Broken Heart 09 Only Lycans Need Apply(40)

“Well, then,” said Patsy. “Let’s get to it.” She pointed at a small gold circle. The hieroglyph’s basic interpretation was simple enough: “Enter here.”

“You know what to do, Moira. You open it. We’ll follow you inside.”

Gabriel cleared his throat.

Patsy rolled her eyes. “Everyone else will go inside. I’m too busy being pregnant.”

I studied her expression, and decided she didn’t harbor the same knowledge that had been imparted to me via dreamland. I hadn’t mentioned the dream, not to anyone, especially not to Dove. She would’ve tied me to the bed and fended off anyone who tried to cart me into the pyramid with only her bad attitude and that blade she kept tucked in her boots. It was her bad attitude that was the more potent of the weapons.

In any case, I remembered the dream in detail, and knew, somehow, that it was real. At least, real in the sense of truth. And I’d made a promise. I remembered what the voice in my head said when I stuck my hand into the keyhole the first time. Love will lead you. Be worthy. I had no idea what that meant. Even so, I would enter the pyramid and be the first meal of Amahté and Shamhat. It wasn’t like I had a choice. I had opened the pyramid, and now I had to follow through with the whole sacrifice thing.

Yay, me.

I could only hope that Aufanie and Tark hadn’t lied about the ambrosia, or today I would be entering my last pyramid ever. “I will go first,” said Drake. He reached out his hand, but I stepped in front of him.

“The hell you will,” I said, looking at him over my shoulder. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”

“Neither do you,” he said tightly.

“Oh, stop,” said Patsy, exasperated. “That’s the way it works, Drake. It’s her blood that opens the damned thing.”

He looked supremely irritated, but gave a short, quick nod.

I stuck my hand inside the hole. Something sharp raked my wrist.

We heard a rumble, and then a doorway appeared. It pushed back, inward, and then slid to the side. A blend of female and male voices invited, “Enter, chosen.”

“Step aside, Moira,” said Drake.

“She’s the one to go first,” said Ruadan. “She’s been chosen, Drake. You can’t change that.”

Ruadan looked at me. “Your destiny is what you make it, love. Remember that.”

“Fate can be a real bitch,” I said.

He laughed. “That is the truth, sure enough.”

I had every intention of getting out of this pyramid alive. Well, alive-ish. After snacking on some ambrosia.

I stepped inside, and smelled the dust of the ages in the suffocating dark. Drake followed, so close I could feel the warmth of his body against my backside. I had to stay in front of him, make sure he didn’t go around and set off the blood-drinking traps. I didn’t know if he’d be ejected out of the pyramid, too . . . or just get plain ol’ dead from trying. Sheesh. He really was as stubborn as Aufanie had said.

Behind me, I heard Dove gasp, and then her vivid cursing streak made my ears bleed . . . at least until the door shut behind us.

Drake and I turned around.

“That’s not good,” I said.

The door was completely gone.

“It only let two of us inside,” he said. “Why?”

“Well, I’m the chosen,” I said with mock haughtiness. “So you’re probably screwed.”

He snorted a laugh. “We’ll see. Let’s get through as quickly as possible, shall we?” Drake said, placing his hand on my shoulder. “Let me pass, o chosen one.”

Ha. As if. I slipped out of his grasp and move onward. The passage was so narrow that he wouldn’t be able to scoot around me unless turned and pressed my back against the wall. I heard his hiss of impatience, and then a string of German words that had the feel and tone of “fucking fuckety fuck.”

Then I heard the whoom noise made when a lit match strikes gas-soaked wood. Torches on either side of the wall lit up, one by one, stretching several feet down the hallway until they illuminated an intricately carved stone door.

“Ach,” said Drake. “Let me by, Moira. We don’t know the dangers here. It is better if I go first.”

“No, it’s not,” I argued. “I have more experience with pyramids.”

“Not this pyramid,” he said. “Move aside.”

“No.” I sprinted toward the door, hoping that the first trap wasn’t some sort of spike-infested pit, or spears spinning out of the walls in Indiana Jones fashion.

Drake cursed some more in German, and followed. I reached the door seconds before he skidded behind me. I studied the hieroglyphs, and puzzled out the meanings. I don’t know how much time passed, but as I crouched down to view the final set of glyphs, I heard Drake sigh.