Caged Kitten (All the Queen's Men #2) - Rhea Watson Page 0,132

the door repairing itself, splintered wood and jagged metal floating off the ground and zooming back into place, magic thickening in the air as the guards sealed us inside.

The fog would either kill us or render the rest of them unconscious—and I couldn’t allow for either. Staggering to my feet, I tugged my jumpsuit over my nose and mouth, but as the black expanded, all-consuming, it sapped the energy from my limbs. I needn’t breathe, but it still wormed its way inside me all the same, turning my legs to jelly. The cellblock slid in and out of focus as I stumbled forward a few paces, then collapsed again. Beneath the smoke line, I saw them—my people. Katja on her back, head lolled to the side, eyes open but vacant. Elijah shuffling toward her, pupils like slits, his inner dragon fighting to protect him, to save his mate…

He offered a hand to me, the beast inside recognizing a friend, a brother, and I reached back. Beside them, Fintan pushed up on wobbly arms, only for his face to go slack seconds later, and when his elbows buckled, that regal nose met the ground in a horrendous face-plant. Bone cracked noisily on impact. Elijah lilted onto his side, body sprawled over a limp Katja, dragon’s eyes on me, hand still stretching, fingers grasping…

No. It wouldn’t end like this.

Get them in a cell. Barricade the door. Bash open a window and hide in a shadow. Let the fresh air clear their lungs.

Plan.

Teeth gritted, gums aching, vision tinged red, I summoned every bit of strength left at my disposal and hauled my body forward. Silver lining: the smog had turned so thick, so heavy, that it blotted out the sun. Even as the others faded from view, I crawled in their direction, desperate to take Elijah’s hand, to throw Katja over my shoulder, to haul Fintan along after us—

A familiar set of locks clicked and clunked open. The darkness ruffled with the whoosh of the cellblock door. A red beam blazed through the black, a dot appearing on my shoulder.

Whump.

Someone fired a wooden projectile, and I hissed—bared my nonexistent fangs—when the stake buried itself into my right shoulder, slicing through flesh and bone and muscle like I was made of butter. Pain exploded through my every cell, followed by a swift and violent sedative lull that knocked the wind out of me.

I was gone before I even hit the ground.

27

Katja

Everything hurt when I came to, but for once, my wrists were standouts—in a league all their own. The pain there remained sharp and constant, bitter and cruel, even as the rest of the world dripped back into focus on the other side of my heavy eyelids. Sore shoulders—the right had taken the brunt of that fall when the flash-bang grenade went off—and an aching lower back. This wasn’t the first time I’d woken up in Xargi strapped to a chair, but as I moaned and shifted about, trying to get the circulation flowing again, I prayed it would be the last.

A cloud of herbal cigarette smoke whooshed across my face. Heart sinking, knowing exactly where I was, I clenched my eyes tighter, bracing against the sting of tears.

I didn’t want to—couldn’t do this. Wanted to fold in on myself and pretend today hadn’t happened—pretend I hadn’t gotten my hopes up about an escape, about using that guard and riding him all the way through the ward with all my guys and Tully in tow.

But we had failed. Miserably. No telling where they were, but in the darkness, I knew I was in the place I despised most of all.

Mahogany and varnish. Furniture polish. Old books. A rarely used fireplace, all for show. Lloyd’s cologne, more pungent than usual, and his rich aftershave. No. No, no, no, no.

“I know you’re awake.”

He sounded so much closer today, and I gritted my teeth, slowly peeling my eyes open and bracing for what I’d find. At least I didn’t flinch when I found him sitting on this side of his desk, less than a foot away, leaning back with a smoldering cigarette in one hand, the other braced on the mahogany. My heavy gaze dipped down to my shackled wrists, bound to the chair’s armrests with the same punishing cuffs from the first day, my original prison accessories. They glowed a faint blue, enchanted this time to do… well, I had no clue, but I lacked the strength to test their limits. The source of all the