Cage Me: A Wolf Shifter Romantasy (Immortal Vices and Virtues: Shadow Shifter Bonds Book 1)

Chapter 3

No, no, no. This isn’t happening. Not to me. Not now. A mate isn’t what I need. Especially one seeped in that ominous energy I’ve been sensing from the portal. But even worse, one who can see through my camouflage.

He knew right where I was in that alleyway, and he shouldn’t have been able to. I mean, maybe if he scented me thanks to the mate bond, but he could see me. My real wolf. He didn’t see the dull brown one others usually did or the brick I should have been blended into.

That alone freaked me out, but then he remained so persistent. My rejection should have made him furious—at least, I would have assumed—but instead, he became almost desperate for my approval.

Worse, I somehow found that incredibly sexy.

Not only his pleading, but his dark eyes and the tortured-soul vibe he’s rocking and the taut muscles… I can’t focus on those things right now.

I’ve gone my whole life avoiding those who have spent too much time dabbling in the darker side of our magical worlds, afraid they would find out about my wolf and only want to use me.

I can blend in anywhere, hide from anyone—well, I could until Drake Cage stumbled out of that damn portal—and my blood can create spells unlike any other supernatural, allowing my abilities to temporarily be given to another. At least when the witch knows what she’s doing like Natalia.

Now, though, I’m being seen, and I don’t like it.

Walking back to Kasha’s, I look over my shoulder at least a dozen times. His smokey amber scent with light layers of musk have infiltrated my senses, making me think that Drake is right behind me, but every time I look, I’m alone.

By the time I turn onto my street, I’m practically running. This is absolute madness. This is what I get for not leaving when I originally said I would.

Except even thinking that if I had taken off a month ago, I wouldn’t have met my mate… My chest aches from that reality and my wolf’s energy is sorrowful. Though, none of that is enough to change my mind and find him.

When I walk through Kasha’s yard, I have every intention of going straight to the shed and hiding there for the rest of the day, but it seems she has other plans.

The hybrid steps out her back door and nods casually. Her smile is wide, and her green eyes spark with mischief. She leans against the porch and brushes back one side of her shoulder-length copper hair. “How’s it going, Spencer?”

Pausing in the grass, I take a deep inhale before turning to look at her. She’s been the one that I’ve tried to be the nicest to considering she’s letting me sort of live with her, but on days like today, when I just want to be alone, my niceness is harder to find.

“Just great,” I mutter, kicking at the ground with the tip of my steel-toed boots.

She smirks. “I just got off the phone with a friend, and they told me something interesting.” Her curious gaze scans the yard before coming back to me. “Are you alone?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” I ask, tension building in my chest and spreading toward my shoulders.

The shrug she offers and her growing grin don’t bode well for me.

“Oh, I don’t know,” she muses. “Maybe because one of those shadow shifters stumbled out of that portal and kneeled before you.”

Son of a bitch. I forgot he’d done that before I stormed off.

Of course that had drawn attention. Though, I don’t know why anyone would have called Kasha to tell her.

“So, what if he did?” I ask tersely. “How is that anyone’s business?”

She chuckles. “You might try to hate everyone, but none of us hate you, Spencer. Liv knows you live with me and that I worry about you. She gave me a heads up in case you didn’t come back anytime soon.”

Gods, I really am the world’s biggest bitch sometimes.

Kasha steps away from the house and doesn’t stop until she’s standing in front of me. “Listen, I’ve given you your space. I didn’t even question why you’d rather sleep in that shitty shed than inside the warmth of my home. But if you need help, I hope you know you can trust me. My friend Sin is the sister to Raegan. She told me a thing or two about dealing with mates from Tartarus.”

Of course Kasha’s connected to Raegan, the shifter who probably saved all of our lives by being mated to the God that runs things in Tartarus.

I close my eyes and take a deep breath. Trusting people shouldn’t be this hard, but when the person you love most in the world tells you that doing so could get you killed one day… Well, it’s not easy, but Mom had said if I trust the wrong people, not everyone. Only it’s hard to know who the right ones are sometimes. Though, something tells me Kasha isn’t someone I need to keep pushing away.

Looking back at her, I give the hybrid a genuine smile. “Thank you. I appreciate the offer of help, but I think I’m okay for now. I’ll let you know if that changes.”

She raises a brow and smirks. “Will you really?”

Normally, probably not, but this time, I think I just might. I know nothing about shadow shifters, and she has people in her life who do. I might be stubborn at times, but I’m not stupid.

“I will,” I eventually reply, and she chuckles.

“That seemed really hard for you to say, but I’ll take it.” Turning on a heel, Kasha goes back inside her house, and I head toward my shed.

As I walk through the yard, the heady scent of Drake still lingers, but I shake off the distraction and consider my next moves.

My heart is telling me that finding my mate isn’t the end of the world, and I want to believe that, but my head has been focused for so long on getting what I need to rescue my mom and brother, then running away that anything else seems unnecessary.

On top of that, I’ve spent all twenty-five years of my life watching what a mate bond can do to a person. My mother has put up with emotional and physical abuse from my father for as long as I can remember. What sane person sticks around like she has?

I don’t want my mind warped into thinking some stranger walks on water and unable to make sound decisions for myself. That doesn’t seem like a good time.

Except just the mere thought of Drake, picturing the intensity of his stare, the desperation in his words, the desire to…

No. Just no. Not right now. I can’t go there.

When I open the door to the shed, my phone starts to ring in my pocket. I’m tempted to let it go unanswered, but there are few people in this world who have that number. Ones that don’t deserve to be ignored just because I’m having a day.

I see my mother’s name on the screen, and I’m not sure if my mood is about to get any better or not.

Has she seen something already? Her foresight has always been more of an intuition, one that seems to become more erratic as she gets older. Still, I always listen to her, and I hope she has something good for me now.

“Hey, Mom,” I answer, stepping into my small space, but I don’t get far when I realize it isn’t my mother calling.

“Pence?” my little brother cries. “Pence, Momma needs you. He won’t stop. I can’t make him stop.”

Peter’s wailing grows louder with every word he forces out, and my heart shatters. Our piece-of-shit father is at it again, but I won’t leave them alone. Not this time.

“Peter, I need you to listen to me very carefully,” I tell him slowly and sternly. “Go to my room and get in the closet. Don’t come out no matter what you hear until I get there, okay?”

“You’re coming home?” His sniffles have tears burning in my eyes, but I don’t let any of them fall.

“Yeah, bub,” I tell him. “But only if you promise to hide, okay?”

I can hear my mother’s screams in the background, and it’s my father’s lack of yelling back that scares me the most.

“Peter, go get in the closet,” I tell him again as I toss my single mattress out of the way and reach for the box that I have buried beneath the floor there. “I’ll come help Momma. I promise. You just stay safe.”

Inside the metal storage bin under my bed, I have all my imbued coins and the different types of potions I’ve been collecting. Digging through my horde, I find the portal spell I need to get from Crossroads back to Fire and Fluorite within seconds instead of the days that it would take me to drive two-thousand-or-so miles through the territories.

“I will,” Peter’s crying voice finally says. “Just hurry.”

“I’m on my way.”

Ending the call, I curse the fates for doing this to my family. For giving my mother an abusive mate and for subjecting my eight-year-old brother to this nightmare. None of it is fair, and I should have killed the bastard when I had the chance. I’ve spent the last three years trying to get them out the right way at my mother’s insistence, but that time ends now.

Reaching for my duffle bag, I shove the metal box inside first and then grab the few bits of clothes that will fit around my most important possessions.

Once I’m done, I glance up at Kasha’s house, tempted to at least tell her I’m leaving, especially after the conversation we just had, but there’s no time. Mom and Peter need me.

I’m about to open the portal spell when I hear soft footfalls, right before a shadow looms over me. “Are you running away from me again?”

Drake’s deep tenor sends shivers down my spine. How could I have forgotten about him? Oh yeah, because my family is all that matters. Not this mate mess.

“I’ll be back,” I tell him, but he doesn’t believe me nor should he. It would have been convenient, though.

His breath warms the back of my neck as he growls. “I don’t appreciate being lied to, either.”

I swallow thickly, not able to find the wit I want to respond with without fear of making a fool of myself. His closeness is messing with my head and causing an unwanted warmth to spread through my body.

“My family needs me,” I plead with him. “Let me go before I have to hurt you.”

Not that I think I could kick his ass fairly, but after hearing how desperate Drake was earlier, I know I could take advantage of that to get away.

“Let me help you.” His reply takes me by surprise.

I turn to face him, a choice I immediately regret when our chests brush against one another, sending a tingle of something I don’t care to identify through my chest. “What?”

“I heard your phone call,” he says. “Your brother said your mother is in trouble. Let me help.”

My eyes glare. “You were spying on me? I thought I set that boundary before. Who’s the liar now?”

“You told me I couldn’t watch you sleep,” he says. “Nothing was mentioned about me staying close.”

Cocky, sneaky fucker.

I want to set new and more specific rules, but I don’t have time for this. “You can follow me, but stay the hell out of my way.” My words are laced with a snarl, half because telling Drake to come eases some of my tension and half because of how much time I’ve now let pass.

Without wasting another second, I open the portal spell and throw the vial onto the ground. Dark blue smoke rises from the earth, and a rip in the air begins to form, growing into a swirling vortex of dark purple and silver colors until it’s big enough to step through.

“What’s on the other side of that?” Drake asks, but I don’t have time to explain. He’ll just have to find out for himself.

“Grab on to me if you really want to know.” With my intentions set on the woods behind my house, I walk through and allow the magic of the portal to consume my body. At the last second, strong fingers wrap around my right shoulder and Drake’s energy melds with mine.

In the seconds it takes for the portal to do its magic, I allow myself to connect with the shadow shifter. To feel the bond and wonder if things were different for me if I’d hate the thought of accepting him as much as I do now.

Though, if I’m being honest, it’s not hate. It’s fear. If I accept Drake, then I’m forcing my mother and brother to do the same when I’ve promised them all this time that it would be the three of us, forever and always.

Except that’s a problem to ponder for later, because the moment we appear in the woods, I can only focus on how I’m going to stop my father.

For years, the only thing my mind could conjure was brutally ripping out his throat and tearing his body to shreds with my wolf, but my mother begged me not to.

She always told me that was because she was afraid of what would happen to me, but I also blamed the bond they shared. It still controls her to this day, making her believe staying with him is the best thing, but I’m about to change all of that.

I drop my bag on the ground and grab a stunning potion, then a knife. My sperm donor might be nearly seven feet tall and strong as hell, but I’ve learned that muscle isn’t the only way to win a fight.

Drake hovers over me as I strap the knife around my thigh, then hold the spell in my palm. I ignore him and his curious looks. He’ll just have to figure things out on his own.

Peter’s innocent voice screams from inside the house. “Nooooo!”

Damn it. I told him to stay in the closet.

I start to run toward the house, ready to charge in, but come to an abrupt halt when I hear a gunshot.

My entire body starts to shake as another one goes off, followed by three more loud bangs.

No, I can’t be too late. That fucker can’t have killed them.

I won’t accept that. Without my mother and brother, I have nothing. No family, no home, no purpose.

An abyss of defeat and agony threatens to swallow me whole, and I’m tempted to fall into the darkness. To let the pain of not hearing my baby brother’s laugh at least one more time be swept away along with knowing my mother’s loving arms will never hold me again, reminding me that everything happens for a reason.

Drake’s warm hands squeeze my shoulders. “I’ll go in there for you.”

My tear-stained gaze snaps up, and I glare at the man I’m not truly angry with. “I’m going to finish this myself.” My words are hurled at him with a ferocity that I’m forced to cling to for fear of drowning before I can at least finish what I came here to do.

If my mother and brother are dead, then I will avenge them. Not anyone else. Especially someone who never knew them.

I jerk out of his steady hold, ignoring how the instant he’s no longer touching me, the grief feels ten times more savage. Running toward the back door, I only stop long enough to kick it in before charging forward.

Using the potion in my hand, my plan is to stun my father, then use the knife on my thigh to end his pathetic life once and for all. My wolf can have her way with him when I know he’s down and not getting back up.

Racing down the hallway, I start to hear cries, soft feminine ones. They grow louder with every lengthened stride I take until the situation I’d already fabricated in my mind is replaced by something else entirely.

My mother is kneeling over her mate’s body, clutching his bleeding chest as Peter stands beside her, rubbing her back, consoling her in ways he shouldn’t have to at only eight years old.

They’re not dead. Samuel didn’t kill them.

But who took his death from me?

“Peter?” I say with a strangled tone, and it’s not until right then that I realize more tears are streaming down my cheeks.

“Pence!” His azure eyes light up at my arrival, and when I take in his round face, there’s blood splatter in his rowdy brown curls, on his skin, and ruining his light-grey sweatshirt, but it’s what’s on the ground next to him that hurts most.

He runs toward me, and I bend down with open arms, smiling as my chest aches almost as bad as it had outside.

“I stopped him,” he tells me, his voice muffled thanks to me hugging him so tightly.

“I know, bub.” The gun that had been next to his feet clued me in. One I only now remember hiding in my closet years ago.

My hold intensifies. I don’t want to make Peter think he did something wrong because he didn’t, but I hate that he’ll have to live with this. He’ll forever remember having to murder his own father. No matter how cruel of a man Samuel was, this day has changed all of us forever.

Peter wiggles out of my hold and points behind me. “Who’s that?”

I don’t have to turn around to know Drake is there, but instead of introducing him, I grab my brother’s hand and stand up. “How about we go check on Momma?”

His lower lip juts out. “She’s really sad, but also really happy.”

Yeah, I imagine so. Now, it’s time for her to get her emotions in check so we can burn a body and never look back.