But even the fog couldn’t dim the burn of energy threading its way through him. Through the Anubis melded with every cell of his body.
Those strings flared, and the blur clouding his mind seared away, bursting into an inferno of color, sounds, scents.
Memories.
The other Anubis, Luca, his pain, his imminent death seconds away. Nox wrapping around him, the Anubis emerging from his flesh, slipping into the wounds covering Luca’s destroyed body.
His Alpha. His reason for existing. The reasonwhyhe existed.
The beat of Luca’s heart deafened Nox.
He tore from the suffocating emptiness, coming off the floor. His still numb legs buckled, and his shoulder hit the wall.
A webbing of particles threaded through it. Smoked glass.
Six sheets held together by L-shaped brackets of glass. Air holes no more than an inch round a foot from the top. A sliding door on the right locked with three thicker slabs of smoked glass.
A primitive construction but that was all it needed to be. The thinnest sheet of smoked glass was to the Anubis what miles of rock were to human hands. Able to absorb the kinetic energy of their strength and deflect their ability to cut.
Fluorescents cast a sickly light down concrete walls in the relatively mundane room with a door at the far end and no windows.
“Nox.”
Luca wore an oversized coat, his hair stuck up in every direction. Despite his mud-streaked face, he glowed with health.
Nox crawled over.
Someone else occupied the cell with Luca. A face Nox hadn’t seen in years and thought he never would again.
Dr. Reese Dante.
He’d lost weight, and there were half-moon shadows under his eyes. The man smiled, small, sad, kind. The same expression he’d worn when he had contact with Koda or his betas. Nox pressed against the glass. His hands itched to touch Luca. His body burned with the need to be closer.
Luca’s eyes darkened, and the flush blossomed in his cheeks. His desire for the same thing filtered back to Nox in a near-endless loop.
Luca dropped his forehead against the glass and Nox did the same, narrowing the world down to the depth of his gaze.
“Are you okay?” Nox knew he was. Luca’s life force surged through him with every breath.
“Yeah.” Luca lifted his gaze. “I don’t remember what happened after….”
After Luca had been torn apart and seconds from death. He didn’t have to say it. His fear and pain ghosted Nox’s mind.
“Do you?” Luca trailed his fingers down the glass.
Nox mirrored the movement. “No.”
“Dr. Dante said he found us in the woods.”
Dr. Dante dropped his gaze. “Yeah, uh, yeah, I did.”
“Why were you looking for us?” How did he even know to look for them?
Dr. Dante took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Long story. But the short version is the US military dragged me out of bed at three AM and told me what happened at the Utah facility. I didn’t want to believe any of the betas were responsible but….” He shrugged. “I’ve been helping them try and figure out what’s going on. Where the other Anubis came from why you were with Luca.” He put his glasses back on. “When I realized they didn’t have plans to let you live—” He swallowed. “I told them about the tracking satellite New World used to do recoveries with. It brought them to Montana, and after that, they just followed the bodies.”
“Why am I alive?” Nox had a terrible feeling he already knew.
“Because whoever found you aren’t military. At least, they weren’t with the US Army. I’m sorry, they must have followed me.”