His Alpha was in pain. He was injured. He needed to be protected.
Instinct obliterated Nox’s logical mind, and he threw himself against the smoked glass. The Anubis covered him, shredding his scrubs. But his claws didn’t even scratch the surface of his prison.
Koda screamed again. The sharp stab lanced through Nox’s side, traveling across his stomach. He was still hurling himself against the smoked glass wall when two men brought Koda in on a stretcher. They entered the center chamber and laid the carrier on the floor. Nox continued to attack the barrier until his skin split, his teeth broke off, until blood and ichor smeared the surface in frantic, dark trails.
Nox’s wounds healed, only to be reopened with every futile attempt to get to Koda. The two guards left, and the tunnel connecting the center chamber to Nox’s cell opened.
Copper, sweat, pain, it traveled on eddies of air filtered in through tiny vents located in the ceiling and back wall where a sheet of smoked glass protected the concrete.
Nox rushed into the center chamber.
The Anubis withdrew, and he crawled over Koda. His clothes were gone, and nothing concealed the jagged wound on his side where his organs glistened within the torn strands of muscle.
“What happened?”
Koda opened his eyes. Tears made tracks down his cheeks, and the blood flowing from his wound pooled on the floor.
“Koda, I’m here, tell me what to do.”
Blood coated Koda’s fingers. He gripped Nox’s forearm but immediately lost his hold. Nox held Koda’s hand.
Images of a pale green room, tables, men in masks flickered through Nox’s mind. One of them approached with a scalpel and dragged it across his stomach.
“They wanted to see….” Koda bit his bottom lip, and his expression fell.
He didn’t need to tell Nox. The rest came to him just as easy as Koda’s pain. They wanted to see just how far the connection between them went.
Nox could have told them. While he didn’t bear the wounds Koda did, he still felt the life slipping from his body. As if the threads of his entire being threatened to unravel.
The Anubis burned its way close to the surface, and Nox put his hand over the wound on Koda’s abdomen. Nox didn’t fight the urge to straddle Koda, essentially covering him with his body. He also didn’t fight the urge, the very need to sink his teeth into Koda’s shoulder.
Koda cried out a mixture of pleasure and pain. The Anubis crawled down Nox’s arm to the gaping incision. Tendrils danced down the edge, slipping inside, pulling back out. Ants crawled across Nox’s stomach, and the gash on Koda knitted together.
Nox released his hold on Koda’s shoulder, and he stared at Nox with wide eyes, then looked down at where the blood smeared his unmarred skin.
Nox looked too. Koda didn’t have to voice the words for Nox to answer. “I don’t know.”
It took a while for Nox to understand what had happened. But even after it was obvious wounds Koda suffered could be healed by physical contact with his betas, Dr. Echols continued to butcher him. As more Anubis were created for his team, Koda’s healing sped up until he didn’t even need physical contact. And some injuries they inflicted on Koda to confirm he could even regenerate limbs like the Anubis, had been horrific.
After every incident, there’d been a change in Koda’s scent. Temporary but distinct. Old ground. Not the rank odor of rot, but the scent of life waiting to happen.
That same scent saturated Luca. He was healing. The exhaustion he suffered was simply a side effect. Even though the ability came from the Anubis, it took energy for the body to complete the task. Rapid cell growth had often rendered Koda unconscious. His body would continue to heal, burning any fat reserves he had, stopping only when his organs were at risk. Even then, if the wound needed to be healed to ensure survival, it would sacrifice other tissue in the body he could live without to complete the task.
No wonder Luca had been hungry the past couple of days. Despite eating, he’d still lost weight. And sleep did nothing to erase the shadows under his eyes.
Now Luca’s body hovered on the edge of exhaustion, starved for resources.
Nox pulled over to the first store he could find and picked up food. Sandwich meat, rotisserie chicken, cheese, almond butter. When he got back to the Jeep, Luca was awake but remained slumped against the door.
“I want you to eat.” Nox broke open the bag with the cooked chicken.
“Too tired.”
“Eat and you won’t be.” Nox stripped off a piece of dark meat and skin. He held it up to Luca’s mouth.
He wrinkled his nose and recoiled. “I hate dark meat.”
“It has more fat. And trust me, when you get this in your mouth, you won’t care.” His body would refuse to let him.