Page 28 of The Secret Shape of Worship
Mina grabbed the pitcher of water and small brass cup that sat on the tray Anubis had left on the bed, but before he could pour the water, Devon snatched the pitcher and drank it nearly down to half in what seemed like one single gulp.
“Thank you,” Devon choked, water dripping down his neck, soaking the front of his shirt so it started to cling to his chest.
Mina turned away, annoyed that the sight turned him on. He really needed some release soon.
“Anyway,” Devon continued. “Then I saw a light and followed it, and that’s how I found you here.” Devon looked Mina up and down again, this time his dark eyebrows raised in amusement. “But seriously, dude, what is this outfit and why?”
“It’s hard to explain. I can’t…look, you have to…”
Footsteps echoed in the tunnel just outside. Long and sure.
Mina grabbed Devon by his wide biceps, squeezing, looking as urgently and seriously into his classmate’s face as he could. “You have to hide. Right now.”
“What?” Devon arched one eyebrow.
“Now,” Mina hissed. “I don’t know what he’ll do to you.”
Devon’s eyes went wide.
“There.” Mina pointed to a dark corner on the far side of the bed behind a green marble statue of Osiris. Devon hesitated for only a moment before running and ducking behind the statue.
No sooner was he out of sight than Anubis stepped through the doorway. Despite his racing heartbeat, Mina almost immediately forgot about his classmate and ran to Anubis, wrapping his arms around the god’s waist and burying his face in his chest.
“Where the hell were you?” he asked. “I was about to go searching.”
“You would not have found me. And you would have risked discovery. You never have to worry about me.”
“Where were you?”
“I was summoned.”
“Summoned. Ok. Whosummonedyou?” Mina smirked, pushing one of Anubis’s thick arms. But something in Mina’s gut tightened.
Anubis looked far away, avoiding Mina’s eyes.
“No.” Mina reached up with one finger, hooking the jackal god’s snout and pulling his face back to look him in the eyes. “We talked about this. You don’t get to do this to me anymore. You have to be honest with me. What’s the matter? You’ve taken care of the jackals. We’re safe now, right? What aren’t you telling me?”
“It is not just them, mykianga.There is another for whom the manipulation of time is a more difficult river to slow. Three days it’s been in the outside world. He became suspicious when…” The god’s eyes darkened. The truth behind them shimmered like a charge of electricity gathering for a flash of lightning.
“He’s become suspicious that I have not yet delivered your soul to the underworld.”
Mina blinked. There was a sharpness to the air. It crackled across his skin, but for a couple of seconds, Mina lingered in that tiny moment between the opening of a wound and the sensation of pain.
But then it came, stinging across every inch of his body.
Anubis's commitment to helping him when they first met.
Theshepherding.
The god’s hesitation to have sex with him, to fully commit to what Mina thought had become love.
“One soul every one hundred years,” Mina whispered.
Anubis flinched, letting out a soft whine like a scolded animal, as if Mina were the god and had raised a hand to him.
It was all piecing itself together.
“That’s why the jackals came. They were expecting you to take me to the underworld because...” Mina swallowed hard. “Because that’s what you were planning to do all along. That’s what your father is waiting for. I’m right, aren’t I?”
