Chapter 282: The Crimson Womb V
---
Of course the woman he had secretly married, secretly turned, and secretly hidden from the world would now require anywhere from half a day to a full day inside a blood womb in a hidden pocket realm while her family believed she had merely visited the Dawn House.
"Wonderful."
His mind moved immediately toward the obvious crisis.
The city lord... Lily’s father.
Protective even under ordinary circumstances, if her words and the person he knew are still the same before. He would notice her absence by night (10 pm in human time) if not sooner. If Lily did not return tonight, there would be questions. If morning passed too, there would be more than questions. Servants would be sent.
Maybe Guards and Messengers. Perhaps the city lord himself will come looking for her.
And what would Sekhmet say then?
"Forgive me, I married your daughter in secret and turned her into a hybrid angel-vampire, but she is in a blood sphere and should hatch by tomorrow."
"Nooo."
That path led directly to war, outrage, and Elena giving him a look so cold it could preserve meat for winter.
He needed a solution. He needed Elena for that.
Sekhmet looked up at the floating sphere again. The red light inside it pulsed more evenly now, less violent than before. The outline of Lily remained curled in upon itself, but the wrongness of it had changed shape inside him. No longer death terror. Transformation terror. Better, but still enough to keep his heart tense.
Auri stepped closer, but not too close.
"Master?"
Her voice was soft, and careful. Stronger than Bat Bat’s whispering fear, steadier than the twins’ current silence.
Sekhmet finally answered out loud.
"She is alive."
Everything in the little circle around him changed at once.
Bat Bat gasped loudly enough to prove she had been holding her breath.
Auri’s shoulders dropped by a fraction. Vera’s eyes closed once, briefly. Vela let out the smallest breath through her nose. Not relief exactly. Something close.
But then Auri asked the next question.
"What is she becoming?"
Sekhmet looked at the sphere again before answering.
"She is not turning the same way Vera and Vela did."
That made the twins watch him even more closely.
"Her blood is different," he said.
Bat Bat’s ears lifted. "Different how."
He hesitated for one second, only because saying the word out loud would make it more real to everyone else too.
Then he did.
"She has angel blood."
Silence. Perfect, and complete silence.
Even in the Void Land, where strange things had already happened often enough to harden the nerves of those who lived under Sekhmet’s shadow, the sentence still landed like something impossible.
Auri stared.
Bat Bat opened her tiny mouth and then closed it again because, for once in her existence, she genuinely lacked an immediate response.
Vera spoke first.
"Angel."
"Yes."
Vela’s eyes narrowed toward the sphere. "That is why the blood felt wrong."
Sekhmet looked at her sharply.
She met his gaze calmly. "Wrong only because it was not what we know. It felt... cleaner. But it’s too bright." Her expression shifted slightly. "I thought maybe it was only because she is Lily."
That made sense.
Vera nodded after a moment. "I smelled it too. Faintly. But not enough to name it."
Bat Bat recovered enough to become offended by reality itself. "Why is everyone around the Master secretly something else?"
No one answered that because no one had the strength for it.
Auri, however, did what Sekhmet needed most right then.
She asked a useful question.
"Is she in danger?"
Sekhmet let the answer come firmly. "Not immediately. The transformation is still happening. It will take time."
"How much."
"Half a day at least. Maybe a full day."
That made Auri’s face tighten again.
She understood the next problem almost as quickly as he had.
"Her family."
"Yes."
Bat Bat muttered, "This is becoming very complicated for a day that was already full of weddings."
Sekhmet ignored her, but inwardly acknowledged the accuracy.
He needed to leave. He needed to talk to Elena now, before the house settled too far into night and before his own fear made bad decisions more tempting than patient ones.
He looked at Auri.
"Can you watch her?"
Auri did not even blink at the responsibility. She looked from him to the sphere and then back again.
"Yes."
The answer was immediate.
Then she added, quieter, "I will stay right here."
Sekhmet studied her for a second. She was not frightened away by the shape of the sphere. Not repulsed. Not overwhelmed beyond function. "Good." That was why he trusted her.
"If anything changes," he said, "anything at all, you call me at once."
Auri nodded. "If the light changes. If the shape changes. If she falls. If anything comes near."
"Yes."
Bat Bat puffed herself up suddenly. "I too can watch."
Sekhmet looked at her. "No."
Bat Bat recoiled. "Why."
"Because you will talk to the sphere."
"I would speak encouragingly."
"You would ask it questions."
"That is supportive curiosity."
"It is noise. You will disturb her. I don’t want any risk."
Bat Bat folded her wings. "Master is cruel."
Sekhmet pointed toward the greener side of the Void Land. "Go stay with the spirit leaf."
That changed everything.
Bat Bat’s eyes widened. "With the little forest thing."
"Yes."
"Can I play?"
Sekhmet stared at her. That was enough to answer her.
Bat Bat brightened instantly. "This is suddenly a very noble duty."
Auri looked like she was trying not to smile at the ridiculousness of the shift.
Sekhmet turned to Vera and Vela then.
"You two return to your watch."
The twins straightened at once.
Vera asked, "The prisoners stay as they are."
"Yes."
"Can they see this from there?" Vela asked.
"Maybe pieces of it," Sekhmet said. "Not enough to matter. Still, keep them under observation all the time."
Both women nodded.
Vera’s gaze lingered once on the sphere. "If she wakes while you are gone—"
"She will not wake quietly," Sekhmet said.
That answer was true enough to settle the question.
Vela’s expression changed by only a little, but he read the underlying concern in it. She remembered her own turning. She remembered the pain, the scream, the awakening.
Sekhmet thought, "Good. Let her remember. That meant she would be ready if Lily emerged violently, hungry, or frightened."
Auri moved one small step toward the sphere again, slower this time.
"I will not leave her out of my sight," she said.
She was steady. She was loyal. She can handle the responsibility.