Caged Kitten (All the Queen's Men #2) - Rhea Watson Page 0,136

my jaw, over my swollen lips, mapping me, touching me. “Do you love them?”

The dams finally broke, and I twisted my head away with a strangled sob. Humiliation and anger and disgust and heartbreak spilled down my cheeks in hot, wet tracks, and I hated myself for crumbling right before his eyes, but I couldn’t stop it anymore. The buildup had been going on for too long, everything stacking higher and higher until it toppled over. Crashed and burned.

Maybe I did love them—each one, Elijah and Fintan and Rafe. All to varying degrees, our relationships separate yet heavily intertwined in Xargi. Maybe I had been lying to myself, deluding myself into believing it was just sex with Fintan, just great conversation with Rafe, just a soul bond with Elijah. Just, just, just.

I’d played myself for a fool. We all did, four fools denying what had blossomed between us in the armpit of the world.

It was easier that way—to pretend we weren’t in love.

Because I loved them.

I did.

That was so painfully clear now that I folded over and wept at the thought of never seeing them again, of never experiencing our love, of watching it grow and flourish. Right now we were just seedlings barely sprouted above the soil, little wisps of green poking above the black earth, all cozy in the same garden bed, all complementary to each other.

And Lloyd was the boot, trampling each of us to nothing before we had the chance to bloom.

I had to love them.

I wouldn’t throw my life away for anything less.

And that made what was about to happen so much worse.

Gasping, fighting for air, struggling against the panic, I sat upright again, and through teary eyes watched Lloyd grit his teeth, grind them, glower down at me—then whip around and swipe everything off his desk. I yelped as it all clattered viciously to the floor, glass shattering and papers flying. He grabbed his desk lamp, the sole survivor of the first attack, and hurled it at a bookshelf. The crash made me jump, and I turned away as stained shards came whizzing back in our direction.

Whatever wasn’t nailed down, he threw. Destroyed. Smashed into itty-bitty pieces under his polished loafers. A pulse of raging magic detonated from him, and the shock wave knocked books off their shelves and splintered the windowpanes. Fueled by his fury, a fire sparked on its own in the hearth. Since meeting Elijah, I had tasted so much fire—in him, in myself. I welcomed its burn, but this one, the flames snapping and hissing and crackling, terrified me. It wasn’t the comforting heat I felt with my dragon, not the inferno that bolstered me, made me feel strong when I had nothing else, just a witch without her magic.

This was a warning, a message, an omen for the future.

I feared its wrath.

I feared him.

This man, this warlock, was going to kill me one day. Maybe tomorrow, maybe next month, maybe ten years from now—he was going to snuff me out in a rage just like this one.

I closed my eyes, chest shuddering as I braced against another breakdown, twitching and flinching as Lloyd continued to obliterate his office.

All in absolute silence.

No yelling or cursing, no snarling or sneering. Just cold, methodical fury that seemed to go on forever.

When it finally stopped, when I dared open my eyes again, there was practically nothing left. Curtains torn. Every book on the floor. Huge imposing chair overturned. Firelight engulfed the room and white spiderwebbed cracks covered both windows.

And in the middle of it all, Lloyd Guthrie. He’d barely broken a sweat, not a hair out of place, tie slightly askew again. He fixed that without ever taking his eyes off me, without even blinking.

“So, you love them,” he growled, that smoky rasp strained and dangerous. “That’s fine, kitten. I understand… But you’ll get over that soon, won’t you?”

I nodded frantically, an outright lie, my heart shattering and my world ending. Lloyd stabbed a hand through his hair and then grinned as his gaze dropped to my neck again.

“Good girl.”

28

Elijah

While my last memories of Cellblock C were hazy, a few stood out stronger than the rest. Black smoke filling the air, thick and suffocating. Fintan unconscious at my side. Rafe crawling for us, reaching out, me and my inner dragon desperate to draw him near. Katja’s limp body beneath me, her eyes open and glossy.

I am the weapon.

Pathetic. What sort of protection had I offered in the outbreak? My snarling presence had kept