ChapterTwelve
The moonlight painted pale lines across the blanket covering Luca. Exhaustion fogged his mind, blurring the details of the small room.
Shelves, a dwarfed dresser made into the wall, a bed barely large enough for two people. No TV, no computer, but there were clothes on a hanger next to the door leading to a hallway.
Yet it was wrong. All wrong. Luca lay there, fear holding him immobile, watching and waiting for whatever terrible thing was supposed to happen, only to realize it already had.
Words whispered against the back of his mind, emotions hummed through him: joy, anticipation, love…
Waves of pleasure in a variety of flavors.
It called to him with the promise of happiness.
And it was still wrong.
There should have been rage and aggression. There should have been an endless hunger and willingness to do whatever it took to fulfill the need.
Because that’s what the Anubis was.
Then, in the middle of the darkness, the love of the man the ichor resided in.
“Nox…”
They were leaving. Isaiah had brought them supplies. Luca had placed the blankets in the back of the car.
A hatchback.
They were supposed to return it.
Leave it in a parking lot and call Isaiah….
“I’m so sorry… I didn’t want it to be this way… stay together… it will be over soon.”
“No… no… no…”
Luca pushed himself upright, and the blankets fell away from his bare chest.
A mild sting pulled at the hairs on his arm. A sensation he’d felt hundreds of times over the years going in and out of the hospital.
He moved into a patch of moonlight.
Tape secured a port to the crook of his arm. A second piece held a catheter against his skin. A short piece of line used to connect an IV or deliver intravenous meds without having to reinsert the needle.
Luca’s breath shuddered.
What had Isaiah done to him?
Panic shoved Luca to the edge of the bed.
A bag hung from a hook near the window. It wasn’t as large as the IV bags he’d seen in the hospital, but the remnants of dark fluid trapped in the wrinkles of the deflated plastic were unmistakable.
Why would Isaiah give him a transfusion?
“Blood is a powerful substance among us….”
The foreign presence rose again. Emotions that didn’t belong to Nox.
Luca clawed at the catheter, ripping loose tape and yanking the needle from his arm. A hairline stream sprayed droplets over the comforter, and he used the edge of the sheet to apply pressure for a moment. When he checked it, a droplet formed where the needle had been. He wiped it away and there wasn’t even a bruise.