrugged as though it was expected, like it wasn’t a big deal.

“So we just have to wake the god up?” I got to my feet.

Wakey, wakey eggs and bakey, bitch.

Knot grabbed my arm to pull me to a stop. “It’s not that easy. Let me just say that this god has been hibernating for a long-ass time and we should all be happy he is. He isn’t exactly friendly, after all. He isn’t going to see us here and be thrilled by it.”

“Aren’t you a god?” Ruben asked, his dark eyebrow lifted.

“I hate that term. If you’re asking me if I can deal with him, the answer is a big, fat no. He isn’t a huge fan of mine.” His expression didn’t seem to have any fear, but it was pretty fucking clear he wasn’t a fan of this god, either.

“We can’t just let the Weres die,” I said, even though I felt as though that should have been obvious enough that it didn’t require actually saying it, but then again, I’d found people didn’t pick up on what seemed obvious.

“Look… I don’t want to see the Weres die either, but I’m telling you, you don’t want to meet this guy. He’s an asshole. He’s a much bigger problem overall than some crazy Weres. The last time he decided to wake up and take a stroll around our world…well, there are a lot of cities that didn’t survive it.”

His warning silenced me for a long moment. It didn’t matter the risks, though, or what he had to say about it. The truth was that no matter how dangerous he was, how bad an idea this might have been, I wasn’t going to just let Galen die. I recalled the pack, the families, the children. I couldn’t just walk away.

“Maybe he’s right.” I expected that statement from Ruben or Kelvin—they were both heartless when it came to the were clan—but I sure as fuck didn’t think the words would fall from Galen’s lips.

“Excuse the fuck out of me?” I turned to nail him with a glare. “After all this work, after I fought a weretiger—”

“She did what?” Knot asked under his breath, and I ignored the question.

“You are not about to just lie down and die now. Not a fucking chance.” I held out my arm, the wound still there. “I got bit by a weird fucking bug! Worst of all, I hiked. Twice! So there is no opting out at this point.”

He crouched, but it wasn’t like Knot. Where Knot was balanced on the balls of his feet, his stance lithe and graceful, Galen’s was more of a squat, his weight on the flats of his feet, his hands up, his fingers wrapped in the strands of his hair. He looked down, not at me, and for the first time I really saw the weight on him.

I crept toward him.

Knot set a hand on my arm. “He’s feral. Maybe don’t cuddle up with him?”

I knocked his hand free. “I’ll be fine. He wouldn’t hurt me.”

I believed it, too. Even like this, even if he lost every sense of himself, he wouldn’t hurt me. I knew it, a truth that ran deeper than anything else. He was lost to his instincts, to the wolf that lived inside his body, and that wolf wouldn’t do a thing to harm me. So I crossed the rest of the distance until I kneeled right there with him.

“What if it hurts you?” he asked in a small voice.

“It’s a part of you, right? Your wolf came from it. Your wolf isn’t so bad, so I don’t think it will be.”

Knot snorted loudly behind me, but I ignored him.

“You don’t know that,” he pled. “What if you’re wrong? You don’t know that side of me, don’t know what it’s capable of. What if I sacrifice you and everything else just to try to save myself? To save my clan? What if the world is better off without us?” He paused, then lifted his gaze to me. “You asked me a long time ago what any of this meant. Why did things happen the way they did? I gave you some answer to make you feel better, but I thought about it after that. What if we met and I was human? What if I wasn’t a Were, wasn’t alpha. Maybe I would have been better off, and maybe the world is better off without us.” His voice cracked, words that I had a feeling he never would have dared admit any other time. It went to show how close to broken he was.

“He’s got a point,” Kelvin said softly. “None of us want to see what will happen to the Weres at this rate, but we might be doing something right now we can’t take back. If anyone understands what that’s like, I do. I almost saw you die because of my choices, because of plans that I ended up unable to control. This is Galen’s choice, at the end of the day.”

“We can help the Weres as they go through this, to ease the burden. Maybe that is the kindest thing we can do,” Porter said. “I can assure you that there are things here we don’t want to find. If the dangerous things here are only tiny examples, then none of us may survive a run in with something as powerful as this god sounds. We have more to think about than just us.”

I shook my head, refusing to listen to them.

No. I couldn’t stand the idea of just losing him, of losing them all.

Galen reached out and set both his hands on my cheeks, pulling me in so his forehead was pressed to mine. “It’s okay. I’m sorry that I didn’t get more time with you, that I’m not going to get to keep seeing you grow into the person you’re becoming, but that’s all right. I got to save you once before and I can’t see a better thing to do than save you now, again.” He tipped his head slightly and brushed his lips to mine, the kiss sweet and sad and enough to make my eyes water.

It was a goodbye—no two ways to think about it. He was telling me it was okay, that he was okay with this, that he accepted it. He kissed me like a sorry for the end, like it was more about reassuring me than what he wanted.

Hands pulled me back, but I wiggled free of them, throwing myself forward.

Until Knot himself grabbed me. That was different, stronger, and no matter how I yanked, I couldn’t get free.

“I’m sorry,” Knot whispered into my ear, pulling me backward, toward the door of the cave. “He’ll stay here—it’ll be better that way. This place will feel like home to him. Once we’re out of this cave, I’ll be able to use my powers to bring us back home.”

“No,” I said, shaking my head.

Galen stared back at me, still crouched on the ground, as though he wanted to see me for every last moment he could.

It took me back to that first time I met him, when I’d had no idea what he was, who he was, nothing. I’d been lost, frightened, alone, and he had managed to not let me feel that way. In a world that felt so large, so different, he’d always given me a place I could go.

He’d always given me what I really needed, no matter what it meant to him, no matter the risk. Even when his own world was heavy, when it seemed to fall apart, he never wavered.

He’d been there for me every bit, always willing to step up when I needed it.

I’m going to do the fucking same now.

If I’d learned something, it was that sacrificing some for others was never the right choice. Even if it was easier or safer, it wasn’t right.

My crow squawked in my head, enraged at the idea of anyone holding her back—even the one who made her.

I didn’t care if he was a god, if he’d created me, none of it. I shoved him, a rush through me as my power—my inability to be trapped—kicked in. He caught his foot on, well, nothing physical I could see, and he tumbled backward.

I rushed forward, not toward Galen, not toward any of them. Instead, I hurled myself toward the doorway at the back.

“Grey!” Knot shouted my real name, not what he called me, but I ignored it. The other noises didn’t matter, either. I had a goal, and that goal was saving Galen and the Weres.

The doorway wasn’t solid but it wasn’t empty, either. Instead, it was like throwing myself through water. I passed through it, tripping at the other side to find myself in a strange space. The doorway closed behind me, solidifying into solid rock. There was no wall, just a sheer cliff that overlooked the valley. It was lovely, a sight that people would have traveled across the world to witness.

I swallowed. I wasn’t a huge fan of the heights, especially after my last disaster at flying, and when my arm still ached.

When I turned, I found a man asleep on a stone slab. He had long, wild hair and wore nothing.

Which was not how I expected to spend my day, seeing nude gods.

Of course, it wasn’t that bad a thing, all things considered. He was built and pretty damn good looking.

No, focus!

I needed to wake him up, right? How did one wake up a god?

Surprising them was probably not a great idea.

“Excuse me?” I asked.

No response.

I crept closer. “Um, Mr. Were God? Rise and shine.” I tried to sing a stupid song my mother used to sing to me as a teenager, when I really didn’t want to wake up. No doubt I sang it off key and horrible, but maybe that would get him up faster.

I set a hand on the side of the slab and leaned forward, giving me the chance to peer into his face. It was younger than I figured, making him look like he was in his twenties or so. “Time to get up,” I whispered.

His eyes snapped open, and I immediately regretted everything in my entire life. He had no iris, no pupil, nothing but the amber color, brighter than a flame, nothing human or soft or kind there. It was like seeing a feral Were, seeing something driven by instincts and desires I couldn’t understand.

Yeah, maybe waking a grumpy sleeping god wasn’t the best of ideas…