Page 77 of Caged Kitten

Rafe

“I can’t believe that piece of filth is still here.” Standing sentry alongside Fintan outside Katja’s cell, I crossed my arms and scowled at a smirking Deimos. The demon sat on his usual throne in the middle of the block, surrounded by his cronies, untouchable. His lot had been neck-deep in a game of cards for ages—someone had stolen the deck from my cell during my trip to the shop and subsequent near-murder of a demonic gnat who deserved to be ground into shark chum—and now their overlord got a big kick out of throwing smug looks our way. If I didn’t intentionally plant my feet, I would have flown across the block and ripped him apart as soon as he’d returned from the library. “He should be in solitary. All of them should—”

“I can’t believe you aren’t in solitary,” Fintan muttered, shooting me a look that demanded I just drop it already—that he was sick of me going round and round about Deimos. Hypocritical shit. I arched an eyebrow at the fae, who still had flour dusted across his green jumpsuit and a burn on his sharp cheekbone.

“What?”

“Well, obviously Cooper and Katja didn’t just happen upon that cheery bunch yesterday,” he remarked with a roll of his eyes. “Obviously it was orchestrated, and with the way things run in here, you could have easily been blamed for all of it. They could still very well shove you in one of those holes and throw away the key.”

Tully’s purring spiked inside his mistress’s cell, and I glanced over my shoulder with a clenched jaw, irritated that Fintan, for all his pompous talk, was right. What had happened to our girl had been a planned hit—how else would Deimos and the others all be out of the cellblock at the same time? One by one, they had been pulled out before supper yesterday, around the time I too had requested a trip to the shop to stock up on supplies that I didn’t need but liked to share with my group if they were lacking. Someone had it out for Katja, and while we three had speculated as she tried desperately to sleep through her injuries before lights-out, none of us were certain.

Well. Save Fintan. He had a working theory that the warden had taken a special interest in our witch, tormenting her for reasons unknown.

That remained unproven—and Katja hadn’t said more than five words since Elijah gently placed her in her cot yesterday afternoon. She should have been convalescing in the infirmary, but no guard would take her. Thompson disappeared immediately after he returned her to us, and we hadn’t seen him since, but the warlock seemed to possess a soft spot for her; if anyone could get her the medical care she needed, it was him.

And Tully.

Thank God that black cloud had snuck into the prison. Without him, she would still be wheezing through a broken rib. With him, it had healed, downgraded to a painful bruise that still made her wince and shiver, but at least she could breathe freely. He hadn’t left her side once, purring and nuzzling, fueling her body with his familiar magic, healing her one tiny stitch at a time. If she had been placed in hospital like she was supposed to, the prison healers could have fixed her in minutes.

Instead, she was left to suffer.

Couldn’t even stand long enough to get to the cafeteria for the three meals that had come and gone since her attack.

Fortunately, for all his posturing about being fae royalty, Fintan was an exceptional little thief. He had managed to sneak something back to her every time, bread hunks and overcooked meat hidden in his jumpsuit, then volunteered on his day off to work her bakery shift. Her solo bakery shift, mind you. Poor bastard was rather grumpy about that. By a sheer stroke of luck, Elijah had the day off as well, and he hadn’t left her cot since the cell doors opened. While the guards glared and whispered, no one had tried to remove him.

Perhaps they knew better by now.

Or perhaps they remembered what he had done to Phillips in the shower all those months back.

Add that to what had happened to Deimos yesterday, me slamming his head into the ground again and again until it splintered apart. So satisfying, the crack of his skull, the surge of black blood across my fingers—not that I’d been able to enjoy it for long. At the time, pure instinct drove my hand, guided me, turned me into an animal. As Thompson escorted me back from commissary, I had felt Katja’s pain, her panic, her terror. A vampire’s bite formed a connection between predator and prey. Ordinarily the tether faded with time, but mine and Katja’s lingered, her more visceral emotions and physical sensations shuddering through me no matter the distance.

Nothing like feeling the woman you fancied orgasm when she was supposed to be showering.

Yesterday, when I’d felt her, I just… reacted. Snapped. Accepted the violent, brutal beast I’d become centuries ago. Hunted down my girl and punished those who dared lay a hand on her.

Naturally, Deimos had been taken to the prison hospital. Fucker looked shiny and new today, haughty as always and seemingly quite proud of himself for the blow he had delivered to a rival gang.

Now the geniuses running the show had us all caged together—and they expected us not to fight?

Or maybe they did.

Maybe Fintan had a point—

“Hello?” The fae poked me hard in the arm. “You still with me? I really can’t handle both of you flipping your shit today, okay?”

I swatted his hand away when he went in for a second prod. “Fuck off, Fintan. I’m fine.”

“I mean, I get it.” The fae cocked his head to the side, surveying Deimos with an uncharacteristic calm I’d never seen before from him. “I want to skin him alive, heal him, and then do it again. Scoop out his eyes with one of those human ice cream scooper things… All that. But if you lose it and they chuck you in solitary, I can’t hold Elijah back by myself.”

“I fucking heard that,” the dragon shifter growled from inside Katja’s cell. Fintan and I looked back, sunset allowing us both to block the doorway, and the fae snorted.

“Good. Hear it, dragon, and take heed.”

Elijah stared Fintan down, pupils like slits, everything about him hard as stone. It was the sort of glare that would send lesser men fleeing into the shadows, yet Fintan merely stared back, unfazed, and cocked his head again as if daring him to argue. The standoff lasted until Katja dragged in a deep, nourishing breath and shuffled about beneath the starchy linens. Then Elijah was lost to the both of us, back to his protective stance at the edge of the cot, lording over her fitfully slumbering figure like a gargoyle.

If anyone managed to shoulder by me and Fintan, Elijah would absolutely destroy them. Never in the history of our friendship had I seen him so focused—and he ran a jeweler’s shop back home. The profession demanded absolute patience, precision, and skill, but Katja was his crown jewel, his prized possession, and every iota of concentration he possessed was dedicated to her.

Same, friend. Same.

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