Caged Kitten (All the Queen's Men #2) - Rhea Watson Page 0,155

open arms and relieved smile. Sprinting barefoot in the most ridiculously tight red dress imaginable, I’d never been happier. I flew into him with a strangled cry, and even though it was like running face-first into a brick wall, I gritted through the pain and latched on tight. Arms around his neck, I stood up on my tippiest toes as relief coursed through my veins like a salve.

“Are you okay?” I whispered shakily, trembling in his embrace—for once with happiness, not horror or fear or agonizing loss. Exhaling sharply, the vampire buried his face in my neck, then made no effort to hide the way he breathed me in, dragging his nose along my shoulder.

“Better than,” he rumbled back. “You?”

Over his shoulder, I spotted Fintan in his green jumpsuit weaving through the crowd of gathered supers toward us, and I nodded.

“Getting there,” I told him, voice thick, eyes darting about in search of the fourth member of our little prison gang—the one who possessed a third of my heart and had since long before we were born. Bound by fate, my dragon ought to be here right alongside us.

But only Fintan approached, nose in a splint, dark purple rings around his eyes. He was totally fixated on Rafe and me, the intensity of his stare and that ridiculously confident stride making my knees weak—until he looked slightly beyond us. Then he stumbled, all the smoldering sexy melting away, replaced by an endearing boyish affection.

He’d spotted his brother.

And from the expression on his face, from the way Rollo had fought tooth and nail to get into the penitentiary, those two loved each other.

As Rafe loosened his bone-crushing hold on me, Tully circling around our legs and purring up a storm, the fae blitzed by, slowing only to pinch my ass in passing, and when I peered over my shoulder, I found Rollo yanking him into a brotherly bear hug.

A rogue tear slid down my cheek, and Rafe brushed it away, black brows knitted with concern, but I shooed his fears off with a smile and a giggle and a hard, fleeting kiss that turned his concern to dumbstruck affection.

I hadn’t meant to cry—but they were tears of joy, something about seeing siblings who loved each other plucking at my heartstrings…

Made me briefly remember the good times of my childhood, the ones spent with Jackson and Ewan, brothers who I adored just as openly as Rollo and Fintan did each other.

They had reunited at the bottom of the staircase, and when the hug finally ended, Rafe and I drifting in their direction, entwined and moving as one, Rollo grabbed Fintan by the shoulder and held him at an arm’s length.

“You wear the scars of battle, little brother,” Rollo thundered, booming it like he wanted everyone to know. Rafe snorted, and I poked him sharply in the side, a warning to let them have their moment. The vampire’s brows shot up again as he threw his arm around my shoulders and tucked me against him, that smirk daring me to reprimand him out loud.

Fintan, meanwhile, scratched at the back of his neck with a chuckle. “Ah, yes, well—”

“How did you damage your nose?”

“Naturally, it was defending my lady’s honor,” the fae crowed, motioning back to me dramatically. The whole garrison glanced my way, some smirking, others whispering. Rollo, meanwhile, folded his arms over his broad chest, lips twitching like he was fighting back another smile.

“Is that so?”

Fintan scoffed. “Don’t you believe me? Of course. Would you not defend such a fetching creature, brother? Surely in all your time alive, you’ve experienced that moment when you must choose between your life and that of your heart’s—”

“They gassed us this afternoon during the riot,” Rafe said dryly, loud enough to stop what was shaping up to be a very long, overwrought Fintan monologue. “He fell on his face when he passed out and broke his own nose.”

“Ah,” Rollo murmured, smirking, his nod implying he had expected as much.

Which rubbed me the wrong way. Fintan had been brave time and time again in here. He had stood up for me. He deserved recognition.

My fae just snorted and took a good-natured swipe at Rafe. “Well, we were gassed defending her, you fangless fuck.”

Much to my surprise, Rafe flipped him off with a grin. No angst. No brooding. No self-conscious covering of his mouth. I hadn’t been apart from my guys for all that long, but when had everyone gotten so comfortable chatting about their raging insecurities? Had