Queen (Cats of Felidae Academy #4) - River Ramsey Page 0,35

be.

He warred with himself, finally coming to a decision about the question that had plagued him ever since he had realized she might be having the baby that night. She'd fallen asleep, so Axel jerked his head for Sterling to follow him out into the hall.

"What is it?" Sterling asked.

"I need you to cover for me," Axel answered, pulling on his coat.

"You're leaving?" Sterling asked, his voice laced with obvious disapproval. "Now?"

"It's not like I'm going out for a smoke, okay? There's just something I need to do for Ella."

Sterling studied him closely, growing increasingly suspicious with every second that passed. "No… Don't tell me you're actually thinking about it."

"That depends. What am I thinking about?" Axel asked flatly.

"The same thing I'm thinking about, and you're actually enough of a reckless idiot to go through with it," Sterling muttered.

"She needs him," Axel said, folding his arms. "If it was up to me, the guy could rot in a dungeon cell for the rest of his life, but this isn't about me. It's about Ella, and you know as well as I do that she needs him here."

He could see the conflict in Sterling's gaze. "When the colony finds out…"

"They’ll find out it was me, not Ella," Axel interrupted. "Last time I checked, I wasn’t the Empress, and since I'm not exactly planning on going about it the way that requires forms and decrees and shit, abusing my office isn't really going to be a problem."

Sterling's eyes widened. "You actually think you can get away with breaking into prison to get him out?"

"It's not really a prison, but yeah," he said with a shrug. "I figure it’ll take about forty-five minutes, maybe an hour, so just tell her Mom found out she's at the hospital and I'm on the phone trying to convince her not to come."

Sterling blinked. "I should find it disturbing how quickly you come up with plausible excuses, but I think I'm impressed." He sighed. "Be careful. She doesn’t need to be without you and him."

Axel scoffed. "What do you think I am, an amateur?"

"At prison breaks?" Sterling quipped. "I certainly hope so."

Chapter 17

Bishop

The passage of time was meaningless, considering Bishop had no intention of ever leaving the quiet cell that had been his home for the last few weeks. Months maybe? He wasn't sure. That didn't matter either.

He deserved this. He deserved far worse. If there was any consolation, it was that being alone with his own thoughts inflicted about as much torture on him as anyone else could have physically.

There were moments of reprieve, though. Moments that allowed the light to bleed into the darkness. Ella was at the center of every one of them.

Her smile. Her laugh. Her warmth as she slept pressed to his side, her face turned into his shoulder.

The next time light came, it came in the form of a sliver down the hall as the door that only opened twice—once in the morning and once at night—slid open for the third time that day. Bishop thought he was just hallucinating. It was about time for that to start, given what he knew of the amount of isolation and sensory deprivation the mind could endure before it broke.

"Hey fuckface," came Axel’s voice, echoing through the darkness. "Time to go."

Bishop sat up from the stone bed and went over to the bars. Of course his mind would have to pick Axel to hallucinate. He was in hell. "Axel?"

"Yeah, no shit," he said, fumbling with the ring of keys dangling from his hand. What a strange hallucination. "How the hell do they even keep track of these?"

"What are you doing?" Bishop asked once he had begun to entertain the possibility that this was real and Axel was actually standing in front of him. He wouldn't have been surprised if he had come to jeer, or even beat the shit out of Bishop now that he had the chance. The guards certainly would've looked the other way, and Bishop wouldn't have blamed him, either.

Axel's eyes flashed with irritation in the darkness. What light they were reflecting, Bishop didn't know. Maybe just the fire in his soul. "What does it look like I’m doing? Ella is in labor, and she needs you."

All at once, Bishop came back to himself. Without even realizing it, day by day, parts of his memory had drifted away. Now they were all stuffed into a vessel that felt too small for him, and he could hardly make sense of his own