Caged Kitten (All the Queen's Men #2) - Rhea Watson Page 0,28
hadn’t touched on it, but I assumed any future heroics were out of the question after this little stint, even for the witch who was supposed to be his fated mate.
Speaking of which…
My eyebrows shot up when I spotted a familiar mop of red hair weaving through the cafeteria crowd toward us. Lovely as ever, Katja strode about a half inch taller than when she’d arrived courtesy of the standard-issue shoes that had magically appeared in her cell yesterday. They had cost me a fortune from the shop, but I just couldn’t stand to see her shuffling about barefoot anymore.
Strange that she might approach Elijah and me; she usually spent her meals with the scarred rabbit shifter from Cellblock B, pointedly avoiding anyone from our block. Not that I could blame her… Everyone else was a sociopath. Still, I wasn’t all that bad, and I’d spent four days alone without Elijah. While I might have soothed her that first night, Katja and I weren’t exactly on casual conversation terms. If she wasn’t forced to interact with anyone during mealtimes, the witch was hiding away in her cell. She hadn’t been assigned a work duty yet either, which meant when everyone else was whisked off for their shifts, it was just her and me and whoever had the day off left in the block. Bit awkward, both of us knowing the other was there, literally right next door, and not doing a damn thing about it.
Shockingly, tonight she strode right up to our table, white-knuckling her plastic tray, shoulders back and chin lifted. Elijah straightened as soon as he caught her scent, nostrils flared, though he scoped the dining hall with less intensity now than when she’d first arrived.
Katja stopped at our table, practically right on top of it, loitering by the vacant stools, me and Elijah seated opposite each other. She cast me a fleeting glance, her cheeks pink, before focusing solely on Elijah. His inner dragon must have loved that. The man, however, just stared back, exhausted but alive.
Rolling the empty glass blood vial between my hands, I waited for something to happen. Anything. What I got was a whole load of staring, the pair locked in each other’s gazes like the rest of this shithole had disappeared. My eyebrows shot up. Fuck me, fated mates had to be draining. I’d never been happier to be a vampire than right this second. You would never catch a vampire going all googly-eyed over a mate. Never.
Still, she had the loveliest mouth—supple lips that were a lush rouge-pink, always slightly downturned and sultry, fetching even without a speck of makeup. Her lower lip suddenly quivered, snagging my attention with more ease than I cared to admit, and then she cleared her throat, rolling her shoulders back.
“I didn’t ask you to protect me,” Katja remarked, calm and firm, oddly self-assured for someone who still cried herself to sleep after lights-out. Elijah set his spork aside and smoothed his hands down his thighs beneath the table, wiping them clean, then gave her a one-shouldered shrug.
“You didn’t have to.”
The pair descended into silence again, just staring at each other, unflinching and unblinking and Jesus Christ how dreadfully dull. I ought to feel like the world’s biggest third wheel, but I didn’t. In fact, despite my usual aversion to most social situations, especially when supernatural dynamics came into play, I felt oddly at home. Like this was where I was supposed to be, watching the two of them sort out their nonsense, communicating without saying a word—waiting for it to be over.
Strange.
Strange that the ease I felt with whatever the hell this was didn’t bother me. Smirking, I tapped the glass tube on the table, the red smear pooling in the bottom all that was left of my paltry supper.
“So, you going to sit anytime soon?” I gestured to one of the many empty metal stools around our table. “Or just continue to stare? I’m fine either way, but—”
Katja turned on her heel and left without a word. I snorted, watching her go, wondering if she could feel my gaze burning holes into her back—into the barely there sway of her ass beneath her slouchy purple jumpsuit.
“Elijah—”
“Shut up, Rafe.”
My teasing grin faltered. I hadn’t planned on giving him too much shit for what he’d done in the showers. Firstly, he couldn’t help himself. Defending his mate was a shifter’s prime objective, hardcoded into his DNA. Secondly, solitary had done a spectacular job of chewing him