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“I had a rough night.”

There was a rough night, and there was a night where a man got hit by a truck. Isaiah looked like a man who’d been run over by two.

“Does your rough night have anything to do with why you want to talk to us?”

“Sort of.” Isaiah rested his elbows on the table. “It’s about the Anubis.”

Luca sat straighter. If Isaiah uttered one word about how the creature would kill him, he was going to punch him in the face. “What about it?”

Isaiah dragged his attention to Nox. “I know you love Luca.”

“Don’t.” Luca stood. “Don’t you dare start telling him he’s going to hurt me, not after what we went through yesterday.” Not after Nox had struggled all night with hating himself.

Isaiah dropped his head. “What I’ve told you is the truth.”

Luca balled up a fist.

Nox put a hand over Luca’s.

The golden wolf stepped from Isaiah’s shadow and sat at his side. Nox watched the animal.

“You can see it too,” Luca said.

“Yeah.” Nox sounded more worried than amazed.

“The Fenrir won’t hurt you,” Isaiah said.

“Won’t or can’t.” Luca glared at Isaiah.

“Both.” Isaiah shifted in his seat. His expression tensed, and his complexion greyed.

Luca wondered if he would pass out.

“If our wolves weren’t separated from us, you’d probably hear them and they could assure you themselves.”

“They talk?” Luca said.

“They’re sentient beings, of course they talk.”

Except for the size and color, they strongly resembled the Anubis. “How come I’ve never heard the Anubis speak?”

Isaiah scraped his thumb along a letter carved in the top of the picnic table by some long-gone visitor to the park. “I’m not sure it can.”

“Why not?”

“Because it doesn’t really think. It’s not an individual. It’s a—” Isaiah snapped his mouth shut.

“A what?”

“It’s not important.”

“It is to me.”

“The Anubis doesn’t form a relationship with its host. It’s a disease or, at the most complex, a parasite.”

Luca clenched his teeth.

“I know you don’t want to believe me. I know everything I say is biased. But I don’t want to see it destroy you. And I don’t think Nash wants to see that either.”


Tags: Adrienne Wilder Wolves Incarnate Fantasy