Page 23 of Caged

The growl Sylas releases is blood curdling.

“The Habosu no longer has any claim over you. He never did. You are destined to be mine,” he says, words barely able to pass by the fangs which fill his mouth. “He will not succeed in using you or me to get to his filthy prize.”

I should be terrified.

I am not.

“This isn’t your fight,” I say, sliding my hand into his warm feathers and taking meagre comfort from their silky softness. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

The smile returns to Sylas’ face, only this time he has a wicked, wicked glint in his eye.

“The only creatures getting hurt will be those who seek to take you from me,” he says. “You will stay with me and not return to thisIxor.” He sneers Ixor’s name as if it pains him. “You are free, little feather.”

Unable to stop myself, I kiss him on the lips, laughing in delight, my heart lifted for the first time in a long time. Perhaps I shouldn’t throw my lot in with seven feet plus of muscles and feathers who wakes up and chooses violence every day, but why the hell not?

And, after knowing him for all of an hour, he’s made my body sing like a canary and throb like a rock concert in the 1980s. I’venever believed in love at first sight, but maybe that’s because I was never in love before.

My life was as lonely as they come. A single roomed bedsit, a job which was hardly taxing, and family I disowned at sixteen. No one wants the lonely girl eating her lunch in the corner.

Except Sylas.

He helps me on with my clothes, after insisting on cleaning me up…with his tongue…and by the time we exit the tiny dwelling, it’s dark outside.

Which, when it comes to hiding an enormous winged gladiator, is something to be glad of. Plus anything in the night which might think I’m a target is going to have the surprise of their lives.

Sylas moves like a big cat, silent, not even rustling a feather as he pads beside me, his long legs easily eating up the distance while I hurry on like a scurrying mouse.

I feel like prey when every so often I glance at him and see his hungry, hunted expression as he returns my gaze.

What have I got myself into?

We reach the rear of Ginka’s bakery. As usual, the back door is open, and I slip inside, followed by Sylas.

“Stay here,” I whisper to him. “I need to speak with my friend before I introduce you.”

Sylas furrows his brow and shakes his wings, which rattle like knives. Only he also raises a cloud of flour too. It settles on him gently.

“I do not like you to go alone.”

“I’m not,” I retort. “I told you, this is my friend’s place. We’re both safe here, but I need to warn her about the gladiator in her kitchen.”

Sylas snorts. “You are safe as long as you are around me.”

“Which is wonderful, but what are we going to eat and where are we going to sleep on the planet, Sylas?” I query.

He huffs and runs a clawed finger, not the one he bit off in order to touch me, through some of the fallen flour on a countertop, making a sigil which doesn’t translate.

“Fine,” he growls.

“So, stay here?”

“I’m not going anywhere else without you.”

I hurry through the kitchen and out into the main bakery. Ginka has an apartment above the shop itself, but she’s still cleaning up after the day’s trading.

“Hi,” I say, hoping not to startle her.

Ginka turns, and without warning, she pulls me in for a hug.

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