Underworld by Meg Cabot Page B

pigeon family, she seemed to have an affinity for statues. The bird was bobbing up and down, as if bursting with a message.
    “Forget it,” I whispered to her. “You stay here.”
    I didn’t regret my decision. Except the part where I didn’t stay where it was safe, the way Henry had warned me to. And that I’d left my candlestick behind.

 
    T he dog was on me before I’d gone two steps.
    It wasn’t the dog that the book on Greek mythology we’d studied in school had described, Cerberus, which had three heads and was supposed to stand guard at the gate to the Underworld.
    It was close, though.
    His massive front paws landed on my shoulders, drilling me back against the door I’d just slipped through, then forcefully pinning me there like a butterfly mounted to a museum display. Standing on his hind legs, his sharp white fangs hovered inches from my face as he growled down at me. His drool dripped in long white streams to the flagstone floor.
    I heard someone shout “Typhon!” from behind him in a harsh tone. The dog didn’t move, his red-eyed gaze on me, his stinking hot breath in my face. I was the stranger who had dared to violate his space, and so I was the one who had to face his wrath.
    A moment later, a rough hand wrapped around the dog’s studded collar and yanked the animal away from me. It yelped like a puppy, its long pink tongue lolling and its equally long black tail wagging, as it was shoved out a side door to what appeared to be a stable yard. There it sat and whined piteously, scratching to be let back in, apparently quite sad about not having been able to have me as a snack.
    It was only then that I felt safe enough to turn my head and take in my surroundings.
    I could see that I was in a kitchen that, like the rest of John’s castle, was made entirely of stone, with a high, arched ceiling. It had only two points of egress, the door to the hallway from which I’d just entered, and against which I’d been pinned — and now leaned against for support — and the other to the stable yard where a man dressed all in black leather had shoved John’s dog, and where I was assuming John kept his horse, Alastor, another creature from the Underworld who hated my guts.
    He was going to have to get in line, though. The boy who’d pulled Typhon off me was standing a few feet away, next to the wooden plank table that ran down the center of the room, staring at me with a look that suggested he disliked me even more than the dog had. It was difficult not to notice the size of his bare biceps — not as large as John’s, but still impressive — since he’d folded his arms across his chest, and this had caused the muscles to bulge. The fact that they were circled in vicious-looking rings of black tattooed thorns did even more to draw attention to them.
    It was hard to figure out if that was why he was so much more noticeable than anyone else in the room, or if it was because he was what my friend Kayla would have called smokin’ hot, despite a jagged scar that ran down one side of his forehead, through a dark brow, and halfway to the center of his left jaw. Whoever had wielded that knife had thankfully — for him — spared his dark eye.
    Not so thankfully for me, however, since he was able to use both eyes to give me a deathlike stare.
    “Um,” I said, finally feeling the blood flow returning to my limbs. “You might want to think about getting that dog neutered.”
    The boy with the thorn tattoos sneered. “I’m guessing she’ll be wanting to get us all neutered,” he said.
    “Frank!” cried an old man I hadn’t noticed before. He was standing beside an enormous fireplace that took up most of the length of the far wall. Over the fire hung numerous huge black pots. From them seemed to emanate the foul smell that filled the air. Either that, or it had been the dog. “Mind your manners, please. Henry, please pour the captain’s guest a cup of tea. I believe she needs it.”
    “She’s not