“Maybe I could get a job to help out?” Luca knew better to ask.
Nox dragged a fresh piece of plywood closer. “Making money just to spend it on someone else’s problem is counterproductive.”
Luca sat up. “Wow.”
Nox punched the claw of the hammer through the sheet of rotted wood and ripped out a chunk. “Wow, what?”
“You didn’t say no.”
“I wanted to.”
“But you didn’t.”
“Still wanted to.”
Luca gave Nox a look, but he didn’t seem to notice.
And that was a lie. He always noticed. Luca waited and Nox removed the rotten wood piece by piece, then the nails. He pulled the new sheet over the hole and drove in the first nail with a single swing.
After a couple more, Nox sat back on his heels. “A beta is made to protect their Alpha, that much I know without a doubt thanks to the ichor. But the part that’s me loves you too much to keep you holed up somewhere and never let the world look at you.”
“Holed up?” Luca scooted closer.
“Yeah. You know, hidden away, in bed and….” Nox slammed home another nail.
“You or the Anubis.”
“Both. But I wouldn’t keep you locked up.”
“It wants to keep me locked up?”
“A better word would be secluded. It wants to keep everyone away from you. If it could find a place far enough away—” He put another nail in with one hit. “Yeah, it would find somewhere to hide and never….” Tension creased the corners of Nox’s eyes.
“Never what?”
He shook his head.
Luca nudged him with his foot. “Tell me.”
Nox picked up his shirt and used it to wipe his face. He dropped it back beside the stack of shingles. “It would fuck you, Luca. All the time. It’s all it would do.” Nox positioned another nail and brought down the hammer. Metal pinged and Nox’s hand blurred.
Luca flinched.
The nail was less than an inch from his cheek, pinched between Nox’s thumb and finger.
Nox stared at Luca, but it wasn’t him anymore. And the weight of the Anubis’s gaze promised everything Nox had said.
Because it’s where Luca belonged. Soaked in cum, drunk with pleasure, high on release, cared for, protected, safe.
“I don’t want to live like that.” Sometimes Luca questioned whether it could understand him. Other times, he wondered if it cared.
Luca plucked the nail from Nox’s fingers. “You should probably let Nox finish the roof unless, of course, you want to do it for him.”
Confusion returned to Nox’s expression, along with a spark of fear. “It keeps doing that.”
Luca had a feeling it did it way more than Nox realized. It was something Luca accepted when they had sex, but now the Anubis seemed to be curious when Luca wasn’t naked and writhing under it.
Or trying to figure out why Luca was anywhere else.