Page 32 of Incubus (The Incubus Saga #1)

Hands. Soft hands. Lips. Definitely lips. And skin. Everywhere skin. And yet Nathan knew there wasn’t nearly as much skin as there could be.

What was he doing? He couldn’t remember. Where was Jim? Jim was here with him, wasn’t he? But there was no Jim, no motel, just the bed, his bed, and the sheets were already pulled back. They were sitting on it, not lying down yet, but they would get there. Oh, Nathan knew they would get there.

The hands touching him were gentle, the way one held his face as they kissed, and the other brushed the small of his back to pull him closer. That was where the skin was. Nathan was fully clothed, but his shirt was hitched just enough at the back for that hand to touch him bare.

They were barely meeting tongues or truly embracing but already Nathan felt feverish.

The warmth. The wet. It wasn’t enough. So Nathan pressed more deeply into the kiss and reached out, and again he found skin.

When he touched back there was only skin.

He wanted to be like that too, and felt constricted in his clothing.

Nathan couldn’t remember a time when it was ever like this, tentative and thrilling. Maybe his first time, years ago, but it was hard to remember that now. It was hard to remember a time when he had ever been with anyone else. There was only this, only now. Because there might not be a tomorrow.

Not once the dark fae took him.

Nathan pulled out of the kiss, out of the hold that had started to encase him. He couldn’t have this. He couldn’t have anything. He was marked. He was already dead.

Finally opening his eyes, Nathan discovered Sasha staring back at him.

Unseen hands grabbed Nathan suddenly from behind, forcing him to lie back on the bed. Above him was the face of his brother. It was Jim. With slit eyes.

“I thought you liked it rough , Nathan,” said Jim.

"I know I do,” said Sasha.

Nathan’s eyes darted down between his legs. Sasha was on top of him, climbing slowly up his body. The incubus didn’t look nearly as tender and accommodating anymore. His eyes were incubus red with slit pupils like Jim, and when he grinned—not smiled, but grinned —he revealed his fangs.

"Time's up, Nathan," Jim spoke from above him.

"Time to collect," Sasha said, and his suddenly formed claws, black and sharp in place of his hands, cut into Nathan's skin as his shirt was ripped open, revealing his bandaged wounds and the scar that marked him like a beacon.

“You’re ours now.”

Nathan's eyes sprang wide as he awoke, but he couldn't move. He felt bound by the sheets, though they only loosely covered him. He panted, his breaths heavy as he willed his pulse to slow, willed rational thought to return.

It was a dream. It was only a dream.

The mark practically ensured Nathan's dreams would be intense—nightmares.

He remembered the first one he had had, that very night after he had killed the Messenger and sealed his fate: a replay of the past, him and Jim as children, losing their parents, only Jim had been different, already changed and losing himself to the dark fae blood inside of him, manifesting as those damn slit eyes.

Sasha's addition to the dream was not an improvement, despite the unfairly blissful beginning, which Nathan decided he could blame on the pheromones.

The other thing he knew he could blame on the pheromones was his pounding headache.

Nathan rarely got hangovers, but normal hangovers weren't anywhere near as bad as what he was feeling now.

His head throbbed. His sinuses ached. He thought his brain was going to explode and almost wished it would just to make the pain go away.

It was like withdrawal or what it must be like to come down from a very powerful high.

Groping blindly for his watch on the nightstand, Nathan was thankful he hadn't called out or thrashed about in the sheets when he awoke.

He blinked at the time; it was almost noon.

He supposed he must have needed the rest, or maybe the pheromones had put him into such a deep slumber, Jim hadn't been able to wake him.

“Finally up, huh?”

Nathan jumped. His brain was still a little fuzzy and so was his vision as he blinked toward the sound of that voice. Jim and Sasha were sitting at the table in the middle of the room. It took Nathan a moment to realize they were playing cards.

“You feeling okay?” Sasha asked, smiling his usual, friendly smile as if no awkward incidents had happened the night before.

Nathan didn’t feel like lying, and since he didn’t want to ask one of them to just shoot him in the head to end his misery, he said, “I thought you hated playing cards.”

Jim snorted.

Sasha just shrugged. “I make an exception for Go Fish . Besides, your brother owes me so much money by now, I would have been a fool to pass up a few extra hands.”

“Yeah right,” Jim said. “Like I’d play for real money. Lunch? Or…breakfast for you, I guess?” He turned back to Nathan.

Nathan still wasn’t entirely awake but managed a short nod. “Sure. Food. Whatever.”

Jim raised an eyebrow at Sasha. “Now I know he’s wrecked. Keep an eye on him for me, will you? This could be serious.” Jim gave them both a passing wave and headed out the door.

It was as if they hadn’t dared leave Nathan alone until he woke up, and now that he had arisen from his intoxicated sleep it was safe for them to separate again.

Nathan felt like a child needing a babysitter.

“You really okay?” Sasha asked.

Nathan tried to sit up as Sasha came closer to the bed, but his world spun and he had to lie back against the headboard. “Me? Aren’t I the one who’s supposed to ask that?”

That sad, knowing smile of Sasha’s surfaced again, enough to make Nathan’s heart ache whether there were pheromones in his system or not.

Sasha sat down on the edge of the bed. “The pheromones must have been…pretty strong,” he said.

“Stronger than I realized. Usually, they’re not that big of a deal.

It just peaks a person’s interest, it doesn’t…

it wouldn’t normally make a person do…the things you did.

I should have known better. If I’d have realized, I…

well. I would have let you leave when you first tried.

I can feel a person’s emotions. I should have noticed sooner. It wasn’t your fault.”

Nathan cringed. “You don’t have to do this.”

“Do what?”

“Take all the blame. Why don’t we call it even? You tried to molest me, I tried to molest you, we both admit temporary insanity and…try to forget about it. It was only one day.”

Sasha's somber expression broke with the creases of a smile. “Yeah, you’re probably right. Putting this behind us is for the best. But, umm…Jim’s been acting sort of weird.

Asking questions. Watching me when he thinks I'm not looking. I think he thinks I’m in love with you,” Sasha added with a laugh.

Nathan mustered a laugh too, though he wondered how honest Sasha was being by brushing it off. “Sorry about that,” he said. “Just try to ignore him. If he gets too annoying, I give you full permission to hit him. Always works for me.”

Sasha laughed harder, but Nathan knew the incubus would probably let Jim ramble on for an eternity rather than punch the guy.

“Hey,” Nathan said, waiting for those blue eyes to meet his again before continuing. “I know I should leave it alone, but…I have to ask. I was right there, thinking I knew just what I wanted and blind to everything else, and you let me walk away. Why?”

Sasha looked surprised, maybe even a little offended, but eventually he smiled, leaned a little closer to Nathan and said, “Because. If it ever does happen, I don’t want you to have any excuses.

I’ll be honest though,” he grinned, wide and yet somehow so sad again, “it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. Watching you leave.”

Nathan couldn’t bring himself to move when Sasha leaned that last bit forward to place a soft kiss on his cheek. The kiss seemed to carry with it all of the sadness in Sasha and it made Nathan ache a little more.

“I’ll let you get dressed,” Sasha said, and before Nathan had the sense to come back to himself, Sasha was gone.

For the first time in twenty-four hours, Nathan could think clearly again. He laid his head back on the pillow and stared up at the ceiling.

Either the pheromones worked because he genuinely felt something for Sasha in return, or they worked because they were just that strong, like Jim had said the night before.

Nathan had no doubts that they were especially powerful since they had made him do things he otherwise wouldn’t have no matter what the truth was, but he was still left with a question.

A question he didn’t know the answer to.

As soon as Nathan was able to drag himself out of bed, he, Jim, and Sasha hit the road again, hanging on to their borrowed car as they left Crofton behind.

Sasha said he knew of a place where they could better seek out dark fae leads, but it was another dead zone like Minnesota, without any nearby Veil doorways.

Laid out in the backseat while Sasha drove, Nathan scratched unconsciously at his chest, releasing a suppressed hiss when his aggravated wounds stung from the contact.

Nathan’s one consolation, besides the fact that they had survived their encounter with the Muses, and the aftermath, was that he had taken some very strong pain killers for his lingering headache and the gashes caused by Sasha's claws.

He was left feeling numb and equally drowsy.

Dozing through the first few hours of their trip, Nathan had forgotten his wounds several times until his treacherous body caused his pheromone-withdrawaled brain to give him a reminder.

A sharp jolt brought Nathan to full alertness as the car went over a bump, and he blinked out the window behind his head. They were no longer on a paved road.

“Where are we?” Nathan asked, pushing up into a sitting position. The landscape seemed familiar. “Are we in Missouri?”

“Yep, right smack dab in the middle of the country,” Sasha said.

Nathan nodded vaguely, catching Jim’s eye when his brother glanced back at him. They were born in Missouri. Their family home had been there.

Their parents had died there.

“Where are we going, Sasha?” Jim asked, with a sense of dread littering his words that Nathan could feel too. “You never actually told us anything about this place.”

“You’ve probably heard of it,” Sasha said. “I didn’t mention the details before because I didn’t want to worry you. It’s safe, though, I promise—the only Power Point on our side of the world, a sanctuary for fae and humans alike called the Gatehouse. ”

Nathan's chest tightened. He had been afraid Sasha was going to say that.

Likewise, Jim’s eyes widened into saucers. “You’re bringing us to the Gatehouse?”

“It’s okay,” Sasha said calmly. “We’ll be safe there, Jim, I promise.”

Nathan wasn't so sure.

The Gatehouse rested just outside the tiny town of Rushville, Missouri, less than a half hour from where Nathan and Jim had grown up.

A large building had been built over the main site of the Power Point, earning its name because it should have been the largest doorway in the area, but had manifested instead as a solitary dead zone, even neutralizing some fae powers.

If it had been a normal Power Point, Nathan could have gone there to summon the Messenger instead of Wales.

But although the Gatehouse was often considered a sanctuary, allowing for fae and humans to pass through its doors on neutral ground, it was just as likely to house seals .

“You do remember that there's apparently a fraternity of seals always on the lookout for us, right?" Nathan asked incredulously.

Sasha smiled in reassurance. "Believe me, I usually avoid the Gatehouse for that same reason, just to be safe, in case another seal might discover what I really am, but it can be a great place to gather info. I called ahead, and the caretaker said there weren’t many seals staying there right now, so I figured it would be fine. She said she knew you."

Nathan met Jim's repressed look of panic before speaking. "Yeah...we actually grew up with Alex Ferris. Spent a lot of time at the Gatehouse once. Back when we thought it was safe, before our parents were killed and seals started hunting us."

“Oh...” Sasha gaped, turning to look at Nathan and Jim with equal shock and shame. “I had no idea you grew up here."

Nathan didn’t know how much Jim wanted to share with Sasha, but there was something else he needed to come clean about if they were going to see Alex. He turned to face his brother. “Jim, since you're gonna find out anyway, I may have...called Alex after you were taken into the Veil.”

“What?!” Jim exclaimed, unable to suppress an accusing glare as he whipped around.

“She gave me the book I used to summon the Messenger out of the Gatehouse library.”

“Nathan! Why didn't you tell me?”

“I figured we could sell it. Then you wanted to keep it. And...I may have forgotten to let Alex know that I got you back."

Jim huffed and turned back to face the road. "I can't believe you."

"Hey, you're the one who forced me to go see Wade,” Nathan reminded him.

“Uhh…is there something I'm missing here?” Sasha interjected.

Nathan and Jim sat in silence a moment before Nathan finally spoke. “It doesn’t matter. The Gatehouse is a good idea. We just have to be careful. Dark fae don’t tend to go there, but regular fae do. And seals. Even if Alex says there aren’t many around, we better keep an eye out.”

“Of course,” Sasha said.

Jim was scowling in his seat, but he didn’t make any further dissensions.

“I don’t know if I like this idea, Nathan,” Walter said, appearing in the seat beside him. “You know the power of the Gatehouse doesn’t allow me to go inside. You will be very vulnerable there.”

“Yeah, Walt, I know you can’t go inside,” Nathan said aloud, for Sasha's benefit. Then he caught Sasha’s eye in the rearview mirror. “We’ll just have to rely on our resident seal here to look after us. Right?”

Sasha smiled widely in the glass. “I got your back,” he said. “One night in the Gatehouse, that’s all I’m asking. We'll be in and out before you know it.”