Caged Kitten (All the Queen's Men #2) - Rhea Watson Page 0,112

haphazard. The wings on my back had taken the better part of a year to get right—that was true craftmanship.

Not that Deimos cared about craftsmanship, about honor. Not that he valued hard work.

Some demons did. Some prized it above all else.

This one was an acolyte of chaos—I was sure of it now more than ever, because the gnat had the balls to wink at me when our eyes met.

I lurched forward with a snarl, only to once again be held back. Restrained by fae strength, subtle and unspoken, Fintan cuffed a hand around my forearm, then wrenched me round to face him, totally unfazed by my low warning growl, by my posturing and my size.

“Patience,” he whispered, eyebrows inching up, his mouth slightly quirked. “Give it time and we’ll find a way to gut him when we can’t be blamed.”

With the inferno raging inside, I could have eviscerated the little shit right here and now.

But Fintan was right.

Again.

Katja’s sob from Rafe’s cell had me moving, and I set aside the deepening grudges—for now—to attend to my clan of misfits. What I found inside the vampire’s little room spurred the anger, but just as swiftly came the need to protect—to help. Alphas weren’t all fists and fire. The good ones assessed a situation and took the right action. When I discovered Katja trying and failing to haul Rafe’s lifeless body onto the cot, all thoughts of Deimos and the guards and Xargi itself fell away. I rushed in, sidestepping my struggling mate, her feline familiar weaving around her ankles, and hoisted my friend onto his cot. Fintan, meanwhile, loitered behind, blocking the cell door from the inside this time. When I glanced back, I noted his hand hovering near Katja’s elbow as if to stabilize her; she braced herself on the wall instead, totally unaware of the fae’s attentiveness, cheeks flushed, eyes wet, and massaged her battered ribs with a grimace.

“Rafe?” she whispered as I crouched at the head of the bed, trying to free up what little space these cells offered, my massive frame making that all the more difficult. Katja perched on the side, the cot groaning softly under the added weight, and Tully leapt up out of nowhere, light and swift as a shadow. The familiar padded around as Rafe uttered a weak groan, then settled squarely on top of the vampire’s chest, purring up a storm just as he’d done with his mistress. Bright blue sapphires blinked once, twice, three times at me, slowly, and then the cat closed his eyes—like he was officially settling in to work. The air thickened with a whisper of magic. Katja, meanwhile, watched it all unfold with a frail smile, and, sniffling, she stroked her familiar’s ears, then nudged Rafe’s arm. “Rafe?”

Slowly, he peeled his eyes open, struggling, and let out another groan.

“T-took my f-fangs,” he croaked, his voice scratchy. Katja sucked in a sharp, strangled breath, and this time the tears fell.

“Oh, gods.” She crept up the bed and lifted his lip, then looked to me, hopeless and lost and breaking apart right before my eyes. Because sure enough, two massive holes sat in Rafe’s pale gumline where his fangs ought to be—and there was no harsher punishment for a vampire than the loss of his fangs. The only thing worse was to be strung up outside just before dawn so the sun could fry him to dust, but at least that was a quick death.

For all his healing capabilities, his immunity to most elements in this world, the two things my old friend couldn’t regrow were a fine set of canines.

“I’ll fucking kill them,” I snarled, the fire back and raring to go. Only before the flames consumed me, there was Fintan, popping his elbows up and bracing on either side of the cell doorway. Blocking me. Barricading all of us inside. My inner dragon fumed at the insinuation, but with a few calm, centering breaths, the man won out—saw the logic in patience and control. After all, half my clan was broken: Katja and Rafe had finally met the horrors of Xargi Penitentiary head-on, tortured by inmates and guards alike, and I couldn’t abandon them. Couldn’t even risk it.

So I stayed put, painfully still and biding my time—but if some piece of shit tried to wriggle into this tiny cell, all bets were off.

Katja’s anguished sob still had me pounding a fist into the wall, if only to release some of the pent-up aggression I hadn’t been able