Caged Kitten (All the Queen's Men #2) - Rhea Watson Page 0,75

salt-and-pepper hair and slate-grey eyes. One of the guards addressed him as the warden, then snapped for all of us to smarten up. Eyebrow arched, I glanced left, then right. Glistening with perspiration, this lot couldn’t look smart right now if we tried, with dirt under our nails, smeared across a few cheeks, spattered on jumpsuits.

But the warden was untouched and no doubt untouchable. Sporting a crisp navy suit, a painfully clean white dress shirt beneath and a checkered blue-and-silver tie, he commanded the room with just a look.

He was my ticket out of here.

The gold on his fingers, the cruel twist of his mouth, the wand with its ivory handle hanging loosely in one hand, and the control exuding from his every pore meant absolutely nothing to me. In my world, this creature wouldn’t even ascend to the rank of the lowliest courtier.

Tall, wiry, birdlike in the way he surveyed his captives, Warden Guthrie could still be bought. Every man had a price, and as soon as I had the means, he could name it and I’d be gone.

Along with Katja, if I could swing it.

Maybe her brooding guards too, but I wasn’t about to push my luck for them.

Without bothering to address us, Guthrie launched into a big speech about the innovation of the greenhouse—the prison’s newest and brightest program, apparently inspired by one of its inmates. He sang its praises, about the rehabilitative properties of working with plants, about the benefits it could offer all us lowly criminals, and the profit it would bring the prison from trade agreements—marked-up prices and all.

Prick. The bastard was a businessman through and through, a warlock I could crush under my boot without this collar. Swallowing a chuckle, I leaned back to whisper the sentiment to Katja, my arms crossed and my mouth sporting the shit-eater grin that had already gotten me punched in here.

Only my words died on the tip of my tongue.

Katja was sheet-white and trembling, her arms folded over her chest like they were snared in an invisible straight jacket. Eyes on the floor, she seemed to be concentrating on her breathing, and a strange, unfamiliar panic skittered down my spine.

What…?

I poked her with my elbow, but she only withdrew further, not daring to lift her gaze from the dirt floor. Confusion ripened in my gut, but when I faced the warden droning on and on again, it vanished. Poof—gone, the reality of the situation painfully clear. Guthrie might have been addressing the suits, gesturing with his arms, his wand, rambling in an aged rasp that probably did it for those lusting after a daddy—but his eyes never left Katja.

Not once.

Master of the ceremony, he conducted this show confidently, yet he couldn’t tear his gaze from her. The other inmates around me shuffled, picked their nails, wiped at their sweaty faces. Most refused to look at Guthrie, but no one shook. No one quivered in their prison-issued flats. No one looked like they wanted to disappear into the earth and never come back.

Without thinking—and without hesitation—I moved. Ever so slightly, I adjusted my stance so that I was right in his line of sight, blocking Katja entirely. Guthrie’s next word might have hitched, but he carried on smoothly, chortling about the price markups of our perfect succulents. Those searching greys tried to dart around me, peer through me, but I made a better door than a fucking window.

At no point did I glare. Fleeting images of my first afternoon came to mind, ones of Katja returning from her meeting with the warden so distraught that she had hid in her cell for an entire day after. Something had happened between them, and obviously the predator wasn’t ready to discard his prey just yet. He wanted to toy with her a little longer before the kill, truly relish the fear.

But he couldn’t have her. Not here. Not on my watch.

And that made me grin. Bold as sin, I stared back, tuning out his bullshit and peering straight into the slate. No fear. No intimidation. I lacked power in this place, but old Warden Guthrie was more breakable than any of the fair folk—and no slip of leather could ever make either of us forget it.

When the show ended, the caged animals were sent back to work. The suits filed out, Guthrie lingering, searching for her in the crowd, but I made it my mission to block his view from every angle. Eventually, he turned away with a scowl; I’d