Page 14 of Changeling (The Incubus Saga #2)

Nathan was facing the nightstand when he woke up and saw his watch sitting there shining the time at him. It was some ungodly hour in the middle of the night but, for some reason, he was awake.

He rolled over groggily and found the firm, immovable body of Sasha beside him.

The covers were pulled up over the incubus’ chest, leaving only his pale neck and face and the glorious red hair.

Nathan wanted to curl in next to Sasha and sleep for at least a few more hours, but something was wrong.

He couldn’t have described the feeling as anything more than just that—a feeling; something wrong enough to wake him.

They had stayed up on the roof only an hour or so after midnight, before the buzz of the wine turned to numb exhaustion and they parted for bed.

Thankfully Nathan’s head only mildly throbbed, but he felt more than a little disoriented as he lifted himself up to scan the room.

As soon as he did, his chest tightened with panic.

“Jim…what are you doing?”

Jim was standing next to the bed on Sasha’s side, still as anything, wearing only his boxers and a thin T-shirt. His eyes were closed, like maybe he was sleepwalking, and he was shaking, so subtly that it was almost imperceptible.

“ Jim ,” Nathan said more firmly, though still a whisper, not wanting to rouse Sasha. This time, at the sound of Nathan’s voice, Jim responded, and in the very last way Nathan wanted.

Amber slit eyes opened wide, their color clear even in the dark. At first they just gazed forward, but then they began to shift, changing from being distant to looking down at the sleeping incubus. Jim stared at Sasha with those eyes, those horrible eyes, and a moment later, his hand reached out.

“No!” Nathan gasped, his reflexes faster than this slow, calculating Jim as he sat up completely and grabbed Jim by the wrist before his brother could do what he intended.

Jim wasn’t shaking anymore, but Nathan sure as hell was. Those dark fae eyes slowly refocused onto him, looking right at Nathan and making it unmistakable now that this was very real—this wasn't a dream. The blank unfeeling color of those eyes made Nathan tremble.

What made it all so much worse was that, as Jim looked at Nathan, his expression started to change for the first time. It had been so blank before, but now…now Jim smiled, wide and dimpled as if Nathan had said or done something wonderful. It was awful. Because it was so Jim . It was Jim…

The ominous form of Nathan’s brother gave a slight convulsion and his eyes closed.

Suddenly, Jim’s whole body went limp, and Nathan had to let go of his wrist or risk being dragged right over the bed as Jim fell to the floor.

Nathan immediately jumped out of bed on the other side and went around to see what had happened.

Jim’s entire body was shaking again, his muscles spasming all over under his skin like he was having some kind of seizure.

Nathan fell to the floor beside him and reached his own shaky hand to Jim’s forehead.

Jim didn’t feel warm or cold. He felt normal.

Jim’s eyes sprang open, and Nathan held back a cry. Blue. They were blue. And not slit.

“Nathan…?” Jim said in a sleep-roughened and very confused voice. He looked around, realizing just where he was and that it wasn’t exactly normal to wake up crumbled on the floor of his brother’s room in the middle of the night. “How did I get here?”

This was Nathan’s chance—his out. He could say anything now and Jim would believe him.

He could keep on pretending this wasn’t happening, pretending that something wasn’t waking within Jim when he slept.

Sleep was the trigger; that was clear, at least for now.

Even in the hospital room, Jim must have been asleep before the amber eyes took him.

“Nathan?”

The words, “It’s okay, Jim,” danced on Nathan’s tongue, but he couldn’t say them. It wasn’t okay. It was as far from okay as things could get. “Jim…” Nathan tried, just sitting there on the floor in the dark as Jim sat up next to him and looked on imploringly, “do you know what’s happening?”

Jim’s brow creased. “Happening? What’s happening? Did I…” Jim glanced frantically around the room, finally returning his wide blue stare onto Nathan. “Did I sleepwalk again?”

Again . Nathan swallowed deep in his throat. “How long have you been sleepwalking?”

“I…” Jim’s eyes darted down, and Nathan knew before Jim spoke that keeping things about this a secret went both ways.

“I don’t know. I guess…a while now. But it’s no big deal.

I just…I wake up sometimes…out of bed. But never too far.

The farthest I’ve ever been was the bathroom.

I think I just have too much on my mind, that’s all. ”

“Do you remember anything from when it happens?”

Again Jim looked sheepish and hesitant, like there was so much he wasn’t saying, even before he opened his mouth. “I don’t…remember much. Just what I dream. And that’s vague too. It’s…it’s nothing.” Jim started to get up.

Nathan reached out and forced Jim back down to stay on the floor with him. “You gotta tell me, Jim. You gotta. This isn’t…this isn’t just sleepwalking. I think you know that.”

The silence that followed was all Nathan needed to know he was right.

“It doesn’t mean anything,” Jim said again, but his tone told Nathan differently.

“The dreams are just…just me, like…like I’m drowning but there’s no water, just darkness everywhere and I’m trying to find some kind of surface, some kind of light, but I can’t.

And I can almost see…almost tell what I’m doing, what’s going on, but I…

I can’t…I just…I don’t know, Nate. The only thing I really remember is those… those…”

“Eyes?” Nathan finished.

Jim blinked at him in horror.

“Red on black eyes. I know, Jim. I’ve seen them too. I heard you and Sasha talking in the library yesterday. I know you’re starting to remember about the Veil. And it’s slipping into your dreams, it’s…making you do things, changing you. I have to tell you…”

“Nate? Tell me what?”

It was almost a comfort to Nathan that Jim seemed just as afraid as he was. It made it easier for Nathan’s hand on Jim’s shoulder to move up to Jim’s face and just hold there for a moment. Then he pulled away, took a breath, and tried to think how to tell Jim everything.

“Nathan…? Jim?” called Sasha’s voice from above them in the bed, foreign and quiet against the silence that had overtaken them. “What’s going on?”

It was four in the morning and they were nowhere near ready to head back to sleep.

Nathan was sitting next to Sasha on the edge of their bed, and Jim was sitting across from them in a chair he had pulled over from the corner of the room.

None of them had said anything for a solid minute, and a minute that tense always felt more like five. Like ten. Like an hour.

“This was…this was the third time?” Jim finally said, too loud for the middle of the night. “You saw me like that three times, Nathan, and you’re just telling me now?”

“The first was while I was still in the hospital," Nathan admitted. "And I didn’t…I didn’t say anything earlier because I…I don’t know. I thought maybe I’d imagined it. But...Walter disappeared when it happened.” He glanced around the room, but of course Walter couldn’t be there now.

“ Nathan ,” Jim said with a snarl on his face. “You tell me anyway! You tell me! You don’t lie right to my face! I don’t…I don’t care if you wanted to convince yourself it wasn’t real, you should have told me.”

“Like you told me about remembering the Veil or all this sleepwalking?” Nathan shot back.

“Pot,” he said, pointing at Jim, and then pointed back at himself with a firm, “Kettle. So shut up. We’re both idiots.

The end. Now can we get back to the issue here?

What the hell is going on, Jim? What else aren’t you saying?

Are you…are you losing yourself to these powers or what?

Are you Awakening because you're using them too much?”

“It’s not…it’s not like that,” Jim tried to say with confidence but ended up sounding like a frustrated child.

“I’ve never really ever given in to the powers.

I’m always keeping them in check, as much as I can, so that giving myself over to them completely never happens.

If I thought I was losing that control, Nathan, even a little, I’d…

I’d tell you. Immediately . Of course I would.

And God, I’d stop. I’d push them out and never use them again. I don't want to Awaken.”

A humorless laugh fell from Sasha’s lips.

“Push them out?” the incubus said skeptically.

“Jim, these powers aren’t something you can turn off.

They’re in you. And maybe…maybe trying so hard to cap them is what’s manifesting these dreams and episodes while you sleep.

I'm not saying you have to just give in and Awaken, but...if fighting it is causing this ...”

Silence fell between them again, and Jim stared forward like he was being crushed by the weight of it all.

“We just...we need to calm down," Nathan said softly. “This doesn’t mean you’re Awakening, Jim, or that you’ll for sure turn out like other changelings.”

“You don’t know that,” Jim said miserably.

“I believe it. You’re still Jim.”

“Nathan…”

“You’re still my brother.”

“ Nathan .”

“ Jim ,” Nathan said with just as much warning because he knew what was coming; he knew what Jim was going to do.

The misery on Jim’s face didn’t waver as he said very clearly, with all of his power behind the words, “ Tell the truth .”

Nathan couldn’t not tell him then, much as he tried.

“I’m terrified of you,” he said, falling prey to Jim’s control.

“I think you were going to hurt Sasha tonight and I don’t know why.

You don’t know what’s happening, and we can’t stop it, and you can’t control it, and I’m so scared that one day there’ll be those damn amber eyes like the Messenger and no you, and I don’t know how to fix it.

” A lump rose in Nathan’s throat as he finished, hating that those words were in him at all, forced out of him as they were.

Jim sagged into the chair as if his sentence had been given and that was it—he was doomed.

“Damn it, Jim,” Nathan said, his eyes as wet as the blue ones in front of him. He wanted to get angry with Jim for mojoing him like that but he couldn’t.

Slowly, Nathan got up and moved to stand next to Jim. He could still show in some small way that, even if he was afraid, he wasn’t giving up.

“You don’t get to choose when it’s too late,” Nathan said, knowing there was no point in trying to take back any of what he had said.

“Only I get to do that. Yeah, I’m afraid.

I’m afraid of a lot of things lately. Go figure.

But right now you’re still Jim and I gotta believe you can keep it that way.

But if you don’t believe it…if you don’t believe it then it’s already over. And I just can’t accept that.”

Jim closed his eyes, squeezing tears free that streamed hot and fast down his face.

“What if I can’t do it, Nathan?” Jim choked out.

“I don’t know any more if I should give in to stop the sleepwalking or push harder to hold the powers back and risk some half-Awakened part of me going after you in the night.

What if I’d gone to bed with Alex? I thought about it, you know?

Drunk on the wine, being snuggled so close on the roof…

I thought about it. What if I’d been with her instead?

You really…you really think I was going to hurt Sasha?

” Jim peeked his eyes open and glanced frightened to the side.

“I don’t know,” Nathan answered honestly, lifting his eyes to look at Sasha, who was sitting very still on the bed, his expression serious and mournful.

“All you really did was reach for him. And when I stopped you and you smiled at me…it wasn’t…

sinister or anything. I don’t know. You don’t…

have any urge to hurt Sasha now, do you? ”

Eyes wide and searching again, Jim stared forward at Sasha, and a few more tears streamed down to follow the lines made by the first. “No. God, I…I’m so sorry.

I’d never…you know I’d never…” Jim couldn’t quite get the words out, tears falling faster now, but his gaze met with true blue and Sasha smiled back at him.

“I’m sorry too,” the incubus said. “Sorry I push you on all this. I just…I’ve lived with abilities my whole life, and sure, being born full fae makes it different, but I stand by what I said once before.

No matter what gets inside of you, no matter what happens to you, only you can make the choices of what to do with what you’re given.

And I’m with Nathan. I don’t see you choosing evil, Jim.

I certainly don’t see you wanting to hurt either of us.

You love us. You sort of can’t hide that from me. ” Sasha grinned a little wider.

And, miraculously, that seemed to do the trick, at least enough for Jim to calm down, turn to see the same strong resolve in Nathan’s eyes too, and finally nod his head. “Can we…maybe get back to sleep then? I’m really tired,” Jim said, rubbing a hand across his wet eyes like a little kid.

Nathan nodded, and took the opportunity to form his hand into a gun and point it playfully at his brother. “Whatever you say, Jesse James,” he said. He held his hand steady until Jim smiled and returned the gesture.

BANG.

If he could still look into his brother’s blue eyes, if they could still reenact that silly little game they had played as children, then Nathan believed he could keep his brother his brother forever.

How any of them actually got back to sleep after that, Nathan couldn’t say.

He just knew that when he woke up hours later, and he and Sasha went down for breakfast to find Jim, Alex, and Wally already waiting for them, they all looked the same amount of not quite rested, and yet still like they could take on anything that came next.