When the knock sounded at his front door, Cage was on his feet in a moment, pacing toward the door. He drew in a breath and told his jaguar to back off before he could even put a hand on the doorknob. He could smell tiger on the other side of the door.

And even though he knew who it was, the primal side of his nature didn’t like it one little bit. An adult male tiger near his cub? A tiger literally standing between him and his mate?

His jaguar wanted blood first and then calm later, but Cage wasn’t going to let it happen. Pulling open the door he managed to keep his smile friendly and fang-free. “Paige, Devlin, good to see you both.” Cage looked over his shoulder and saw Frances standing in the doorway studiously drawing in each breath. Turning back to his friends he opened the door wider. “Come on in.”

Paige preceded Devlin, which spoke volumes. The fact that the tiger didn’t prowl the rooms first told him that he was a trusted friend. And Cage was inordinately proud of that fact.

“This is Frances Billings.” He held out his hand and gestured for her to move closer, but his foster daughter stood still in the doorway, still trying to breathe.

Breaking the impasse, Paige crossed the room and stepped up beside Frances in the doorway. She gently set a hand on her shoulder and gave her a sweet smile.

Cage felt his breath trapped in his chest and knew without looking that Devlin was doing the same. The room was filled with shifters and the only one still human and all the more vulnerable for it, was Paige.

“Hi, Frances. I’m glad that we had the chance to meet. Cage was telling me that you’re having some troubles with your studies.”

The look Frances sent him was hard enough to strip paint from the wall, but it changed to a look of resignation when she spoke to him halfway across the room. “You were serious about this tutor thing?”

“You thought I was joking?”

Frances shrugged. “I was holding onto a desperate dream that you’d let me just drop out and work.”

It was Devlin’s turn to laugh. “If there’s one thing I’ve gotten to know about Cage, it’s that he’s deadly serious about keeping his word.”

“And you don’t have to work with me if you don’t want to,” Paige assured her. “I manage a student tutoring and mentorship program where adults sign up to help students.”

“Even for shifters?” Frances sounded like she couldn’t quite believe the words.

“Humans and shifters can both give and get help from the program.”

Her narrowed eyes glowing a golden-yellow, Frances backed away from Paige with a growl in her throat.

“Frances?” Paige took a step toward her and both Devlin and Cage called out warnings.

Devlin was across the room in a heartbeat, putting himself between the young shifter and his mate. Cage did much of the same, except he was facing Frances, his eyes boring into hers. He wasn’t a lion, but he was a cat and there was something in the way their animals saw each other that worked between the two of them. It might have worked with Devlin too, but he wasn’t taking any chances. He knew Frances and she was his responsibility. “Frances, stop.”

He felt the twist and flex of muscles under her skin. Smelled the air of the Savannah on her breath. Felt her anger like a growl rolling through her body even though she remained quiet.

“Pull it back, Frances. Pull. It. Back.”

She tried to tug her arm out of his hold one more time, but he could feel how weak it was, barely any energy in her movements at all.

And when her lioness laid down inside of her, gave up her push to be released, Cage pulled Frances into his arms and gave her a tight hug, trying to lend her his strength.

When she leaned forward into his embrace, her forehead falling on his shoulder he smoothed his hand over her back and took a few breaths with her.

“Cage?” Paige’s voice rang in his ears and he could tell with just that gentle question that she wasn’t afraid. He could hear the worry in her tone. “Should we go?”

He started to mull over his answer, but Frances beat him to it.

“Wait.” Lifting her head, she bit at her lips while he composed her thought and then spoke. “I’m sorry.”

Paige stepped out of Devlin’s embrace and moved closer to Frances. “I wasn’t trying to make you upset. If I did-”

“It was me,” Frances countered, “It was all me. I just couldn’t believe what you were saying.”

Cage didn’t try to hold her at his side, he needed to give her some space.

Frances continued. “Before Cage came to get me in England, my mother’s family was contacted by Social Services and asked if they’d like to take care of me until Cage could travel all the way across the Atlantic. Suffice to say, they didn’t want the responsibility. When my Mum married my Dad, her family told her she’d be on her own. Richard the Lionhearted may be a well-loved King in England’s past but bringing a real lion into the family made my Mum’s family beyond livid.

“They told her she was cut off from them. They wanted nothing to do with her because of her choices, but Social Services didn’t know that, and when the door opened for the meeting to see about temporary custody, only the family’s solicitor arrived. He had a document giving him Power of Attorney for my grandmother. And moments later he signed a document stating that the family didn’t want to claim me, nor did they have any interest in caring for me, temporarily or permanently.” She looked up and met Paige’s eyes. “And here you stand telling me that strangers want to help me. People who don’t know who I am, or what I am, want to help me? It’s hard to accept.”

Cage’s heart squeezed tight in his chest. He had no idea that’s what she’d gone through before he arrived to take her in. How could her mother’s family act like that? Frances was an innocent child. If they blamed Todd’s wife for having her that was one thing, but why take it out on Frances? No wonder she’d been so upset.

With such a harsh rejection, he was going to have to work harder to get Frances to understand that he wasn’t going to turn her away, not ever.

“Paige?”

“Yes, Frances?”

Cage heard the gentle tone in Paige’s voice and knew she hadn’t taken any of Frances’ earlier comments to heart.

“Is the offer still open for help with my classes?”

Bless Paige for her big heart. She held out her hand and with halting steps, Frances crossed to her and took Paige’s hand in her own.

“We’ll find you help, Frances. We’ll make it work if you want it.”

Frances opened her mouth to speak and then closed it again. She slid a look over toward Cage but didn’t meet his eyes. When she turned back to Paige she shrugged. “I don’t know what I want. When I got to the States, all I wanted to do was turn around and go home. But I don’t have a home in England. And this,” she gestured at the apartment, “I wasn’t sure if he really wanted me here.”

“What?”

Cage spoke before he could stop himself. And then he regretted it when he saw Devlin’s warning look and the sadness in Paige’s eyes.

“Frances-”

She shook her head and Cage watched the flyaway ends of her emerald green hair settle about her chin. “You never asked for this,” she told him, “you probably didn’t even know that my dad planned to dump me on you. I can’t even believe you actually flew all the way to England to pick me up.”

“Well, I couldn’t drive there.”

Paige’s eyes widened at him.

Cage shrugged. “It’s the truth. Besides, they have different movies going East versus West.”

Frances kept her eyes on a spot on the floor.

“And it doesn’t matter if I knew what your dad had planned, Frances. When I heard that he wanted me to take care of you. I wanted to do it.” He looked at her, but she didn’t move, staring at that place on the floor. “While Social Services took care of your paperwork, Paige and Willa, Boone’s mate, they helped me get some things for you. Told me to wait for the rest until you were here. They thought I wouldn’t have a clue. And they were right.”

Frances turned a little bit, her gaze lifting to about his knees. “So, you really wanted me to pick out the rest of the stuff? It wasn’t because you didn’t want to?”

He looked at Paige and saw the hopeful look in her eyes. “I knew I’d mess it up. There would have been some kind of cartoon pony blanket on your bed if I’d tried to pick stuff up on my own.”

He saw Frances’ nose wrinkle up at the thought.

“I would have hated that.” Frances groaned. “I’m glad you waited.”

Cage chuckled. “You would have loved to see the curtains I probably would have brought home.”

There was almost a smile on her face when she looked him in the eye. “I’m sure it would have been shambolic.”

It was Cage’s turn to be confused. “If that means horrific or ridiculous, then yes.”

From the corner of his eye he saw Paige put her hand on Devlin’s arm. “We should go.”

Cage nodded and caught Devlin’s eye. “Thanks for coming.”

Paige moved closer to Frances. “I’ll set up some time with you to go over your classes in the next few days.”

Frances nodded. “Yeah, thanks.”

Leaning in to speak softly to Frances, Paige had a few more words for the teen. “He’s trying Frances. Men like Cage, they’re hard to understand sometimes, but if there’s one thing I know. They care about family. And if they call you family, that’s all that matters. They’re going to be there for you.”

Frances didn’t answer, and Paige, maybe Paige didn’t remember that Cage’s hearing was sensitive enough for him to hear every word. Taking hold of Devlin’s arm, Paige moved to the door and gave Cage a wink on the way out.

Devlin covered her hand with his and gave it a squeeze. He’d seen the wink. And even though Devlin knew there was nothing between him and Paige, his tiger wasn’t taking any chances.

And that was the way of it. He started to move toward the door to open it for them, but Devlin shook his head. He opened the door and ushered his mate outside, closing it after them with the click of the lock.

That left him alone with Frances and the knot in his stomach. He wanted to say something, but for the life of him he didn’t know what. It was probably a bad idea, but he opened his mouth and started talking.

“Your father was like a brother to me, and when he decided to leave the unit, when he found out that your mother was pregnant, I hated it. It wasn’t the same after he left. The unit was harder to deal with, the days longer.

“But when he called me after you were born, when I heard him talking about you, hearing you cry, because you were in his arms. He was a new man, Frances. He was a dad. Because of you.

“And I stopped wishing he’d come back to the unit. I stopped waiting for things to go back the way things were because it would never go back. He had you and he had your mother. He was happy. At peace. And I knew he was doing what he had to do.”

“Because he was stuck with me?” Frances curled into herself and started to back away from him.

Cage grabbed her shoulders and held her still. “Because he loved you. And he loved your mother. His mate.

“And when we lost them, he made sure that you had me.” He felt the fight go out of her a moment later, with the rush of her exhaled breath. “And I know I’m crap at this, but I’m trying.”

He saw her eyes go dark and then amber with her lion. He saw her emotions flicker across her face, saw her face twist up with anger. “I don’t want you to try.”

She snarled at him, fangs breaking through her gums, eyes flashing like reflectors in headlights.

“I want my dad!”

She launched at him, claws tearing through his shirt and into his skin, nearly stripping flesh from muscle.

He got his hands up, managing to hold onto her wrists. Cage let her kick and scream and flail at him. His only aim was to keep her from hurting herself or raising his jaguar against her.

She got in a couple of good swipes and Cage took the damage and felt a cathartic release of his own anguish and grief. He had no way to know how much time had passed. He only knew that the storm was almost over when Frances sagged against him. He managed to lift her in his arms and take her to her room.

The blood from his ruined skin had seeped into her clothing, so he laid her on top of the covers.

“Frances?”

She didn’t say a thing right away, her shoulders and chest rising and falling in short gasps and hiccups.

“You should get some rest, you’ll need it, or you’ll have a huge headache tomorrow.” He looked back at the door and let out a breath, ignoring the aches and the blood still seeping from his wounds. “Get some rest and I’ll see you in the morning.”

Before he took a step away from the bed her hand snaked out and grabbed his wrist. “Cage?”

He couldn’t help but feel the pain in her voice. It echoed through his body and called out to the beast within.

“Yeah?”

Frances peered up at him through half-lidded eyes. “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to say that. Get some-”

“I was wrong. I turned a simple meeting into a complete cock up.”

“You don’t have to apologize to me. You got the short end of this whole situation. You lost your parents. Your home. Your whole country. And I gained a grumpy teenaged girl with crazy hair and claws. ‘Night.”

He started to move, but she still held onto his wrist. Cage sat down beside her and let her hold onto him as she slowly fell asleep. Only when he was sure that she’d drifted off did he extricate his wrist from her hand and head into the bathroom to clean up. It was going to be a pain to pull the ruined fabric of his shirt out of his healing wounds and it was going to hurt like hell, but it was worth it.

For the first time since he’d heard that his friend had passed away, he was hopeful that he wasn’t going to make a complete failure out of Frances’ life.