Caged Kitten (All the Queen's Men #2) - Rhea Watson Page 0,17
anyway?
No one had asked for this.
And surely no one but those lining their pockets wanted this.
“Hey?” I called through the little hole, settling on my side and peering through the black, my night vision as spectacular as my hearing. Not that there was much of a view: just more dusty brownish-grey stonework, then what appeared to be one of the metal legs of her bed shoved up against the far wall.
At the sound of my voice, the witch fell silent save for a little sniffle, and I raised my eyebrows, waiting for a response.
Nothing.
Fair enough.
I didn’t really talk to anyone but Elijah and I’d been here six months. But I couldn’t just leave it at that; scaring her wasn’t the goal, and I most certainly was not like the majority of the actual criminals in here.
“Katja, right?”
“I-I’m sorry,” she murmured, voice carrying through even though she was positioned somewhere out of sight, somewhere deeper in her cell. Probably next to the window, the small taste of freedom and normalcy this place allowed any of us. “Could you hear me?”
“Well, yes.” Obviously. She wasn’t exactly being quiet over there. Unfortunately, my sardonic tone set off another bout of crying, and I shook my head, rolled my eyes, and flopped onto my back. Elijah was accustomed to my snark, my bouts of melancholy, my dry wit, but it could be a touch off-putting to strangers.
“It’s fine,” I remarked, threading my hands together on top of my chest. “Everyone cries the first night. I mean, the innocent ones, anyway.” Really, the thought of Deimos or Constance wailing inside their cells was laughable. “The other bastards probably expected to be in something like this at some point.”
Bare feet tiptoed across the stone tiles, and I listened to her hands grazing the wall between us, followed by shuffling along the base until she stumbled onto the little mouse highway. I glanced to the side, the nothingness on the other end suddenly filled with a sapphire-blue eye searching me out.
“Hello,” I whispered when our gazes met fleetingly, hers disappearing just as fast as it appeared.
“Hi,” she offered in return. After a little more scuffling on her end, all I saw was that brilliant red hair in front of the hole, suggesting she had adopted a similar position on the floor. Katja cleared her throat, her voice thick and hoarse as she said, “Everyone says they’re innocent though.”
“Again, yes.” I pressed my lips together and swallowed the sarcasm down. “But you can hardly believe them, can you? They’re all practiced liars, even the guards. And watch yourself with Deimos.”
Elijah had gone way too far with the demon earlier today, catching his eye with that display, encouraging the little shit to take a special interest in him and Katja. From here on out, Deimos and his cronies would be paying extra-close attention to the pair whenever they interacted, and I dreaded having to involve myself in another tedious spat.
Especially over a woman.
How sinfully cliché.
Mind you—it wasn’t really about Katja. Deimos had sensed Elijah’s alpha qualities from the beginning, and that made the demon want to fuck with him. Simple, typical, stupid supernatural dynamics—all alive and well in Xargi Penitentiary.
She let out a watery laugh. “Yeah, like I’d cozy up to a demon. I’m not that desperate.”
“Good to hear.” At least she had a brain in that pretty head. A tense quiet settled over us—tense only because there was never an easy quiet in a place like this. If someone in our cellblock wasn’t making a ruckus just for kicks, usually Constance, occasionally that rat shifter Blake, then someone, somewhere, was screaming, and it carried through the vents like thunder come nightfall.
“I’m sorry I kept you up,” Katja said suddenly, sounding a little sheepish. I shrugged, even if she couldn’t see it.
“It’s fine. I’m used to it.”
“The collar doesn’t kill your hearing, huh?”
I picked at the leather, more habit than anything, careful not to trigger its failsafe curse—the kind that went off if you were stupid enough to try and remove the thing. “Not as much as I’d like.”
“I’m sorry—”
“Stop saying that.” Her breath hitched, and I rubbed the knot between my eyebrows with a sigh. “No, I just mean… It’s fine. I understand, anyway.”
“I’m a bit… overwhelmed, I guess,” she admitted softly. Just as I was about to tell her that was completely understandable, that this place was a steaming pile of hot garbage that ought to be burned to the ground with all the guards and that