Page 68 of Flock This

The only person who could answer that was William, and in my experience, corpses didn’t talk. Well, at least not after a stake through the heart.

“How does that whole mate thing work?”

“Are you thinking about it?”

I snorted. “No. It’s just that I spoke to a few thralls and I’m surprised by how close they are to their master. It made me wonder if a were mate is the same?”

“Not even close.” Those few words made it perfectly clear that Galen didn’t appreciate the comparison. “Thralls are property of vampires. A mate is a lifetime partner. We value our mates—we put their lives above our own. They are not simply food sources and slave labor.”

I frowned as I considered those words. That was what I’d thought before—at least regarding thralls. However, after meeting Roger, after speaking to those in the Castle, it didn’t ring quite so true.

After a moment without a response, he groaned. “Please tell me you’re not considering trying to speak to William’s thralls?”

“I’m not trying to talk to his thralls.”

“Are you lying?”

“Absolutely.”

“You can’t break into the Castle to talk to them, Grey. That’s stupid, even for you.”

“I would never break in here.”

“Here?”

I shuddered at the delicious growl he let out, enjoying it before I recognized my blunder.

“You’re telling me you’re already at the Castle?”

“It’s not as bad as you might think. I was expecting it to be dark and dingy and very dungeon-like. It’s a lot brighter than that, though. Very modern chic. Food’s not great, though.”

“Please come back,” he asked, a begging in his voice. “Come home and let me take care of this. Stop trying to do everything on your own before it gets you killed.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Why not? If I understand the risks and am willing to shoulder them, why not?”

“Because it’s too dangerous.”

“What’s dangerous? Are you afraid of me? Do you think I’ll hurt you? That I’ll trap you?” His voice came out desperate, like that was the worst thing he could think of.

I shook my head before remembering he couldn’t see it. “I’m not afraid of you.”

“Then why? Why do you always run away when people want to help you? Why do you refuse to take any hand offered to you?”

I lay there, in the darkness of the room, alone, and never had I felt quite so small. Never had the world felt so large and unwelcoming.

Was it the exhaustion that got me talking? The fear? The unknown? I couldn’t say, but something inside of me had snapped and let me answer in a tiny voice.

“People leave, Galen. They always do, at the end of the day. I’d rather drown on my own then go through the pain of reaching out for someone who won’t be there for me.”

The words hung in the air like jagged bubbles—fragile and dangerous at the same time. It was the truth I hated to admit, the one that made me feel so pathetic, but the one I knew formed so many of my choices over the years.

I’d rather fail on my own than face the truth that people would fail me, because in my experience, people always failed. No matter how good they were, no matter what pretty lies they told, people always let me down in the end. Even when things seemed perfect, they never stayed that way.

Especially with how I am.

For that one moment, I allowed myself the space to hate my crow, to hate the man who had turned me into this. I’d known people would leave me before, had given them plenty of reasons to, but even I knew I was worse. That fucking crow inside me had caused my shitty behavior to grow, and I could hardly blame people who couldn’t deal with it—or with me.

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