Page 115 of Caged Kitten

Much to my surprise, Rafe flipped him off with a grin. No angst. No brooding. No self-conscious covering of his mouth. I hadn’t been apart from my guys for all that long, but when had everyone gotten so comfortable chatting about their raging insecurities? Had I missed something big?

Now, however, wasn’t the time to pry into it. As Fintan introduced Rafe to the future king of the Midnight Court, Rollo’s entourage loitering in the background like they had nothing better to do, I did a quick sweep of the foyer. Former inmates continued to stand around, whispering frantically, all wrapped up in their collars. Uncertainty rippled through the clusters of gathered supers, and I hated to see it—but I wasn’t exactly obligated to step up and take charge, was I?

“Took you bloody long enough to storm the keep, brother,” Fintan teased. Frowning, I rejoined the group, fingers loosely threaded through Rafe’s, some of the relief from before giving way to stress. Where was Elijah? What were all the supers cloistered around us supposed to do now? We were in the middle of Siberia, for goodness’ sake.

“We found your relative location months ago,” Rollo insisted, passing his helmet over to a nearby warrior and removing his chainmail gloves. “Getting through the ward proved near impossible, unfortunately. We simply had to wait until it was removed—at no point was it open long enough to feed the army through, and the warlocks who came and went had protection of their own. We didn’t want to make our presence known—”

“Funny.” Fintan sniffed, examining his dirty nails with pursed lips. “Because that cat broke in without an issue.” All eyes dropped to Tully, who had situated himself firmly between Rafe and me, slow blinks aplenty, still a purr machine. Fintan offered him a quick little scratch behind each ear, shooting his brother a look over his shoulder. “Perhaps you ought to assign him to the war council. I suspect he’ll make a strong siege tactician.”

“Where’s Elijah?” I blurted, unable to stand here and shoot the shit anymore like we were at the saddest cocktail party ever. Rafe drew me closer with a kiss to my temple, his hand twining around mine, his skin cold but his touch beyond reassuring.

“He’s freeing those in solitary,” the vampire told me, and before I could demand why they had let him do that alone, Fintan interjected like he could read my mind.

“Holster your weapons, darling… He wanted to do it himself,” the fae said, hands up in mock-surrender. “Seemed rather important to him, so we came to find you.”

“Next step will be to get out of here,” Rafe carried on, his tone taking a turn for the serious, ever my brooding vampire as he adjusted the leather strap around his neck. “But the collars—”

“Excindo.” My softly murmured spell struck him like a charging bull, knocking the vampire a few feet from me. Oops. I really did need something to rein my magic in. Fortunately, the spell did its job: as soon as the flash of black charged from my fingertips to his collar, the leather ignited with shadowy flames that sizzled around the band, reducing it to white ash that dusted Rafe’s shoulders like freshly fallen snow.

Eyes wide, he smoothed a hand over his throat, then looked to me, mouth opening and closing soundlessly.

“Prince Rollo and I already took care of the collars… I guess I probably should have led with that,” I told him with a slight lift of my chin. Defending her. Sure, my guys had stood up for me more times than I could count in here, but with my magic back, I had a debt to pay—and this was just the start. Every so often, they deserved to be rescued, whether they liked it or not. “The sigils will still bind your abilities, but at least now you can remove it.”

Fintan tore clean through his, needing both hands to split the material, and soon enough loitering supers and shifters followed suit. One by one, the collars that had ruled our lives inside these four walls fell away. Former inmates stomped on them, spit at them, set them on fire. Many of the shifters immediately let their inner animals free, tearing through jumpsuits during the transition, and those straps of leather were quickly met with teeth and claws, the foyer filled with growls and howls and cries, the air around us positively bursting with magic.

And it was… magnificent.

The scene blurred as another flood of emotion washed over me, leaving me no choice but to just hold on and enjoy the ride, the current raging, the rapids fierce—I’d never felt more alive.

“Right, so…” Fintan smacked his brother in the middle of that starry breastplate, then motioned toward the wall of doors that led to the outside world across the foyer, their shattered windows tinted purple with fae fire. “If we don’t want to personally experience a cave-in, I suggest we get moving.”

“What?” Seriously, what had these boys plotted without me? While I hated to abandon the unfolding beauty of shifters and supers finding themselves again, Fintan and Rafe left me no choice. Each locked on to one of my hands, then marched me right out Xargi’s front doors. Rollo and his warriors trailed behind us, and once we were in the great outdoors, met by the scent of scorched earth and ancient magic, by the crunch of gravel underfoot that grated on my nerves, by the cries of bird shifters taking flight, those left in the foyer followed. Former inmates from all blocks spilled out through various doors, and as soon as someone saw another had removed their collar, off came the leather, the air thickening with a new punch of power.

Pockets in the purple flames appeared, allowing inmates to pass untouched, and while some took advantage of that, particularly the collared wolf shifters, many just drifted around on the outskirts, lost. Displaced. Searching for home and finding the Siberian tundra in the throes of autumn instead.

While Fintan, Rollo, and Rafe discussed the logistics of assisting some of the stranded supers and shifters, I hovered outside the group, staring at Xargi, waiting. Studying the faces of every jumpsuit that blitzed out, scrutinizing anyone in blue, desperate to find Elijah’s golden curls, his rugged face, his enormous frame in the mix.

Nothing.

Arms crossed, I wandered closer, searching frantically now, a series of horrific thoughts wheedling into what was supposed to be a victory. But there was no real celebration without him. No success if we weren’t all together. No—

“Willow!” At least one navy blue jumpsuit came with a familiar face. The petite rabbit shifter staggered out one of the side doors, her collar gone and her face coated in dirt, her loose brown hair an absolute rat’s nest. I sprinted toward her, hating how dazed she looked, how she stumbled, how her one good eye had a slash through it that she didn’t have the last time we had sat together in the cafeteria. Slowly, she turned in my direction, and by the time recognition flashed across her lovely features, I’d crashed into her and dragged her into a hug.

She stood limp for a moment, arms dangling at her side—no surprise if she questioned all this. In my time behind bars, I’d had so many dreams about this exact moment, about blowing a hole through Xargi’s walls and strolling out, free as a bird, the prison in cinders behind me.

“Oh, gods, I was so worried about you,” I whispered, hugging her harder like that might wake her up.

And it did.

Finally, my Cellblock B dinner companion wrapped her arms around me with a sob. We stood together like that, locked in an embrace that would have gotten us beaten just hours earlier, holding each other, lifting the other up.

She could go home now.

Back to her children, her harem of husbands.

Freedom tasted brilliant, even as fae fire burned the world around us.

“They put me in solitary,” she muttered when we slowly eased apart. Tears cut through the brown smudges on her face, and she rubbed at her cheeks with both hands, rolling her eyes. “Apparently refusing to suck off a guard is a deeply punishable offense. Been in a hole for three fucking weeks.”

---