Page 9 of Cage Me

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?”

---