Caged Kitten (All the Queen's Men #2) - Rhea Watson Page 0,110
our cells for showers and breakfast this morning, all the way to now, some fifteen minutes after supper. He wanted a fight. He wanted a reason to get me chucked out so only Fintan stood in his way.
Not a chance.
My inner dragon had been fuming for days. Just pure, blinding rage that we hadn’t been there to stop Katja’s attack—that it had even happened in the first place. Thankfully, Tully had mended the worst of it, and she hobbled out of her cell today on shaky legs, hunched and quiet but relatively functional.
Tensed and tight, I tossed a card into the middle of our table without even looking at it, my gaze stuck on the cellblock’s bolted door. Where was he? Fintan swept the three cards away, his ten of spades beating out mine and Katja’s offering. To his credit, the fae had kept his smart mouth in check since they’d dragged Rafe away, as if sensing no one was in the mood for his snark.
The tip of flimsy prison-issued shoes nudged my calf under the table, and my inner dragon uttered an approving rumble when Katja’s foot settled on top of mine. Seated in Rafe’s usual spot, my mate sought out my gaze, not setting her card down until I met her big blues. The downward arc of her lips, the slight lift of one brow, the shimmer in her eyes—so much was said in the subtleties. She feared for him, but she was here for me.
Only I couldn’t look at her… Not like this.
Sure, I had stood guard for as long as I could yesterday. I had counted down the hours in the metal shop today, my work halfhearted and incomplete by the end of my shift. With no one to take her hours, she had been forced out to the greenhouse, but at least Fintan had picked up the slack.
Or… I hoped he had.
He’d been getting better lately, coming back with dirt under his nails and the odd leaf in his mussed mop of light brown waves.
But now that Katja was awake and just healed enough to putter around, I struggled to meet her eye.
I had failed her.
Failed to protect my mate.
For a shifter, an alpha, there was no fouler sin, no greater crime.
While we had continued working out the nuances of our fated bond, slowly getting to know each other, not rushing anything—letting whatever we felt develop as organically as we could in a hellscape like Xargi—she was still my mate. Even if Rafe had marked her first, she was mine. Possibly ours, given my dragon’s acceptance of the other two males in her orbit. And I had failed her.
Miserably.
Black and blue bruises dotted her face like a fucking abstract painting. Tully’s healing purrs had mended her lower lip and taken some of the puffiness out of it, but it still looked ravaged. Shadowy rings rimmed her eyes, heavy from a fitful sleep and trauma that might just haunt her for years to come. Her ribs might not be broken anymore, but certain movements still hurt her, agony and alarm flashing across her battered features if she turned too quickly.
She was a mess—physically. I was a mess emotionally, drowning in messy feelings, suffocating through my every waking moment. Guilt and fury and panic over what had happened to her—what could still happen in the future. Concern for Rafe, for what they were doing to him behind closed doors, how they might be punishing him for intervening in what was clearly a planned hit. Apprehension for Fintan if he needed to step up in my possible absence—handsome and clearly pampered, born with a silver spoon in his mouth whether he was a fae prince or not, had he the courage to throw himself on the grenade for her?
Without her magic, Katja was just so… small.
And I—we—had let her down.
I’d never forgive myself.
Never forget what had happened, how I hadn’t been there to protect her.
How I had worn this collar for almost a year…
How I let them cage me without a fight.
Rafe and I planned to just serve our time.
Where had all this fire been then?
Back when we had nothing to lose—
“Elijah…” Fintan swiped at my arm. “Go.”
Just as I’d plucked another card from the top of my tiny deck, a few rounds away from losing War to either one of them, the cellblock door’s locks thunked undone, and I shot to my feet as soon as the metal panel swung open.