Page 112 of Caged Kitten

Knowing now how easy it was—that our salvation was behind an unlocked door in a madman’s office…

Before any of us could slip into the secret passage that bookworms fantasized about all their lives, Lloyd rounded in place with some difficulty, then tapped at his throat.

“Does he need to speak?” Rollo growled, slamming him into the brick hearth, the back of his head making a solid whump on impact. Lloyd, however, just stared at me, full psychopath raging behind the flint, pain his aphrodisiac—or was it only my pain that got him hard?

“Doubt it,” I muttered, setting Tully down on Lloyd’s desk with a scowl, then crossing my arms. “I can give it back if that’s what you want.”

With a hurried nod, the fae’s patience finally started to wane more openly, and I swished my hand in Lloyd’s direction. The movement was halfhearted, the Loquere incantation flat and emotionless, but my magic struck him like a runaway bus. A burst of bright yellow slammed into his face, busting his lower lip and blackening an eye.

Yikes.

Should probably get that under control. Cheeks hot, I glanced back at the warrior keeping Lloyd’s wand captive; the spell would have been neater with a conduit, but I wasn’t particularly bothered about the injuries it inflicted—more the implication that Fintan’s girl wasn’t as skilled a witch as they might have hoped.

“There isn’t much space inside,” Lloyd croaked, smearing his bloody lip along the top of his hand—addressing Rollo but glowering at me. “Your garrison should wait here.”

“My lord,” one of the warriors protested, but Rollo’s swift dismissal, nothing more than a raised hand, silenced any protests.

“Show me,” he ordered, and Lloyd cocked his head to the side, finally looking at the prince with an all-too-familiar smugness that made my skin crawl.

“Wouldn’t you rather make a deal?”

As if that was the tipping point, Rollo grabbed him by the front of his perfectly pressed shirt, then hurled him through the bookshelf opening, stalking in furiously at his heels. While I hadn’t been invited, I sprinted after the pair, morbid curiosity and desperation forcing my hand.

In all the time that I had known Lloyd Guthrie on a disgustingly personal level, he struck me as honest. He relished the gory details of my family’s past. He delighted in sharing all the sick, twisted things he planned to do to me outside of Xargi. He defanged Rafe, and I had zero doubt he would have made good on all the other threats he raised against the dragon and fae I loved if I hadn’t given in to him…

So when he had said the space behind the bookshelf was tight, he wasn’t lying: the three of us barely fit, the square footage made even smaller when Tully came prowling in. Lit by a single soft orange light hanging somewhere way up high, the room was narrow but exceedingly tall, magicked to fit the narrow shelves creeping up three of the four walls. Free-floating and less than a foot in length, hundreds of little wooden blocks dotted the walls, and on each sat glowing crystals of all colors and sizes, the shelves stamped with a small copper plate.

Etched into the copper: a number.

Identification for each inmate.

A crystal assigned to a number… powering the collars.

Magic vibrated in the air, unseen but present, foul enough to make my stomach turn.

“Oh, gods,” I whispered, a hand over my mouth, eyes watering. Every trip to the cafeteria was a reminder of just how many supers and shifters the Guthrie empire had kidnapped since Xargi Penitentiary opened, but seeing it all now, dozens upon dozens of crystals pulsing with power and color in the shadowy room like we were standing in some screwed-up nightclub…

It hurt.

And it put things into a painful perspective. I hadn’t seen Willow in almost a month; was she one of these crystals, or had she tried to remove her collar? Did the color dim when an inmate died? Were the unused crystals then tossed outside, just a bit of useless rock, lost in the pebbles that guards and wolves stomped all over without a care in the world?

“What was my number, you bastard?” I demanded, voice wavering for the first time since I climbed on top of him and slashed at his throat. The warlock peered around Rollo with a sneer.

“You were unassigned, kitten,” Lloyd purred, totally unfazed when Rollo slammed him into one of the walls, a handful of crystals tumbling to the floor around him. “Never officially an inmate—just a guest of the warden… I kept you safe in my pocket most days.”

He patted at his chest, at the hidden pocket my crystal must have sat in.

Close to his heart.

Ugh gross.

“Enough,” Rollo barked, his voice like a cracking whip. “Give me my brother’s crystal—I assume its destruction will remove his shackles?”

“That’s the basic premise, yes.” Lloyd squirmed in the fae’s grasp, his shirt collar stained red as his neck wounds continued to ooze. “Unfortunately, I can’t recall Fintan of the Midnight Court’s inmate number off the top of my head… If you’d let me peruse the records, then maybe—”

Rollo went off like a bomb, detonating a blast of primal fae magic that knocked me back into the door and shattered every crystal in the room. Like the east wind exhaling across a grassy plain, power whooshed through the tiny space, whipping our hair around, the tassels hanging off his helmet dancing. Crystals reduced to powder, the room came alive with color, grains flying up my nose and in my ears. Tully lost his footing, swept up in the mini-tornado, and I threw an arm over my eyes against the raging dust storm.

And as quickly as it started, it stopped. I yelped as all the floating particles poured down, blanketing my shoulders, my hair, piling at my feet. Slowly, I lowered my arm, blinking the bits from my lashes, resisting the urge to dig a knuckle in there and rub away the itch.

---