Page 68 of Out of My Flocking Mind

That wasn’t what I’d wanted to hear, and worse, I had no idea how to argue. After my small amounts of time with Ryder…yeah, I couldn’t see him going out of his way to help some kid he’d used as a dealer.

But what other option did I have? What else could I do but try?

I opened my mouth to tell him that I’d find a way, that it didn’t matter how difficult or how remote the chance, I still would do it. Except, before the words escaped me, something large and furry wrapped around my throat, trapping me against the cell, my back to the bars, facing Galen and Harrison. That deep rumble from Trey hadn’t stopped—in fact, it was louder and so low I feared it might just vibrate the bars apart.

“Stay back,” a voice I didn’t recognize came from behind me. It was feral and primal and not even close to Trey’s. It reminded me that Weres were not one but two beings. One, the human, and the other?

The Spirit of the beast that resided inside them, the animal that took them over from time to time. It was easy to ignore or forget that fact, but given the hand wrapped around my throat, the claws that dug into my flesh, I lacked the luxury of forgetting or ignoring it right now.

Harrison lifted his hands as if to placate the bear, even taking a step back. Then again, Harrison wasn’t someone all that dangerous up close. He could bring someone to their knees from across the room with ease. Of course…the claws said the bear didn’t need much to fuck me up, either.

“Release her.” Galen’s voice filled the basement, somehow even more terrifying than the claws at my throat. He was alpha for a reason, and while I rarely saw this side of him, it was impossible to forget it.

“Release me,” Trey shot back.

“I can’t. You’re too dangerous. You have to recognize that.” Galen came closer, each step against the concrete like a crack of thunder. “You know you aren’t in your right mind, not either of you.”

“I’m fine.”

“You aren’t. You are half of the same whole, and your human has been hurt.”

“Then I will care for him, but not here, not trapped like some performing animal. Weres die in captivity—you know this!” Trey’s words were so low that they were hard to understand, hard to make out, but I couldn’t deny the truth in them. Weres craved freedom, like most spirits, and they didn’t do well when trapped.

“You can’t care for him,” Harrison said. “You may feel fine right now, but your mind was shredded just as his was. You share a mind, so you were damaged as well. You simply don’t use some of the higher functions like he does, so you don’t notice it as much.”

“I’ll kill her,” Trey threatened, digging his claws into my throat. “I’ll slit her throat right now.”

“Do not threaten my mate,” Galen said, his voice having somehow grown even more violent than before. Before he was pissed—now he sounded outright feral. In fact, his tone turned me silent, even allowed me to pretend I hadn’t heard his proclamation about being his mate.

Which I sure as fuck was not.

My life was complicated enough without that bullshit.

“She isn’t,” Trey answered. I couldn’t see him, but fuck if I didn’t feel the heat of his breath as he sniffed the top of my head. And I sure as hell tried to ignore how that position would put his teeth much closer than I felt comfortable with. Not that I could do shit about it. “She doesn’t carry your scent, so no, she isn’t yours. Still, you dare to speak as if she were.”

“He gets confused in his old age,” I said with a strained laugh. “It happens to everyone, right? Let’s all calm down.”

“You will remove your hands from her,” Galen said as though I hadn’t spoken. “Or I will remove your hands.”

By this point, Galen stood just before me, so closer I could have reached out and touched him. Not that I’d dare—I had a feeling that would make this all worse.

Galen stared—not at me, but at Trey. He had to stare up and into Trey’s face, given he was in his bear form. I would have cowered at that, but Galen somehow didn’t. He faced off against Trey as though he were a pup in need of discipline rather than the full-grown bear he was. It made me unwillingly impressed by Galen. He appeared so young, like a college kid, that I sometimes forgot the power and position he held.

“I won’t let her go,” Trey swore, “not until you open this door.”

“Even if I open it, you won’t leave.”

“Want to bet?”

I swear, if a dick measuring contest gets me killed, I am going to haunt someone’s ass for all eternity.

Galen reached out and grabbed the door to the cell, placing his palm over the keyhole. The lock inside the door ground as though it had unlocked, the tension of the door let up, swinging freely and causing me to fall back slightly toward Trey, the bars still between us. “Door is open. Now, let her go.”

Trey seemed to hesitate, making me suspect he’d never thought the door would open, that he didn’t think he’d get what he’d wanted. If that was the case, though, why try it?

Galen shook his head, the action so fast it reminded me more of a wolf. Was he that close to losing his control?

This was, in all, a very bad situation to be in—especially because physically, I was nowhere close to the weight level of these two. If they started to take swings, it would only take one to really fuck me up.

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