Page 57 of Caged Kitten

Thankfully, there hadn’t been any further nights of silence. As soon as lockdown started, we waited ten minutes before meeting on opposite ends of the mousehole to chat about anything and everything not prison related. Even though I had been absolutely wiped after yesterday’s bakery shift, the last in my seven-day stint, I stayed up discussing the merits of each Star Wars movie with him until I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore. Two hours of space opera dissection with no awkward pauses; people paid for that sort of companionship in Xargi.

I craved our conversations.

With Elijah and Fintan, I had the opportunity to leave the group dynamic. We hung out for the entirety of our work shifts. Rafe didn’t get that chance, and while lying on the floor hurt at the end of a long day, it was our alone time, and I coveted it, protected it, like it was precious.

Because… it was precious.

“Try the other side,” my favorite vampire called from his cell. My eyes peeled open just long enough to glare at the wall, and I wiggled in place again, searching for the comfy spot that I knew was there if I just worked hard enough to find it. A brief bout of silence followed, and then: “Your left shoulder is shit, witch.”

“Stop eavesdropping on my naps,” I fired back, mouth stretched in a smile that, surprise surprise, also hurt. He was right though; I had screwed up my left shoulder sometime in the last week doing one of many physically demanding tasks required of me throughout the day, but at no point did I request a visit to the infirmary.

If I did, I just knew a certain warden would come trailing along after me, and it wasn’t worth the risk.

Even though Rafe and I had the entire day to ourselves when I was off, usually accompanied by one of Deimos’s assholes whose schedule lined up with mine, we both usually spent this time catching up on sleep. Only as we crept closer to the end of the workday, dinner about an hour and a half out, I felt more exhausted now than I had when I woke up this morning.

Ugh.

Something soft tickled my cheek, and I swiped at it, grimacing at the thought of some Xargi creepy-crawly skittering over my skin. It came back a few seconds later, followed by an oddly familiar sniff, sniff, sniff sound, then the ever so faint whoosh of a cat’s exhale.

My eyes snapped open this time, no longer weighed down by the fatigue of the day. Heart in my throat, I stared up at the ceiling, refusing to believe it—Xargi played tricks on you when you were at your weakest. But then a mass of black swooped into my periphery, followed by a few more tentative sniffs and the graze of whiskers I’d known since I was thirteen—

I shot up and scrambled across my bed, adrenaline spiking, breath coming out in panicked gasps.

All prim and proper, Tully blinked back at me with eyes identical to mine, my big black floof of a familiar seated at the edge of the cot, the end of his tail flicking left and right.

No.

No, it couldn’t be—

“T-Tully?”

He responded to my croaky whisper with a purrrrrrrr, one that started low and then ramped up like a revving motorcycle engine. A sob snagged in my throat, and I lashed out expecting my arms to sail right through him—expecting to meet the cold air of an astral projection. What I got was a solid cat body, fur that I nuzzled into every morning back home when I woke up and every night as I was falling asleep.

“Gods, Tully!” I scooped him up and hauled the thirty-pound furball to my chest with a strangled cry. Fear and relief mingled inside me, familiar bedfellows in Xargi, and I held as tight as I dared. While Tully’s bushy black tail swished harder and faster now, he rubbed whatever part of me he could reach with his cheeks, purring up a storm, those huge paws frantically kneading my bicep.

“What are you doing here?” Tears spilled down my face and dribbled into his fur. Ordinarily the wet offended him, but my familiar took my emotions in stride, pulsing with a magical warmth that I felt in my bones. “I’ve missed you so much…”

He chattered back at me in his stupid, high-pitched baby voice, the one that everyone at the café laughed at—he was such a huge cat and had such a dainty, squeaky meow. Here, the sound felt like home. Witch and familiar, together again, and while I could sense him emboldening my magic, giving selflessly from his own supply to fuel mine, it was a futile attempt. The collar clamped down on the well within, sealing it shut even as Tully tried to top it up. If I ever got rid of this thing, all the raw, simmering magic inside me would go off like a bomb.

“The collar,” I whispered. “I can’t… I can’t take what you give me anymore.”

He could use his magic on me, but he couldn’t give it to me—just another part of my life Xargi had destroyed.

Tully nosed at the leather strap, then hissed, tail darting about furiously. Still, even if I couldn’t take all that he had to offer, he had the power to heal, magic of his own that he seldom ever tapped into. So I clutched him to me, basking in his healing aura, relishing the warmth of his fur, the scent of…

Well, I’d never been able to put words to what Tully smelled like. But it was good. Always had been. Tully smelled like freedom and security and life. Tully’s scent was paradise, and I stuffed my face deep into his side, breathing him in as he fixed me up, made me stronger. By the time I finally let my head thump back against the wall, suddenly painfully aware that my cell door was open, the aches and pains of intense labor had vanished. I felt refreshed for the first—and possibly only—time in months, and as I turned my back on the doorway, massaging his ears and smoothing my fingers across his scent-gland-riddled cheeks, I vowed to spoil him even more when we eventually got out of here.

My familiar was a tubby, lazy, pampered prince, but when we finally escaped, he would ascend to king status. I owed him my life ten times over, even if what he had done—finding me in an uncharted supernatural prison—was what familiars were supposed to do for their witches. To some, familiars were servants, underlings, there to do as the witch or warlock ordered, to make them stronger and complement their magic. Tully had been my partner from the moment we locked eyes, him a malnourished kitten and me a depressed teenager.

He had saved me more than once, helped me cope with loss, with soul-crushing grief, and now this?

Tully Fox deserved to be knighted.

“Okay, okay, okay…” Begrudgingly, I loosened my hold on him—not all the way, an unwelcome fear flaring that if I let go, he might vanish. “You need to tell me everything.”

But I had to release him—had to trust that he was well and truly here, that I wasn’t losing my mind. Sniffling, I busied my hands with my tearstained face, wiping away the damp and dragging my nose across my forearm. Tully, meanwhile, positioned himself on my lap, nestling in the dip of my crossed legs, prim and proper again, tail swishing. With my back still to the open door, I hoped—prayed to anyone who might be listening in this forsaken place—that the guard monitoring the cellblock this afternoon wouldn’t suddenly have an interest in doing his job.

Taking a deep breath, I locked eyes with Tully. Blue to blue, I peered into the depths, picking through the fine flecks and streaks, until slowly, the world around us went hazy. First it blurred, then it darkened—then it was all gone. Black. While witch and familiar had an unspoken bond deeper than any she would have in all her life—although the arrival of a fated mate certainly threw that theory for a loop—we couldn’t communicate telepathically. No words shared between minds; magic bound us, and it was Tully’s magic that wove the tale.

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