The King's Captive (Gate of Myth and Power, #1)

by K.M. Shea

and my hair was standing up against my control—I was probably going to lose another patch of fur after this.

I howled in my little cat voice, but the powerful supernatural swung around and strode back up to his house.

He had one hand on my rump and the other on my upper back, which he briefly removed to pet the top of my head. “You’re safe now,” he informed me. No I’m not. I am the opposite of safe! I need to get away as soon as⁠—

Maybe they’re European, and that’s why they feel so different?

“Though I am probably crowding him—but he’s accepting pets very nicely, and his fur is well kept. Do you think he was their pet?”

“I’m going to keep it as a pet,” Noctus said in the most unaffectionate tone possible.

This feels like the punchline of a really bad joke, I thought as the trio petted me. Or rather, Ker and Aristide petted me as Noctus watched. A werewolf, an elf king, and a vampire find a cat—HEY! “What gender do you suppose it is?” Noctus lifted me up into the air and twirled me around so my rear faced him. I tucked my tail and curled my entire butt up, doing an extreme cat version of a gym bro’s calisthenic leg raises. “Ker, hold its tail,” Noctus said. No, no, Ker, don’t do that. I curled my tail even more tightly against my body as the werewolf tried to gently tug it up. There’s a lot of things I’ll suffer through—this is not one of them!

Noctus jiggled me, throwing my rear high in the air. Suitably freaked out, I hissed, and out came my claws. “It is a girl cat,” Noctus announced. Absolutely mortified, I wailed even more loudly and dug my claws into his arms.

I bolted—like any cat in a strange environment would do—shedding little tufts of hair from the anxiety of it all.

At the rate her heart pounds, I’ll be able to pinpoint her location in any room with ease. She is an anxious creature.” Anxious doesn’t even begin to describe how I’m feeling!

This just keeps getting better and better. I swear I can feel the hair falling out of my coat from the stress.

He picked up one of my paws—daring to touch my toe beans—and pressed, making one of my claws pop out. “You are relatively helpless,” he said.

“I should get a protective spell for you.” No, that’s not necessary, but thank you for being a conscientious pet owner.

Noctus looked down at me. I quirked my tail, opened my eyes wide, and did my best to look cute. It worked too well.

Joy, Pat, and I had pooled our allowances for an “adopt Chloe back slush fund” that they’d had to use numerous times in my childhood—I

Bro, you should have gotten a pet ages ago if you were going to be this dedicated. I’d feel bad for you, if you weren’t a figurative nightmare from supernaturals’ past.

I’ve been warming up to you way faster than any normal cat would. What are your expectations? If you wanted me to come running to you every time I see you, you should have gotten a dog.

Once I got out of here, I was going to buy myself an entire box of donuts—chocolate and vanilla, swimming in frosting—and a gallon of milk. I needed both to recover.

He was watching with a slightly tilted head, his eyes flicking from me to Noctus as he discreetly pulled out another cat toy from his coat pocket and set it on the desk.

French Fry was stupid, but at least he was a crack shot.

French Fry cooed his delight that he’d made his shot, then stuffed his remaining fry in his beak and promptly choked.

I managed a few bites before the overwhelming siren song of sleep—a deep sleep—tugged at me so badly I actually sagged forward and fell face first into my meal.

This is swerving off my worst nightmares and turning into something just…weird.

since her phone had tons of photos of my cat form—mostly so if I got taken they could easily put up missing cat posters within hours. Pat broke into the guy’s place that afternoon to try to free me, but I’d already broken myself out and was trotting home.

You know, considering you are an apathetic king, you are a downright tyrannical pet owner.”

Ker joined me in the bathroom, her nails clicking on the tile. She licked the top of my head. It took what little guts I had left in me to stay sitting while she messed up my fur, but this was better than the last time she’d tried to lick me and wrapped her tongue around my entire head.

“Would you two stop it?” Aristide complained. “She’s a cat—not Noctus’s child.”

I’ll have you know I’m an adorable wolf!” Ker said. “You’re the size of a pony,” Noctus said. “Adorable is not a word used to describe a predator that large.”

You’re an elf king who’s prouder that his pet cat learned how to give high fives than anything else you’ve accomplished in the last two centuries!” “Ama is very smart,” Noctus said. “She deserves to be admired.

I was so happy to see him, I vowed to let him rub my belly once that night—never mind what he was doing here instead of Curia Cloisters.

“Tell me, I’m dying to know, are you turning paranoid in your old age, or did you indeed scent out your pet cat in downtown Magiford like a bloodhound?”

Yes, I was maybe a smidge addicted, but milk was a comfort drink to me, and Noctus was ruthless in his refusal to let me have even a sip of it.

which would explain your emotional responses and obvious ability to plot.

I was unwillingly carried into the study by Charon and placed in my bed on Noctus’s desk with a catnip stuffed toy cactus to amuse myself.

This, I thought as I stared down at the map spread in front of my paws, is the opposite of what I wanted.

Well done, Charon! I take back my mean thoughts. With just a nudge, you lot are off and moving. You’re very smart!

the Paragon, his face pressed against the glass window of the Cape Cod house with his hands cupped around his eyes to block out the glare of the sun. “You are home!” the Paragon declared, his voice muffled by the glass. “Let me in—I brought tea! And some presents for Ama!”

With that rebellious thought burning in my mind, I eyed Noctus. Noctus stared at me for a moment before he burst into laughter—a deep, rolling laughter that seemed like it broke free from him. I hunched my shoulders a little and sucked my head in like a turtle. “What?” I asked. “It’s nothing,” Noctus said when his laughter subsided. “I merely didn’t think another being was capable of making that face.”

Yes, Noctus had come to adore his cat so much, he’d cast an ultimate magic to protect her, which doomed me to possibly live out the rest of my days as a cat.

Chloe’s look of disbelief flitted through my mind again. The slightly narrowed eyes, the way her entire body hunched with her—the look was so like Amalourne’s when I’d promised not to rub her belly anymore and she clearly hadn’t believed me.

Soaked from my nose to the tip of my tail, I sat in a plastic bin he’d put in the giant kitchen sink and glared up at him. This is so ridiculous.

I looked away from him. “Don’t be like that, Amalourne,” Noctus said. “This will make you feel better.” My ears twitched. It will not! “It will,” Noctus said, scarily able to interpret my body language. “You’ll stop scratching so much.”

“High five?” Noctus held out his palm. No—no high fives! I purposely looked away.

Noctus took my moment of preoccupation and shoved my head through an inflatable donut-pillow. Wait…I can’t scratch my neck like this. He put a cone on me!

That’s it. I’m going to go ruin some of his papers on his desk. I’ll mix them up so they’re out of order. That will teach him! There’s nothing worse than disorganized paperwork.

That Noctus could look intimidating enough to make her cry while he was holding a fluffy cat that clung to his shirt collar said a lot about the way he held himself.

I’ve escaped the Unseelie heaps before. They’ll be infinitely easier to run from compared to Noctus: the overly invested pet owner.