Page 66 of Caged Kitten

Elijah

I should have marked her when I’d had the chance.

That day in the bakery—I couldn’t have asked for a better opportunity. There we were, fated, on the verge of mated, basking in a rare moment of privacy inside this shithole. Katja had exposed herself to me, offered her body, her heart, and my inner dragon had been desperate to mark her. He had clawed up my chest in his eagerness, seconds away from unifying with his mate, our chosen, and I had just… stopped. Ended it right then and there, like I was satisfied with a mind-blowing orgasm, and then it was over.

In the aftermath, she had watched me dress with wide, wanting eyes, like she just knew we’d both missed out on something, and I did my best to stuff down the guilt and the shame, ignoring the fact that I was a dragon, an alpha, a shifter in the presence of his soulmate—and I hadn’t marked her. Hadn’t claimed her for my own.

Instant regret. My inner dragon had exploded, his fury turning my insides to a raging inferno that haunted me for days. Aggressive heartburn. Aches and stabbing pains in my chest. The headache to end all headaches. Usually we operated as one, and even though Katja’s presence had roused the sleepy bastard, he and I were centuries old and he was more than capable of keeping his shit together.

But this?

This had been unforgivable to him, and he’d been punishing me ever since.

Sure, it dissipated—I wouldn’t survive otherwise, not the first shifter to fall apart because the inner beast rebelled violently enough—but he was right back at it after last night’s conversation with Rafe.

Hehad marked her.

Two tiny puncture marks at the base of her throat, hidden now by her hair. If my theory was correct, they would never fully heal. No balm or salve would shrink them. Katja and I were fated, but the fact that my inner dragon was pissed at me and not my vampire companion spoke volumes. It highlighted that Rafe could be a part of our fated connection, that he was supposed to mark her, claim her, bind himself to me and her for the rest of all our very long lives.

It was just a working theory. Seated in the prison cafeteria, the inmate population way too noisy at this hour in the morning, I glanced across the table at him. Nope. No burning rage. No intense throb of jealousy. No passionate desire to rip him into little undead vampire chunks and toss him to the wolves. Wrath in all its ugly fury reared whenever strange males so much as glanced Katja’s way, yet Rafe had kissed her, touched her, bit her, and my feelings about him hadn’t changed one bit.

Did I like that he had tasted her? No.

Did I want to envision them entwined on his cot, all gasping breaths and wandering hands and kisses fierce enough to leave her lips all swollen and bruised this morning? Fuck no.

But I didn’t want to kill him—and for an alpha with a fated mate, that had to mean something.

Something profound.

Still nursing his vial of cold blood, Rafe appeared too distracted to worry about my lingering stares. Jaw clenched, he glared at Fintan; the fae by my side had been drumming his goddamn spork and finger on the table for the last two minutes, biding his time—like all of us—until Katja left the feeding line and joined us.

“Fintan,” Rafe growled at long last, his test tube about to splinter in his white-knuckle grasp. “Would you shut the fuck up already?”

“Oh, sourpuss,” the fae trilled back, all bright-eyed and singsongy, his food untouched. “Shouldn’t you be in the best of moods this morning? You look so… refreshed, like you finally got your full five liters.”

Rafe cast a hurried look my way, then shook his head and twisted back to search for Katja in the line. My inner dragon snarled at the reminder, and I stabbed my knuckles to the center of my chest, massaging away the burn, then poked my spork at my grey-tinged scrambled eggs.

I know, I know, you fuck. I get it.

I should have marked her.

At the time, I’d let the man win. Although I had accepted she was my fated and that we’d just had exceptional sex, that we were finally talking, confusion had won the day, and great sex and conversation and fate wasn’t enough to cull it back. In that moment, I had become so fucking human that it still sickened me. Surrendering to the uncertainty, I had held back. I told myself it was because I hadn’t wanted to frighten her, but seeing Rafe’s marks on her throat this morning had drop-kicked that theory straight to hell.

Katja wasn’t afraid of us.

She feared a lot of the stupid shit in the penitentiary, but we weren’t on her list.

I’d been a coward—and that was that. No getting around it anymore. No one to blame but myself.

“Ah…” Fintan finally stopped his incessant drumming and tossed his spork aside. “There she is.”

Trust the fae to be on the lookout for my—possibly our—mate. Sure enough, there was that shock of brilliant red hair weaving through the cafeteria. Her jumpsuit had the splattered remnants of her encounter with Rafe along the shoulder, but so far no guard had called her out on it. Deimos, meanwhile, zeroed in on the new stains immediately during breakfast lineup, and as she passed his table now, he whistled and winked when she glared in his direction.

Rage detonated inside me like a fucking bomb.

Good to know it was still there, the insane jealousy and possessiveness I’d never experienced in my entire goddamn life—this surge of fire, the snarling of my inner dragon, certainly said a lot about Rafe, anyway.

My mouth watered, and as Katja hurried along, head down and tray clutched in front of her like a shield, I was suddenly very aware of my teeth. The urge to mark her returned with a vengeance, my inner dragon roaring at the thought of throwing her down on a table and claiming her for all to see. I shoved a forkful of shitty scrambled eggs in my mouth instead, twitching at the obnoxious crackle of Fintan’s apple juice bottle to my left.

---