Page 67 of Flock This

“I’ve been careful.”

“You don’t know how to be careful. It isn’t in your nature.”

“Finally something we can agree on. Still, I’ve been fine. Not even a bruise or scratch. Believe it or not, I can take care of myself.”

“The warrant was signed off on,” Galen said, his words slow.

“Yeah, I know. I get to have my trial on the full moon—lucky me, huh?”

“You heard?”

“Yep. Right from the Justice’s mouth himself.” I paused, then laughed softly. “You know, you look pretty good all dressed up for council meetings. It’s a pretty big change from how you normally dress, but you pull it off.”

He paused and I could almost see him narrowing his eyes then shaking his head. “You were there?”

“Shouldn’t I have been? I was basically the guest of honor.”

He let out a soft growl. “You were in the box, weren’t you?”

“Look at you, figuring it out.”

“So you’re telling me that when you know a warrant was coming, that the vampires are looking for you, that they’ll execute you without hesitation if they find you, and you think that is an appropriate time to crash the party?”

“Is there ever an appropriate time to crash a party? I mean, the entire point is to be unwelcome, isn’t it?”

Galen didn’t have to even respond for me to know he was giving the phone a ‘you are not even a little bit funny,’ look.

Leave it to him to keep himself under control, however, because he went on like I hadn’t made that joke. “You must have been there to look into the logs for the mail, right?”

“Good guess.”

“And judging by you finally calling me, I have to assume you got out of there safely. Unless this call was really asking me to come save you?”

“If it was, would you do it?”

“Yes.”

The quickness with which he responded stunned me. Not a consideration, not a hesitation, just an automatic and unequivocal yes. It made me wonder just what was going on in that foolish head of his.

No one was worth that sort of devotion, and I sure as fuck wasn’t. I had to guess it was part of his nature, part of being a were. They mated for life, and for whatever reason, he seemed to think his mate should be me.

Maybe it was the same drive that just had me fucking Kelvin despite all the risks and reasons it was one shitty choice. It seemed we all had drives that pushed us to make bad choices.

“Well, don’t worry, I don’t need any white knights. I got out of there just fine and I’m good now, too.”

“And what now?”

That was the question, wasn’t it?

I had so many little bits of information but nothing substantial, nothing usable. I had no idea how to fit it together into a full story, couldn’t work it into a usable bit of information.

My gaze moved along the ceiling, following the lines from where it had been painted. I tried to distract myself with that as my brain attempted to make sense of what I knew.

I recalled the way Roger, William’s thrall, had talked about William not coming home, how he’d been nervous. Someone had been after him, and it had scared William enough for him to send his treasured thralls away for their own safety.

I thought about how Kelvin treated me, understood the possessiveness of a vampire over their thrall no matter if they cherished or valued them at all. To send them away as William had proved just how worried he truly had been.

So what could make William that scared?

---