at languages. The wolfdogs were walking cautiously around the mouth of the cavern, sniffing it and leaping back, as though it could bite them.
I whined, telling Kayla that we needed to figure out what was going on before we stormed in. But in the end, coward though I was, I realized we were going to have to just make our way cautiously into the entrance.
Like a lot of caverns, the opening of this one was deceptively small. It appeared to be a narrow hole, barely even a cave, and it was easier going in on four legs than it would have been on two. For a few feet, it was claustrophobic, and then the walls and the ceiling opened up and we were in a huge natural amphitheater. It was dark, but owls and wolves have excellent night vision, so that wasn’t a problem. The ceiling of the cavern was an inverted cathedral of stalactite spires and steeples, and they would have been pretty if they hadn’t looked so much like spears aiming down at our heads. Kayla hopped onto my back and I started to pad across the smooth, slippery stone surface, sniffing the cool stone scent that permeated the place. The wolfdogs followed more hesitantly, Baby and Bon Bon daintily picking up their paws on the slick stone, while Shep and Hudson moved more deliberately ahead.
There was a faint breeze in the cavern, and I sniffed again: Beneath the minerals were other, familiar odors. Magda, Hunter, the brothers. Red.
“You’re too late, Doc.” I turned, and Red was walking up out of the deeper recesses of the cavern. I moved toward that beloved voice in a low crouch, my ears pressed flat against my skull, my tail wagging in the low, submissive circle that is canid for I adore you.
Except that all that came out was whimpering and puppy eyes, as is so often the case, even when the guilty party walks on two legs. He had a wistful look on his face, and he was wearing old jeans and a soft leather jacket that clung to his lean form, and I felt I had to smell him, really smell him, so I stuck my muzzle into his face and breathed him in, all the clean, kind, goodness of him, the animal scents that told me where he’d been, the level of stress in his sweat.
Red reached up and gently pushed my head away. Something was making him very tense. I shoved my muzzle closer, wanting to read him some more. “That’s enough, girl,” he said, and there was a note of steel in his voice I hadn’t heard before.
He was still angry with me.
Kayla hooted again, and hopped onto Red’s arm. He looked at her, his solemn expression cracking into a smile for a moment.
“Good lord,” he said, “what happened to you?”
Kayla ruffled her head feathers and turned her head nearly 360 degrees to look at me.
I gave a low woof, the best I could do under the circumstances. I was relieved to see that Red looked unharmed; after hearing Bruin was using him as a punching bag, I’d been braced for the worst.
“And I see you’ve got some new friends, too.” Red nodded to the gigantic wolfdogs, and they looked on in curiosity as Red put his hand out onto the ruff of fur at my neck. “I guess we’ll save the big speeches for later,” he said, and I felt such a wave of relief and love that I wanted to roll over and over, the dog pantomime that said, if happiness were a scent, I’d be covered in it.
But Red’s hand held me in place, moving to the scruff of my neck. And then he did something so unexpected that I had to fight the urge to shy away.
He pulled the belt out of his jeans. Seeing my reaction, he gave a dry chuckle. “Aw, you know me better than that,” he said. Then he looped his belt through my necklace as though it were a collar, and led me deeper into the recesses of the cavern as though I were a dog.
Or a prisoner.
When Red had showed me the cave last fall, he hadn’t taken me all the way into the room people called the Chapel, because I hadn’t liked being so far underground. But as we walked along the subterranean river formed by the dripping stalactites, I knew that was where we were headed.
What I hadn’t been expecting was light. As the path