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

Kitty, not Regina Luporum. I grabbed on to what she offered before I could think or respond, and found myself holding the tin box that held her USB spell book.

“Run,” she said. “Run, don’t look back.”

And Zora—Zora stayed behind. She raised her arms over her head—each hand held an item, amulets tied up with stems of herbs—and shouted, words or commands, their meaning lost in the wind and chaos. The demon turned toward the sound, raised her weapon, let loose a battle cry.

That was all I saw. I might have stayed to watch, fascinated, but Wolf carried me out. Now, it is time to run. I ran. I did not look back.

My legs moved, loping in long strides, night vision guiding me surely through the antechamber and past the door. The bright figures of Sakhmet and Enkidu appeared ahead of me, and I followed the long, sloping tunnel that led to the surface.

An explosion rumbled through the caves behind me. A ghost of the ancient dynamite blasts that had excavated the mine in the first place. I stumbled, the ground under my feet uncertain. I put my hand on the wall for balance, then yanked it away when my skin burned. Was my skin broken? Had silver entered the wound?

+">se">Chapter 1Go. Wolf kept running. She gazed through my eyes, and I wouldn’t have made it out without her.

The mine kept trembling, an earthquake growing in intensity rather than fading away. Debris rained, dust clogging the air, bits of stone pelting me. My steps didn’t land where’d I aimed them, because the ground under me was moving. Up ahead, Sakhmet gasped as Enkidu fell and she struggled to hold him up while keeping her own balance.

It got worse, and I realized the cracks of thunder I was hearing was the sound of stone breaking and falling. The solid granite that had remained stable for a hundred years was collapsing. The ceiling of the tunnel in front of me was failing.

I put my head down and ran. And reached fresh air. The night sky opened over me like victory, and a weight came off me as I filled my lungs. I was free.

I kept running another twenty paces or so past text messages

Chapter 20

WE SAT for a long time just holding each other. Ben smelled even better than the pine- and snow-laden mountain air. He smelled like home and safety. Most of all, he smelled like himself, like Ben, and his thrown-together clothes and practical soap. My mate. Right now, he also smelled more tired than he should have, laced with anxiety. I’d been gone for days; he must not have slept much in that time. I squeezed him harder, my arms tight around his chest, and he wrapped me firmly in his embrace. I sighed, finally letting my guard down.

“I don’t know where to start,” he murmured into my hair. “What happened?”

I didn’t know where to start, either. “They grabbed me. Kidnapping, I guess. It got weird. Messy.” I cuddled against him, as if I could bury myself and hide from the world. “Long story,” I said finally.

“But you’re okay?”

“I am now,” I said.

He nodded over my shoulder at Sakhmet. “Was she kidnapped, too?”

“No, she—” I was about to say she was one of the kidnappers. But that didn’t make sense anymore. She’d been simultaneously captor and victim, and she had the scars to show for it. Already, the last few days were turning into a blur in my memory.

Sakhmet kept her head bowed, hiding her face as she bent protectively over Mohan’s body. I couldn’t bring myself to call her name and interrupt her grief.

“Kitty—what the hell happened here?” Ben said, his tone baffled rather than demanding. I couldn’t imagine what this all looked like through his eyes.

I met his gaze, ran a hand across his hair, comforting myself. “It’s not going to make any sense at all. Really. Oh, Tom—” I said, in a panic. “Did you find Tom, is he okay?”

“He’s okay. Got knocked out by a tranquilizer dart, and when he woke up, you were gone. He felt terrible. Took us a couple of days to calm him down.” Tom would have thought protecting me was his job, and that he’d failed. He was prone to turning wolf and running off when he got upset. I could picture the scene, Ben and the rest of the pack talking him off that ledge.

“It wasn’t his fault,” I said. I relaxed further, relieved with confirmation that he was all right.

“+ for a from ed, theHe’ll be happy to hear you say it. I had to keep him from spending the last few days out looking for you nonstop.”

“He wouldn’t have found me.”

“I know,” he said. His sigh was revealing. “Because I was out here looking for you.”

“You? Or your wolf?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I kind of lost it. Kept losing it. Cormac tried talking me down the best he could. But … I didn’t really come back until you sent your message.”

Ben in a panic, furious and worried, had let loose his wolf to search for me. He couldn’t not. I’d have done the same, in his place. Was it weird that I thought it was romantic?

“I’m glad the message worked.”

“Me, too.”

“Ben?” Cormac said, a warning in his tone.

Voices sounded from the woods downslope, along with the growling motor of an ATV. A powerful flashlight panned across the trees. The search party. Ben and Cormac had brought the cavalry.

Ben pulled away. I almost grabbed at him in a panic, not ready to let him go. But the world intruded.

“You’ll be okay?” he said, smoothing back my hair, searching my eyes. I nodded, and he kissed my lips firmly, decisively, as if to convince himself that I was really here and really safe, as much as to comfort me.

He stood and joined Cormac, who handed the rifle to him. Ben took it, tucking it under his arm. When the cops arrived, they wouldn’t catch the ex-con with the loaded weapon. Like