Above me, the scorpion screamed and tottered. For an awful moment, I thought that the monster would fall on Drake and that even though I was skidding toward him, reaching out, I wouldn’t get there in time.
But the scorpion danced away, its pincers clacking, its screeches echoing with pain and fury. It hit the wall, hard, and collapsed. Its pincers gave one final wave—a good-bye to the world—and then it stilled completely.
And then . . . because this day hadn’t been creepy-strange enough, it burst like a smashed piñata . . . into a very big pile of sand.
Huh.
“Drake!”
I ran to the werewolf, and good God, he was huge. I think I could’ve saddled and ridden him like a pony. (Only, I guess I’d done that already, right?) I knelt next to him. He was lying on his side, covered in sand. I assumed that whatever blood or gore had gotten onto him had also turned into sand when the scorpion was dispatched.
I wasn’t sure how to check for a pulse on a wolf. I put my ear up to his snout, hoping I could hear him breathe.
Something wet and flat smeared my cheek.
“Ugh!” I reared back and looked down.
Drake’s eyes were open, and it seemed to me that they were shadowed with pain. Well, who wouldn’t be hurt after falling several stories off a monster scorpion?
“Are you all right?”
He heaved himself onto his belly and looked at me, cocking his head. His big red tongue lolled out of his mouth.
“I don’t speak werewolf. Or German. How’s your French?”
He offered a weak woof, then laid his head on his paws and closed his eyes.
“Oh, honey,” I murmured. I stroked his silky fur, and I thought about Drake the man. And here was Drake the wolf. It was a crazy concept to believe. But no crazier than anything else I’d seen today.
“Drake? You . . . er, feel like moving? Or changing back into a human?”
He didn’t respond. He was breathing, though, steady and strong. What should I do? If I stayed here and tended to him, I risked us both. If I went on without him, and he woke up . . . well, he’d be pissed off. But it would be easy to follow my trail . . . at least until some magical door closed up behind me like all the rest had. Yikes.
“Sorry,” I murmured. I patted his head. “A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.”
I gathered his clothes and left them next to his resting wolf form. I also stopped to finish tying my boot.
Then I crossed the room and paused before the yawning darkness of the room beyond.
“Hey.”
The female voice made me stumble forward and yelp. Heart pounding, I whirled around.
Patsy floated a few feet away, staring at me with arms crossed.
Okay, it wasn’t quite Patsy. She was faded, like an old photograph. She was sorta bluish, too, and her bottom half looked like smoke. She was either a ghost or a djinn.
“Oh, my God,” I said. “Are you dead?”
“Well, I’ve been dead. And undead. And alive again. But this is weirder.” She stretched out her arms and examined her own ghostly pallor. “I didn’t even know I could do this.” She wiggled her fingers at me. “Out-of-body experience.”
I blinked at her. “So, you’re just visiting?”
“Yeah,” she said. “I decided, hey, why not pop out of my seven-month-pregnant body and risk my baby, freak myself out, and float on in to a deadly pyramid so I could see you.” She huffed in impatience. “Where’s Drake?”
I glanced over her shoulder at the unconscious werewolf, and Patsy followed my gaze.
“What happened to him?”
We had the most awesome sex on the planet, and then a giant scorpion tried to eat us. “It’s a long story, but it ends with him needing a really big nap.”
She returned her gaze to me. “Men.”
“Yeah. What can you do?” My stomach was starting to squeeze a little. Patsy showing up, well, her . . . er, soul anyway, probably didn’t indicate anything good. She didn’t strike me as the cheerleader type. And what mother would intentionally leave her pregnant body behind so she could go spirit-visit a crazy archaeologist and a werewolf?
“You have bad news, don’t you?”
Patsy sighed. “I’m sorry. We tried to protect her.”
“Protect her? Who . . . Dove?” My stomach dropped out and I pressed my palm flat against my belly. “What happened? Is she okay?”
Patsy’s expression did not offer hope. For a second I couldn’t breathe. I never should have left her in the company of vampires. I should’ve found a way to protect her myself, to drag her into the pyramid, which for all its trials seemed to be a safer place than a town supposedly protected by an invisible shield and supernatural creatures.