Caged Kitten (All the Queen's Men #2) - Rhea Watson Page 0,107

yet Fintan merely stared back, unfazed, and cocked his head again as if daring him to argue. The standoff lasted until Katja dragged in a deep, nourishing breath and shuffled about beneath the starchy linens. Then Elijah was lost to the both of us, back to his protective stance at the edge of the cot, lording over her fitfully slumbering figure like a gargoyle.

If anyone managed to shoulder by me and Fintan, Elijah would absolutely destroy them. Never in the history of our friendship had I seen him so focused—and he ran a jeweler’s shop back home. The profession demanded absolute patience, precision, and skill, but Katja was his crown jewel, his prized possession, and every iota of concentration he possessed was dedicated to her.

Same, friend. Same.

Chuckling, Fintan shifted his weight between his legs, then leaned against the stone doorway with a huff. How he managed to get away with telling an alpha shifter what to do was beyond me, but at some point Elijah and I had just accepted him as a part of our group, this snarky, teasing, carefree fae who delighted in poking the bear time and time again, then hiding behind Elijah or me in the fallout. For his obscene age, he sometimes reminded me of a teenager, both in maturity and foresight, but here and there he had proven his worth to this…

Pack.

Clan?

Clique?

We were something, we four, and everyone—everyone—seemed to sense our bond stretched beyond that of a found family.

Besides, even if Fintan hadn’t proven himself, his comment was fair. In a place of shifting schedules and guards ready to fuck us over at the drop of a hat, Katja needed all of us to recover. It did her no good if we ended up in a hole for the next week.

So, we stood guard. No one would touch her under our watch—no one had access to her in this state. Hell, she was still waiting on a new jumpsuit to replace the one splattered with blood that Deimos had torn right down the back.

Just the memory of the fabric cleaved in two ignited a fury deep inside. My fangs sunk into my lower lip and my hands coiled to impossibly tight fists. Because with that mental picture came Katja herself—the position I found her in, beaten and bloodied, on her belly, vulnerable and exposed.

Although I envied Elijah’s innate connection with the witch, I wasn’t jealous of him, per se, and I didn’t want him to bow out of our dynamic. Nor had I felt inclined to attack Fintan the moment he and Katja were escorted back into the cellblock after their alone time in the shower, back when I had felt her numerous, pungent climaxes all the way in my cell, pleasure ripping through me like a tsunami.

But Deimos?

With his hand between her thighs? Knee on her back? That fucking smile?

Then to add insult to injury: Blake and Avery loitering around like they were waiting their fucking turn to have at her.

No.

Fintan and Elijah had never once set me off over their separate and developing connections with Katja, but yesterday…

Yesterday I had been this close to painting the walls with blood and guts. Had the guards not literally stunned me into submission, I would have torn all three of those twisted bastards limb from limb and accepted my fate. Simple as that.

“O’Dwyer.”

I started at the sound of my name barked by an unfamiliar guard. A trio loitered in the open main door to Cellblock C, and, so unaccustomed to being addressed, I just stared back. Most of the vampires in Xargi were shadows, shells of their former selves, unable to work and barely surviving on the pitiful daily dose of blood. We weren’t threats; the guards seldom paid us any attention.

But now here was some beefy warlock beckoning me to him with his wand, and my eyes narrowed when he called for me again.

“Come on,” his companion snapped, a second wand raised in my direction. “You’ve got an appointment.”

A what? Appointments were coveted by inmates, as there was this secret universal hope that we were about to meet with a lawyer. Rarely were we so fortunate.

If anything, appointment was code for solitary.

Still as stone, I glanced at Fintan—which must have been laughable to the newcomers. After all, it wasn’t like the fae could do anything. Whether I wanted to leave the cellblock or not, I was going.

“Stay on your toes,” he muttered under his breath, lips barely moving as he picked crusty bits of