Page 5 of Cage Me

“You could see me just now?” she asks almost accusingly, as if I’m the one that did something wrong.

“It’s not as if you were hiding very well,” I tell her, nodding toward the open alleyway. “There’s nothing to conceal you here. Especially when your wolf is that bright.”

Her chest rumbles. “I don’t normally have this problem.”

Again, she tries to walk away from me, but this time I’m close enough to grab her.

My fingers wrap around her wrist as I tug her back toward me. Not hard enough to hurt her, but enough that her feet misstep and she tumbles into me.

The heat of her skin brushes against mine, deepening the thrum of the bond I can feel pulsing through me. “Mate.”

“Will you quit calling me that?” she snaps and tries to get away again, but she’s trapped between me and the brick of the alleyway.

The scowl she gives me has my lips turning upward. At least until she begins to speak again. “If you think for one second you can force yourself on me, then you better think again. Just because my concealment didn’t work on you, doesn’t mean I’m defenseless.”

Her words are like a punch to the throat. “Force myself on you? You’re my mate. Do you not feel the bond, our connection?”

She laughs in my face. “I don’t know how things work in Tartarus, but in this world, a woman has the right to choose who she mates with. Fates be damned. And I don’t choose you, whoever you are.”

“I’m Drake Cage,” I tell her, doing my best to mask the pain slashing through my chest from her harshly spoken words. “Why wouldn’t you want a mate to protect you?”

Does she somehow already know that my wolf is bound by dark magic thanks to that witch? Does she think of me as not worthy?

Even though I’ve spent most of my life basically frozen in time and trapped inside my own mind, I could hear the world around me. Mates still existed and they were drawn to each other unlike any other kind of energy is capable of. At least back on the other side of that portal.

Is it possible that this Earth no longer possesses the same magic? Even if she finds me unworthy, I expect her to still feel something toward me.

She pushes at me again and this time I stumble back, unable to fight against the tightness consuming my insides and making everything burn, ten times worse than my earlier taste for revenge.

Once she’s out from between my arms and no longer trapped against the wall, she gives me a onceover. “You seem capable of many things, but I don’t need anyone. I’m doing just fine on my own. You need to accept my rejection and move on, Drake Cage.”

The word “rejection” intensifies my agony, making me feel as if I’ve been returned to my previous nightmare, confined inside my own body, unable to control anything around me.

“No,” I finally say as she’s about to turn around.

“No?” Her brow raises. “So, you do have every intention of forcing yourself on me.” Her laugh is dark and almost threatening. “I wish you luck with that.”

My currently nameless mate spins on a heel and starts walking away from me, but every instinct in me refuses to let her go, while at the same time, my innate desire is to give her anything and everything she wants.

Except the one thing she’s asking for.

“I’ll give you whatever you want,” I tell her pleadingly. “So long as you give me the chance to prove myself as your mate. Whatever reason you have to not want me, at least give me this opportunity to show you who I am before you truly decide. Until then, my answer to your rejection will remain the same.”

As I speak, I can hear how pathetic I sound, but more than that, I’m desperate. Desperate for this woman. To earn her acceptance. To show her that our lives will be better spent together rather than apart.

Her lips flatten into a hard line, and her distrusting stare keeps me in place as she replies with, “Why? What do you get out of this? Are you on the run from something in your world?”

She doesn’t trust me, and she’s right not to, but I’ll show her that she’s the only being in all the worlds that doesn’t have to fear me.

“You’re my mate,” I tell her since that’s all I need to know, but apparently, that’s not a good enough reason for her.

“So? You can go claim a dozen women after me like I’m sure you’ve done before.”

Hmm, is that her actually being curious about me? Possibly, and I’m happy to take the bait.

“There may have been few before you, Mate, but there will be none after you. Not now that I’ve found you.”

I expect at least some appreciation for my sincerely spoken words, but she chooses to laugh in my face instead. “First, stop calling me Mate, and second, I call bull-fucking-shit. You don’t even know me, and lying will not win me over.”

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