Page 32 of Caged Kitten

I lunged for Helen, smallest and meekest of the bunch, the little sparrow shifter loitering on the outskirts and smacking at the fae’s legs whenever she had the chance. However, before I could latch onto her arm, Deimos’s head snapped in my direction, his eyes completely black. He snarled and flashed a set of perfectly white, unnervingly sharp teeth—a predator guarding its kill.

Screw him.

I refused to be bullied by this tattooed freak a second longer. Trembling, I swallowed hard, braced myself, and—

Elijah beat me to it. Just as Deimos started to extract himself from the dogpile, black gaze glued to me, a huge body shoved between us, this massive wall of man blocking my view. The fire in my gut exploded, coursing through my every cell, fueled by Elijah’s proximity. It melted the fear, made me stop shaking. In his shadow, I found strength: I was ready to fight.

He was just much better at it. Swift as a striking viper, Elijah dug into the gang and ripped the two shifters in identical blue jumpsuits out. He tossed Helen and Faustus away from their usual table, and when the bird shifters righted themselves, they both appeared to try to get back in—only to lose themselves in Elijah’s gaze. I knew the feeling well, but rather than eliciting desire, the dragon’s unflinching stare seemed to scare the absolute shit out of them. Both shifters folded, eyes plummeting to the ground and shoulders rounded as they scampered back.

Gods, alpha energy was so stupidly hot.

“Stay out of it, Greystone,” Deimos ordered, his voice gruff and foul, nowhere near his usual seductive purr. Elijah squared off with him as the assault slowed on the table, the demon’s lackeys stilling and glaring us down, fae blood on their knuckles and splattered across their cheeks.

“Stop being a twat, Deimos,” Elijah fired back. “This—” He dipped his head toward the fight, to the fae on his back with his head lolled to the side, his gorgeous mouth stretched wide with soundless laughter. “—is petty, and you know it.”

Deimos rose from his place in the middle of the table, one foot on either side of the fae, lording over his carnage like a lion guarding a fallen gazelle.

Which made us the circling hyenas?

Right. That was just laughable.

“Whipped by a female, eh?” the demon snarled, wiping the blood from his mouth, his black jumpsuit splotchy with dark wet spots.

“Just sick of your shit, honestly.” I flinched when Rafe materialized at my side out of nowhere. Elijah fell back, the three of us standing in line, and I noticed both men had crossed their arms, their elbows just in my personal bubble enough to make a point. She’s with us. Sleeves rolled up, Rafe seemed ready to get his hands dirty for the first time since we’d met.

Now, the million-dollar question: Was it because Elijah had thrown himself into the fray, his best friend stepping into the minefield that was Cellblock C’s political landscape? Or was he standing beside me because I’d asked—without really asking—for them to have my back? Or… Or was he actually sick of Deimos being a bully?

Impossible to tell—and that was starting to really bug me.

But no more than all the spilled blood must be bothering him. As Deimos stomped off the table, using one of the stools as a step, his lieutenant Constance had taken it upon herself to lick the fae’s bloody hand clean. She knelt at his side, eyes shut, ecstasy written across what would be a beautiful face on someone less batshit insane. Her tongue swept over his bloody knuckles, lapping up the dark, glittery red smears.

Was this killing Rafe? Did vampires crave all blood, or just a specific type? Were some human-only?

Whatever the case may be, the prison was starving their vampire population—and this couldn’t be easy for him. Pale-faced and glowering at Constance, Rafe had started to shake, and this time, as Deimos stalked up to us, got right in Elijah’s face, I shouldered in front of him, ready to hold the vampire back as needed.

Not that I… physically could. Collar or not, I was no match for a ravenous vampire.

“Think carefully, boys,” Deimos whispered in that unsettling demonic rasp. “This, right here, is a line in the sand. Are you ready to cross it?”

Still sprawled on his back, the fae suddenly cackled, then shoved Constance away, his hand covering her entire face as he tossed her off the table like she weighed nothing.

“My, my,” he rumbled, chuckling, all bloody and beaten and bruised. He tipped his head to the side, wriggling his eyebrows at Deimos, Elijah, and Rafe, then winking at me. “Isn’t this a fun group?”

I inched closer to Rafe with a gulp. Great. Just what we needed. Another psycho who got off on violence.

Still hot though—just infinitely less appealing.

The main door creaked open partially, drawing all our eyes to it, and seconds later Thompson stepped in with his usual air: casual, quiet, not braggy like all the other warlocks. As soon as he saw this, the blood, the inmates on top of each other, he hurled the door the rest of the way so that the handle clanged off the stone wall.

“What the fuck is this?” he demanded, stalking into the room with his wand drawn. Cooper and the other asshole hopped to, quickly falling in line behind him. “Everybody back up!”

And then the magic really flew. It was what I’d wanted all along—for the guards to just do their jobs—but it should have happened long before that fae ever wound up on the table. Thompson and the others handled us roughly, dragging and shoving and sparking inmates back to their cells when they didn’t move fast enough, barking orders, issuing a lockdown until dinner.

“Not you,” the least awful of the three growled. Thompson snagged my wrist just before I zipped into my cell. He then hauled me out so fast that I tripped over my own feet, crashing into him with a yelp, heart in my throat.

“What’s this?” Rafe demanded, loitering in his cell’s doorway, paler than usual, the tips of his fangs exposed with every word. Whether he drank fae blood or not, it had awoken something in him, something animalistic and demanding; I saw it in his eyes, the way they had darkened.

His voice had deepened.

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