Caged Kitten (All the Queen's Men #2) - Rhea Watson Page 0,5

whipped around and fired. “Debilito!”

Red electricity crackled from my fingertips, fast and furious as it hurtled for my opponent. A tall silhouette dressed all in black loomed at the end of the aisle, and while he raised his hands, one clutching a thick, rigid wand, I caught him off guard. My hex illuminated the entire café, painted it red, highlighted the widening whites of his eyes and struck him square in his huge chest. Sent him flying back. Seconds later, he crashed into a table and some chairs, and victory twisted in my belly.

“Nescius,” a masculine voice rumbled, voice soft as velvet—and his spell strong as steel. I only managed to pivot halfway around before a blue bolt slammed into my temple, and I was unconscious before I even hit the ground.

2

Katja

Everything hurt when I came to. Head, especially where that spell had landed. Neck, stiff and achy like I’d pulled something on the left side. Shoulders, like I’d ping-ponged between two brick walls for hours. My ribs, as if they’d become best friends with a steel-toed boot. My wrists—on fire.

“T-Tully?” His name came out all thick and croaky, throat like sandpaper and dry beyond belief, as if I’d been sleeping with my mouth open for a week straight. I swallowed with some difficulty and winced through the sharp twinge. It didn’t matter when I finally pried my heavy eyelids open, because whatever space I suddenly found myself in was pitch-black anyway. Seated on something hard, I shuffled side to side, metal creaking beneath me—and snapped tight around my wrists. I flexed my fingers in and out, and a hard jerk got me nowhere; I was cuffed to the chair, the restraints attached at the wrists and ankles.

Had I been… kidnapped?

Finding one’s footing in the darkness sucked, senses somehow both on overdrive and painfully muted. Couldn’t see. No sound. No movement in the shadows. From the smell of it, I was far from Café Crowley, and when I reached out to him through our bond, Tully was nowhere to be found.

My eyes stung with a rush of tears. We had never spent a day apart. My familiar slept in my bed, stood guard outside the shower every morning, and ate breakfast on my lap while we watched the morning news, ruminating together about the depressing state of affairs in the human world. He came with me to work, snoozed around the café all day, and then sauntered after me on the walk home. Tully was my world—and I’d done nothing when I’d heard him yowl. I’d left him to fend for himself.

Guilt struck, hard and vicious and deep, like a knife to the gut twisting when his fat fluffy face flashed in my mind’s eye. Mercifully, I couldn’t feel any intense emotion through our connection. He wasn’t suffering, wherever he was, but he also wasn’t with me. And the fact that I couldn’t feel anything from him at all only made the guilt worse. What if he was hurt? What if those bastards had killed him?

What if—

Obnoxious light erupted above me, painting the small space in a white glow that made me flinch and squint. Sniffling, I pushed Tully deep inside, hoping that no news was good news for my familiar—that he had found a safe place to hide from whoever had kidnapped me and stuffed me inside a teeny box of a room. As I blinked back tears, I took in my surroundings: tiled walls on either side, grimy cement floor, a metal table in front of me and an iron chair beneath. Iron had a specific look to supers, a faint shimmer. While it had no effect on witches or warlocks, this would have been a death trap for a fae.

“Recludo,” I whispered, bracing for the telltale clicks of the shackles unlocking, then the satisfying thud when they fell to the ground. Nothing. I blinked, peering down behind me, my arms locked straight, my wrists raw and red. Thin cuffs snared me tight, and my spell had done nothing to change that. Frowning, I cleared my dry throat and tried again. “Resigno.” Nothing. And again. “Resero.” And again. “Apertum… Fucking fuck.”

While I felt the familiar hum of magic in my palms, the buzz that coursed through my veins before bursting from my fingertips, nothing happened. Some witches had performance anxiety, unable to cast if their emotions weren’t right, but that had never been the case with me. Even in my darkest hour, mourning the fact that I was