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

“You came back.”

“And I may yet come to regret that,” I said. Never mind, moving forward.

My returning to the tunnel was almost worth it just to see his expression of stark bafflement. He’d probably thought he had a crisis on his hands.

Sakhmet and Zora trotted up the tunnel after him and seemed just as shocked to see me standing still, regarding him calmly.

“I don’t understand you,” Enkidu said.

“Likewise. So, can I have my phone back?”

“No,” he said. He shook his head, as if trying to shed his confusion.

“Oh, well. Never hurts to ask.”

Probably intending to bodily escort me back to the main chamber, he grabbed my arm. I pushed away, showing my teeth, rasping a growl. Because he was also a dominant wolf who couldn’t back down from a fight, he snarled back and lunged. I ducked, shoved into him with my shoulder, knocking him into the wall, and the fight was on. Three days of stress erupted. He turned, and we went after each other, arms out, fingers bent like claws. My Wolf growled with delight. No ambivalence, no decisions. Just claws, teeth, and blood.

“Stop! Stop it, both of you!” Sakhmet shouted.

Enkidu broke away from me, bowed his shoulders, ducked his gaze—the body language of a puppy who knows he’s done something wrong. His beloved had spoken, and he obeyed.

Wolf hesitated, because her instincts said you didn’t attack someone showing all the signs of standing down. I trembled, wanting to strike, knowing I shouldn’t. My breath came in growls. All he had to do was look at me funny and I’d be on him again.

Sakhmet moved into the space between us. She was tall, regal in her skirt and tunic. Her skin shone like mahogany in the faint light. Her movements were fluid, feline. Her stance said I could try to fight her, but she could hyou do when yo

Chapter 15

I WAITED FOR nightfall, which seemed to both come quickly and take forever. Sitting in the middle of the antechamber, arms around my knees, I dredged up stories from my memory, myths and fables, lost knowledge and lessons learned. I tried not to think about my cell phone and how many messages from Ben it had on it by this time.

When the outer door opened, I flinched, startled, even though I shouldn’t have been surprised. I’d been expecting them, hadn’t I?

The four of them filed in. Kumarbis led.

Wolf itched; we were sitting, they were looking down on us, so I climbed to my feet, squared my shoulders. Didn’t look Kumarbis in the eye because whatever else he was, he was still a vampire. But the others—I met their gazes, waited for their reactions. Enkidu was neutral. Sakhmet gave me a comforting smile. I wasn’t much comforted. Zora kept ducking her gaze, looking away. I wondered if she realized she was doing it.

Kumarbis’s arrival meant night had fallen again. The third night. Too long. It hardly seemed to matter anymore. He’d been around for over two thousand years, time probably didn’t mean anything to him.

I wished I could skip forward to when this could all be over. But I stood tall and didn’t look away.

Kumarbis intoned in his ritual voice, “Tonight, we speak in praise of Regina Luporum, also called Lupa Capitolina.” The others bent their heads, as if in prayer. “Tonight, we tell your story.”

I perked up, trying to focus. My latest hero: I could see her, in the picture of the statue I’d printed, snarling and protective. The story Marid had hinted at, of the found+ra from ed, theing of Rome. The queen of the wolves, who stood up for her kind. Was I anything like her? How could I be?

The vampire continued. “She is not only the defender of the weak, but the savior of an empire. She shows us how by defending the needy, one may become the mother of an empire. What glory for her! Even should she die, as the one of whom we speak died. When the enemies of Romulus came for him, she put herself in their way and fought to her death to stop them. As all mothers will die to protect their children. She saved the life of Romulus, who went on to glory, and so we celebrate her sacrifice…”

This wasn’t right. I knew, because I’d just done the research. “That’s not what happened, not according to the stories. Romulus killed his brother over power. What would their mother have thought of that? How is that protecting the pack? The wolf, the Capitoline Wolf, she saved them, but she didn’t die for them. They didn’t have enemies, they had an argument, and she was out of the picture by then.” At least, the stories didn’t mention her after that.

He bowed his head, a wry smile on his face, the expression of a teacher confronting a recalcitrant student. “The stories are corrupted, unreliable. I know the truth of them. I’ve seen.”

I gaped. “Seen, as in witness? Are you saying you were there?”

“I have seen the truth of the stories.”

Maybe he really had been there at the founding of Rome. Maybe he really had seen. Or maybe he was a standard demagogue, offering his interpretations as ultimate truth. Like someone calling in to my show, declaring their opinion of the One True Path.

“Or maybe you’re winging it, like the rest of us.”

“It is the place of mothers—even foster mothers, or those who play the role of mothers—to die for their children.”

Oh for the love of … “A woman should be able to be a mother without being a martyr,” I said.

Again, he offered a condescending smile. “Wouldn’t you die to save your children? Or for a cause you believe in? I see your courage—I think you would.”

Having children had become such an abstract concept for me. I couldn’t have my own, but Ben and I had talked about adopting. Someday. When life got less crazy. Like, when I wasn’t being kidnapped by weird revenge