* * *
“How long are you going to give me the silent treatment?” Luca propped his elbow on the passenger window.
“I’m not giving you the silent treatment.”
Maybe not the complete silent treatment, but Nox had barely said a dozen words since yesterday when he’d fucked Luca in the bathroom until he couldn’t stand. Then when Luca finally had the strength to get in the shower so they could leave, he wound up pushed against the wall with Nox’s cock buried in his ass.
With the connection, sex wasn’t like it had been before. Now Luca felt Nox’s release as well as his own. The problem was the Anubis gave Nox the stamina to last hours and Luca would collapse.
Not that the Anubis cared. It would continue, filling Luca with cum and cock. Two or three times was normally enough, but yesterday? Nox—the Anubis—had been insatiable.
But with every new crash of euphoria, fragments of what incited the Anubis trickled through.
Fear.
Luca wasn’t sure when the confusion between Nox’s emotions and those of the Anubis had happened, but it was becoming more frequent. As if the pauses between man and the creature grew smaller.
Sometimes Luca was sure the Anubis understood more than the rage and violence it craved, but every time he reached for it, there was only its lust for him.
The only thing that it wanted more than bloodshed.
“Please talk to me.” Luca put a hand on Nox’s thigh.
“What do you want to talk about?”
“How about what we’ll do when we go to the beach?” They’d planned to go to the beach in Texas where the water was warm enough to swim in before they arrived in Washington, but then Nox got a job and a house.
Now that he refused to stay there, it looked like the coast was back on the menu. Luca didn’t mind but settling somewhere for a while would have been nice.
“We will. Soon. I promise.” Nox put a hand over Luca’s. “Just not here.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to think so loudly.”
“I never want you to stop.” Nox almost smiled.
“Yeah, but you have enough to worry about.” Before, it was just keeping Luca safe from other Anubis, the military, and New World Genetics. Now it was… Luca didn’t know what.
A sign marking the RV parking entrance poked up between a clump of weeds.
“There’s where we turn,” Luca said. “Slow down or you’ll miss it.”
Nox’s entire body tensed, the van slowed, and he made the right onto a strip of gravel behind a bed of grass. Two dark lines of crushed vegetation marked the passage of other vehicles. A fork in the road directed right for the picnic area and left to the long-term camping area and RV parking.
Past the sign, trees converged, creating a tunnel, splitting again on the edge of an open field with a few ancient pecan trees.
Two familiar vehicles, another car, and a couple of trucks formed a parking area next to two horse trailers and across from a dozen RVs of different sizes, making a partial circle around a large hearth and cluster of picnic tables.
People occupied lawn chairs sitting under the awnings of the motorhomes.
More stepped outside the RVs.
All of them stared.
“I didn’t think there’d be this many people,” Luca said.
“Are you sure you still want to do this?” The tone of Nox’s voice made it clear what he thought.
Luca was tempted to say no, but the same familiarity he’d felt when he met Jelani and his companions washed over him, along with anticipation. “Yes.”