Page 117 of Anathema Codex

Being next to him is all I need, and now that the waves of dark light are filling the car, I can feel the energy healing me. The throbbing pain in my thigh starts to recede, the swishy feeling in my head fading. Then he looks at me and instead of blue eyes, I see nothing but black. No whites, just raw darkness. Honest and powerful, and it steals my breath away.

“Hail Lakyn,” I whisper softly before I can’t take the absolute brilliance of him anymore. Then I close my eyes and slump over in my seat.

* * *

A sharp jolt bounces my head against the window and I sit up with a grunt.

I don’t know how long I’ve been asleep, and I really don’t care as long as Lakyn hasn’t dumped me somewhere and moved on without me.

I put my hands on the console to steady myself, taking comfort that I’m still in his car. At least, that’s my hope because with him anything is possible. He has the power to accomplish anything.

“Lakyn?” I mumble.

“Yep, still here. Still driving, still bored out of my fucking mind. Take a good nap, Red?” he asks in a disinterested tone.

“Sorry,” I say quietly as another wave of nausea crashes over me followed quickly by a chill that has my teeth chattering.

“Hey, sleep is a good thing. I like it myself and hope to crash sometime soon, so don’t worry about it,” he replies with a chuckle.

I nod as I push myself off the door hard enough that I can finally rest back against the seat. My head rolls in Lakyn’s direction and I smile tiredly when I see the halo is still there.

“You’re so beautiful,” I murmur.

He laughs. “Nothing I didn’t already know, Red.”

My smile widens a little as I reach toward his lips again—if I can just get another breath of the gentle evil he harbors inside of him, it’ll make me feel even better.

“Stop doing that,” he snaps as he slaps my hand away. “I get that you want to touch me, but this is starting to get a little creepy.”

“You don’t understand…” I sigh as I shake my head.

“Sure I do, but that’s going to have to wait, and not a word of it to Ichabod. Not that he would believe you, but I don’t want to deal with anymore of his bitching. Takes the fun out of the house for a day or two.”

Lakyn isn’t glowing as brightly as he was before, but I can still see the aura around him. A golden shimmer with a dark heart that seems to fit him perfectly.Thisis what Ichabod, and Aftyn, and that Beatrix bitch have never seen in Lakyn. They don’t see him like I do, they don’t understand how perfect he is, which makes me wonder why he’d ever keep someone like Ichabod around him that doesn’t see him for who he is.

“Do… do you love him?”

I don’t know why I asked that or where it came from, but that young, lost girl inside of me needs to know more than I thought she did. I need to know if I have a chance here, or if this dark god plans to leave me in the desert again. I don’t think I’ll survive it if he does.

“Come again?” he asks in disbelief as he lowers the radio.

“Ichabod. Do you love him?” I press quietly.

“What the fuck is up with everyone lately? First some kid that barely looks like me shows up on my doorstep telling me I shot a load into his mother. Then the ole ball and chain gets pissy because I didn’t bring him Satan’s Superstar. You’re clearly way further out of your goddamn mind than I thought”—he says as his finger spins a circle next to his temple—“and I’m in a goddamn car going to Beatrix.Again, I might add, which if you must know already has me in a pretty piss poor mood. So, one more time, and I want you to think long and hard before you decide to answer me, okay? What the fuck did you just ask me?”

He ends his tirade in a hiss, and I smile when I see what I was after starting to linger in the air again.

“God of the Desert,” I whisper as my fingers reach out toward his breath.

“What?” he asks in confusion.

“Nothing,” I answer as I sit up as best as I can and turn in my seat to face him.

Because of his anger, the halo looks fractured, and I worry that it will never be whole again. But that will only make us even more alike since I haven’t felt like a whole person in a long time. Maybe ever.

Have I ever been real?

“Listen,” he says as he clears his throat and reaches up in the visor for his pack of cigarettes. “When we get back to the Garbage Land of Bullshit, I may need you to take out Trixie. Think you can do that?”

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