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

Chapter 5

My mother has officially gone crazy. I don’t know what she sensed, but whatever it is, it doesn’t… Damn it. Frustration boils deep inside me. I can’t keep lying to myself. It’s only been an hour since I met Drake, and I already want to touch every inch of his body.

Except that’s the exact reason why I also don’t want to. The power a mate bond has over a person terrifies me. My family needs me right now. The me who can keep them safe, not a version of me more concerned with a man than them.

“Mom, I know you’re grieving, but you can’t be serious right now. You need to listen to me. We’re leaving, and Drake has nothing to do with that,” I tell her, trying to hold back my frustration. She deserves better than that from me.

Mom’s blue eyes narrow. “I’m still your mother. Even if you haven’t always agreed with my choices, that doesn’t mean I’m worthless. My instincts have protected me, and I know they’ll continue to do so.”

The moment “protected me” leaves her mouth, I lose the light hold I have on my temper and harshly point to the bruises on her face that are darkening in color with every minute that passes. “You call that being protected? You’ve been degraded and physically abused for years. How have you been protected?”

“Because you’re still alive,” she snaps. For the first time in my life, my sweet mother doesn’t seem so sweet. “Everything I’ve done has been to keep you safe. You have no idea the sacrifices I’ve made for you and your brother. Yes, I could have run, but he would have found us. We needed all the pieces to line up, and I believe the fates were waiting for him.”

She nods toward Drake, and I throw my hands in the air. “He has nothing to do with this!”

I don’t want to yell at my mom, especially not when she talks about what she’s sacrificed, because I know she has, but there is always another option. She just chose the easier one by staying. We could have fought back. I would have done whatever it took to keep her safe, faced any of the consequences for her.

“Spencer.” Mom practically growls my name at me. “You have always seen me as the victim, believing that I had no fight in me. Maybe I was wrong in letting you see me that way, but I’m not helpless and I’ve always known what I was doing. I stayed with your father because I knew, without a doubt in my mind, that if I left, you would die. Do you hear me? I knew, and I don’t regret my choices. Not the scars I carry because of them or the time I missed with you. Because you are here and safe, and you’re no longer alone in this world.”

Each word she speaks is thrown in my face, slashing away at me, burrowing under my skin and piercing my heart. Agony builds within my chest and by the time she’s done, I want to crumble, to fall to the ground.

For years, I’ve blamed her for being weak, for being unable to do what needed to be done. Even just moments ago, I accused her of taking the easy way out by staying with her tormentor.

Except as she stands taller, speaks with a confidence I’ve rarely heard from her, and looks me right in the eyes, I can see her. For the first time in possibly my entire life, I finally see my mother.

The lines that shape her face, the faint scars from the fists she cared for after they made her bleed, every grey hair she’s gained throughout the years, outshining the previous golden blonde she used to be.

She’s a fucking warrior.

I throw my arms around her and hold her tightly against me. “I’m so sorry, Mom.”

Her hands rub over my back. “It’s okay, sweetheart. I never wanted you to know, but I think you need to know now. Especially with your mate here.”

That has me pulling away and looking back, but Drake is nowhere to be seen. He had been standing right there and now…

There is a tugging sensation in my chest, directing my attention toward the house. That’s only slightly creepy considering we haven’t even completed the bond.

“I don’t want a mate,” I tell her, keeping my voice low. All the while, I just want to scream my frustrations into the void, because the words taste like acid on my tongue. “I tried to reject him, but he didn’t accept.”

She laughs, and her palm cups my cheek. “Of course he didn’t, Spencer. Have you seen yourself? You’re an incredible woman who has only ever tried to help people.”

I scoff at that. She clearly hasn’t been following me as closely as I thought these last few years.

“You may not believe it, my daughter,” she continues, “but you’re one of the kindest souls I’ve ever encountered in all the worlds. More importantly, your fate is not mine. You are not me, and that man you brought here is not your father. You can be happy and not alone.”

I lean into her touch. “I won’t be alone. I’ll have you and Peter.”

“Until I die and Peter finds his own way in this world,” Mom says, seeming unyielding in her opinions. “And then what? I want more for you than I could have ever dreamed of. Don’t let the past dictate your future.”

Her words are a punch to the gut, but not in the way I expect. I want to believe her. I want to allow myself to accept Drake. After all these years, to have someone I can trust and depend on who isn’t myself? The idea seems so unreal that I can’t even imagine what that would feel like.

Yet, it’s right there inside the house I grew up in, and I’m still standing out here, keeping a distance.

“This day is completely fu—screwed,” I say defeatedly. “Can we just burn the body and get out of here? We don’t need the alpha showing up if he happens to sense one of his wolves is dead.”

Our alpha is kind, but almost stupid, in my opinion. My father had him wrapped around his finger, which was how I got banished so easily three years ago after stabbing my father in the chest. During one of his rages much like today, he’d threatened Peter’s life because he wouldn’t stop crying after having fallen out of a tree and breaking his arm. It was a line I couldn’t let Samuel cross, no matter the consequences.

“Jameson is up north,” Mom says about the alpha. “He was asked to sit in with another alpha while Kinsley and Grayson check out the portal you somehow haven’t told me a single thing about.”

The accusation in her tone isn’t missed, but talking about the portal now will only lead to more talk about Drake, and I can’t do that. Not yet.

“I’ll find a gas can,” I tell her, but she grabs my wrist and shakes her head.

“You’re not the only one who saw Drake with Peter,” she replies. “I think your mate was on to something. Let’s bury Samuel. For Peter’s sake.”

I can’t believe the words I’m hearing, but also, I shouldn’t be surprised. He was her mate, and Peter might have been smart enough to kill the bastard, but it could be years before my baby brother truly understands what happened today. Drake and Mom are right. Peter should be able to look back on today and have no regrets.

“Fine,” I say, doing my best to hide my annoyance. “Tell Drake that he can finish digging the hole then, but don’t cover it up before I’m back. I’ll put a cloaking spell over the body so that none of the other wolves can scent him. For all they need to know, Samuel ran away.”

Her shoulders droop, but Mom at least nods as I move past her, headed toward the trees. “Where are you going?” she asks.

Without turning around, I reply, “Away.”

It’s time I had a moment with my wolf, without the world feeling as if it’s pressing down on me.

The sun is almost setting out here, and as I walk farther from the house, I double-check the ring on my right hand, rubbing my thumb over the fire opal stone. Faint power slithers along my skin there, and I sigh contentedly. At least something is still going my way today.

Thanks to my imbued ring, I can shift with my clothes on, and they’ll return to my body just as they are now as soon as I go back to my human form. I only just traded for it six months ago, and have no idea why I waited so long.

Not that I have an issue with being naked, but the inconvenience of having to either strip down with every shift or continually source new clothes was getting old.

As soon as I can sense Drake again—just the fact that I can do that now makes my stomach flip-flop—I call my wolf forward, and her energy crackles along my skin before my body feels as though it’s exploding into a mixture of fur and bones that quickly snap back together, creating my second form.

She shakes out her coat, double-checking as we’ve grown so accustomed to that it’s the dull brown we claimed as our own when I was only a pup. Well, with my mom’s help.

My wolf stretches her chest and tilts her head toward the twilight sky. A deep rumble begins to build, and she lets out the most sorrowful howl that I’ve ever heard.

The sound has my own heart feeling as if it’s been literally crushed.

But it isn’t all sorrow that I sense. There’s relief and hope mixed in there. The latter being the one that concerns me most.

Hope has the power to destroy us.

While we can’t communicate verbally, she seems to have no problem understanding my words and my previous thought has her body stiffening and a growl reverberating from deep within.

She turns on a dime and before I know what’s happening, my wolf is running back toward the house.

What do you think you’re doing?I demand even though I know I won’t get a response. Stop!

She doesn’t even flinch, overpowering my command—something that doesn’t happen often.

My wolf goes right for the house, but instead of going inside, she heads around the side, confusing the hell out of me.

Instead of fighting against her, I try to understand what has her acting so insane, but it isn’t until she stops in front of the kitchen window and looks toward the hallway that things start to make sense.

She wants me to see what she’s feeling.

How she knew that Drake would be where he is defies logic, but maybe it’s just pure luck. Either way, I can’t deny what she’s forcing me to watch—it melts a layer of ice from around my heart.

Drake is kneeling on the ground where my father’s body was, and he’s using an old rag to scrub the blood from the hardwood floor. The six-and-a-half-foot-tall shifter, one who has lived in the shadows for who knows how many decades or possibly centuries, is on his hands and knees, cleaning up what I consider to be my mess.

He stops moving the brush over the ground and slowly, he looks up at me. I beg my wolf to duck, but she doesn’t budge. She allows us to be caught watching, seeming to be quite proud of herself, in fact, as she lifts her head farther up.

Drake sits back on his knees, and his hands fall casually to his thick thighs, but it’s his dark eyes that have me enraptured. Shadows swirl within their depths, calling me forward and begging me to allow him in, to trust him.

My wolf shivers and rumbles, thanks to the connection forming between us and this…stranger…beast of a man.

My mother’s words come rushing back to me: Don’t let the past dictate your future.

I don’t know that I’m capable of that, but being locked into Drake’s stare, I can almost admit that I want to try.

“Son of a biscuit!”

We hear Peter’s young voice shout, and whatever trance Drake had held us in is immediately broken. My wolf runs back to the other side of the house, and we see Peter standing in the yard with the shovel at his feet and holding his chin that is dripping blood through his fingers.

Mid-run, my wolf finally relinquishes control, and I shift back to my human form without missing a beat. “What happened?” I ask as I kneel in front of my brother and start to inspect his face.

Tears fill his eyes, and he stutters. “D-d-rake told me to wait, but I th-th-thought I could do it myself. I wanted to-to-to do it.”

My arms wrap around my baby brother, uncaring about the blood getting on me. “It’s okay, bubby. Come with me and we’ll get you all fixed up.”

Drake comes skidding to a stop as I start to guide Peter toward the house where I’ve left my box of potions and tinctures, one of which will heal him within seconds. “I’m sorry, Spencer. I didn’t realize…”

For the first time since sensing this man, I don’t snap at him, nor do I want to. It’s almost a relief.

“It’s okay,” I say to Drake. “I just need to get him inside and I can stop the bleeding.”

Without hesitating, he yanks his shirt off and bunches it up, replacing my hand with the soft material. “Here you go.”

Peter’s tears slow, and he smiles at the imposing shifter. “Thanks.”

Son of a—biscuit. I might be in even more trouble than I thought. At least, when it comes to Drake.