Caged

Chapter 24

It's not much, but it's something. Sorry for the long delay. I'm trying to wrap up Nomad and I've been working on originals.

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**| Sang's POV |**

We met the Toma pack a couple miles from where my old house was burning down. They pulled up in three large vehicles, looking like a caravan of high officials. I stayed back as the rest of the group went up to meet a group of six large men.

I watched as they interacted with each other, figuring out the dynamics. The one with the long black hair was their Alpha. That was easy enough to tell since Alpha Blackbourne went directly to them and my skin prickled at the amount of energy in one place. I wanted to rub at my skin, but forced myself to be still. I couldn't show weakness around so many dominant shifters.

Their second was the one with two different eye colors. Thanks to shifter sight, I could tell he had one green eye and one blue. Then there was a black guy as the third. It got muddled with the twins, they were the same, but my senses told me they were opposites too. My best guess was the one with the leather jacket was next in the ranking and the one with the Marvel t-shirt was next. Last was the biggest of them all, with tattoos covering his arms. He wore a t-shirt to show off the artwork and I kept staring at them with curiosity.

How does a shifter get tattoos? They should have healed.

"Sang," Luke called, waving me to them. I approached slowly, keeping a wary eye on the other pack, my wolf ready to defend if needed. I stepped up next to Luke, bringing me face to face with the tattoo guy. My curiosity forced me to keep looking at his tattoos, trying to figure out the trick. I never saw a shifter with a tattoo before. Piercings, yes, like Gabriel, and even North had one in his ear, but never a tattoo.

With shifter healing, the ink would be expelled from the body. I only knew this because one of my captors talked about wanting a tattoo and his frustrations at not being able to get one.

"How?" I finally asked, pointing at the man's skin.

Everyone grew quiet and my cheeks flushed as they all turned to look at me. I didn't like the attention and had to swallow a growl. I knew I interrupted them talking, but I didn't hear a single word. Probably introductions.

The man tilted his head to the side.

"How what?" he asked in a heavy accent I wasn't familiar with. He had thick dark hair, short on the side and slightly longer at the front. He was bulky too, muscular, nearly Silas's size. His lip ring twinkled in the waning moonlight. He also had two more earrings in his left ear.

"Your tattoos."

He smiled. "Want one?"

I looked down at this arm and the tribal marks that danced up his arm until they disappeared underneath his brown t-shirt.

"Maybe," I whispered.

"No," North said and my attention snapped to him. He was glowering at the man. "She doesn't need a tattoo."

"Isn't that for her to decide?" the man asked, his eyes lit with humor, his lips curled into a smirk.

"She doesn't need that shit on her skin."

"Again, that's up to her."

"He's right," I said, glaring at North. "I'm capable of making my own decisions."

I refused to let anyone make them for me, not anymore.

North's mouth popped open. "I didn't..."

"You did," I said.

"Okay, enough of this shit," Gabriel said. "Let's get out of here."

We loaded into the vehicles. I got into one with Silas, Luke, Kota, and Nathan. One of the twins was driving, I think his name was Brandon. Kota sat in the passenger seat, I was in the middle with Silas, and Nathan and Luke were at the back.

The ride was the quietest for the longest time, but I knew Kota kept glancing at me. Then he would face forward, his lips moving as he softly counted by seven. Then he would stop for about ten seconds before glancing back at me and repeating the whole process over again.

"What?" I finally asked.

He blinked, his green eyes filled with something I wasn't familiar with seeing. It was so clear in his eyes and I wish I understood people better, that I was better at reading people, because something was eating at him, but I didn't know what and I didn't know why.

"Just spill," I said, looking back out the window before I tried challenging him. He was showing signs of weakness, by acting so indecisive. He was beta, he shouldn't be acting like this.

"I lived in that area," Kota finally said, his eyes moving to the side until they met with Nathan, who sat behind me.

I just stared at him, not sure what he was thinking about.

"I lived in the house across from you. I mean, I hadn't lived there for a while now, not when you lived there, but I used to live there."

"So?" I didn't understand what was bothering him.

He sighed. "I just hate knowing you were there and I wasn't when I probably should have been."

I frowned, still not getting it. "You didn't live there when we moved."

"I should have. I was so focused on getting us away from there and it ended up leaving you alone."

I glanced at Silas before looking back at Kota. He looked so serious about something I still didn't understand.

"You didn't like living there?" I asked.

He pressed his lips tightly together before responding. "There are too many bad memories."

I nodded in understanding. "Then I'm glad you left."

"But—"

"Give up," Silas said with a chuckle. "She won."

Kota gaped at me and Nathan snickered behind me.

"If I didn't leave, we would have met sooner. I could have saved you."

"But then you and your family would be in a place full of bad memories," I pointed out.

His mouth shut closed.

"You can't think about the what-ifs," I said, sadness tinging my words. I had thought about a lot of what-ifs, knowing none of them would come true. It only ever led to a deep, soul crushing depression. I couldn't think about the life I could of had if my father bothered to care about me, or if he never married my step mother, or if my mother was in the picture, or what it would be like to be human, or if I had a pack like these men around me.

What-ifs weren't reality.

"You didn't stay, you did what was best for your family," I said out loud before my thoughts spiralled downwards into another depression. I didn't want to go in that direction because I might not be able to come out of it. "And if it matters, I'm glad you got away from there if nothing good happened. Don't blame yourself for something that had nothing to do with out."

"Ouch," Nathan said from the back. "But she's right, man. We had know way of knowing and there was nothing we could do, even if it sucks."

I nodded in agreement.

Kota didn't say anything as he turned to face the front, but his shoulders relaxed slightly and he stopped counting.

The ride back to the Blackbourne packlands remained quiet and I just enjoyed watching the scenery pass by, my wolf excited to shift and go on a run to let out the excess energy coursing through us. We had lost out on a chance to face my stepmother and that didn't sit well with either of us.

Was she even in the house when it was set on fire? Or did she escape? Was she out there, fearing for her life now, knowing someone had wanted to kill her? I hoped so. I hoped she was terrified.