Caged Kitten (All the Queen's Men #2) - Rhea Watson Page 0,94

think of, a prison family—a clan of misfits. Witch, vampire, fae, dragon. Hardly the most conventional clan, but they were mine. All the petty shit about Rafe marking Katja first—gone. Fintan’s antics—white noise. There was a bigger picture to consider, and as the scent of death and char and ash thickened in the air, vile black magic polluting our lungs, I decided it was time to act…

Or risk losing my new clan, the only clan I had ever valued or wanted, for good.

Growling, I shoved my tray away, the prison’s breakfast even more grotesque in the aftermath of everything. “Agreed.”

18

Fintan

“Gentlemen…” Towel slung low around my hips, I bowed and gestured toward the shower-room door. “I’ll take it from here.”

Williams and Katz shot each other a look, then meandered toward the doorway—and clear through it, shutting the door soundly behind. I straightened with a smirk, then crossed my arms and ambled around the wall that separated—barely—the male and female shower quarters.

“And where are they going?” Katja looked beautiful in anything, but wrapped in just a thin strip of cloth that barely passed as a towel, she was exquisite. The shower shoes were a bit of an eyesore, but I wasn’t exactly interested in her feet, was I? While I yearned to drop my gaze, to explore the barely concealed curves ordinarily hidden behind that purple jumpsuit, I kept my focus on her face.

For which I should get a fucking medal of honor, really.

“They’re standing guard,” I told her, about to lean on the edge of the wall, all casual and nonchalant, before opting to stand tall and firm instead. I mean, yes, I intended to woo her in this place, but no inmate willingly set their bare skin on the grungy bathroom tile, myself included. Would I rather have seduced her in the greenhouse? A supply closet? Literally anywhere else in this entire building? Absolutely. But beggars couldn’t be choosers in Xargi—and this was the first time in my extraordinarily long and banal life that I was a beggar. For now, I’d take what I could get.

The witch’s fiery brows crept up, and she glanced toward the closed door. “Uh… Why?”

“So no one bothers us.”

My shrug had her eyebrows inching ever higher. “What? And why would they do that?”

“I’ve access to my accounts now.” Despite my pathetic earnings from backbreaking labor in the greenhouse—labor I only occasionally indulged in, usually when my little jewel was watching—I had been in this shithole a month now. When permitted, I could check my finances, where I’d learned that “charity” donations had been transferred straight from my accounts and into the warden’s bottomless pockets. No matter. Unlike many inmates, I now had hundreds of thousands of dollars at my disposal. No amount of slow and steady siphoning by the pricks in charge could change that.

I mean… Based on the assumption that Rollo had acquired a grand hunting party and spent the last month scouring the entire realm for his most impish of little brothers, theoretically I wouldn’t be here much longer. Neither would Katja. And, I suppose, neither would Elijah and Rafe. I couldn’t fathom any scenario where she would willingly leave them behind, not after the fucking and the biting and all that nonsense.

Katja stared back at me in an expectant silence, like my statement wasn’t obvious explanation enough, and I cleared my throat, then threaded my hands behind my back.

“Well, for ten grand a piece, they’ll do as I say… for today, anyway.” Her eyes rounded, lips slightly parted, and I beamed as I rocked back and forth on the balls of my feet, beyond pleased with the response. “And I told them I wanted to worship at your altar—”

The witch exhaled a sharp, barking sort of laugh, then threw her hands up, arms still stiff enough to keep her towel in place. “You are the most ridiculous man I’ve ever met.”

I tipped my head to the side, smile barbed, and then closed the distance between us in two long strides while she was busy rolling her eyes. Katja started at my sudden nearness, at my swift and silent approach, then stiffened when I caught her by the chin and steered her back to me. Gone was the incredulous grin, replaced with another flicker of genuine surprise, perhaps even a pinch of fear and a dash of uncertainty.

“I’m not a man,” I whispered, dropping the smug, dashing pretense for a touch of the brooding fire she seemed so drawn to with her dragon