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Tlacel and Llewellyn circled overhead, skirting the winds but sending me images of what they saw. The hole was twenty feet across and at least ten feet deep. A perfect circle with smooth, symmetrical sides, quickly filling up with sand spiraling up out of the ground like a tornado.
Blowing sand. A hot desert wind in my face.
In my mind, I flashed to Isis’ pyramid. Sands swirled around the base of Her pyramid like billowing clouds with the same dusty musk. Woody and warm, like cypress and amber, with a hint of floral. Not the night blooming jasmine this time, but something heavier and richer, like a velvety rose. I didn’t feel any sense of alarm or danger from Her, though I didn’t call out for Her attention. I switched to the tapestry, hope rising in my chest.
A new Blood, answering my Call. Quietly, secretly, just like I’d asked. Though I hadn’t intended for one to penetrate my nest and push my Blood into full alert.
However, the tapestry remained unchanged. My glowing lava and golden flame bonds wound through my mind, illuminating the gently blowing fabric of space around me. Something new stood where the hole was, but sands still obscured it. It didn’t glow like a bonfire or pull me to investigate. It was… blank.
Blinking away the vision, I focused on the crater, though now it was almost completely full of sand. Ocher and clay and sparks of glassy pearl, swirling up out of the ground. Glittering with red glass.
Like the dead scarab on my palm.
:Beware,: Rik bellowed down the bonds. :More scarabs hide in the sand!:
Wrapped up in a shield of my power, the beetle didn’t move on my hand. It was still dead. Though the crater hadn’t opened until I touched it.
Scarabs boiled up out of the ground, rising higher with the sand and wind. A shape started to coalesce in the storm, scarabs crawling and swarming together. Hardening, the plates of exoskeleton fusing together into glittering red armor plating.
The winds died, allowing the sand to settle around a giant statue of a sphinx, though it didn’t look like the Great Sphinx of Giza. It cast a shadow as big as Leviathan’s, but its head was a ram with thick curling horns spiraled on either side of its head. The rest of the body was the more familiar lion. It crouched in the middle of my nest like a mighty guardian, glittering with the red shells of the scarabs.
:I need to get closer.:
G’s sides quivered between my thighs, automatically balking before Rik could even refuse. :We still don’t know what it is.:
:It’s not attacking.:
:Yet,: Rik growled. :If you don’t recognize it as Blood, I don’t relish letting you get closer to it.:
Though he would. If I ordered it.
Inwardly, I sighed. They were right to be concerned. My nerves still felt frayed and raw. Okeanos lay face down in the grotto, floating like a dead man, and Daire and Ezra were collapsed beneath the table. If this went badly and I tapped my power deeply, I’d only have nine to pull on.
A month ago, I would have laughed and shook my head. Of course nine Blood were plenty to sustain me.
Now, the thought made my hands tremble like a junkie desperate for another hit.
Which was exactly why I had to try and wake this sphinx statue. It was huge, rivaling the dragon. It had to carry a lot of blood—and a lot of power.
My fangs dropped so hard and fast that I shuddered, my whole jaw aching. My mouth filled with blood, my lower lip shredded. I swallowed it, my hunger shearing through me like a million volts of lightning. :I have to try.:
Positioned before me, Rik paced closer to the statue with G right beside him, slightly behind to allow my alpha to take the brunt of whatever might happen as we neared the sphinx. Leviathan, Tlacel, and Llewellyn spiraled above in slow circles, staggered so they wouldn’t all be taken out at the same time if the statue exploded. Itztli, Vivian, Nevarre, and Xin—thankfully unharmed—circled the beast, claws and talons bared like brutal swords. G’s ears flickered back and forth, listening to me, my bond, and the statue. He blew a rattling warning snort, arching his neck, his haunches coiled into tight springs. Fully prepared to whirl at full gallop to carry me to safety.
Every step of the rock troll made the ground groan and protest beneath the force of his granite boulders. He laid a hand on the statue and gave it an experimental shove. Nothing moved. The scarabs didn’t swarm around his hand. His alpha senses strained, wide open and alert for anything that didn’t smell or feel right. But the sphinx smelled like sand and rock without a single sign of life.
Looking through my power with my blood dripping down my chin, I didn’t see anything different either. Just a statue. Nothing magical, other than the scarabs forming the exterior plating. I could barely see the delicate seams where they all fit together. The one in my hand was still dead.
Expectation filled me, a coiling of anticipation. With my bloodline through the Great One, it made sense that a sphinx might answer my Call. My only hesitation was the scarab. Madeline Skye had melted before my very eyes after vomiting out one of these creatures, and I’d burned her queen’s body to make sure I killed all the critters crawling in her dead flesh. Granted, everything Ra touched had been fouled and warped by his lust. Maybe he’d only gained the scarabs after absorbing a lesser god or goddess.
The only way to know for sure would be to give the sphinx some of my blood.
None of my Blood said a word, though I felt their intensity ratchet up another level toward explosion. If I woke this thing with my blood, it’d probably be pretty fucking hungry.
But so the fuck am I.
Carefully, I dabbed a drop of my blood onto the scarab on my palm.
The statue clicked, millions of tiny glittering wings unlocking. I braced for them to explode toward me in flight, but they melted deeper into the statue, leaving only the weathered tan color of stone behind. I sucked in a deep breath, and even from feet away, I could smell the musk of lion mixed with sand. Very similar to Llewellyn’s scent, though his gryphon also smelled like leather. The sphinx didn’t move or breathe, but I could almost feel its fur beneath my fingers. One step closer to waking it.
