Page 117 of Caged Kitten

When I looked back to the others, I realized I wasn’t the only one infatuated with the sight. Fintan watched the dragon’s dance with his mouth literally hanging open, as if speechless for the first time in all his long life. Rafe raised a fist in solidarity when Elijah swept over the cluster of fae warriors, and Tully’s big blues tracked him, tail swishing with interest.

As soon as he touched down in the Siberian grassland, the earth shuddered again, this time hard enough to send me stumbling, and I took off in a sprint, heart pounding, my sights locked on the first and last dragon to ever set my heart on fire.

Silhouetted against a hilly backdrop, against a grassy plateau that stretched for miles and miles all around, Elijah’s dragon form stood leaps and bounds ahead of all the natural beauty. Starchy grass tickled my calves as I ran barefoot toward him, slowing only when my brain finally processed the sheer size of him, this creature tall as a mountain and broad as the ocean, dominating everything in his presence just by being. He folded his wings in as I crept forward, and his next huff of breath had his nostrils flaring and my hair whipping around. I braced against the hot gust but didn’t stop until I was within an arm’s length of him.

Close enough to touch, I lost myself, just for a moment, in his physical prowess, in this towering creature who could crush me with just one of his massive clawed feet. Golden eyes appraised me, and when he dropped his huge head down, face flared with scales and talons like protective armor, Elijah shone through all of it. His calming presence caressed me, even like this, and I raised a trembling hand, holding it between us for a moment, hesitating…

Until he nudged his snout against my palm. Dwarfed by his massive frame, my little hand was nothing as it ghosted along his fiery muzzle, as it stroked scorching scales and brutal spikes. An ant poking at a shoe—that was how I felt.

But he was beautiful and patient, entertaining my cautious exploration only until I reached his wing joint. Then, in a flash, he was gone, shifting from dragon to man so suddenly that it made my head spin.

Gods, I had missed him.

We hadn’t been apart more than a few hours, but the sight of Elijah standing before me, still tall as a mountain and broad as the ocean, naked and panting, glistening with sweat, with the effort of the shift—it made my eyes water. Made my knees weak. Made my heart sing.

Without a word, I charged at him like a missile. He met me halfway, scooping me into his arms, my feet dangling off the ground, and hugged me so tight he crushed the air from my lungs. Something cracked sharply in my back—and I didn’t care. I could take the alpha’s strength. I craved it, needed it, loved it. My fingers wove into his thick tousled locks as I exhaled a shaky sob against his neck.

“I love you,” I whispered, the confession coming out of nowhere, my brain off and my heart on. “I know we don’t really know each other outside of this place… I know it’s soon. It’s crazy to be in love like this, and I know it could just be the bond—”

“I love you too, Katja,” Elijah growled against my skin. “I don’t care if it’s just the bond.” Slowly, he lowered me so that I stood flatfoot before him, then forced me out of the hug, wrenching my arms from his neck so that he could hunch down to cup my face. His eyes shimmered, starlight caught in the glossy sheen, and he chuckled. “We have the time now. We have each other. That’s all that matters.”

I sniffled, brushing the damp away when it dribbled down his cheek. “And Rafe and Fintan?”

His fingers slowly worked into my hair, massaging the base of my skull, tipping my head back. “We have them too.”

Just when I thought I couldn’t love him more, he said that. He accepted what my heart needed—all of them, each one different and imperfect and a piece of me that I couldn’t live without.

Smoothing my hands up his sweaty torso, over rippling muscle and the pounding drumbeat of his heart, I eased onto my tiptoes to kiss him—only for Elijah to weave his fingers through my stick-straight hair, combing it out on either side with a scowl.

“What did he do to you?” he grumbled, his warm browns giving way to the dragon’s gold, his grip on me tightening. I clutched at his forearms corded with muscle, delicious and mine, and smirked.

“You should be asking what I did to him,” I whispered back, a touch of darkness blossoming in my smile when his eyebrows shot up. “Did you expect anything less of a dragon’s mate?”

Or a vampire’s partner? Or the lover of an Unseelie fae prince?

“No,” Elijah rumbled, looking very much like he wanted to devour me whole. “I didn’t.”

Ugh. If he wanted to devour me, let him do it, right here, right now, right in the grass—

“Get a room, you heathens.”

Fintan’s shout landed just before our mouths collided, the charge shimmering between us positively electric—and definitely interrupted. As Elijah hooked a possessive arm around my waist, the look in his eyes promising that this lull wouldn’t last long, I eased back around just in time for Rafe and Fintan’s arrival. And while I would have preferred to be shoved to the ground right now with a dragon’s mouth skimming my body, this stupid red dress shredded to pieces and any lingering traces of Lloyd on my skin wiped away, standing with my three guys, my heart whole and Tully immediately back in my arms… well, that was pretty phenomenal too.

“So, uh, what do we do now?” I asked after a painfully long fifteen seconds of awkward silence, the four of us exchanging glances as if acutely aware that this was the first time we were all interacting as free supers off Xargi’s grounds. Tully nuzzled under my chin, purring, kneading, and my bed flashed in my mind’s eye—my own queen-sized bed with all the blankets clumped and pillows stacked high, waiting for me back in my Seattle apartment. “Do we just… go home?”

Did we date internationally? Cross-dimensionally? I loved each man present—Elijah for his protectiveness and his acceptance of me as I was, Fintan for his humor and his impulsiveness, and Rafe for his wit and his comfort. But, really, we had met in prison, trapped inside this fucked-up bubble for months, the scope of our budding relationships dictated by others.

And now we were just… here.

Free to do what we wanted.

With… whoever we wanted.

What if they walked away? What if Fintan went back to his courtiers and Rafe buried himself in his next book? What if Elijah thought fate had made a mistake and kept looking elsewhere?

What if I was the only one willing to start from the beginning—to explore who we all were to each other outside of handcuffs and jumpsuits and leather collars?

What if I wasn’t enough for these three to—

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