Page 7 of Cage Me

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.

---