Page 94 of Caged Kitten

“I saw an opening and I ran with it,” he insisted as voices rose from the rest of the shop beyond my little alcove, metal clanging and footsteps pounding. “The greenhouse shift has already breached the main building, and the three guards out there are dead.” Fintan poked the tip of his blade under the warlock’s chin; the boy let out a whimper, squeezing his eyes shut. “This lovely lad will take us through all the locked doors.”

I opened and closed my mouth, fumbling for words. Half of me wanted to take that dagger and slice him from stem to stern—watch him bleed out at my feet. The rest insisted I clap him on the back and embrace him as a brother, because he had done what I couldn’t: he had started a chain of events that might get us all out of here.

Or, you know, might result in our grisly demise.

Struggling, I looked to Katja, who was locked on me, her gaze unfocused as she chased her breath. One blink and she was back—and then she was on top of me, shooting onto her toes to throw her arms around my neck and squeeze tight. Ignoring Fintan’s smug smirk, I wrapped my arms around her lower back and held her, breathed her in, willed her scent to permanently stain my skin so I could carry her everywhere.

My inner dragon purred in her embrace, craving our mate with every fiber of his temperamental being.

“I’m sorry,” she choked out in my ear, fingers toying with the hairs on the nape of my neck. “Elijah, I’m so sorry.”

“You…” I cupped the back of her head with a frown, wishing I could fix whatever made her words so heavy. Was it the escape attempt? The distance? Both? Or had she felt it too—the longing, the same treacherous ache in her heart as mine when we were apart, even for a day. Now that we had found each other, two souls crafted by fate, absence did not make the heart grow fonder. Shaking my head, I crouched so that she could drop onto flat feet, her body still recovering from Deimos’s brutality, her legs trembling. “You don’t have to apologize.”

Sniffling, she eased back and planted her hands on my chest, looking oddly determined as she said, “Yes, I do, so… just let me.”

“All right, star-crossed lovers,” Fintan interjected, cutting off what would have been acknowledgement from me—acceptance that if she felt like she needed to say or do something, I as her mate would support her. Sure, I’d argue when I needed to. I’d put my foot down when it came to her safety and well-being. But… I wouldn’t control her. Never. Fintan, on the other hand, seemed hell-bent on running the show, and had the audacity to sidle between her and I, guard in tow, looking a little too thrilled with the turn of events. “Let’s get Rafe and the cat and then get the fuck out of here. This one’ll give us no trouble at all, right?”

He flicked the knife just hard enough at the warlock’s flesh that it split, bright red oozing from the wound. The boy cried out and shook his head. Honestly, weren’t all the prats patrolling this place hardened criminals themselves? I’d assumed those inside Guthrie’s organization had a backbone, but maybe the best and brightest—like Thompson—had fled for greener pastures when they realized what a shit gig they found themselves in out here.

Pleased, Fintan tapped the boy under his chin with the flat side of the blade. “Fantastic.” He then looked between me and Katja, brows up. “Shall we?”

While Katja hopped to, immediately headed for the door, I couldn’t move until I’d said my piece. Grabbing hold of Fintan’s green sleeve, I hauled him back when he tried to trail after my mate.

“You are putting her at risk, Fintan,” I hissed, hoping he realized what he had started with his trademark impulsivity. If something happened to her in all this, I’d kill him. The fae merely glanced down at my huge fist, then snorted.

“This was her bloody idea!”

“Hey…” Katja wheeled around in the doorway, hands on her hips, the end of her scissors nudging at the wall. “The riot was not my idea.”

“Coming back here was most certainly your idea,” Fintan argued, his grin tinted with dark delight—like he relished a fight before a fuck. My inner dragon growled at the thought but seemed more focused on Katja than the other male fate might have chosen for us to share her with.

Arms crossed, Katja sidled back into the little room, eyes on me.

“Nobody gets left behind,” she murmured. In an instant, I melted, all soft and gooey on the inside, infatuated with her even more now that I saw her loyalty in a crisis. This new side of her set off the protective alpha in me, my inner dragon on high alert for possible threats, but it also made me want to bend her over this table and make her mine in front of everyone. Fuck her until she begged for mercy, then mark her over and over again, my bite forever burned across her flesh.

I just smiled instead, wholly on board with whatever these two had in mind—because from the look in her eyes, the pride, the promise, the confidence in what she was doing, I figured I ought to encourage this. An alpha’s mate could withstand our strength, our fury, our darkest side. Yet they also made us better. Whatever we needed, we found it in them, and they in us. An alpha wasn’t exempt from growth, from personal betterment. Before Katja, I had always assumed I would pluck my fated mate from obscurity and tuck her away in a tower, dazzle her with jewels and keep her safe.

But my mate wanted to fight.

Katja longed to stand on her own two feet—to make the difficult call when necessary. I’d suspected it the second she ran to Fintan’s defense on his first day, but I saw it now, bright and glaring, her tenacity and her potential. The days of distance and quiet were gone. It was time to make waves.

“Let the record show that I wanted to bribe someone to quietly sneak us out the front door, but here we are,” Fintan insisted when I started toward her. He stiffened as I passed by, flinching ever so slightly when I raised my hand and clapped him hard on the shoulder. Our eyes met, dragon and fae, and an unspoken understanding passed between us. In no way did I condone him doing this without consulting Rafe or myself, but it was happening. No going back now. No stopping it.

He had tried to take the less dangerous of the two paths, but Katja dragged him down the one full of thorns and brambles—all the way back to me. And Rafe. And, of course, Tully.

I could respect that.

But I also wouldn’t let anyone hurt her either. She ought to be better armed than she was now so that despite our collars, she could still protect herself.

“Come along,” I rumbled, snatching her hand as chaos erupted in the metal shop. “Let’s find you a more suitable weapon.”

“Yes…” Katja squeezed my hand as she hurried to my side—the perfect match for me, this little witch. Her eyes all but glittered when they drifted toward the semiautomatic rifles prepped for shipment this weekend, and when they met mine, I realized I was a fucking goner. She nibbled her lower lip and pulled me toward the firearm of her choosing. “Let’s find us both a weapon to—”

“Oh, little mate…” I yanked her back and stole a hard, fiery kiss that had her gasping and Fintan chuckling. When we broke apart, I cupped her chin and arched an eyebrow. “I am the weapon.”

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