Page 43 of Incubus (The Incubus Saga #1)

Nathan and Sasha scrambled to their feet.

They joined Jim in surrounding the entrance into the makeshift cave, listening for signs of movement.

There was no sound at first, but Jim’s eyes remained wide, growing wider as time passed, like a meter to measure how close the golem was at any given moment.

While they waited anxiously for the golem to reach them, each of them pulled a shotgun from the supply bag and took it in hand. When Jim readied his gun to fire, Nathan knew the beast would soon be upon them.

There wasn’t anything inherently frightening about active golems. Nathan wasn’t afraid of golems, including this creature they were about to face that he could hear like a galloping bear.

It was when a golem was still and silent that Nathan was disturbed, knowing that at any moment the thing might move.

It was like being around a dead body with the threat of it getting up and suddenly attacking.

Crouched around the entrance into the cave, Nathan was ready the moment a large figure burst from the darkness into the rain. But it was too fast. Three shots fired in unison and hit nothing but air.

“It's already on someone’s scent!” Sasha cried out, leaping up to give chase after the large blur that had moved past them. “We have to get its attention!”

Nathan was amazed by how fast Sasha moved through the rain, disappearing into the trees in moments.

Jim moved just as inhumanly, suddenly gone, flying into the woods using a slightly different path to cut the golem off.

Nathan took Jim’s cue and raced into the trees further down.

The golem moved fast, but maybe by taking different routes they would be able to surround it.

Minutes passed with nothing but brush in Nathan’s line of sight as he ran. Water was running down the back of his neck. He hated the rain at the best of times, but he really hated being in soaking wet clothing in the middle of the woods at night.

The ground was already saturated. That meant that, even under the canopy of trees, everything was relatively slippery.

In lower lying and completely exposed areas, the mud was almost ankle deep.

The rain had picked up over the last hour.

Nathan was still cold and wet, but he could appreciate—just a little—that it could be far worse if the temperature was any lower.

He stumbled over a root, nearly falling, as his cell phone blared from inside his pocket. Cursing, Nathan fumbled to answer the call.

"What?"

"Do you have anything?" Jim called from the other end of the line. Even his voice sounded soggy.

"No. Maybe more of a freaking cold. You?"

"Nothing."

"Did you try Sasha?"

"He hasn't got anything either," Jim said. “I think we lost it.”

"Wait..." Nathan lowered his voice, thinking he had heard something to his left. "I might have something now ."

He strained to hear over the rain. There was definitely something moving through the brush near him. And fairly quickly too.

"I got something, Jim. No visual though, so it could be anything. I'm on it."

"Where are you?" Jim's voice asked urgently.

"I'm heading north. Call Sasha!" And with that Nathan snapped his phone shut, sprinting off after what he sincerely hoped was the golem.

Sprinting was actually not the best way to describe Nathan's slogging and slipping through the mud, trying to avoid trees, rocks, and other nameless bits of nature which he did his best to baptize with expletives.

It wasn't long before his breath was coming in harsh pants.

He was fit, but he was carrying a good extra ten pounds of rain water soaked into his clothing and felt like he was running through quicksand.

Nathan was thankful when the pursuit brought him into a more heavily wooded, slightly elevated area.

The going was a lot easier, but he still had to stop running to get a lead on the sounds of the golem over his own harsh breathing, the slap of wet clothing against his body, and the sucking noise of his feet in the mud.

He wasn't even really sure if he was gaining on the thing. It seemed to be moving on a course parallel to his. At least they soon started heading downhill, but that also meant that Nathan started to pick up speed.

Bursting out of the trees into a clearing, Nathan was moving faster than he could control.

He saw two things very clearly. First, Sasha had just run into the clearing from the opposite side and was standing with his phone at his ear.

For the life of him, Nathan couldn't understand why Sasha was staring transfixed at that part of the trees. Sasha was also breathing heavily, and combined with the cell phone might explain why he couldn’t hear Nathan yelling at him in warning.

Because the second thing Nathan saw was the golem hurtling across the clearing toward Sasha’s turned back.

Nathan cried out again, and again , but he knew that by the time Sasha realized what was happening and reached for his gun, it would be too late.

Allowing the momentum of his run down the slope to fuel his sprint across the clearing, Nathan leapt from the ground at the same time as the golem.

He threw himself into the air, firing his shotgun at the golem's chest. Nathan skidded and rolled through the mud when he landed, tumbling right into Sasha.

As Sasha toppled over, they rolled together a good distance, ending up with Nathan sprawled half on top of the incubus. Both of them were breathing hard and completely covered in mud.

"Nathan, what are you doing?" Sasha sputtered.

"Saving you from the bad guy," Nathan said. "Thanks for noticing."

He nodded to the golem near them that looked similar in shape to a Rottweiler but was about the size of a small bear. Its cracked stone body was lying a mere six feet from them, almost exactly where Sasha had been standing a few moments before.

"Huh," Nathan huffed, still trying to catch his breath, "it's already falling apart." Somehow he had hit the golem's power source, because the stone was crumbling into rubble.

"Nice shot," Sasha said. "You probably just saved my life."

"Guess I did. Sounds like you owe me a thank you."

"Hmm, maybe I do." Sasha's voice lowered and his hand came up behind Nathan's neck, pulling him down into what was meant to be a kiss.

They broke apart gasping and sputtering until both of them eventually started laughing. They were out of breath and couldn't breathe properly through their noses because of the mud caking their faces, not to mention that the mud tasted terrible.

Nathan reached down to wipe at Sasha's face, still chuckling, and Sasha did the same for him.

The rain sluicing down around them helped to wash most of the remaining mud away.

Nathan could feel the heat between their chests that were tightly pressed together, felt so much more prominently with everything around them so cold and damp.

Even with the rain, Nathan couldn't help completing the act Sasha had attempted and pressed down onto Sasha's lips.

Slipping slightly in the mud, Nathan repositioned himself as best he could, sliding his body up Sasha's torso as he kissed him. He used his new position to deepen the kiss, and the heat between them helped him forget all about the cold and constant rain.

Sasha purred low in his throat to voice his approval, but unfortunately the incubus was having a harder time forgetting the rain. Between what was still falling from the sky and what was falling off of Nathan, Sasha soon gasped out of their kiss, spitting out a mouthful of water onto the ground.

"Sorry," Sasha said, pushing Nathan off so they could both roll onto their sides, "but I'm drowning here on the bottom."

"Yeah, you look it." Nathan took in the normally red hair that was now caked in mud. "In fact, you'd give a Rastafarian a run for his money about now."

"Yeah? Well, same to you, pal," Sasha smirked.

They went to reach for each other again.

Suddenly, there was smashing through the underbrush and Jim came hurtling out of the woods shouting their names.

His sloppy footing made it impossible for him to stop when he finally noticed Nathan and Sasha.

Jim went down feet first, sliding neatly in between them and spraying them both with a fresh coating of mud.

"Jim!" Nathan shouted in annoyance.

"I heard shots! Didn’t you hear me shouting?"

"It’s a torrential downpour! We didn’t notice anything until you were on top of us," Nathan said, leaving out that they may have been distracted for other reasons.

Jim's hair looked almost as coated as Sasha's, and the cascading rain was plastering his longer black locks down his face and into his eyes. "Fine, fine. So you got it?" he panted, staring wide-eyed at the giant stone dog beside them.

"Cujo's not going anywhere," Nathan said, “but he sure did seem to have a hankering for incubus ass.”

Sasha snickered. "I normally really like dogs," he said. "Not golems, obviously, but even the real ones don't often like me . Definitely has to be an incubus thing." He scooped up a glob of mud and chucked it Nathan’s direction, narrowly missing his face.

Nathan gave his best deadly glare. “Dude, you don’t even want to start with me.”

Jim laughed, actually laughed , looking mostly just relieved to have found them both okay.

Meanwhile, Sasha started scrounging for another glob of mud, but he didn’t get the chance to throw it.

“I’m so glad you like it here,” said a sing-song feminine voice.

A male voice followed it. “Because you won’t be leaving.”