Free Thunder (Alpha Love - a Paranormal Werewolf Shifter Romance Book 3) by Olivia Stephens

woozily between them.
    “Nothing.” Sofie looks at her boss and realizes that whatever happened, it was definitely not nothing. “I don’t know. It was like, he just lost it. He got angry, really angry, and then I thought he was having an attack.”
    “An attack? What kind of attack?” Finn looks at Darwin fearfully like he may have some kind of deadly contagious virus. “We should call an ambulance.”
    It’s Finn’s last words that seem to jolt Darwin out of whatever stupor he has been in. “No. No ambulance. I’m fine.” He steadies himself on his feet, shrugging off Sofie and Finn’s help.
    “But, boss, you’re not looking so great…” Finn’s voice peters out, as Darwin fixes him with a stare that almost challenges him to keep talking.
    “I don’t need your help. I’m not some feeble old man who needs someone to wipe the dribble from his chin and the crap from his ass. I’m not quite there, yet,” Darwin says in a harsh voice. He keeps his eyes down, not looking at the people who had been his two favorite colleagues just a few weeks ago. An uncomfortable silence settles over the office, no one quite sure what to say.
    As if their unspoken questions are too much for him, Darwin goes to the equipment cupboard and grabs a sample case, sending test tubes crashing at the same time. “I’m going to take another look at the soil variation between the canyon and the woods,” he mumbles like a grumpy teenager reluctantly telling his parents where he’s going for the night.
    “It looks like the weather’s about to change,” Sofie shouts after to him as he walks out of the office. The clouds are starting to move in, and there’s the dense feeling in the air of rain. “Darwin, we’re not supposed to go into the woods alone,” Sofie yells after him, ignoring the questioning glances she’s getting from the diggers milling around outside.
    Darwin doesn’t react; he just keeps marching towards the woods like a man on a mission. Sofie sighs deeply, closing the door on the curious onlookers. “I just wish he’d taken one of the guards. Someone…anyone with him,” she says more for her benefit than for Finn’s. Security had been put in place by Shale for protection from the dangerous wolves that Luke was so keen on banging on about any time he did an interview about the dig. However, she was more concerned about his health than him being eaten by a wolf.
    “You think Darwin might have a heart attack or something?” Finn looks at her quickly.
    “No,” she says uncertainly. “No. It’s just that I would rather he wasn’t out there on his own.” She knows she doesn’t have anything to worry about on the wolf front. The weres have been told not to go anywhere near the site; there’s too much risk of anyone seeing them or them getting hurt.
    “So, what was that all about?” Finn scratches his head and adjusts his glasses, one of his signature moves when he’s not sure what to do.
    “I wish I knew.” Sofie collapses into her chair, feeling like all the energy has been sapped out of her. “He started asking if he could help with some testing. I said it was fine and then he just flipped out. I’ve never seen him like that. He looked a little…”
    “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest?” Finn helpfully supplies.
    “I was going to say manic.” Sofie looks at her friend disapprovingly. Her eyes are drawn to the rock still sitting on her desk. She remembers how she had kept hold of it while Darwin got angrier and angrier, and when she let it drop onto the table, he’d seemed to calm down. No. Stop trying to find answers where maybe there are none, Braun, she tells herself.
    “Well, whatever it was, it’s not exactly going to win him any career points with the big chief. Half of the crew heard him going ballistic in here, and these guys like to gossip more than teenage girls.” Finn shakes his head, still trying to get his brain around Darwin’s behavior, especially since it’s so out