Free Grounding Gracus (First Wave Book 6) by Mikayla Lane

walked through the forest and how in tune he had begun to feel with nature. But, anything after that was a blank.
    Gracus shook his head. “What did it do to me? How did you find me? Where is my beast?” he asked, still very confused.
    Amun coughed, looked to Scaden and walked away, pretending a sudden interest in a monitor on the other side of the room. Even with his mind a little cloudy, Gracus knew that they weren’t telling him something.
    He glared at Scaden and said, “Tell me now. I need to know.”
    Scaden cleared his throat and said quietly. “You stripped down and fed the drugged candy to a couple of bears. You were found by a human river guide, naked and sleeping between the two bears,” Scaden said, unsure what reaction to expect out of his friend.
    Gracus looked horrified before he put his head back in his hands and groaned at the images the words had brought into his mind. He could see the baby bear clearly in his head and remembered the chewy candy in his pocket.
    “No!” Gracus said sucking in a shaky breath. “Tell me I didn’t harm the bears!”
    Scaden rushed to assure his friend, a little surprised that his first thought was for the animals. “No! The river guide who found you said that the bears seemed fine when they woke up. The drug didn’t seem to leave any lasting effects on them,” Scaden said, watching his friend closely to make sure he didn’t lose it.
    Amun added, “Your beast was put into slumber by the drug and will return as soon as it is out of your system.”
    Gracus saw more images running through his mind and he began to feel a little dizzy with it. He shook his head to try and clear it and turned to his friends. “How bad did I fuck up?”
    Amun feigned an interest in his comm while Scaden looked at the floor for a minute. Gracus was getting really worried and was getting ready to ask again when the door burst open and Traze T’Alq came sliding in the room.
    Traze looked at Gracus and spread his arms wide, a big grin on his face and he started singing a song about bears and necessities. Gracus looked at the boy in confusion as Scaden and Amun tried to push the kid out of the room.
    Traze saw Lt. David Jacobs striding angrily towards him with Grai hot on his heels and he fled the room, hitting a button on his comm before he left that flooded the walls of Gracus’ room with the meme’s that he had pulled from the web.
    Gracus stared in dawning horror at the pictures on the walls as David split off from Grai to chase after Traze while Grai walked right into the room with Gracus.
    Seeing the horrified look on the poor man’s face, Grai swore he was going to kill his little brother for making this more difficult for Gracus than it had to be.
    Gracus, seeing Scaden and Amun avoiding eye contact with him, turned to Grai and in a choked whisper said, “Tell me…, please. I don’t remember.”
    Grai couldn’t stand to see the guy like this and nodded his head. “That is you… obviously. I don’t know what you’ve been told or figured out yet, but it was an accident, Gracus. None of us could have guessed the reaction the candy would have on the Valendran system. Unfortunately, you were the one who figured out that this candy needs to be placed on our ‘Do Not Consume’ list. I’ve already sent warnings out to all of our off world personnel.”
    Grai saw the red suffuse Gracus’s face before he put his head in his hands and groaned. Grai put a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Gracus, no damage was done. Those images have been deleted and no more exist. My brother, Traze…,” Grai sighed and shook his head vowing to make his brother delete all of the images off of their internal systems. “I am truly sorry that you found out like this and I will speak to him.”
    Gracus could have sworn he heard Amun chuckle and say, “Good luck with that.” But he wasn’t sure if he heard him correctly. Instead he turned to Grai.
    “I am so sorry… I never intended…,”