Free Kitty Steals the Show (Kitty Norville) by Carrie Vaughn Page A

making it clear I had noted them, and remembered. Seated at the table were three women and eleven men, plus retainers, servants, and pets. Plus the victims of the dinner. I pointed at the guy in the poet shirt. “You—I bet you’re going to try to tell me you knew Lord Byron, right?”
    He laughed, a point in his favor. Guy with a sense of humor couldn’t be all bad. The rest of them regarded me with expressions ranging from amusement to disbelief. Even Ned stood aside, hand to his chin, intrigued. I had a sudden feeling they were feeding me rope, waiting for me to hang myself with it.
    “Nobody? Aw, come on, I thought you were all supposed to be badass. What’re you afraid of?” Ben, bless him, smirked at them all right along with me, though I imagined he was mentally slapping his forehead. Did I have to poke quite so much? Yeah, I did.
    It kept my gaze from falling to the stack of bodies in the middle of the stage.
    The impeccable anachronistic guy with the goatee made an obvious sniff, nostrils flaring, and wrinkled his nose. “The bitch is in heat.”
    Ben stepped forward, putting himself in front of me, and bared his teeth in challenge. I put a calming hand on his arm and moved back into view. “Well, that’s a little personal. Ned, if we’re going to be sharing like this do you want to at least introduce everyone to me? I thought you guys were into all that formality and crap.”
    Ned started to speak, but the goateed vampire sneered and said, “Too much barking. It’s obscene.” He turned away from us as if disgusted.
    “You hear that, honey? I’m obscene,” I said to Ben. “I think that means we win.”
    “High five,” he said, holding up his hand. I slapped it and held it.
    “High paw.”
    Yeah, they were definitely looking at us like we were the ones on stage, now. The figures on the fringes, the bodyguards and such, had pressed forward to watch, even. I didn’t know how much longer we could keep up the banter and hold their attention.
    “I don’t think you understand your position here, young lady,” said another of them, a man with dark skin and an Arabic-looking robe of white linen tied with an embroidered sash. “You are here at our pleasure. Our sufferance.”
    “See, what does that even mean?” I said, my arms out. “You think I’m going to go along with that, just because you expect it?”
    “Has no one taught you manners?” he said in a disappointed tone, as if he was lamenting the fallen state of the world, where a lowly werewolf could talk smack to a vampire.
    “Yeah, you should ask the vampires back home about that. I’m real popular.”
    “She is,” Ben said. “That eye rolling thing you’re doing? She gets that all the time.”
    I looked at him. “Really?”
    “Just trying to help.”
    Man, the two of us should go on the road. Some of the retainers standing in the wings had begun to fidget. I hoped I was making them nervous.
    Ned stepped forward. “If I could make those introductions now—”
    The goateed vampire slapped the table, causing knives to rattle and candle flames to flicker. “Edward, you are a terrible host for allowing one of the wolves to speak so out of turn.”
    Ned smiled. “She’s not mine to command, Jan. You know that.”
    “It’s the principle—”
    Ned countered, “If you’re offended—”
    “Oh, I’m not offended,” one of the other women said. She had black hair and wore a rhinestone-studded ball gown that glittered like shattered glass. “I thought this was the evening’s entertainment.” That got a few more laughs. Several of them started talking and laughing over each other, leaving Ned cut off in the middle of his intervention.
    Enough of this. I looked at Mercedes and raised my voice.
    “How many of you are carrying the coins of Dux Bellorum?” I said, loud and sure to carry.
    The room fell still, quiet, and every vampiric gaze, thick with power, turned on me. Mercedes actually took a step back. Well,