Caged Kitten (All the Queen's Men #2) - Rhea Watson Page 0,24

just… stuck.

Tears burned my eyes, but I blinked them back and looked up, focusing on the fake lighting, on the aggressive fluorescent glow, so I could stop thinking about anything else—just for a few minutes.

At least there were potential allies in my corner. If Willow was telling the truth, then maybe I could count on Elijah and Rafe for something more than being cellblock eye candy. Silver lining, I suppose.

That, and I now had a cafeteria buddy if Willow wasn’t a secret sociopath just searching for ways to manipulate me.

Unfortunately, as the alarms tolled and guards started barking for their cellblocks to get up and ship out, I was hit with a change of heart, indecision chipping away at me. No allies. No friends. They were all liabilities in here, right? Nor could I take anything anyone said at face value. As I joined the line for Cellblock C at the door we entered from, loitering behind maenad Constance and her bright pink hair as she heckled one of the cafeteria guards, I absorbed everything Willow had told me with a grain of salt. I’d judge Rafe and Elijah for myself, and if they were good guys, then great. Two less jerks to worry about in the place where I had to sleep.

I just preferred to escape this hellhole by myself—if only to ensure I didn’t owe anyone a damn thing.

Because in Xargi Penitentiary, I had a feeling any deal struck came with a price you could never, ever pay.

6

Elijah

Shockingly, showering was one of the few activities in this shithole that made you feel normal—like a free man, not a caged animal.

But only if you faced the wall, crouching slightly under the tepid spray, and kept your back to the warlock fucks loitering a few feet away.

And only if you didn’t pay too much attention to the gunk between the grout, the stalls in need of a serious deep clean.

Oh, and never mind that you were wearing ridiculous flimsy shoes that you bought in commissary, and that if you dared step onto the brown tile without them, you’d probably catch a foot fungus unlike any the world had ever seen.

Still. It was peaceful, in a way. Quiet. We were permitted to use the Cellblock C shower room every other day. The ordeal started two hours before breakfast: woken by a shrill alarm, inmates were required to stand in front of their cell doors, bleary-eyed and half-asleep, while two of our three permanent guards led inmates in pairs out for a brisk shower. If you didn’t have soap, couldn’t afford it, someone had stolen it from your cell—too fucking bad. Just stand under the terrible water pressure and soak it all in for five minutes.

Katja wouldn’t have soap yet. Only halfway through her first week in the scummiest place on Earth, she had no buying privileges. No funds in her account—whatever the penitentiary wasn’t siphoning from her already, anyway—and no access to the prison shop. Fortunately, she smelled fucking fantastic no matter what. Dirty. Clean. A little sweaty… Her body odor was intoxicating as hell, always rousing my inner dragon and getting him all riled up with just a whiff. Four days on and you’d think we would have adjusted to her presence, especially with Rafe digging his claws into my arm anytime I fixated on my mate, but nope. Seeing her now was like seeing her for the first time—every time.

A feeling I loved and loathed. No one had ever had this much power over me before, such sway. Not a human, not a super, and never another shifter. I’d spent centuries learning to control the beast within. My inner dragon and I—we operated on the same page, always. His moods were my moods and vice versa. We thought as one, rarely quarreled, and navigated this world as a team.

But around her, he was a beast and I was just a man, driven by lust and need and a desire to protect and hoard unlike anything I had ever experienced. Hoarding came with the dragon territory, and I usually exhausted that urge through my jewelry business. In Xargi, one of my workplace assignments was the smithy, forced to forge weapons and trinkets in front of a fire for hours. In the last six months, that had been enough.

No longer.

After all, I wasn’t allowed to keep anything I made, wasn’t permitted to squirrel it away in an underground safe like I did back home. Now that my fated mate had entered