Page 74 of Caged Kitten

I could endure.

I could survive him.

Never would I ever accept his offer.

Never.

Even the nightmares had stopped now that Tully snuggled up to me each night. My familiar provided a deep, dreamless sleep, and I came to refreshed and resilient. While still not quite the heroine of this depressing story, I walked with my head held higher lately.

And Lloyd Guthrie couldn’t take that from me no matter how many gory details he shoved down my throat.

“Fine,” Lloyd growled with an aggressive nod toward his office door. “Just go. We’ll be seeing each other again real soon, kitten.”

Even though my knees wobbled as I stood, I forced myself to roll my eyes—big and obvious, just for him. The muscles along his jaw flickered, and his grey gaze cut down my face to my lips, then just low enough so that when my hair spilled back over my shoulder, he—

“What the hell is that?”

He saw Rafe’s bite. Panicked, I dragged my hair forward and staggered around the armchair that had once felt so claustrophobic, now small and ineffectual as Lloyd leapt out of his seat and raced around the desk. The damn puncture wounds still hadn’t fully healed—not that I wanted them to. In fact, I usually nodded off after our nightly chats stroking the marks, Tully purring by my side, but I couldn’t understand why they were still there.

Vampire toxin was said to do all sorts of delicious things to their prey’s bodies, and I had experienced that firsthand. Besides the pleasure, the toxin in their saliva was supposed to facilitate healing, especially if their victim’s heart was still beating. Only I’d also had little cuts and burns courtesy of both the bakery and the greenhouse after Rafe bit me that were just distant memories, yet those two perfectly round dots looked so fresh they could have been added to my skin yesterday, not weeks ago.

“It’s—”

“Is that a vampire bite? A filthy vampire put his mouth on you?” Lloyd bellowed, catching up to me in no time. He shoved his wand under my chin and snapped his huge hand around my throat, and I squealed when he slammed me up against the door. Since being with Elijah and Fintan, along with experiencing the bloodiest of kisses from Rafe, I realized I had a taste for rough sex and the promise of violence in the bedroom. It should have scared the shit out of me—but it was hot, and with my trio, I felt safe enough to indulge in some dormant fantasies.

But this wasn’t a fantasy.

Lloyd wrenched my head to the side, exposing my neck, and then ripped at my jumpsuit collar for a closer look. Wand tip stabbing into the underside of my chin, his breath hit hard and fast, peppering me with the remnants of that herbal cigarette. A good head taller and a shocking amount stronger, he pinned me against the door with his imposing frame and examined me at his leisure—like I was a dog.

And all I felt was fear.

No dark desire, no throb of forbidden arousal.

Just gut-dropping, pulse-pounding, throat-closing terror. Ice sluiced through my veins as he touched me, poked me, prodded at me, and I swallowed down a surge of bile when his lips brushed my ear with each heated word.

“You have no right to give your body to another, Katja Fox,” he seethed, wand pressing deeper, pushing down on my shoulder, opening me to him, exposing my throat as every muscle protested the strain. I closed my eyes tight to catch the tears before they fell, their prickle sharp and cruel, and then flinched at the first hint of his teeth on my skin. “It belongs to me, in its entirety, and I haven’t given anyone permission to taste you.”

I chomped down on my lips to hide their shaking, then focused on taking deep, even breaths as my stomach roiled and my mouth flooded with saliva. No anxiety pukes. No anxiety pukes. This gross bastard had already witnessed the humiliation of me emptying my guts out in front of him; he knew exactly what he did to me, and he didn’t get to go on thinking he had that much control over my body.

Lloyd lingered, really drawing out the indignities, checking the rest of my neck for any additional bites, and when satisfied that there was only the one, he grabbed me by the chin and slammed my head back into the door. Stars exploded behind my tightly clenched eyelids, and I muffled my whimper.

“Cooper,” he barked, mouth right next to my ear again, voice cracking like a gunshot. I flinched away, slowly and hesitantly opening my eyes, and Lloyd wrenched me off the door when the knob creaked. Sure enough, there was my block’s sleaziest guard waiting on the other side of the door, stinking of smoke just like his boss, the corridor behind him scented with a cloud of charred herbs.

“Yeah, chief?”

“Take her on the scenic route,” Lloyd growled as he shoved me into Cooper’s awaiting grasp. The warlock grabbed my arm harder than he needed to, yanking me forward a few paces so roughly that I tripped—much to the enjoyment of both men present.

“Yes, sir.”

The door slammed shut as soon as Cooper hauled me off on yet another forced march, the corridor suddenly bathed in shadows, illuminated only by the odd flickering fluorescent that made my churning belly even angrier.

All I wanted in that moment was Elijah. I wanted his protective, possessive gaze sweeping my body, assessing it for injuries, and I wanted the clench of his jaw when he realized I had been with the warden again. I wanted his arm tight around my shoulders in the common area—the only physical contact we dared risk in front of the guards—and his hand on my thigh under the table at dinner. I wanted his brimstone scent. I wanted his eyes like slits, the inner dragon on guard.

He didn’t need to say a word to make me feel safe.

He was my fated mate—and I needed him.

We were still working through the particulars, sure, and there was no telling what kind of relationship we would have had outside of Xargi… But this was what we had now. Comfort in the closeness. Security in nothing more than a glance.

---