Page 12 of Incubus (The Incubus Saga #1)

Nathan was so angry all he could see was red.

" Please ," Sasha said, reaching out to them for help.

Jim flinched and pulled away. He was still holding the knife, but limply, as if he had gone numb. Nathan was far from numb.

"Please?" he repeated with a sneer, his voice a sudden growl as he raised the shotgun with a sharp pump of the barrel. “You gotta be freaking kidding me!”

Sasha stared at him, left to lean weakly against the wall with half-lidded eyes and a hand pressed to his wound.

“So he's supposed to help us, huh?” Nathan said. “Just once I’d like things to go our way, Jim. Just once . But no, even when we think we’re getting ahead, some damn dark fae has to come and screw everything up!”

“I’m not…dark fae,” Sasha said.

“Sure you're not," Nathan scoffed. “Was this fun for you? Huh? Was it a game? Make us trust you, like you, and all the while you’re lying to our faces, killing the same girls you’re pretending to save!”

“No…” Sasha’s knees were starting to buckle and he was sliding slowly to the floor. “No…it wasn’t me. I swear.”

“Nice try, pal, but the evidence is a little against you,” Nathan spat.

“It…wasn’t me ,” Sasha said again. His body arched with a wave of pain, and he crumbled the rest of the way to the floor.

Nathan could no longer see the original wound, but he could see the blue veins traveling down Sasha’s hands. They had already spread from his stomach to his chest and arms. Nathan had never seen a fae react like that to iron poisoning before.

"I knew...something was wrong," Sasha tried to explain as he righted himself against the wall. "I should have called you. Carol was...already dead when I got here. I chased...the succubus…out of the apartment, but she got away. And when I…got back…you were already here.”

“You chased a succubus out of the apartment?” Nathan said in disbelief. “First off, if you had chased anything out of this apartment, we would have seen you.”

“Uh…Nathan?” Jim pointed to the large kitchen window on the other side of the room. There was broken glass on the linoleum.

“That doesn’t prove anything,” Nathan dismissed.

“That could have been how he got in here in the first place. And we didn’t even get to number two,” he added, glaring down at Sasha without sympathy.

“You're after my bounty, right? And there I went falling right into your hands. We’re not idiots. You’re. Not. Human.”

“No...I'm not. I'm an incubus,” Sasha admitted. The blue veins were moving beneath the surface of his skin and climbing ever higher up his neck. “But I am not…the killer. I didn’t know about your bounty...until you told me. My kind can't sense marks. You have… have to believe me. Please .”

Hearing Sasha’s pleading only made the grip Nathan had on the shotgun tighten further. "Go to Hell," he said, and started to pull the trigger.

“Nate!”

"Nathan, stop!"

Jim had called out first, but it was Walter's voice loud in Nathan's ear that made him hesitate. The ghost of a hand reached out as if to push the barrel of the gun aside, though it could do little more than hover. As Nathan stood with the gun aimed, his hands began to tremble.

"Nate...what if he's telling the truth?" Jim said, not knowing that Walter was the reason Nathan had yet to shoot.

"I was not sure what I saw in him before, Nathan," Walter said.

"I knew he wasn’t human, but he did not seem like fae either.

Now I understand. He is neither dark nor light fae; he is both.

He is an incubus. But the pheromones left in that room are not his.

I saw the succubus myself. I was able to follow her farther than Sasha, but lost track of her.

I am sorry I was not here, but you must listen. Sasha does not mean you any harm."

"You…knew Sasha wasn't human, when dark fae have a bounty on my head, and you didn't tell us?" Nathan shifted his gaze to glare at Walter beside him.

"He is not after the bounty, Nathan," Walter said. "He is the one person who can help you. Would you have allowed yourself to befriend him if you knew the truth?"

"I think I knew too," Jim said, crouching down beside Sasha, who seemed too much in pain to understand what was happening anymore, let alone that Nathan had been talking to some invisible figure.

"It was just a feeling before, but...I can see it now, Nate, like a switch turned on in my head. What he really looks like..."

"He's an incubus ," Nathan said viciously. "Even if he’s not after my bounty, and even if there was a succubus here tonight, how can we trust him?"

Jim turned pained blue eyes up at him. "But Wade said—"

"Oh come on, Jim! Who cares what Wade said! For all we know she might have set us up on purpose. Maybe she knew exactly what she was doing and sent us here to die."

"No...she wouldn't do that."

"She had to have known he was an incubus, Jim. If she was on our side then why didn't she tell us the truth?"

"Because of you!" Jim jumped to his feet.

"Because she knew you wouldn't listen. You hate fae without any exception, Nathan.

You can't look at me and be sure I'm not going to turn into something terrible one day if you really think all fae are evil.

You forgive Sasha being a seal, but can't get past him being fae?

I thought of betrayal first too, but…he's just trying to do the right thing.

I believe that, Nathan. He can help us."

The conviction in Jim’s voice forced Nathan to look at Sasha again. The blue veins had spread to every part of Sasha's body, even his face, making his eyes look bloodshot and sickly. He was barely conscious.

Nathan tore his gaze away. "He's some kind of...sex vampire. And you want me to trust him?"

"Nathan," Jim and Walter spoke at the same time.

Nathan held up a hand to quiet them. "This is crazy," he said, even as he was finally letting the shotgun go limp at his side. "How can you be so sure he won't turn on us?"

A choked sob left Sasha from the floor, like he was struggling to breathe.

Jim crouched down again, and reached out to touch a hand to Sasha's face. "Sasha?"

The contact of skin and hearing Jim’s voice seemed to clear Sasha’s mind.

He blinked slowly and leaned in to the offered touch.

“My mother...was a succubus," Sasha said, not really looking at Jim, "and she fell in love with a seal. He didn’t care…what she was. He became one of us…to be with her. When he wanted to keep hunting…she understood. He just wanted to help people. But one of Dad's… friends …wasn’t as accepting. The only thing that other seal saw when he murdered my parents…was monsters.”

“Sasha…” Jim said again, pained in a way Nathan knew only too well.

The story was achingly familiar.

“Always wondered…if I’d go out the same way…” Sasha trailed.

Nathan looked to Walter. The show of pity on the Spirit Guide's face seemed just as much for Nathan’s sake as it was for the dying incubus on the floor.

"Nate, please ," Jim said.

Nathan closed his eyes, the shotgun slipping from his fingers finally to clatter to the floor. When he opened them again, he dropped to his knees beside his brother. Grabbing hold of Sasha's face, Nathan forced those nearly lifeless blue eyes to look at him. "Tell me what to do," he said.

Sasha wasn’t shaking anymore. He blinked at Nathan several times before his vision cleared. “You’re…helping me?"

“Yes,” Jim said, with a big smile thrown first at Nathan, and all his sincerity pouring out of those damn puppy eyes.

“I can be wrong,” Nathan said, unable to deny the wave of pity he felt for Sasha. “It’s been known to happen. But we have to hurry or there won’t be much of you left to save."

Nathan looked around the dark apartment, having absolutely no idea what they could use to flush the iron from Sasha’s system. It wasn’t as if they could take him to the nearest hospital to have his stomach pumped.

Then Nathan wondered. “Hey, Sasha,” he said, shaking Sasha’s shoulders since those bloodshot blue eyes had started to close. “ Hey . Do you keep some kind of, I don’t know, antidote or something? I mean, if you’re really a seal, iron is part of the life.”

Sasha’s head lolled from side to side. “My…pocket,” he said.

Nathan checked Sasha's jacket first, finding the pheromone detector, and then, on the other side, a small vial of green liquid. Sasha nodded when Nathan held the vial close to his face.

“Do we just pour it on the wound?” Jim asked.

Nathan had to shake Sasha again to get him to answer. “First…on the wound…and then… then ...” Sasha cringed. His eyes closed tight against another wave of pain, and he shook with a convulsion that finally left him still.

“Sasha?” Nathan prompted. “Hey!” But no amount of shaking was enough to rouse him this time.

Nathan quickly unscrewed the top of the vial and poured half of it onto Sasha's wound. It fizzled like acid, but instead of eating the skin, it indeed healed it, at least the wound and immediate presence of blue veins. But it did not spread far. The poison was too imbedded. There wasn’t time to consider a thousand possibilities that might waste what little antidote they had, so Nathan took the rest of the liquid and poured it down Sasha’s throat.

“Nathan!” Jim called out. But foolish or not, they soon saw that Nathan was right.

The antidote spread unnaturally fast through Sasha's bloodstream, giving his skin an eerie green glow. It was like a chemical reaction, shooting green fire through all of those blue veins and forcing Sasha’s body to arch away from the wall.

His eyes sprang open, flashing a vibrant red with slit pupils like a cat. Like a dark fae .

Nathan flinched at the sight of them. He knew he had seen Sasha’s true eyes then, but just as quickly, brilliant blue returned. So, too, returned Sasha’s normal, unmarred skin and even breathing.

"Good...guess," Sasha gasped, still clearly fatigued, but able to stand when they helped him up.