CHAPTER TEN
HOUNDS
The morning began as countless others had.
The blazing birth of the morning fire. Mina reaching across the bed, his fingers searching for Anubis to trace lazy figures across his smooth skin or downy fur, depending on the form he took in that particular moment.
But this morning, Mina’s fingers found only cold, empty space. Strange.
Mina rose, stretching his achy limbs in front of the morning fire, and looked around the room.
Something was wrong. Anubis should be here.
It wasn’t that the god was constantly within his sight, but Mina always had a sense of where he was and what he was doing.
But this morning, Mina couldn’t sense Anubis.
For the first time since arriving, he felt completely alone.
Cold down to his bones. He searched the bed and floor for the breakfast tray that Anubis would bring every morning.
An unfamiliar sound caused his blood to run cold.
Unfamiliar sounds in this place didn’t happen.
At first, he thought it might be Anubis himself—it sounded almost like one of his satisfied, contented growls.
But as Mina listened, he realized this was different.
This was not one sound but many. And the sounds were moving. Fast.
“Anu?” Mina called out into the warm darkness of their room. But before he could turn for the doorway, Anubis was there behind him, the huge clawed hand of his jackal form wrapping tightly around Mina’s mouth.
“Silence,” the god hissed, spinning Mina around to face him. Anubis leaned down, staring into Mina’s eyes, his own blazing red, wild. Fear. Mina could taste it. Bitter and acidic as his own bile.
“Cover yourself in the bed and do not move. Breathe as little as you must. Make no sound until I come for you. If you trust me, if you love me, do this without question. Go!”
Mina ran for the bed and dove under the furs, making sure every inch of his skin was covered before squirming to the edge so that, slowly with the edge of a finger, he could raise up a corner of the covers and see with one eye out into the room.
Mina was worried about being discovered by whatever Anubis was trying to hide him from, but he was even more concerned about his god.
Which was absurd. What could Mina do to protect Anubis that he couldn’t do for himself?
Still, he couldn’t stop himself from watching protectively, breath quickening despite Anubis’s warning.
And as he did, he saw a change come over Anubis. His bones grew. His muscles inflated. He took on the form of his 12-foot self, towering far above where Mina could see, so that he was only visible up to his knees before Mina was reluctant to raise the covers any higher.
Just as Anubis had completed his transformation, the choir of growls and yips that had been growing steadily louder finally entered the room.
And Mina had to bite his tongue to keep from crying out in terror.
Slinking into the room came three enormous jackals. Not half-man creatures like Anubis. These were all canine. Long, lean, jet-black bodies walking down on all fours, six feet at the shoulder, at least seven by the top of the ears. Their lean muscles flexed beneath velvet skin, just like Anubis's.
They snarled and snapped their teeth as they entered the room and, reaching the feet of Anubis, sat first upon their haunches and then lay down on their bellies. Their front legs extended forward in a perfect representation of so many Egyptian statues of jackals.
“My lord,” they said in one voice, high and raspy.
Labored, as if human speech were a great undertaking and unnatural on their tongues.
“He Who is Upon the Mountain, Lord of the Sacred Land, Guardian of Souls. We are your servants.” The jackals yipped and bowed their heads.
Anubis reached down to press a hand to the top of each head, one by one.
It filled Mina with pride to see these terrifying animals humbled and laid low before the great god Anubis.
The god he loved. The god who loved him.
Mina’s chest swelled as he fought to keep his whole body from vibrating.
And despite the apparent danger, he felt his groin swell with want and desire.
He wanted to be the one to bow before him.
To worship. To fuck. Mina fought the urge to grind himself into the bed and instead waited for what might unfold that had Anubis so fearful.
“We have sensed a living mortal presence in the necropolis, lord. Is it time?”
“It is not yet time.”
“But lord,” the jackals bowed their heads lower. “We bow to you. We serve you. But you know we answer to a higher authority. Your father. He demands…”
“I am aware of what my father demands!” The great jackal god’s voice, deep and thunderous, shook the room. The lesser jackals whimpered and lowered their heads to the floor.
“What shall we tell your father, lord?”
“You may tell him…” Anubis paused. The jackals’ eyes stayed glued to the floor. “You may tell him that the boy belongs to me.”
“To what end?” they growled in unison.
“To whatever end.”
There was a brief pause in which the jackals tore their eyes from the ground to glance quickly between one another before lowering their heads again and answering in unison, “Yes, lord.” With that, they rose first up to their haunches and then further to all fours before backing out of the room, bowing as they went.
“Be gone,” the god growled, and the jackals turned on their heels, barking and yipping down the tunnels until they faded into the distance.
Mina waited in the excruciating silence that followed for Anubis to say something. Do something. Slowly, the god began to shrink back down to his normal size, remaining in his jackal form.
“Come,” he said, barely above a whisper.
Mina pushed himself out from the covers and was by his god’s side in seconds. He wrapped his arms around Anubis's waist and buried his face in his chest, breathing in the musky, spicy scent. “What was that about?” Mina mumbled.
“Hounds. My guardians and servants. I’ve feared for some time that they might come. I wasn’t sure when.”
“What do they want?”
“It does not matter. I will not let anything come between us.”
Mina dug his fingers into Anubis's side and buried his face deeper.
“Do not worry, my kianga. He will not take you from me.”
“He? Your father. Is that…”
“Osiris. He is god of the underworld. He has certain expectations of me. Demands which have gone unfulfilled for too long.”
Mina had an idea of what that must feel like. Though at this magnitude amongst deities, he couldn’t fully imagine.
“What expectations?”
“It does not matter now. Be still. I must think.”
Anubis broke away from Mina, walking to the couch by the fire and sitting. The couch groaned in protest. He stared facing into the blaze, hands on his knees, red eyes doused a dark ruby and faraway.
In his jackal form, he looked like a perfectly cut statue.
Obsidian and gold, studded with blue and red and green jewels.
A priceless treasure. Mina walked around the couch and knelt before him, between his legs, placing his hands on the god’s thighs.
He didn’t want to distract Anubis from his thoughts.
But he wanted, needed, his god to know he was here.
That he was loved. That he was worshiped.
Mina placed his head in his god’s lap. He closed his eyes.
A hymn came to him. One that his mother used to sing when he was small, and he would wake, screaming, from a nightmare where dark monsters crept.
He couldn’t remember the words exactly, but he knew the melody.
It vibrated in his belly, bubbling up in his throat, and before he could stop it, it poured from his lips in a soft hum.
A low, purr-like growl escaped from Anubis, and the god’s strong hand settled on the side of his head, absently stroking his blond curls.
Mina closed his eyes and sang, and the god caressed his hair.
By now, the thought of going back to his old life felt about as possible to Mina as the prospect of still fitting into his childhood clothes.
His soul no longer fit that life. He did miss his mother.
Occasionally, he missed his father. Mostly, though, he was content.
Content with a life where who he was wasn’t just accepted, it was cherished.
Where his body could be free. Where his wants and desires could flow as endlessly as the Nile.
And where his voice had finally found the strength to let itself be heard.
Mina wasn’t naive. He knew that this couldn’t last forever. But he trusted Anubis. He knew the god loved him and that he was powerful. Surely, there was a way to prevent what suddenly felt inevitable. Surely there was a way to keep all of this from ending.
After some time had passed, Mina raised his head, sensing a shift in Anubis's posture. The god was looking down at him, a soft and contented red glow back in his eyes.
“Just when I believed I had reached the pinnacle of you, you show me there is even more to discover. You paint the air with your voice.”
Mina blushed and buried his face back in the god’s lap. “Shut up,” he mumbled into the black fabric. But the smile that stretched across his face made his cheeks ache and his eyes water. Mina cleared his throat and looked up.
“When I woke and you were gone, I thought—”
“I am sorry. Our time together is becoming increasingly difficult to protect. I have had to work deeper magic. Too much time has passed on the outside. I can manipulate time, which I have done. To a degree, I can manipulate perceptions, which I have attempted. But I cannot stop time. I cannot control minds.”
“What about the jackals?”
“I have done what I can so that the jackals, too, may sense and perceive time differently. I do not think they will go to my father. Not yet. We have time, Mina. Plenty of time.”
But Mina saw a distant look return to Anubis’s eyes.
He sensed the fears being hidden away so that Mina could not see them.
Would not know them. Mina probed Anubis's face.
Willing him to show honesty. To be true.
But Anubis looked away, his red eyes growing dark again, twin suns consumed by a storm.