Page 45 of Caged Kitten

Tears made themselves known with a painful sting when I opened my eyes, and I meandered toward the shipment crates a little slower. Unfortunately, the telltale sounds of Elijah’s heavy footfalls lit a fire under my ass, and I sniffled back the sadness, then blitzed around the corner, headed to the rear of the bakery to unload my prepped loaves into the shipping containers. Of course none of this gorgeous bread went to the inmates. We sometimes tried to guess where the prison shipped it off to; the writing on the label suggested somewhere English-predominant, and the artisan stamp told me they charged a fortune for it.

Teeth gritted, I balanced the tray on the corner of the wooden crate, then started unloading my haul, neatly arranging the loaves on top of what was already in there. Beyond everything else I missed, I deeply craved the use of my own magic again. It was all there, swirling inside me, flickering in my fingertips and shivering in my chest, but I couldn’t access any of it. In time, it would sour from lack of use. All this work, the full nine hours of it, could have been knocked out in one or two with a few simple phrases and a flick of my hands. Sure, my magic had always been a bit unstable without a wand, but it would get the job done.

“Can you just stop for a second?” Elijah growled as soon as he entered my personal bubble, looming over me, statuesque and broad and imposing. As if it wasn’t hot as balls in here already, his presence sent a wildfire ripping through me, starting in my chest, in my fluttering heart, and flooding out to every limb. I had recently managed to put my pathetic earnings toward a pair of underwear and a hair tie now that I had access to the prison shop. No bra yet, but that was a work in progress; at least the black stretchy elastic kept my hair away from my neck during bakery shifts.

Elijah set me ablaze regardless. Which was also just… great.

“Can you?” I fired back, glaring up at him and distractedly swiping a hand over the back of my neck. Yup, sweaty. My jumpsuit collar absorbed a lot of it, but that didn’t make me any more comfortable. So, as per usual, not only did Elijah fluster me mentally, emotionally, my mind struggling to understand the pull between us, but he affected me physically too. And right now, that definitely didn’t help his case.

He clenched his strong jaw, muscles briefly rippling beneath the coarse brownish scruff, and, narrowed gaze still fixed on me, he dumped his entire tray into the crate. Just. Plopped it all in, no organization, no regard for the rows of neatly stacked loaves I’d started.

This was the first time he wasn’t careful with his work.

Again—not doing himself any favors.

“For gods’ sake, Elijah,” I muttered, immediately diving in and straightening everything out. The dim overhead lighting flickered, and in any other scenario, I might have blamed it on my magic, on the tempestuous storm brewing inside me, the air crackling between us. But there was no magic in Xargi—not for us, anyway. Shitty lights.

Shitty everything.

Panic lanced through the flames dancing inside me, vicious and sudden. I’d outright refused Lloyd’s offer, preferring incarceration to whatever that psycho had in mind for me, and at no point did I want word to reach him that I was bad at my job. The guy would probably use any excuse to kick me off a work assignment that so many other inmates considered cake; a guard who barely paid any attention, free rein of a sprawling underground space—even if it was hot as hell most days—and all the freshly baked bread you could scarf down when no one was looking. Bakery duty was a dream, same as the kitchens, the library, and the new greenhouse. I didn’t care if they stuck me somewhere else, but if I got a reputation as a slacker, I just knew Lloyd would use it against me.

He seemed like the type.

Just as I reached in to fix the next row of loaves, Elijah snagged my wrist and hauled me upright. I went with him, unable to muscle my way out of his hold even if I tried, and then glared, hard, conjuring up the sternest expression I could muster.

“I’m worried about you,” he admitted gruffly as his thumb stroked the underside of my wrist, gently brushing over my racing pulse. The physical contact seemed to grab us both, gazes plummeting to where we touched. Exhaling shakily, I shifted my glare back up to Elijah’s face where it belonged, only to find him steely-eyed as well, a mildly annoyed look plastered across his rugged features.

What the—I so didn’t understand this shifter.

But his hand felt like fire, a cuff fresh from the hearth, branding my skin the longer and tighter it held on.

“You’re hurting me,” I croaked. Elijah’s eyes flicked to mine, more gold than brown, his gaze that of the dragon. My belly suddenly looped—with fear or interest, I still couldn’t tell.

“No, I’m not.” He wasn’t. “You can take it.”

I could. His grip might have been firm, might have seared my flesh and sizzled down to the bone, but in my heart of hearts, I didn’t want him to let go. It wasn’t pain driving us apart… Not in the slightest.

“Let go,” I muttered, the order catching in my throat. Elijah shook his head.

“I can help, Katja, if you just let me in.”

“Maybe I don’t want to let you in,” I told him, the fight flaring inside me, briefly shouldering all the other muddled emotions aside. I yanked my arm away from him, twisted it, but he wouldn’t let go—wouldn’t stop looking at me with the eyes of the beast. “Maybe I don’t need you poking around my head in here… Have you ever considered that?”

“Of course I have.” He followed along with slow, lazy steps when I backpedaled, like he was just humoring my escape attempt. “But you can’t help it, and neither can I, so… stop being stubborn and just tell me.”

You can’t help it, and neither can I. What the hell was that supposed to mean? I stomped my foot, my prison-issued shoes useless at absorbing the brunt of the stonework below, about two seconds away from stomping on him.

“Piss off, Elijah.”

“No,” the dragon rumbled without hesitation, just following me around the back of the bakery beneath the flickering lights. Shadows danced across his features, but they did nothing to cloud his expression, the resolute determination that made me both hate and respect him in that moment.

“Yes.”

“No.” His voice echoed off the walls, and we both stilled, heads snapping in the general direction of the bakery’s main door. Nothing. Jensen probably hadn’t even noticed we weren’t within sight anymore, but we still waited a few beats longer. Xargi had a way of screwing you over if you let your guard down; I knew that from experience now. When we seemed to be alone, we faced off again, me glaring up at him, Elijah scowling down at me through a hooded golden gaze. He huffed, breath striking me like dragonfire.

“Katja—”

“Oh,for…” I closed the distance between us in a single stride, pushed up onto my toes, grabbed his collar, and yanked his mouth to mine. Kissing him was a last resort, the only thing shocking enough to finally just shut him up. But it was supposed to be a quick, hard peck.

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