Caged Kitten

by Rhea Watson

  Unfortunately, Fintan was the most difficult to ignore. Elijah and I had our fated mate connection, which made my body topsy-turvy when I forcefully distanced myself from him, and Rafe and I had our intense conversations that made me feel alive, like I wasn’t being held captive in a prison, the prickle in my neck a constant reminder that we were tied together…

  But Fintan had no issues bulldozing personal boundaries.

  He had been my shadow ever since Cooper and Williams marched us out to the greenhouse after breakfast, and even though one of the guards there had ordered him to work in the compost section today, he outright ignored them as soon as they turned their back, hot on my heels and talking at me as I harvested carton after carton of plump, juicy raspberries. They were due for the States, set to be shipped tomorrow and enchanted not to spoil.

  He had kept pushing, my gorgeous fae, nattering on about everything and nothing. Sometimes I could tune him out—me and the others even joked about Fintan’s future success as the world’s first fae white noise machine—but not today. My mind, heart, and body didn’t want to tune him out, so I heard every word, felt his every breath on my neck, the heat flaring between us whenever he hovered too close.

  And my treacherous heart desired all of that. It wasn’t love, not yet, but every so often I realized I was veering in that direction, a dingy adrift in a stormy sea, land ahead and murky depths below. I could drown—or I could carry on to the shores.

  Right now, I had purposefully chosen the depths, taking in water and struggling for air, but there really was no other choice. No one else I cared about was getting hurt on my watch.

  Fingertips stained red with raspberry juices, I plopped the final few berries in and sealed the plastic carton. Nice as it was to work around greenery, the flora thriving under the care of witches and warlocks, elves and fae, even an earth elemental in her grey jumpsuit, greenhouse duty became monotonous after a while, especially if you were assigned to harvest. Pluck the stock, package it, wheel it to processing before it shipped out. I added this carton with all its organic labels and artisan stickers to the last available spot on my metal cart, then sighed as I looked to the rear of the massive space. Time to drop off another batch, the processing area annoyingly chaotic and the guards with clipboards beyond curt.

  Bathed in greenhouse heat and humidity, the random bursts of sprinklers adding to the overall smothering damp, I brushed the sweat from my forehead and turned around—only to find myself alone, an empty, seemingly endless track of dirt sandwiched between tables of greenery ahead. Fintan had disappeared at some point, maybe sick of being ignored, and longing stabbed through me. Longing and hurt, neither of which I was allowed to feel.

  I had chosen this.

  I was ignoring them.

  It shouldn’t hurt me if any of the three respected that. This was what I needed to happen—to be left alone.

  So… Why did it feel so crappy to suddenly be alone?

  Ugh. As the color drained from my cheeks and my gut bottomed out, I shoved the cart with its unwieldy wheels toward processing. The thing felt like it weighed two tons, but the heat made everything harder and my body still hadn’t fully recovered from its beating. Tully’s constant snuggles and purrs had mended just about everything, but today I had woken up with a dull ache all over and an overwhelming exhaustion that I hadn’t let him fix.

  In a way, I almost felt like I… deserved it.

  That I should feel like garbage.

  Which was ridiculous and totally projecting and not rational, but here I was, trudging along with a cart of packaged raspberries, relishing the stiffness in my shoulders, my lower back, and my knees. It was guilt manifested—guilt for Rafe’s loss, for abandoning my fated mate, for blocking out the one man who knew how to really make me laugh.

  I wished he were here right now, ambling along beside the rickety cart, even if the conversation was one-sided.

  It was a sea of green, purple, and grey at processing, other inmates loitering around as their harvest was counted and approved. I nudged my cart to the back of the group, happy for a break while I waited my turn, struggling to get my wheels over the bump between dirt floor and grey tiled stone. Perspiration collected on the nape of my neck, back with a vengeance seconds after I brushed it away, and it dribbled between my shoulder blades, no doubt staining my jumpsuit just like everyone else.

  Ahead, two guards fussed over an elf’s peach collection, insisting some were too ripe, a pair of twin metal doors behind them that led to the magically enhanced shipping department. On the outside, it was just a garden shed. Inside, I’d been told it was the size of an aircraft carrier, another of Lloyd’s “legit” businesses removing product each evening.

  Maybe it was cooler in there.

  Not exactly a thrill to lug boxes and cartons around, but maybe it—

  Fintan’s reflection suddenly caught in the glass wall to my left. I stared at it for a moment as he drew nearer, marching into the processing sector without a cart—without a single fruit or vegetable or herb in hand. Belly looping, I forced my head down, like raspberries were way more fascinating than the fae who made my pulse race and my heart happy, and I pointedly ignored him as he stalked right by me.

  He marched by everyone, actually. Swallowing hard, I peeked up, feeling safe enough to watch his back as he sauntered to the front of the herd, a pair of chunky shears hanging off a belt around his waist.

  Wait. A belt?

  None of us had a belt, especially not one that looked so eerily similar to those on guard uniforms—

  Casual as sin, Fintan strolled right up behind one of the guard’s bitching about the peaches, reached around him—and snapped his neck. Crack. Just like that, the crunch and pop of breaking bone thundering through processing. Every inmate in line fell silent, and my heart plummeted down and out the other side. What the hell was he doing?

  As soon as that guard dropped, nothing but a limp pile of black uniform at Fintan’s feet, his companion immediately went for his wand—but Fintan was faster. So. Much. Faster. Fae speed was legendary, but I’d always chalked it up to their wings spiriting them along. Fintan whipped the shears off his belt and hurled them in the time it took me to blink, and the blade embedded into the other guard’s skull so violently that it knocked him backward. He collapsed to the stone floor with a thunk, blood pooling around his head like a renaissance halo.

  “Fae are warriors,” Fintan announced gruffly in the shocked silence that followed. He then swept a hand through his hair, boyishly charming again in an instant, and shrugged one shoulder. “We’re not fucking garden gnomes.”

  Shock rippled through the group, the hum of the fans and the magic-powered generators barely making a dent in the high-pitched whine that stretched through my skull. Inmates glanced nervously at one another, but one of the elves finally wrenched off his gloves and hurled them toward the crumpled corpse at Fintan’s feet.

  The fae raised a hand, eyebrows arched. “So… Anyone up for a riot? Prison riot, anyone?”

  “What about the ward?” the female mage in grey demanded, her red ringlets doubled in size courtesy of the greenhouse humidity. Sweat glistened on her forehead, her cheeks, and I wiped at mine subconsciously, roasting alive in this jumpsuit even as ice-cold fear slithered through my veins.

  “We just need the caster to break it,” Fintan remarked as he stepped around the fallen guard. “Rumor has it Guthrie made the wards—so let’s have him break them.” Lashing out, he toppled the peach cart, plastic containers spilling everywhere, perfect peaches tumbling across the ground, and then hopped onto it. “Time to storm the keep and behead the king, ladies and gents. Enough is enough.” He tapped at his collar, his grin slightly manic. “These fuckers only fry us if we try to take them off—not if we use a trowel to disembowel a guard.”

  Oh gods. Was that where he had disappeared to? I coiled my trembling fingers around the metal handles of my own cart, thoughts racing, heart pounding. Escape had been on my mind from the s
econd I woke up in this hellhole, even more so after I’d met Guthrie. But… But this wasn’t it. I hadn’t imagined butchering warlocks before riding off into the sunset; any attempts I’d mulled over—attempts that would probably fail but were satisfying to imagine—had always been much more subtle.

  Only subtlety wasn’t Fintan’s forte. Apparently it was this—that brilliant tongue capable of doing such exquisite things to me now spurring a crowd into action. He fell back on a few more clichés to inspire the troops, but without much prompting, the greenhouse rebellion was underway. Inmates scattered in pairs and groups, gathering weapons from the vast array of gardening tools at our disposal, arming themselves for war. One witch even snatched the wand off the guard with the shears still stuck in his face—not that she could actually use it, but I understood the need to hold it, to pretend. Maybe it gave her courage to wrap her fingers around a wand again.

  Courage that I found faltering inside me…

  Until Fintan strode to my side, smirking, casual once more—like he had kick-started some teenage hijinks, not an outright rebellion where people, most likely inmates, were bound to die.

  Or fry.

  “What are you doing?” I hissed, grabbing his arm and hauling him away from the unfolding chaos.

  “Me and the boys had a chat,” he said as he twisted out of my hold—easily, like he wasn’t even trying—and caught me by the chin. “Time to get out of here, darling.”

  I blinked up at him, smitten butterflies flitting to life in my chest, affection and incredulity and outright terror colliding, mashing into something that almost tipped off an anxiety puke.

  “And this is the plan?”

  Fintan chuckled, then booped me on the nose. “Well, no, I’ve gone a bit rogue. Let’s just run with it, shall we? See what happens.”

  “See what happens? Fintan—”

  Before I could rip him a new one for starting a prison riot on a whim, he snatched my hand and dragged me away. Our fingers threaded together so naturally, finding strength and support in each other, and I power walked after him, body aching and adrenaline soaring. While a flurry of activity erupted all around us, blurred purple, green, and grey jumpsuits racing by, Fintan led me down one long row without breaking his pace, headed for the main doors of the building without delay. I barely managed to grab a pair of scissors along the way, clutching them in my free hand as I clung to him with my other.

  Since the attack, I hadn’t moved this much or this fast, overly cautious with my recovering body, but the fight-or-flight instinct kicking into overdrive blocked out the painful reminders of that night. The only time I stumbled was when I spotted the corpses of dead warlocks near the front; not exactly disemboweled with a trowel, but Fintan had been quick and efficient with his takedown. Slit throats for the both of them, one missing his belt—and his wand snapped in half.

  Which, honestly, was almost as cruelly intimate as snapping his neck.

  “So, we’re attacking Guthrie?” I asked breathlessly, mind still scrambled but body oddly calm as we paused at the main doors. No trembling or shivering. No weak knees or sweaty palms. Fintan poked one of the front doors open and peered through the crack, squinting against the afternoon sunshine, then shook his head.

  “No, they’re attacking Guthrie.” He tossed a thumb over his shoulder at the coalescing inmates. “We’re going to pay one of the guards patrolling the perimeter to sneak us through the front gate.”

  I sputtered up at him, standing my ground when he tried to tug me forward. “What? But you told everyone else—”

  “I’m not wrong,” the fae insisted with one of his cavalier shrugs, eyes blazing with mirth—with a fire of his own, green flames sparking and snapping like I’d never seen before. “If they overwhelm Guthrie, they can take down the ward and free everyone. Let’s be honest—inmates outnumber security. But the ward also opens and closes at the main gates for shift changes… We don’t need Guthrie for that, and I have a lot of money. Prince, remember?”

  I groaned. “Oh my gods, Fintan, now is not the time to pull this—”

  “Now is precisely the time to buy our way out,” he said, wiggling his eyebrows and then shouldering through the main doors before I had the chance to object. Fingers still entwined, I had no choice but to follow him into the sunshine, met with a blast of cool, dry air as I jogged in his shadow, clutching my scissors like they might actually do something.

  Like I had the stones to use them on a guard as Fintan had.

  Never gonna happen.

  I couldn’t… stab them into someone’s face.

  Or leg. Or shoulder. Or whatever. It wasn’t me.

  I couldn’t…

  Do you want to die here? a stronger me whispered from the black depths of my mind, the butterflies in my chest pounding their wings, circling as one swirling mass. Do you want to lose to Lloyd? Toughen up, sweetheart. We’re just getting started.

  I rubbed at my ear with my shoulder, unsure of where all that had come from—only that it had a familiar tinge to it, a whisper of my dormant magic, as if all the energy, the power, the ancient wisdom brewing inside me had finally taken on a life of its own. Concerning. Without my wand, casting on a good day was a bit of a crapshoot. If I somehow got the collar off without frying, I’d probably explode.

  Crouched low, Fintan snuck us along the edge of the greenhouse, then darted down the side and out of sight of the main building. Just as we rounded the corner, I glanced back over my shoulder and spotted one of the wolf shifters on patrol near the heart of Xargi. With a sizeable spiked collar of his own, the enormous white wolf stood watching us, ears up, alert, then resumed sniffing the foundations of the main building.

  Not all the wolves out here were volunteers.

  Some were prisoners, same as the rest of us.

  “Now, I know someone monitors the western exterior fencing—”

  “Wait.” I planted my feet and ripped my hand away, forcing Fintan to stop and loop back for me.

  “Katja, we all know what you’re doing,” he remarked lightly—almost like he was choosing the best words to spare my feelings. “It’s too late to pretend we don’t know each other, but it’s just the time to make a move.”

  “No, I just…” Embarrassment warmed in my cheeks and plumed all the way down my body. By purposefully distancing myself from the guys, I had tried to assert my own agency… Now here was Fintan coming to the rescue, and I was the damsel all over again. Not the heroine. Never the heroine. Just a helpless girl the heroes carried on their shoulders all the way to the end.

  No. Not happening. I had a say in this, even if it wasn’t what any of them wanted to hear.

  I had a voice, damn it—and it was time to use it.

  “We can’t leave without Elijah and Rafe,” I said firmly. “And Tully… I’m not going anywhere without him. Ever.”

  Fintan’s smile stretched the gauntlet in a matter of seconds, from obnoxiously patronizing to strained acceptance. “We will of course immediately return with the might of the Midnight Court at our backs—”

  “No.” Whether the offer was real or not, I couldn’t risk it. “I’m not leaving them behind.”

  “Katja, we could be out of here this evening—”

  “We don’t leave them behind,” I stated, rising above a heated whisper to assert my point. “Because if we do, we’re leaving them here to die.” My eyes stung at just the thought of abandoning the others to Xargi’s clutches. “This is nonnegotiable, Fintan. You go find a guard to buy off if you want, but I’m going back in there for them.”

  His eye twitched. The way Fintan loomed over me and then glanced along the chain-link fence that caged in the property, it was like he was gauging whether or not he could just scoop me up and go. If he did, I’d never forgive him.

  “You know,” he started, hesitating briefly before exhaling a sharp breath, “the wolves could pick us off before we even get back to the main building. Two inmates, unescorted… that alone could be suicide.” />
  At the sound of doors crashing into the greenhouse glass, we crept along the side wall and peered around together, almost comical in the way our heads aligned, one over the other. What wasn’t comical was the mob of inmates moving at a steady clip toward the main building; with so many green-thumbed supers inside, there were fewer egos to contend with, which made elves and fae, witches and mages, the ideal type to start a rebellion—more willing to work toward a common goal without jockeying for alpha.

  For now, anyway.

  “I think we’ve found a distraction,” I muttered, which had Fintan chuckling behind me. As soon as an alarm erupted from the main building, however, he fisted the loose fabric at the back of my jumpsuit and hauled me out of sight.

  “What I wouldn’t do for a bit of your familiar’s shadow magic right now,” he grumbled, our hands loosely entwined again, gravitating toward each other like they had a mind of their own. Like they belonged together.

  “I’d settle for any magic, honestly.” It was all there, swirling deep inside me, pent-up and frustrated and thrumming with my coven’s legacy—just out of reach.

  Lips pursed, Fintan leaned back to survey the stretch of gravel between the greenhouse and the main prison building, and then returned to me with a huff. Another pointed glance toward the fence hinted at an internal debate—that for once he wasn’t just rushing into something, driven by instinct and personal gain.

  “Fine.” He steered us deeper into the greenhouse’s shadow, our backs to the glass wall. “Let’s go find your mate.”

  My heart soared—because at some point he had figured it out. Elijah didn’t strike me as the type to discuss our personal relationship, not even with Rafe, but Fintan had just admitted to it: he knew I was fated to a dragon shifter.

  But he still held my hand, still looked at me with that otherworldly gaze like he wanted to devour me whole.

  He knew—and it didn’t matter.

  “Let’s get our dragon and our vampire,” I clarified, so many words unsaid suddenly dangling between us. “And my familiar.”