Page 2 of Incubus (The Incubus Saga #1)

"You did what ?" Jim exclaimed, anger and disappointment hardening his otherwise boyish features.

Nathan knew Jim would be upset, but he also firmly believed that in time Jim would come to realize that what he had done was for the best. He said as much aloud.

"For the best?” Jim shot back. “You think throwing your life away is for the best? I'm the one they're supposed to take, not you !"

Nathan was sitting on the edge of the lone bed in their motel room, already with a beer in hand from the bottles he had stuffed into the tiny motel fridge before he left. Rather than respond to his brother, Nathan took a long pull from the bottle.

They had passed through the doorway in Porthclais and arrived back at Nathan’s Illinois motel about half an hour ago.

Veil doorways could lead to any connecting location.

All anyone had to do was think of where they wanted to go, assuming they knew how to find a doorway in the first place.

The afterimage of the one in their motel room was still faintly glowing on the wall.

"You should have let me go, Nate,” Jim said. “What do you think is going to happen now? They'll hunt you down, and if the mark doesn’t consume you first, after they've taken you through the Veil , they'll still come for me again too."

"They won't," Nathan spoke to the beer in his hands.

“I won't let them. We can lie low like we always have, Jim.

I thought I could pull the whole thing off scot-free…

but I wasn't quick enough. That doesn't mean I'm letting any of those bastards claim this bounty until it's over.

At least then...you won't have to worry about me anymore. "

Jim huffed. He had been pacing but finally stopped to lean against the wall in front of Nathan. "Yeah, lucky me. It was getting to be such a pain always having my brother around to watch my back."

"Don't be an asshole," Nathan said. He stood, not particularly fond of his brother looming over him.

"You think I want them to come after me? That I want to become a slave with no mind of my own? That I want to die if the mark isn’t claimed?

! Of course I don't, but I didn't have a choice. It was the only way to get you back."

"And you expect me to be happy about it?” Jim countered. “Dying is the easy outcome, Nathan. If one of them claims your bounty and you become a Shadow Immortal, you're theirs forever. Do you actually have any concept of what forever would be like?"

"Something like this conversation?" Nathan said, and took another swig from his beer.

Jim snatched the bottle from Nathan’s hand so fast that half of it spilled onto the floor. “We're not kids anymore, Nathan!" he yelled. "You can't just make everything better by taking all the burden on yourself! This is my life too. God ...how long was I even gone?"

Nathan looked away.

"Nate? How long?"

"Two weeks," Nathan said, staring at the carpet as if fascinated by its collection of unidentifiable stains. "Don't know where in the fae lands they had you, so...no way to know how long it was for you."

At first, Jim didn't say anything, like maybe he thought he had heard Nathan wrong. "I don't understand. I don't...I don't remember anything after the pizza place."

"And you won't. Not for a while. The Messenger said she couldn't erase your memories, so you'll remember eventually.

I don't know when. But I had to ask for that much.

I had to make sure that when I first got you back…

you'd still be you." Nathan twitched to reach for his beer again, but he knew better than to try and take it from Jim’s hand.

"We're fixing this," Jim said. "We're fixing this now .

" He slammed the bottle down into the wastebasket, a resounding chink telling Nathan that the remaining beer was no doubt leaking out over the rest of the garbage.

"There has to be some way to remove the mark.

You don't get to trade your life away for nothing. "

"Jim—"

" No . We're fixing this."

As Jim renewed his pacing over the worn and dingy carpet, part of Nathan just wanted to collapse back down onto the bed. “It’s going to be okay, Jim,” Nathan said, sobered by the dampness he could see in his brother’s eyes.

Jim shook his head. "No, it’s not. You don't get to make these decisions."

"Sure I do.” Nathan tried for a smile. “I have to take care of you."

" I'm the oldest," Jim countered, coming to a quick stop.

"Yeah, by like two minutes."

Jim didn't smile at the joke. He looked at Nathan stonily and said, "Don't you ever get tired of your life being just about me?"

The smirk that had built on Nathan's face fell. Without their parents they had had to rely on only each other for over a decade. But Jim was a changeling. Jim was the one the dark fae had always been after. It was Nathan's responsibility to watch out for him.

"Nathan," Jim said. "Please, can you at least promise me we will try to find some way out of this? We can't just hide and hope for the best. Not this time."

"Jim, come on. It's too risky. And how do you expect us to try anyway?

" Nathan rubbed at the spot where his new scar was hidden beneath his shirt.

He had changed out of his torn one as soon as they got back, but the Messenger's mark still itched like crazy.

His left hand, wrapped in bandages to cover the carved divided circle, wasn't much better.

At least he had reclaimed his knife before they left.

"Well..." Jim bit his lip, which usually meant he was about to suggest something that Nathan was not going to like. "We could try Wade."

"No. No way," Nathan said, finally allowing himself to slouch back down onto the bed. "We're not wasting our time with that damn psychic or any other scheme to get out of this. It's not worth it, Jim. Can't you just leave the whole thing be?"

"No. I get to try and save you just as much as the other way around, Nate. We're in this together.”

"But you know how much I hate Wade. If we go to her and nothing comes of it.

.." Nathan trailed, unable to ignore the firm resolve on his brother's face.

"If nothing comes of it you have to promise me you’re going to drop this, okay?

Now, can we get some sleep? I'm wiped. Sunrise in Porthclais is still the middle of the night in Illinois.

My immortal soul can wait until tomorrow. "

"Don't joke about this, Nathan,” Jim said with a frown. “It's not funny. And for the record...you better keep a close eye on me from now on."

Nathan scooted to the end of the bed. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"I'm just saying...be cautious. Until we know how long I was really gone and what they did to me, just...just keep an eye on me, okay?"

"You're you , Jim, and you're going to stay you."

Jim turned away to head for his bag in the corner of the room. "Let's get some sleep. I'm pretty wiped too."

Nathan sighed. "You take the bed. I didn't bother getting a cot in here before. A single room's cheaper than a double, so..." He shrugged.

"Are we broke?" Jim asked, crouching to rummage through his bag.

"I wasn't exactly thinking about how to keep the cash flow going lately.”

"We should make a stop after Wade's then."

"Yeah, I guess." Nathan crawled up the bed to reach for the book on the nightstand. "We can sell this baby. Straight from the fae realm and it's not like I need it anymore."

'"Is that the book with the spell you used to summon the Messenger?" Jim asked. "We should hang onto it."

"What for? It's not going to help us now."

"We should keep it."

Nathan tossed the book back onto the nightstand.

"Fine, but we better think of something else for cash then.

" He stretched back on the bed despite having offered it to Jim.

Suddenly, he could barely keep his eyes open, and had almost drifted off to sleep when he felt Jim pushing him to one side of the mattress.

"Shove over, Nate. We'll just share. I'm not making you sleep on the floor."

"No way, man. You kick in your sleep,” Nathan said, even as he obligingly made room.

"Yeah, well, you snore," Jim said.

“Do not.”

“You so do.”

"Whatever, jackass."

"Right back at ya."

Jim snapped his fingers into the shape of a gun, pointing it playfully at Nathan as he settled in beside him on the bed. Nathan repeated the gesture to Jim, a silly thing they had done ever since they were kids.

BANG.

“Whatever you say, Jesse James,” said Nathan.

They both smiled, but the expressions didn’t last long.

"Goodnight, Jim."

"Night, Nate."

'"Quick, boys, hide!" Nathan heard his mother's fierce whisper as she pushed him and Jim toward a closet.

He didn't understand what was happening.

The past few days had been a blur, starting with finding his father grappling with a stranger in the living room.

Nathan had wanted to help, but his mother had pulled him and Jim away, and they had run.

They had driven for hours that night looking for the nearest Veil doorway.

Nathan and Jim had both been in the backseat, neither able to say anything to their silent mother, whose hands never once stopped clenching the steering wheel.

When they finally stopped at a small, unassuming motel, Nathan hadn't been able to sleep.

The last thing they had heard when they drove away from their home was a gunshot.

Now, days later, that same confusion and fear gripped Nathan again.

"Take this," their mother said, pressing something small and cool into the palm of Nathan’s hand.

He was shocked to see his father's wedding ring, a simple band of white gold carved with Celtic knots.

"I was having it cleaned for him," she said, offering Nathan and Jim a sad smile.

"Take care of it for me. Take care of each other.

" The closet door shut before Nathan could think of anything to say.

Moments later, the same stranger who had invaded their home broke down the door to their motel room and rushed in after their mother.

He demanded to know where Jim was, referring to him as ‘the changeling’ in a disgusted spat of words.

That alone had Nathan and Jim holding each other closer.

Just because Jim was a changeling didn't mean he was anything bad.

Nathan knew that. Their parents had said so.

He could only see a sliver of what was happening to their mother through a crack in the closet door.

She called the stranger by name— Gabriel —but Nathan didn't understand how she could possibly know him.

The man just kept yelling at her about Jim, saying he would leave her and Nathan alone if only she gave up ‘the changeling’, but she refused to say anything.

Nathan watched, unable to move or help, as the man pulled a knife...and slid it into his mother's chest. He held all the more tightly to his brother's hand, clasping their fingers together, and whispered, "Don't let go, Jim. It's going to be okay."

Nathan and Jim burst from the closet, rushing for the open door.

The stranger, Gabriel, called after them, but their mother yelled with what voice she had left for them to go, just run, and they obeyed.

They ran so fast and so far that when Nathan's legs finally gave out on him, he had no idea where they were. They hadn’t let go of each other's hands once, and when they stopped, Jim turned to bury his face in Nathan's shoulder.

"It's going to be okay, Jim. It's going to be okay," Nathan said, practically chanting.

They were in some dark back alley, hardly a safe place to rest, but they needed to stop.

Nathan pulled his brother out in front of him.

"It's okay. I'm still here, Jim. I’m still here.

We can take care of each other, like Mom said.

I'm not going to let anything happen to you.

" He wiped at his brother’s constant tears, hoping that Jim would open his eyes and look at him.

Then Jim did.

" Liar ," he said, and the sight of slit pupils shook Nathan to his core.

Nathan gasped as he awoke. Something had him pinned to the bed and the air was being crushed from his chest. Panicked, he looked down at his body, but breathed relief when he saw it was only Jim. His brother was curled around him like they were twelve years old again.

Nathan reached up to rub at his eyes, frustrated when he found dampness.

The man he knew only as ‘Gabriel’ often chased him in his dreams, but he hadn't dreamed of that particular night in years, playing out events exactly as they had happened in life.

Except for the ending. Jim had never had eyes like a dark fae.

Other than on the beach the day before. But Nathan was certain that the flash of slit pupils he had seen when his brother first returned to him had only been a trick of the light.

Pushing Jim onto his own side of the bed, Nathan took in a few deeper breaths. They were way too old to share a single.

The dream had Nathan recounting everything he had done to cover his tracks the past few weeks.

He had been more careless than usual, distracted with finding Jim, but he was certain he had left no obvious clues for Gabriel to follow.

Of course, that was what they thought every time, right before Gabriel came close to catching them.

His persistence in chasing them after what had been half of Nathan and Jim’s lives was what kept him in their nightmares.

Jim hadn’t stirred, and it was too early to wake him, but Nathan had no intention of going back to sleep.

He slipped out of bed and padded into the bathroom.

As soon as he closed the door and flicked on the light, he jumped at the sight of a plainly dressed, blonde-haired man sitting on the edge of the bathtub.