Caged Kitten (All the Queen's Men #2) - Rhea Watson Page 0,39
old lives. Elijah and I had discussed the past here and there, but with Rafe, the conversation erred toward safe subjects.
Maybe he, like me, found talk of the outside world, of our lives before, depressing.
Elijah had a knack for drawing it out of me without either of us realizing, the conversation fluid and deep. With Rafe, sometimes I was too aware, and if I could help it, I steered clear of conversation topics that would bum us both out.
Just like the day I’d first been ushered into Cellblock C, as soon as the guards had us standing beside our cells, the main door flew open, and in waltzed two processing guards dragging a new inmate between them. The alarms finally died down with his arrival, and I stood up on my toes to get a good look at him, even as my legs protested, my feet swollen and my lower back miserable after today’s bakery shift.
But…
My gods, this guy was worth the pain.
I had never been so instantly in lust with someone before. Dressed in green, Cellblock C’s newest arrival had a willowy figure, all lean limbs and elegant fingers. A dancer’s body—graceful but strong. Where Elijah was bulk and muscle and man, this one was subtle strength, his arms taut and corded with a physicality that had me drooling like I’d never seen a gorgeous man before—like I wasn’t already surrounded by them in this prison, day in and day out. Tanned skin, as if he spent all his time lolling around a yacht in the Mediterranean. Crowned by a crop of lush, thick, artfully tousled cinnamon-brown hair, the new inmate’s bright green gaze flitted around the cellblock, bouncing from one super to another before pausing on Rafe, then sliding over and lingering on me.
His stare might not have set me on fire, but it certainly made my knees weak.
A sculpted jaw. Cheekbones that could cut diamonds. Just the right amount of scruff.
This guy was what wet dreams were made of—excluding all the bruises. The busted lip. The black eye. A dribble of dried blood under each nostril. While I recalled being manhandled during processing, I had let it happen, too shell-shocked to fight. Apparently not everyone put up with it. Apparently some of us had a backbone.
Gorgeous and brave. Nice.
As the processing guards steered McHottie toward the last empty cell in the block, one situated between Helen and Constance, I glanced Rafe’s way and found him glowering at the new arrival. A soft clearing of my throat had his eyes darting to me, and I quickly mouthed, “Green jumpsuit?”
He shrugged one shoulder and mouthed back, “Dryad, elf, or fae.”
Although the guards had already hauled him into his cell, no doubt giving him the same depressing tour they had offered me that first day, I didn’t recall seeing any insanely pointed elf ears. Dryads were beyond rare—an endangered species at this point.
Fae, then.
Interesting.
While I had never personally met any of the fair folk before, those that traveled into our world through portals from the Otherworld, I had heard the stories. Arrogant, dangerous, suave, seductive, fae society operated outside the laws of humans and supernaturals alike. They had their own culture, their own codes, and considered themselves way above the rest of us. Not that I could blame them: fae possessed the innate magic of a witch, the speed of a vampire, and the durability of a shifter. They were the total supernatural package. Immortal, their courts stretched back a full millennium at least, their social mores deeply rooted in traditional monarchies. Many supernaturals considered mankind to be their lesser, but to fae, humans were no better than domesticated pets.
Man, I bet his collar was just covered in symbols—far more than any of ours. So much raw ability to suppress…
How in the world had they managed to catch him?
We all stood in front of our cells twiddling our thumbs for a good twenty minutes before the militant welcoming committee finally left. After Thompson gave us permission to move again, Deimos’s underlings rushed to the huge table in the middle of the cellblock, claiming it before we could—like we had ever tried to take it from them in the first place. I, meanwhile, studied the shadowy open doorway to the fae’s cell, intrigued.
“Nap before dinner?”
“Huh?” I pushed off the wall, my entire body protesting each step away from my cell—from the cot that, for once, was calling my name. We had another hour before the forced march down to the cafeteria,