Unbearable Cage (The Grizzly Next Door 3)

by Aya Morningstar

  Tobias sighed, flexed, and shifted. His shorts tore to pieces as he did, and soon a full-sized lion was prowling around. Tobias skipped the theatrics, doing little more than prowling back and forth while his tail moved like a counterweight to his stride. The crowd made some polite noise—nothing compared to what they’d done for Cage.

  He should have tried to throw one of the doors into the crowd. That would have gone over well. Maybe next time.

  The two men shifted back to human form, as no shifting was a strict rule, in this league at least. Before their coaches could throw them new pairs of shorts, Cage heard some of the women catcalling him from the crowd. He turned toward them to give them a full frontal, but Jack hissed at him to get his head in the game and his cock in his pants, so he grudgingly did so.

  Cage stepped through the gate—just barely, because he was so big—and entered the bear cage. He wondered if Tobias and his inner lion thought of it as the lion cage.

  Tobias entered soon after. The cage was borderline irrelevant in this fight. Lions didn’t like climbing, and given Tobias’s fighting style, climbing around would be counterproductive, as he wanted to keep Cage off him, not drop onto him.

  Cage and Tobias squared off. Cage was about an inch taller than Tobias.

  He’s so tall, Cage’s bear said. Almost as tall as us.

  Yeah, almost. Still not taller though. And Tobias weighed less. He’d have an advantage when it came to dodging and weaving, but once Cage got on him, it would be all but over.

  The crowd roared. There was no referee; if you broke a rule like shifting or head butting, the crowd was allowed to flood the cage and gang up on the offender. The last time it had happened was over ten years ago. The guy had head butted, and since there was a lot of money riding on the fight, the crowd had shifted, flooded the cage, and tore the offender limb from limb. Very democratic.

  The fight started by mutual consensus, when each fighter smelled the other was ready.

  Cage and Tobias sniffed the air as they circled each other, and when the scent of battle hit Cage’s nostrils, he roared and charged in.

  ***

  Cage walked home from his sister’s place in the dark. It was a long walk, but he didn’t mind. His sister lived downtown, near the courthouse where she worked. Cage lived near the edge of the city, with woods nearby, so he could be himself. So he could shift. It also happened to be the only place he could afford the rent and still be technically residing in the city—which was necessary for the will.

  Being broke wasn't a big setback for Cage. The shifter mixed martial arts league had paid big, and Cage had gotten a taste of the finer things in life when all that money was still flowing, but he could live just as well without it. The bouncer job was enough to pay the bills. He was, at his core, a grizzly bear, and no bear ever needed heated leather seats or marble countertops.

  The house—what would be Lisa’s house if she’d sign the damn paper—was between Lisa’s apartment and Cage’s place. The most direct route would be to take Bertrand Street straight through downtown, and the damned house was right on that route; he couldn’t miss it.

  So he got off the road and cut into the park. This detour would only take a few minutes longer, and he could get at least the scent of some trees and passably fresh air while he walked.

  He had made this trip hoping to get things done and over with. Lisa was supposed to sign the papers, take the house, and let him go. He’d been gone for years already; she should be used to it by now. And what was that comment about Ren? How had Lisa always seen straight through him? Ren had been Lisa’s best friend growing up, and she’d stuck with Lisa after the accident. She’d done what Cage hadn’t been able to do.

  And he had always been drawn to her, ever since he could remember. Lisa was just under two years older than Cage, and Ren was a year younger than Lisa. She’d been a grade ahead of him in school though, which, when they were very young, had seemed an insurmountable gap. As they grew older and got into high school, that one year had become nearly meaningless.

  But Cage had fallen in with a bad crowd by that age, and he’d begun his first unofficial lessons in mixed martial arts. His first lesson had involved four panther shifters—all much older than him, but not bigger than him—ganging up on him and beating him bloody.

  That’s when we learned how to take a hit! his bear said.

  “More like twenty hits,” Cage whispered into the night air.

  He’d still seen Ren around when Lisa had her over and he was at the house. She’d really grown up by then: Her curves had really filled out, and Cage couldn’t help but stare when she walked by. She’d always given him this look though, a look that made him fear that his perverted bear had somehow spoken out loud and that Ren had heard his dirty thoughts. She couldn’t have heard his inner thoughts, but she could read into his eyes, which surely were looking well below where they should be.

  Either way, Cage was no good for her. That much was clear, so he’d stayed away. If only he’d stayed away from his sister too.

  A breeze swept through the park, and suddenly fear filled his nostrils. He knew that smell like the fur on his paw. It had always leaked out of his opponents just before he’d delivered the finishing blow, but this was a human’s fear. Yet he smelled a panther too, and that was never good news.

  He broke into a run, sniffing as he went. The lights in the park were spread far from each other, and they illuminated only the main path. There were entire pathways that disappeared into the darkness, and as he hit one of these dark paths, he smelled the fear thick in the air and heard a woman’s scream.

  He broke into a full run but chose not to shift. He could mask his scent better in human form, and the panther wouldn’t have as much time to react.

  Cage’s eyes adjusted as the darkness washed over him, and he made out two figures: a huge man, the Panther, and a woman tugging at her finger.

  “Get the fucking ring off!” Cage heard the man shout.

  Cage reached full speed. With his huge mass, he was a freight train. By the time the mugger heard him, he had but seconds to react. What kind of third-rate shifter couldn’t hear a man Cage’s size rushing him?

  The panther looked up, and the woman screamed when she noticed him. The scream still ringing through the air, Cage tucked his head down and flung himself like a bullet into the man’s gut. His head connected, and Cage could feel the mugger’s lungs compress, and he felt the ribs crack against his skull as the head-butt sunk all the way in.

  There was no sound from the mugger as he toppled over. Cage had knocked the air out of him too quickly for any sound to escape. The impact knocked the mugger onto the wet grass, and he slid nearly a foot before stopping. Cage felt a dull pain on his skull but was otherwise fine. The panther might have been knocked cold at worst, but a shifter could take a hit like that without dying.

  Cage spared a moment to look down at the man and make sure he was down.

  Head-butts are so strong! his bear said. Why can’t you do them in the bear cage?

  The bear cage is what his bear called the MMA rings. The shifter league had few rules; No shifting and no head-butts were the only two he could think of. His bear called it “the bear cage” because there were often cages on the side, mostly so that panthers and other feline-type shifters could climb around the walls like dumbasses before he knocked them out cold.

  “Jesus,” the woman’s voice said. “Cage?”

  Shit. He recognized that voice.

  “Ren?”

  CHAPTER 4

  REN

  The bullet of a man—no, a cannonball—pulled himself up off the ground, and when he reached his full height, and when she saw the way he carried himself, she knew at once that it was Cage.

  “Ren?” He faced her, and then she was sure.

  His blond hair was a mess from the head butt, but disheveled and matted with blood, it still managed to look damned near perfect. Cage had always worn injuries like fashion accessories. His head wa
s tilted slightly in confusion, and the distant lights illuminated only his high and razor-sharp cheekbones. His huge chest and arms heaved as he took in a startled breath.

  “You saved me…” she started to say, but then she noticed that the man Cage had seemingly knocked cold had disappeared.

  Seeing her surprise, Cage turned.

  “Shit,” he said. “Shifted and ran…”

  He turned back to her in an instant, the mugger quickly forgotten.

  “Ren, are you okay?”

  He started checking her body for cuts or bruises, but she held up a hand, stopping him. “I’m fine.... He got my phone and was going for my jewelry next.”

  She started shaking. The fear had become pure adrenaline, but she started thinking about what might have happened had Cage not been there.

  “Do you think,” she said, “he would have hurt me?”

  She said “hurt” but was thinking of something much worse.

  “I was here,” Cage said. “He wasn’t going to touch you.”

  Anger flared from deep within her. “Good thing this happened now then and not last year, or the year before, or the year before that.”

  “Ren—” he started, but she cut him off.

  “Lisa needed you,” she said. “And you abandoned her. Rehab, going back to work, re-learning how to get around...she needed you for all of that.”

  “You were there for her,” Cage said. “You were always better for her than I was.”

  “That’s such bullshit, Cage. You’re her brother. You think losing her ability to walk and her brother all at once was good for her?”

  “I’m not her brother,” Cage said, “just some bear our parents found—”

  “You don’t get to decide that,” Ren said. “Even after you abandoned her, Lisa has still always loved you as a brother. If you can’t see that, then you are just a dumb bear. Not a man.”

  He looked deep into her eyes. She knew they were emerald green but could only see a hint of that in the darkness. Still, she knew he was looking into her and was on the cusp of saying something. She saw his jaw begin to move several times, but no words came out.

  She’d been too hard on him. He had just possibly saved her life. Maybe the mugger—who was a fucking shifter, apparently—would have taken her ring and bolted, or maybe he’d have wanted to take more from her. Something she could never have back. How could she be so useless? Someone wanted something from her, and she was powerless. Her only choice had been to hand him everything and pray he didn’t hurt her. Cage, on the other hand, was like a force of nature. No one could push him around, except her, apparently.

  “Cage, sorry. I—”

  And then he did speak. “You’re right. I’m no man, and that’s why I should stay away from Lisa.”

  “Okay,” she said, “but you realize you said “our parents,” right? If you really don’t think of her as your sister, then you would have said “her parents.” That shows how you feel deep down, don’t you think?”

  Cage crossed his arms and grunted. Damn, his arms were big, she’d forgotten just how massive he was. She’d always wondered if he was that massive...everywhere. She’d even asked Lisa once, but Lisa had been so grossed out and mortified that Ren had never dared to ask again.

  “Well,” Ren said, “if you’re going to be in town, maybe we can keep in touch. You got a phone number, or do brooding bears not have phones?”

  Was she seriously asking for Cage Castor’s phone number? She’d always been too afraid to approach him.... He’d seemed too tough to ever be interested in someone boring like her. After the mugging, the fear she felt asking for his number wasn’t so bad in comparison.

  She saw him pull out his phone, and she felt a drop in her stomach like the first hill on a rollercoaster. He looked at her as he held his phone and licked his lips.

  Suddenly his expression hardened, and she saw an imperceptible shake of his head. He pocketed the phone and said, “I have a phone, but you don’t. Come on, I’ll walk you home.”

  She reached down and remembered that the mugger had taken it, her phone.

  She could give him her number—assuming she could recover it—but he’d already put his phone away. Was he rejecting her?

  “Okay,” she said. “Thanks. I’d feel a lot safer with you walking me home.”

  CHAPTER 5

  CAGE

  Noooooo! his bear roared as he put the phone away. You can push those buttons when you want to mate, right? And she’ll come to your house and take off her clothes?

  Yeah, dumbass bear, that’s how phones worked. That’s why phones were invented, in fact. For booty calls.

  He started walking toward her house. It was out of the way, but it would be nice to walk with her. He’d allow himself that much, at least. After this, he’d keep his distance. From both her and Lisa.

  “Do you know how shit it felt?” Ren asked as they walked deeper though the dark pathway.

  “What?”

  “No,” she said, “you wouldn’t know, would you. How it felt to be totally defenseless like that? At someone else’s mercy? I hated that feeling.... I don’t even know how to throw a punch. I’ve never had any desire to, and I thought the whole fighting thing you were doing was so stupid and cliché.”

  “It was,” Cage said.

  “But no one can push you around like that,” Ren said. “You can take care of yourself.... I envy that.”

  “He was a shifter, Ren. You could have been a navy SEAL and Judo master, and you couldn’t have done a thing.”

  Ren had caught him shifting when he was just a boy. He’d never meant to tell her or reveal his secret, but she’d never told another soul. That shared secret had always made him feel he could trust her. If only he’d had the courage to share more with her before it had become too late.

  “I know,” she said, “but most muggers—or rapists—are humans, and if I had the right training, I could protect myself from most people. So, uh, what are you doing in town, by the way? You really busy?”

  “Very busy,” he said. “No free time at all.”

  Lies! his bear grumbled. Lies!

  “That’s too bad,” Ren said, and her tone of voice told him she was about to ask him for something.

  “Out with it,” he said.

  “I was just thinking that you could train me, to defend myself.”

  Train her! His bear groaned. Your hands on her waist, her on top of you, begging you to sub...sub...sub…

  His bear struggled with big words.

  “Submit!” he said, too loudly.

  “What?”

  “I didn’t say anything,” Cage said. “But no, I won’t train you. It’s a bad idea.”

  “You said ‘submit,’ didn’t you?”

  Summit also has a dirty meaning, doesn’t it? He could nearly feel his bear jumping up and down in his head.

  It’s ‘submit!’ he thought. But he wouldn’t risk correcting his bear again.

  “Uh,” Cage said, “if you can convince Lisa to sign and submit some documents to me, then I’ll think about it.”

  “What documents?” Ren asked.

  “She’ll know which ones I mean.”

  They walked in silence a while longer, but it wasn’t the awkward or strained silence felt between strangers or new acquaintances. It was a comfortable silence, between two people who had known each other all their lives, where neither needed to speak just for the sake of speaking. Being together and walking side by side communicated enough.

  Cage walked slowly, not wanting to rush the moment. This had to be it. He couldn’t let this progress. Why the hell had he said he’d train her? If she got Lisa to sign the damn papers, maybe he’d do it once or twice. Just no hands on the waist, and no submitting.

  They reached the doorstep, and she stopped under the porchlight, looking up at him. Waiting. He felt a force stronger than gravity and electricity combined urging him to lean in to her. To take hold of her. He couldn’t fight it, so he stemmed the ur
ge, settled for something less. He leaned down—way down—thinking to kiss her cheek, but he saw her eyes widen in shock, and he settled for her forehead. He planted his lips there, felt the warmth of her burning hot, and wanted to never leave, but he pulled quickly away, nodded, and said good night.

  He turned quickly away but heard her say, “Wait!”

  He stopped but didn’t turn around.

  “I’ll get your number from Lisa,” Ren said, “and I’ll get her to sign the whatever it is, and then I’ll call you about the training. Deal?”

  “Deal,” he said, knowing it was a bad idea.