Caged Kitten (All the Queen's Men #2) - Rhea Watson Page 0,84
fucking crowbar to the chest. Knuckling at the dull ache, I sat up and exhaled softly at the same old sights and sounds of guards dragging Cellblock C’s inmates away for work duty. They had a blessed half hour after breakfast to collect themselves before the workday began, and what I wouldn’t do for a fucking job in here.
Everyone moaned about it, but little did any of them realize that sitting around in a vacant cellblock—occasionally with a friend, usually a foe—for nine grueling hours with very little to occupy oneself with was far worse than the aches and pains of labor. Boring as fuck, it felt akin to solitary if I didn’t have Katja or Elijah to keep me company. Hell, for all his posturing and absurdity, even Fintan sufficed to pass the time.
With my literary background, I should have been an obvious candidate for library duty, but no one would block out the windows for me. I’d excel amongst our underwhelming collection of books, and yet Deimos had been granted the opportunity to sit in a cool room surrounded by tomes and do absolutely nothing while the other inmates assigned to the same shift kept the catalogue organized.
Really, he didn’t deserve the library.
“Please…” Katja’s pleading tone rose above the standard hubbub, and I frowned as I crept to the end of my cot, on high alert should she need assistance. “It’s really bad this morning.”
Really bad? She hadn’t mentioned anything at breakfast about—
“Look, if it’s that bad, go to the infirmary.” Fucking Williams. Cellblock C’s dimmest guard came with an extreme prejudice of vampires not uncommon in the supernatural community; the other night he’d had the nerve to ram his elbow into me at just the right moment in the cafeteria. So engrossed in my evening fix of glorious type O, I’d actually stumbled, then fumbled, and my test tube crashed to the ground before I could catch it. Blood had splashed everywhere—and then the cunt stepped in it while lecturing me about clumsiness. Elijah had nearly ripped his massive caterpillar eyebrows off, but Katja kept the peace, urging us on to our usual table while I went without for a night.
Fucker.
“You’re assigned to the greenhouse today,” he carried on, and while I couldn’t see him, I could hear his smarmy expression. “So you can’t just—”
“I’ll take over her shift.” Ah, Fintan to the rescue. The fae had continued to sniff around Katja like he had every right to, despite referencing mine and Elijah’s interest in her anytime the urge struck. Quite shocking now that he had suddenly offered to do a lick of work; usually he spent his time in the greenhouse haunting Katja’s shadow—from what I’d heard, anyway—and only did the bare minimum to get through the day. “It seems like cruel and unusual punishment to force a female to work under such conditions.”
A beat of silence followed as other inmates were escorted out the main door, and I rolled my eyes. Another classic Fintan move: annoying his audience into an uncomfortable quiet.
He seemed to take great pleasure in doing so. Typical fae.
“Uh, yeah,” Katja said slowly. “Thanks, Fintan. It’s just really bad cramps, but I’m having a hard time standing upright. I’ll be fine by tomorrow, I’m sure of it, but today it’s coming out in chunks—like you should have seen my toilet. And then now that I’ve eaten, the period shits are coming—”
“Ugh, gods.” Williams groaned and I stifled a chuckle of my own, turning it into a cough. “Fine, fine. So long as Fintan picks up the slack, whatever. Just… go sit in your cell and never say period shits to me ever again.”
“Deal.” She sounded like she was smiling. They were few and far between, but Katja’s smiles were some of the most beautiful I’d ever seen. If these bastards would ever give me a proper writing utensil, even something as basic as a quill and inkpot, I could write whole sonnets about her mouth. About the shape of her lips, their color and fullness…
I blinked hard and shook my head, burying the thoughts deep down where they belonged, then readjusted my jumpsuit as my cock stirred with interest. Not now, you horny bastard. Pathetic that just the thought of her mouth got me going when I tried so damn hard to make everyone believe, myself included, that Katja and I were just friends.
Let’s chalk it up to nearly ten months of forced celibacy, shall we?