Page 8 of Changeling (The Incubus Saga #2)

Nathan knew he hadn’t been sleeping for more than a few hours when he woke up, surrounded by darkness in the pitch black room, with a casual arm thrown across his waist. He grinned lazily at the thought of Sasha right there beside him.

They hadn’t really shared a bed like this before; they hadn’t been able to with Gabriel’s appearance and then with Nathan’s recovery in the hospital—other than briefly sharing a bed in Nathan’s most recent nightmare, though he preferred to forget about that.

He wanted nothing more than to curl in against Sasha and go back into a dreamless sleep. But he couldn’t—his chest stung . Apparently the reopened wounds were still angry about being disturbed, and had woken Nathan up demanding more pain meds. His leg was faring only slightly better.

Sluggishly, Nathan rolled into a sitting position after slipping free of Sasha’s arm.

The incubus groaned in protest but didn’t wake.

Nathan recalled the layout of the room as best he could so he wouldn’t knock anything over when he got up, trying to remember where his pain meds were.

He’d had them all over the place, from his own bag, to the infirmary room, to the bar with Alex and Jim…

Jim . Jim had had the pills last, to better keep track of how many Nathan had left, in case they needed to stop for a refill soon. Normally, Nathan would go back to bed and leave it until morning rather than disturb his brother, but his chest was too sore to sleep comfortably.

Pulling on a pair of sleep pants from one of their bags—it might have been Sasha’s—Nathan stumbled out of the room into the dim light of the hallway. Jim’s door was closed but not locked, since the Gatehouse was a veritable fortress right now.

Slipping quietly into the room, Nathan quickly discovered that Jim was fast asleep, but he could see no sign of the pills.

Nathan hated to wake his brother, but he figured he’d end up waking him anyway if he started rifling through his things.

He snuck over to the bed, but as he approached, he saw that something was wrong.

Jim looked like he was having some sort of allover spasm.

Convulsing? Seizing? Nathan wasn’t sure, but the tremors were so subtle that, had he not been really looking, he might have missed them.

“Jim?” Nathan called softly, sitting on the edge of the bed and reaching for Jim’s shoulders to shake him.

Jim moved so fast, so suddenly, that Nathan cried out in alarm.

Jim’s hands shot up to grab Nathan’s wrists tight enough that he cringed.

Then Jim’s eyes were open, staring not at Nathan but straight up for a moment at something Nathan couldn’t see.

Those damn slit eyes were back, amber-colored again like in the hospital—and in Nathan’s nightmares.

Even the Gatehouse wasn’t enough to keep them at bay.

Nathan tried to tug his hands away but Jim’s grip was too tight, his face otherwise benign if not for the eyes. “Jim,” Nathan called again, hating how small his voice sounded. “ Please .”

Jim blinked and his eyes were blue. His grip loosened on Nathan and he pulled back, blinking in confusion and staring at Nathan like he had just woken up and Nathan was to blame for waking him. “Nate? What is it?” he asked groggily. “Is everything okay?”

Nathan didn’t know how to respond. Had he imagined that? No, he couldn’t have. It was too vivid. He could feel bruises forming on his wrists.

“Nathan?” Jim prompted again, concerned now since Nathan was just staring at him.

“Nothing…” Nathan managed. “It’s nothing, just, uhh…came to grab my pain meds. Woke up a little sore and can’t get back to sleep.”

“Oh. Sure. They’re in the smaller front pocket of my bag. Is the pain really bad?” Jim looked Nathan over as if he must have a truly traumatized look on his face.

“Nah, just annoying,” Nathan said, forcing a smile as he stood from the bed and crouched down by Jim’s bag to retrieve the pills.

He had water in the other room, and he really wanted to get out of there, but he still stepped back to the bed for a moment to look down at his blue -eyed brother.

“I’m good. You just…you go back to sleep, okay? ”

“Nathan?” Jim still sounded worried and, when Nathan looked down at his free hand, he realized he had reached over and was smoothing Jim’s hair back from his face like a concerned mother.

“Uhh…” He instantly pulled his hand back. “Man, you…need a haircut so bad it’s embarrassing. You ever look at yourself in the mirror with that bedhead?”

Either Jim was just willing to let Nathan get away with that or he actually believed it, because he swatted Nathan’s hand away and resettled back into bed. “Asshole,” he grinned. “Get back to your incubus.” Jim promptly closed his eyes to go back to sleep.

Nathan might have stood there another minute or more but he didn’t want Jim to question him again.

So he moved for the door, looked over his shoulder at Jim peaceful in the bed, and left the room.

The hallway was quiet when Nathan stepped into it.

He couldn’t move. Not yet. So he fell back against the door and closed his eyes.

He wanted to tell himself that it hadn’t happened, but he knew better. Those eyes were burned into his memory.

Nathan stared down the hallway toward his and Sasha’s room. What if he was taken by the dark fae? What if the mark killed him? What would happen to Jim and Sasha then? Nathan didn’t want to think of all the frightening possibilities. All of them led too closely to his nightmares.

And the worst of it was…Nathan had no idea how to make it better.

Nathan awoke the second time to light steaming into the room, with distinctive heat and weight all along his right side, including the presence of an arm again, long and possessive as it clung to him like a child clung to a teddy bear.

At least the arm lay across Nathan’s stomach and not his chest where the wounds were still sore, despite the extra meds from that night.

The body next to Nathan was snuggled in close.

“Personal space, Jim,” Nathan mumbled, groggy and blurry of vision as he turned to the figure in bed with him and gave a half-hearted push.

The body stirred and Nathan realized he was blinking at strikingly red hair, and soon locked tired gazes with bright blue eyes. “Did you just call me ‘Jim’?” Sasha asked in a sleep-roughened voice, his expression bearing a crooked smile. “Is there something you need to tell me?”

Nathan’s brain quickly caught up to the waking world. “First off, gross ,” he said, “and second, there are two reasons why I hate sharing a bed with Jim. He either kicks or he snuggles, neither of which I want anything to do with.”

Sasha’s face fell into an almost pout and he started sliding his arm across Nathan’s stomach to pull it away.

“From Jim ,” Nathan amended, grabbing Sasha’s hand before it could get too far, trapped warm and firm right on Nathan’s belly. “You kick me though and you’re sleeping on the floor.”

A laugh spilled from Sasha’s lips. He slid his arm back around Nathan’s stomach, holding tight, and fit his face between Nathan’s jaw and shoulder to kiss his neck softly below the ear.

Nathan shivered. He hated that the reason Jim had been on his brain when he woke up was because of yet another appearance of amber eyes. Here, in the Gatehouse and on the mend, Nathan didn’t want to think about his mark, or Jim’s Awakening, or any of it.

Adjusting himself to better face Sasha, the incubus being on his stomach with his arm draped over Nathan, a smile quirked on Nathan’s lips as he met blue eyes again. Sasha was a much better topic to focus on.

Sasha pressed his lips to Nathan’s, and Nathan lifted a hand to trail along the arm thrown over his stomach, finally reaching Sasha’s back where he clung and let his eyes drift closed again.

Sasha shifted onto his side but he wouldn’t let Nathan pull their bodies too close together, still wary of Nathan’s wounds.

So Nathan held Sasha as close as he could, even as the incubus released him from their kiss.

Slowly, Nathan opened his eyes, and there was so much—Nathan had to admit it— love looking back at him that it made Nathan’s whole body feel hot under the covers.

A sudden knock at the door made Nathan jump. He only managed to catch another glimpse of the beautiful look of bliss on Sasha’s face before the door started to open, whoever was on the other side not bothering to wait for a response before entering.

“You two decent?” preceded Alex’s far too chipper voice for however early in the morning it was. Her head peeked around the door before she entered fully. “Guess not,” she smirked. “Sorry, but we all need to be early risers if we’re going to catch the gremlin in the attack.”

Nathan was almost certain that if he had been wearing something more than skin underneath the concealing comfort of the covers, he would already be killing Alex with his bare hands.

“I swear to God, Al,” he said dangerously, sitting up but keeping a hand on the blankets to make sure they didn’t fall too far down, “if you pull out that camera phone again, I will chase you butt naked down the hallway.”

“Promises, promises. Five minutes. Then a quick breakfast before we hunt down your furry little friend, Nate. Up and at ‘em.” She spun on her heels and went back out the door, presumably to wake up Jim next since Nathan dimly heard renewed knocking after she left.

“What time is it?” Sasha asked, arching his back in a stretch as he sat up next to Nathan.

Nathan grabbed his watch off the small dresser that worked as a nightstand, and groaned. “Too fucking early. I can still take more drugs though, right? I, uhh…took some extras sometime during the night, but I think it’s been enough hours.”

“Sore?”

“Not too bad,” Nathan shrugged, “but you’re not keeping me out of this hunt. I owe that thing.”

Sasha held up his hands in mock defense. “Wouldn’t even try to stop you, Nate. But you better take it easy. I don’t want to replace any more stitches or wrap any new places in bandages, okay? At least not for a little while.” There was a touch of sadness in the inevitability of those words.

“Just call me Wolverine,” Nathan said, wanting to fall back into the bliss of this so called vacation of theirs for as long as he could.

“I can bounce back from anything. Now, I’m gonna hop in the shower and redress these things,” he added, gesturing to his bandages before climbing out of bed and moving slowly for the bathroom.

“Nathan,” came Sasha’s gentler voice just before Nathan reached the door.

Looking back, Nathan could hardly miss how Sasha’s eyes raked over every inch of his naked body. It was highly possible Nathan blushed; Sasha’s eyes were just so damn penetrating.

“I don’t suppose you want company?” Sasha purred.

Fuck , that was a hot idea. Nathan bit his lip thinking about it but knew he should be healed more before they tried something like that. “We’d never get downstairs in five minutes that way,” he said. “Rain check?”

“I’ll hold you to that.”

Nathan didn’t doubt for a second that the incubus would.