Caged Kitten (All the Queen's Men #2) - Rhea Watson Page 0,37
explain why.
Couldn’t understand why.
Again.
“I don’t accept it—this,” Elijah said roughly, smooshing the dough between his palms, then ripping it into two even pieces. “But that doesn’t change anything. I can’t… I can’t even… They’ve taken away one half of me with this fucking collar. I hate it. My inner dragon hates it. I hate them, but I can’t fight magic with might. No matter what the stories say, it doesn’t work that way.”
“So, you’re just going to take it?” I winced: that could have been worded better. Rather than looking offended or wounded, Elijah grinned wryly down at the tray, nudging some of the dough balls farther apart.
“You got any other ideas?”
“No,” I said miserably—honestly. I had approximately zero clue how to get out of this place. Sure, it wasn’t the stuff of nightmares or how humans envisioned Hell, but the guards ran a tight ship and these collars limited funny business. I wasn’t a player in the great political game; I had no interest in joining any of the gangs smuggling contraband and battling for power amongst trapped supers.
I was nothing here.
I had nothing here.
“Well, I intend to survive this shithole, no matter what it throws at me,” Elijah insisted, and our eyes locked as he said, “if that means anything.”
Fighting with the lump in my throat, a sudden rush of feeling throwing me for a loop, I nodded.
“Yeah,” I croaked. Somehow, his sentiment bolstered me—gave me courage in the darkness. “It does.”
With that, we got back to work, rolling dough balls in the bakery’s brutal heat. Strangely unified, this dragon and I, we stood together at that table for hours and hours, until I couldn’t stand anymore, my feet aching, my knees crackly, my lower back begging for relief…
But my spirit just a little stronger.
9
Katja
“Okay, I’ll deal the next hand…”
“You sure about that?”
I shot Rafe a narrowed look as I gathered the deck to me, smoothing cards across the table and organizing them into a neat pile. We had just finished our thousandth round of gin rummy, and frankly I would have killed to be back in the bakery. But work shifts only lasted so long—and stuck in the cellblock, the library cart’s arrival still a few days away, there really wasn’t a hell of a lot to do.
Unless you were in Deimos’s posse.
Then there were games and groveling and shifting power dynamics to wade through, every day a new adventure in demonic mayhem. Fortunately, I had shifted my stance on being a part of a crew roughly a month ago.
Thirty days back to be precise.
Forty long ones since I’d woken up in the interrogation room, missing my skirt and my wand, terrified.
I was still terrified, but at least I had two less reasons to be afraid lately.
“Hey, we can’t all have a vampire’s dexterity,” I sneered when Rafe smirked. Across the table, Elijah watched the interaction with his chin on his fist, elbow planted on the table and a grin toying across his handsome mouth. One month after our first bakery shift together and I still blushed if we made extended eye contact, but no more than if Rafe and I accidentally knocked feet under the table or brushed hands on the way back to our cells.
Naturally, it was different with Rafe: he was just hot as hell. Gorgeous. Scrumptious. Beyond mouthwatering. I had a crush. Hard not to with a guy who looked like a brooding model capable of getting his hands dirty and reciting sonnets.
The connection wasn’t visceral with my neighbor—just physical. And probably one-sided. In all the time we spent together as a threesome, Rafe catered to Elijah and me, always volunteering to step back if we were in a situation that only allowed for a pair instead of a trio.
Not that he needed to often… Besides the occasional lingering glances across the cellblock during random spot checks, Elijah and I had done a great job ignoring the fact that we felt something—something unnatural but familiar, unwelcome but honest—in each other’s presence. He still set my body on fire. I’d never been so hot in all my life, wishing I could sleep naked at night but terrified of a guard bursting in for one stupid reason or another. It happened more times than I liked, and it was always over nothing. Hauled out of bed, we had all been forced to stand at the door for the better part of an hour while a few guards ripped our cells to pieces.