Page 18 of Enticing Monsters

GAGE

The buzzing of my phone pulls my attention away from the movie we’re all currently watching in Xander’s apartment.

I shift, trying not to jostle Sera, who’s leaning against my chest, and grab it out of my back pocket.

Ice instantly flows through my veins, freezing my joints in place, as I take in the message waiting for me.

Mom

Come home. Now.

That’s it. Nothing else. Just three words that simultaneously send dread spiraling through me and panic licking up my spine.

“Everything okay?” Sera pushes herself up to study my face, and I work to smooth over my features, to make them as impenetrable as they once were before she came crashing into my life.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I lie, hating myself for it.

I don’t want to lie to my mate…but I also don’t want to involve her in the screwed-up mess that is my family. Once she knows the truth about me, about what I did…

Terror squeezes my heart in an iron vise.

“Gage?” A frown touches her pink lips as she continues to stare at me, easily seeing through my bullshit.

Foster, who’s sitting on the opposite side of Sera on the couch, quirks a red brow at me. Confusion and wariness swim in his eyes. I subtly shake my head, indicating for him to drop it. I don’t need my friends with me. Not for this.

It’s my battle to face.

Xander must’ve paused the movie because I now find myself the sole focus of everyone in the room. Devyn and Xander both appear concerned, Tristan looks wary, and Kian appears confused. V—who quite literally forced his way into the apartment a few hours earlier—just looks…murderous. Then again, he always looks murderous. He has resting murderous face.

“My job called,” I fib through gritted teeth, gently shifting Sera so she’s now leaning against Foster. I rise to my feet and grab my jacket off of the back of the couch. “I need to go.”

Sera watches me with pursed lips but doesn’t argue or call me back. Either she sees the tension thrumming through my shoulders or she knows me well enough to step back and drop it.

I can’t help but love her more.

I slip out the door as Xander reluctantly restarts the movie—some action thriller that Tristan used to watch obsessively when he was younger—and move towards my beat-up car. However, before I can take more than a few steps, a rough hand slaps down on my shoulder and pulls me to an abrupt stop.

I turn, my heart somewhere in the general vicinity of my throat even as a scowl slips over my face.

V.

His eyes are narrowed on me as if he’s seeing through my skin and picking apart the blackened pieces of my soul, studying them from every angle and gauging if I’m good enough for his preciouskitten. His grip on me tightens almost imperceptibly as he releases a low, guttural growl.

“I don’t like liars, Greg,” he hisses.

“It’s Gage,” I respond instinctively, my voice gruff, the weight of what I’m about to do settling on my shoulders like a one-hundred-pound cloak.

“Liars make me angry, Garret,” he continues, using his free hand to draw out one of his blades and caressing my cheek with it. “Very, very angry. Especially when one of those liars lies to my kitten.”

The fear I should be feeling when face-to-face with this psychopath dissipates in a tidal wave of anger. I shove away his blade with a growl rumbling up the back of my throat.

“Fuck off, Vagina. You don’t know the first thing about me or my life.”

His lips twitch at my use of Sera’s nickname for him, but I’m not sure if it’s the beginnings of a scowl or a smile. It’s hard to tell with him.

“Does poor little Gagey have mommy and daddy issues?” he taunts, not releasing my shoulder. His eyes flare with a spark of madness that lifts my hackles, my body tensing for a fight. “If you’re planning on hurting my kitten, on betraying her?—”

“Fuck no!” I snap, angry that he would even suggest such a thing. I push his other hand off my shoulder and take a few steps backwards so I’m out of range of the maniac. “Just leave me the fuck alone and mind your own damn business.”

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