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Urgency shuddered through me.
“She can’t spare Nevarre,” Rik replied immediately. “Someone else will need to fly the doctor back to the city.”
“Of course,” Gina said quickly. “Angela obtained her pilot’s license.”
I hoped to goddess they were gone. Because I couldn’t keep my face out of Ezra’s blood any longer.
11
VIVIAN
My sunfire phoenix had never faltered before. Smoak had always been with me, my only companion for most of my miserable existence until I managed to leave Heliopolis.
But I’d never tried to keep a secret from my queen, either.
Smoak didn’t send words to me. We didn’t communicate that way. Images flickered through my mind in rapid succession. He was one of many sunfires, a single drop of molten solar energy compared to the full brilliance of the massive blazing sun of this solar system. All of them united in a way even I couldn’t fully comprehend. One of many, united but also separate. Smoak had his own consciousness—even though he simultaneously knew and felt all things the other sunfires knew and felt.
All of their burning, magnificent energy belonged to Karmen Sunna, who’d called the sunfires to her side. Not my queen, Shara Isador.
Smoak felt the constant pull to be with the others of his kind. It wasn’t his nature to swear to an Aima queen. To feast on her blood and live solely to protect the queen carrying our oath. Though he was evolving to our new life, and he especially liked participating in our queen’s love life. Our gender had always been fluid, though he’d started feeling more male lately.
The rest of the sunfires were also adapting to a life tied to their new queen, but for now, they were simply reveling in their newfound freedom from Ra and Sepdet. Imprisoned thousands of years ago by the god of light, the sunfires had been warped by the dark lusts of the god. Even Smoak’s fire pulsing in my veins had one purpose only for centuries.
To kill as many queens as possible for my evil sire.
Shame smothered the familiar flames of my gift, and I dropped like a stone toward the ground. I didn’t deserve Shara’s oath, let alone her forgiveness for holding anything back from her. She’d freed me from the darkness of my past. She’d conquered the cursed fire in my blood. And the first chance I got, I betrayed her trust by keeping a potentially deadly secret from her.
I started to shift back to my human form but something on the ground caught my attention. A small hill of dirt and pebbles shifted up. Something was coming up through the ground.
Flaring my wings out, I soared past and circled around for another pass. I didn’t see anything moving in the pile, but I was sure it hadn’t been there thirty minutes ago. We were inside the queen’s blood circle, so nothing should be able to get through, but the hill was slowly growing and spreading. Now a foot tall.
I touched Rik’s bond and sent him an image of the small hill. :I don’t know what this is, but it wasn’t here just a few minutes ago. Might be an animal, but I’ve never seen anything like it before.:
The alpha’s will wrapped around me like a massive stone fist, pulling me back around in a lower swoop so he could look for himself through my own fucking eyes. Distantly, I felt him calling the other Blood on patrol to come closer, especially the dragon. :We were attacked by ants once, sent by Keisha Skye before our queen killed her. Is there anything moving inside it? Even as small as an ant?:
I dropped to the ground but kept my phoenix so I was armed with my sharp beak and vicious claws. I swept a fiery talon through the hill, scattering the dirt. Looking for anything out of place. :Nothing. Wait. There’s a small hole.:
:The trees aren’t alarmed,: Nevarre said. :Neither are the crows.:
:I don’t like it,: Rik growled. :Nothing should move in this nest that we don’t understand and recognize as belonging to our queen.:
:Even fucking bugs?: Mehen retorted. :Wanna tag all the maggots and worms wriggling through the ground?:
I leaned in closer and dripped smoldering liquid flames into the hole. Seconds ticked by. The breeze of Leviathan’s wings as he passed again rustled my braids. Nevarre’s giant raven dropped down to face me opposite the hole. Head cocked, he pecked at the small grains himself, as if not trusting me to find the trap.
Xin’s wolf materialized beside me, startling me so badly I twitched before catching myself. :Smells like thousand-year-old sand, not Arkansas dirt.:
:Something of Ra’s?: I made myself ask, dread weighing like one of Rik’s massive boulder thighs on my chest.
The wolf bristled, though he said, :I don’t smell the gold of Heliopolis.:
I didn’t realize gold had a smell, but then again, all I’d known for centuries was that garish hellscape. All I remembered was the smell of scorched flesh. Usually my own.
:Movement in the hole,: Nevarre said sharply.
The three of us on the ground leaned closer, crouching, ready to pounce. Above, Leviathan’s lungs sucked in air like mighty bellows, preparing his dragon fire. Though the wolf and raven would be roasted alive, they didn’t back away. A shiny piece of glass pushed up out of the sand. Blood red glass, translucent and opalescent, oval in shape. Maybe a jewel? Though it didn’t look like any precious stone I’d ever seen before.
The glass split down the back, opening into wings and revealing a black body and legs beneath. :SCARAB!:
