Page 21 of Changeling (The Incubus Saga #2)

Nathan couldn’t go inside the room Sasha had entered or the scene would be disrupted, so he merely peeked around the corner of the door and peered inside at what appeared to be a normal teenage boy's bedroom. It was very invading, he knew that, especially since he could probably just ask for a quick look without risking Sasha’s wrath.

Still, Nathan found himself spying rather than being open, watching a moment out of Sasha’s life, ten years ago to the day.

“Just you wait, I’ll do it,” came a boy’s voice from inside the room. It wasn’t Sasha’s.

Nathan could see red hair sticking out from behind the bed as if Sasha was sitting on the floor on the other side, leaning back against the mattress.

The shock of white hair on the boy sitting in the middle of the floor made it painstakingly clear who that was.

A boy on top of the bed was the one the voice must have come from. Nathan didn’t know him.

This other boy looked almost too normal to be an incubus. His skin was tanned unlike Sasha’s could ever be, or how Lindsey looked either. He had short but shaggy brown hair and brown eyes. If not for the slight shimmer of gold in those eyes, Nathan might have mistaken this third boy for human.

The bedroom the boys were in looked remarkably normal too.

Nathan couldn’t be sure if this was some house in the real world or if the incubus/succubus part of the Veil just happened to look the same.

All of the boys appeared to be in human form—Nathan couldn’t actually see Sasha—and if Nathan didn’t know the truth, he never would have guessed they were all fifteen-year-old incubi.

“Why do you even want to go to high school, Cam?” Lindsey asked, his voice younger sounding but still recognizable. “We already know all that stuff. All the important things, anyway.”

“But, Lin, it’s real human high school we’re talking about here,” the bronze incubus, Cam, replied. “What better way to meet girls our age, man? Junior and Senior year when everyone’s having sex.”

“I don’t think everyone has sex in high school, Cam,” came Sasha’s voice, so strange and young sounding with its slightly more tenor pitch that Nathan almost laughed.

“In fact,” Sasha said as his red head suddenly disappeared on the other side of the bed, “I’m pretty sure a lot don’t.

” Before Nathan could contemplate what the younger Sasha was doing, bare feet and the ends of faded jeans rose up from around the bed as Sasha did a handstand.

Cam immediately reached from his spot on top of the bed and pushed Sasha over. “Kill joy,” he grinned.

The familiar sound of Sasha’s joyful chuckling erupted then and, when the redhead finally righted himself and sat up, Nathan got a truly good look at what Sasha used to be.

Happy . Nathan knew how happy the adult Sasha could make himself look even when he was breaking, but there was no hidden sadness in this younger version. Not in the way it haunted him now.

Nathan couldn’t help glancing at the real Sasha who had seated himself on the floor near Lindsey with his back to the door. Sasha’s shoulders were tight despite the otherwise relaxed position.

“You just wanna go to high school to meet your dream girl,” the younger Sasha began, clambering on top of the bed next to Cam, and looking surprisingly skinny and slight.

“Sorry, dude, but Buffy is a fictional character. There is no sexy slayer chick waiting for you in California. And if there was, she’d probably try to kill you anyway. ”

“ Sash , I so wouldn’t want Buffy,” Cam dissented, looking mockingly affronted. “Have you seen the rack on Cordelia? Seriously.”

“Cordelia?” Lindsey repeated, lying back down on the carpet and putting his hands behind his head. “She’s like the uber-bitch. Why would you want her? Willow’s pretty and nice. And she’s smart.”

“There’s a surprise,” Cam jumped in, “Lin likes the smart, sweet redhead.” Cam glanced at Sasha next to him. “ Natural looking redhead,” he added with a smirk.

Sasha swatted at him but Cam leaned out of the way.

Meanwhile, Lindsey sat back up after hearing Cam’s not so subtle accusation. “What, I can’t like Willow because she’s smart, sweet, and a redhead? What the hell?”

Cam and Sasha shared a look then busted out laughing.

“Dude, really, we’re not that stupid,” Sasha chuckled.

“You and Charis have pretty much been engaged since we were ten. I think it’s great.

I mean, most of our parents were how old when they found each other?

Ancient? And you guys haven’t even hit the change yet and you’re in love. ”

Lindsey’s otherwise pale face flushed with color. “I…I’m not in love with Charis. She’s like my sister.”

“Ha! Right. Eppy and Atty are like sisters,” Cam chimed in, “Charis is your waking wet dream.”

Lindsey immediately grabbed the stray pillow from the floor and chucked it at Cam’s head, smacking him clean in the face but still leaving him laughing. “Shut up!” Lindsey warned.

“Well I don’t know about you two,” Sasha said, speaking loudly to be sure he caught the others’ attention, “but I’d take Angel over the lot of the Buffy girls any day.”

Lindsey got up and moved to join the others on the bed.

He cast a glare at Cam as he approached but was apparently okay with the idea of leaving their argument alone.

It seemed like such a natural transition that Nathan had to assume Sasha’s role in this group was just that—the diffuser of tension.

He played that role pretty well in their group too.

“You wouldn’t want Zander?” Lindsey asked Sasha as he situated himself. “I thought you liked the smartass guys.”

Sasha leaned over and pushed Cam in the shoulder. “I do. I just get enough of that kind of guy in real life.”

“Aww, Sash, I thought we had something special,” Cam pouted and then lunged for Sasha making kissy noises.

There was a pale hand pushing back on Cam’s tan face in an instant. “Dude, get away from me,” Sasha laughed.

Cam and Lindsey were both laughing too and it all looked so easy, so comfortable, the way life-long friends were supposed to be.

“Now, if you could take Angel and Xander and combine them into one person,” Sasha went on, “then I’d be hooked. A sexy smartass…” Sasha trailed thinking about that, and a part of Nathan cheered.

He knew he couldn’t keep watching like this though. Sasha was going to get up eventually, probably soon, and not only was Nathan invading his friend’s privacy, he was also holding them up by not doing his part. Nathan just wished he knew how to ask Sasha about these things.

An incubus didn’t go to regular school, he’d found out now. But they seemed to mostly live and act like humans, even having TV. Nathan wasn’t surprised by that. Sasha was too quick with the pop culture knowledge not to have grown up with easy access. But Nathan had so many other questions.

The teenagers moved on from their Buffy discussion to talk of other things.

As Nathan watched, the group got more comfortable on the bed, a bed Nathan decided must be Cam’s.

Cam was leaning back on his pillow—replaced after hitting him in the head—Lindsey sat cross-legged at the foot of the bed, and Sasha lay down so that his feet were flat on the mattress with his knees bent and his head in Lindsey’s lap.

Absent fingers combed through Sasha’s red hair, and Nathan felt even more like he was watching something he shouldn’t.

Even Lindsey’s small gesture was just so natural.

Maybe not natural and normal for human teenage boys, but this group wasn’t human.

There was a type of comfort they had with each other that Nathan just wasn't used to, something intimate without being sexual.

At last pulling himself away from the scene, Nathan stepped over to the room he was supposed to be in and took a small breath before entering.

He’d have a talk with Sasha later if the incubus was willing.

If Nathan had learned anything from being around Jim’s fussy nature then Sasha was going to need to talk some things out come the end of the day, and Nathan was fully ready to listen.

When Nathan stepped out of room #11 to head for the next one, he saw Jim waiting for him in the hallway. Then he realized Jim had just come from #12 . Twelve years ago...

Nathan felt his chest tighten painfully. "Jim...?"

Jim's face was pale and blank. He looked over at Nathan with damp eyes, and gestured weakly at the room behind him. "You need to...go in there. You have to see it."

I already have, pretty damn recently , Nathan thought, thinking of the first dream he had had after his mark, reliving the night when Gabriel killed their mother. "Jim..."

"You have to see it, Nathan. You have to listen to what he says. Really listen. We weren't listening that night..." Jim trailed off, looking so haunted and distraught, Nathan had the urge to just grip him tight like he had with Sasha earlier.

He didn't want to go into that room at all, but he knew he had to.

So Nathan nodded, knowing Jim would stay there outside the door, watching, and stepped into the room.

He clenched his fists tight as the scene began to unfold if only to keep his hands from shaking.

It started at the moment when Gabriel was first pounding on the door and their mother pushed them into the closet.

Their mother.

Seeing her in his dreams, or in a picture, wasn't the same as being close enough to touch her.

It stung more than Nathan had been prepared for.

She was so beautiful—long black hair and dark blue eyes like Jim.

Nathan was the only one in the family whose eyes were green.

And she was so strong, not crying, not a single waver in her voice as she pressed their father's wedding ring into Nathan's hand and closed the closet door.