Kitty in the Underworld by Carrie Vaughn (red queen ebook .txt) 📕

She’s furious, but the other half of her being pleads. The weaker, two-legged half. This territory is strange, the situation is strange. She doesn’t know what to do, so she listens to the calming voice. Backs away from the opening, shaking out splinters caught in her fur.

She lies on the ground, looking out to the dim light. The man is there, the other werewolf. Standing, watching. If she could see his eyes she would challenge him, but she can’t. If she could leap at him, she would tear out his throat. She pants, her tongue hanging from her mouth. Blood still stains the ground.

When the man moves, taking a step back, she perks her ears. Tries to guess what will happen next.

Calm.

He kicks the dead rabbit through the hole in the door, right in front of her. She jumps back, stares. Her mind tumbles. It has to be a trick. It doesn’t smell like a trick. A soft whine, in the back of her throat. Her other half is silent.

Blood wins out over all.

She eats the carcass, kneading it with jaws and teeth. The blood and flesh sings through her. She forgets about all but the blood and flesh.

Soon it’s gone, all of it but a few scraps of fur and bone. Her awareness has collapsed to the space of her own body. She paces, yawns. Wonders where the light is, there should be light, there should be a moon.

Her mate should be here. But no, not in the cage. He’s safe, and that’s good. But she longs for him, to feel him curled beside her, breathing into the ruff of her neck. The meat feels heavy in her gut. She doesn’t want to sleep, but she doesn’t have a choice. The walls hold silver. She cringes away from them, curls up in the middle of the floor, her muscles taut. It’s all so wrong.

She dreams of running.

*   *   *

I’D BEEN moved. The smells I woke to were different, slightly. While I still smelled the musty damp of underground, the dust and rock of the tunnels, the air had opened up. I wasn’t breathing my own waste anymore. A glow pressed against my closed eyelids.

Starting awake, I saw a rocky room with a half a dozen small, battery-run camp lanterns resting on the floor around the eded me of the

Chapter 8

I HARDLY DARED move, not knowing what would happen when I did. Not really wanting to know. I stayed calm, kept my breathing steady. I wasn’t in a strong position here; I couldn’t rip out all their throats at once, however much I wanted to. I stayed low to the floor, crouched protectively, and stared. Finally, I had a good look at my captors.

They were not what I expected, especially in the Gothic atmosphere of the cavern. They were startlingly … normal. Standing to my left against the far wall was the woman, the were-lion who’d brought me the water and sandwich. She was muscular and beautiful, with silky black hair knotted into a braid, sharp features, and bronzed skin. Middle Eastern, maybe. She made me think of deserts. Her clothing was simple, casual—a knit tank top and peasant skirt that had seen a lot of washing. She went barefoot. Her expression was neutral—not giving any sort of reply to my challenge.

Next to her stood a powerfully built man—the wolf, the one who’d taunted me and driven me to shift. He wore jeans, boots, and went shirtless, showing off an impressively sculpted chest. He worked out. I thought he might have been Indian, deep brown skin, a round face. A frown to bring down mountains. His dark gaze matched my own. He’d accept any challenge I gave him. Wolf didn’t like him.

To my right stood the other woman, and she was human, but her scent was so mixed up with the others she came across as something in between, neither one nor the other. Average height and build, hollow cheeks and tired eyes. Not getting enough sleep or food. Pale, with dirty blond hair tied back in a ponytail. She wore a tunic-type shirt over jeans, and three or four pendants on leather cords around her neck. Not pendants—amulets, cast in metal or made of twisted wire. A pentacle, a Thor’s hammer, a couple of others I didn’t recognize but were clearly symbolic of something. She was probably some kind of magician. Her hands were clenched at her sides, and her breathing was fast—she was scared. She wouldn’t meet my gaze.

Then came the fourth one, the ancient one, standing effectively in the middle. My nose flared at his smell, which was cold, corpselike, preserved. He was the vampire, but unlike any vampire I’d ever met. He wasn’t pretty, well dressed, or haughty. Calculating, yes, with his stony gaze and irs virtuti tuae, sestron demeanor. Powerful, I didn’t doubt. But his skin was gray, wrinkled, like paper left out in the weather. Bald, he wore a shapeless shirt and drawstring pants that made me think of hospital scrubs. He might have been ancient, or he might have simply been through hell and lived—sort of—to tell the tale. He also wore some kind of amulet around his neck, but it was too small for me to make out. If the vampire was up and about, night must have fallen. Which night, I still didn’t know.

Here they were, the international werewolf kidnapping squad. What an eclectic, unlikely group of people. My curiosity about them and how they’d come to be working together almost won out over my extreme annoyance and my deeply buried fear. I wanted to make some jab, some clever and pointed remark. Something that would give me a tiny bit of dominance, however small. But my voice was stuck, my tongue dry and thick. Wolf still stared out of my eyes; I wasn’t fully human yet, and the words wouldn’t come. My arguments were building in my throat and would come