Chapter 261: What the Dark Heard II
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Even with the seal suppressing her real powers, even dressed down by the bad circumstance, there was still a remnant of old elegance in her eyes. She had been bruised. Her body and clothes were dirty. Stripped of authority. But not erased.
Natasha looked less elegant and more dangerous. Her stillness had sharpened over the last two days into something feral and controlled. Hate sat in her eyes like a blade kept warm under clothing.
Sekhmet stopped before them. Neither woman spoke to him. He had not come for pleasant conversation.
"I need answers," he said.
Sofia smiled faintly, though there was no joy in it. "Then you came to a very poor place."
Sekhmet ignored the tone. "How did you find me?"
Natasha’s eyes narrowed. "No. You won’t get any answers."
His gaze shifted to her. "That was not a negotiation. I am demanding it. Both of you are my prisoners."
"That is unfortunate," she said. "Because I am still not telling you anything."
Sofia added, more softly, "If you knew how many names are attached to the answer, you might not ask so calmly. You will lose your balance just hearing the names."
Sekhmet looked at both of them in silence.
Then he pulled out the controller ring from his pocket and held it between two fingers. The moment it appeared, both women’s faces changed.
Not dramatically.
That would have been easier to dismiss.
Just enough. It was the tightening of shoulders. A narrowing of breath. It was recognition.
He wanted them to remember exactly what sat between them now.
"I am asking you for the last time," he said. "How did you find me?"
Sekhmet continued, "If you don’t answer me then I will start..."
Sofia’s smile thinned. "You truly do not know."
"No."
Natasha laughed once under her breath. It was ugly and humorless laughing. "Then perhaps you are too stupid to stay alive."
Sekhmet fed chaos energy into the ring. Immediately the hidden sigils within it woke.
Natasha’s body went rigid with a sharp, involuntary electric shock. It was not enough pain to damage her badly.
But it was enough to teach her who is the boss. Her jaw clenched hard. One hand snapped down against the stone beside her.
Sofia’s expression tightened too, though the pressure had been aimed mostly at Natasha.
Sekhmet watched both of them without blinking.
"Again," he said. "How did you find me?"
Natasha lifted her head slowly, fury burning so brightly in her eyes that if rage had weight it would have pressed the whole ground down.
"Go to hell."
He increased the pressure. Now a thunder shock was created inside their bodies.
This time both women reacted. It was much stronger than the electric shock.
Sofia’s breath hitched sharply.
Natasha folded forward by half an inch before forcing herself back upright through sheer hatred.
The ring pulsed once more.
The pain was not loud. Not theatrical. It was worse. It was precise. It was internal. A commanded thunder shock running through the weakened seal and striking at the places where resistance became suffering.
Sekhmet kept his face calm.
"Tell me the truth. Or I will increase the pain."
For a few breaths, no one spoke.
Then Natasha spat blood onto the ground beside her and hissed, "Enough. Stop it."
Sekhmet did not ease the ring.
Natasha glared up at him. "You want the basic answer? Fine. I will tell you. But knowing it won’t help you."
Sofia closed her eyes once, perhaps from pain, perhaps from knowing the silence was broken now.
Natasha’s voice came out rough and low.
"We found out about you when you turned the twins into true vampires."
The sentence hit harder than expected.
Sekhmet’s eyes narrowed.
Natasha continued, each word bitten off as if she hated giving him even that much.
"The change in the twins sent a shockwave through Null. Not one mortal would feel. Not one ordinary bloodline could hear. A blood sovereign shock. An original vampire creating true vampires." Her lips curled. "All god-level and original vampires felt it."
Sekhmet went very still. His mind raced through the implications instantly.
"The twins. The turning. That moment."
That was when the world had noticed him. Not at the benimarus cave. Not at the auction. It was when he turned them.
Sofia opened her eyes and took over, perhaps because Natasha had said enough to make silence pointless.
"Our master felt it," she said quietly. "The Blood Sovereign Klaus."
The title entered the dark like old poison.
Sekhmet said nothing. He wanted more.
Sofia understood.
"He sent us to find you. To confirm whether the signal was real. To bring you to him if possible." Her gaze held his. "Alive if practical. Dead if necessary. Make you join us if you are useful."
Natasha’s mouth twisted. "Alive, was preferred. For now, you were more valuable breathing than dead."
Sekhmet’s fingers tightened slightly around the ring.
Sofia went on, and now there was something like bitter honesty in her tone. "It will not just be him. Other vampire factions will come too. Other sovereign bloodlines. Old blood houses. Maybe hidden blood cults. Any group with enough blood sense to follow the disturbance. You are not hidden anymore. Not in the way you were. Soon, you will get captured by someone."
Sekhmet felt the shape of the trap closing backward through time.
Every use of his power. Every transformation. Every public change. Every rising ripple in blood. All of it had been speaking. And he had not yet known the blood language.
Natasha laughed once, it was low and ugly. "You are not a boy with a secret. You are prey wearing a luxury scent of meat."
Sofia’s eyes remained on him. "You carry a fraction of Blood God blood inside you. That is what everyone wants."
The words were quiet. The effect was not.
Something cold moved through Sekhmet’s spine. He knew the line from the system. He knew the term.
But hearing it spoken by another vampire —by an older, more dangerous one— made it real in a different way.
Sofia continued.