Page 82 of Flock Around and Find Out

“You need to get yourself under control.”

Galen cast me a threatening glare.

It was strange to see him like this. I’d known Galen for many years now, had always preferred working with him over most of the other Clan Heads. He thought things through, reacting less based on instinct and stupidity. It meant he understood the intricacies of negotiation.

Many alphas before him had been no better than beasts, simply wanting to pee on things to claim them as their own.

Perhaps that was why I struggled so badly to see him in this state.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he muttered.

“Of course I do. You’re entirely out of control. If you were anyone else, I’d say you had already gone feral.”

He snarled instead of answering, which wasn’t the best way to prove his point, all things considered.

“Is it that obvious?” he asked, lowering his voice. We walked ahead of the others, so Galen could lead us in the right direction.

“Perhaps not to everyone, but I have known you for a lot of years now.”

Galen peered to the side, as though he wanted to look over his shoulder but didn’t dare. The reason was obvious enough—Grey walked behind us, beside Kelvin. “Do you think she’s noticed?”

She’d be a fool not to.Grey and Galen were even closer than he and I were, so there was no chance that she hadn’t noticed the stark contrast in his behavior and attitude.

The only benefit of it all was that he didn’t seem to take it out on her. I had a feeling that if he dared to so much as growl in his direction, he’d find himself on the wrong end of a few of us.

“It would be hard to miss,” I said to lighten the blow. “How bad is it, really?”

He shuddered hard. “Bad. Worse since we got here. Before we came here, it wasn’t good. I felt on edge, close to snapping, but I could still breathe slowly and work it through. Here, though? It’s like my wolf suddenly has all the power, like I’m fighting to hold on to control of myself no matter what. It doesn’t take me being angry, doesn’t take anything and it’s wrestling the lead from me. I’veneverfelt like this before.”

“It’s probably this place. It’s a source for Spirit energy, right? So it makes sense that there’s more energy here and that might make your wolf stronger. I’d bet Kelvin’s hunger is stronger, that Blake’s Mind abilities are more powerful, that Porter can do things he never could before we got here.”

“What about you?”

“Nothing new. I don’t think I run off the same energy signals you all do, so I don’t feel anything. In fact, I don’t even feel a pull like you do, like they do.”

Well, except for Grey.She didn’t seem to feel any particular pull in any direction, either. I didn’t know what that meant, why it would be different. She was a Spirit, after all, so why would she not feel the same? Wouldn’t she be drawn to the source of her energy?

I would have been more bothered by that all if it wasn’t for the fact that she never followed what she should have, that she was always breaking with the obvious constraint of how things should have occurred. It meant that when she yet again was different, it didn’t surprise me that much.

Intrigued? Sure. I wanted to understand what made her different, but I accepted that she was.

So instead of thinking much about that, I focused on the problem at hand—Galen.

“We need you to keep your head on straight so we can get through this,” I reminded him. “If anyone can do it, you can. This is about more than you, more than us. This is about your entire clan.”

My little pep talk didn’t seem to do a damn bit of good. Galen appeared just as distracted, just as on edge as before.

It made me wonder for the first time if we could lose him, if he could lose himself before we were able to find the source or solve this problem.

Maybe…

“You need to keep it together because if you can’t, it’ll probably be Grey who pays the price.”

And, yeah, the noise that left him was vicious.

Still, like it or not, that was the reality check he needed. He might not care if anything happened to him, if it happened to us, but Grey was another matter entirely.

It reminded me of what I’d already known, the thing he’d never had to tell me.

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