Page 2 of Sidhe (The Incubus Saga #3)

Jim laughed, and Sasha chuckled hesitantly with him, both sounding relieved, so relieved. Of course they were; their first experience with a saved Nathan Grier had been him threatening them with a knife and speaking nonsense they didn’t understand.

That sounded wrong. A saved Nathan Grier. He didn’t feel very saved.

“Just give into me, Nathan, and everything will be fine. Choose me and you can have everything. Just say the words, Nathan. Say them…”

Those eyes, those awful eyes looked at Nathan with all the seven deadly sins shining beneath the surface.

“You belong to me , Nathan. Only me.”

“Nate?”

Nathan snapped out of his daydream. He wasn’t there anymore, in that nightmare world created by Malak—his own personal Hell.

But every detail had been so real, so tangible, so…possible.

“I’m okay, Jim. Just a little shaken up.

” He attempted to grin again, his cheeks twitching from the unfamiliar effort.

“Need time to…adjust to all this again, ya know. I’m fine.

Go spread the good news…or whatever.” It was probably obvious by the way his hands were still knuckle-white gripping Sasha that he was none of those things—except for the shaken up part.

“Okay. I’ll be back as soon as things are settled.” Jim’s body gave a slight lurch like maybe it didn’t know where to go, like it wanted to embrace Nathan a second time but didn’t want to smother him.

Nathan was half in Sasha’s arms still, needing that contact, and he knew he would welcome any extra from his brother.

He wanted to tell Jim that. He wanted to tell Jim that he didn’t have to be strong; he could hug Nathan if he needed to.

Nathan needed it, he did; he needed touch that comforted instead of hurt. But he couldn’t ask for it.

Jim settled on a firm squeeze of Nathan’s shoulder and was out the door, closing it behind him. Nathan would be eternally grateful for that, for not having to face the others just yet. The others, who he had let down again and again and again…

Nathan pressed the palm of his hand to his forehead. It wasn’t real , he told himself. It wasn’t real.

“Nathan…? Let’s get you into the tub. I can get the water going. Can you walk okay?” Sasha was doting on him and mother-henning him like…like he was supposed to.

“Little stiff. I can make it. What am I wearing?” he asked as they made slowly for the bathroom, Sasha’s arm hooked around his waist to offer help Nathan hadn’t asked for but cherished.

It looked like he was wearing sweatpants and a sweatshirt.

The fabrics were different color greys and soft, well-used.

“They’re Iain’s, I think,” Sasha said. “We just grabbed for something, sorry. We wanted you to be comfortable when you…woke up.” His voice was so tender and soft, like he was trying not to spook a kitten.

Oh how Nathan had missed his bleeding heart of a boyfriend. He had almost forgotten what Sasha was really like after all those months— days . God, it had only been days. That was going to be hard to get used to, knowing that so little time had passed when it felt like a year to him.

Then he saw his reflection in the bathroom mirror.

The image transfixed him as Sasha moved toward the tub to turn on the taps and plug the drain for his bath. While Sasha stayed crouched to the side, Nathan just stared, his own image centered in the glass. He stepped closer, the reflection moving with him. He knew it was no illusion. That was him.

But he looked so young, so untainted. His face was smooth and unscarred save that old one he didn’t mind so much that went through his eyebrow.

He pulled up the sweatshirt to look at his chest and found it free of so many scars and marks he remembered from his time in…

the Veil. There were only the barest remains of the scars from Sasha’s claws, the pellet marks from Gabriel’s shotgun, and the mark from his contract with Malak, still boldly drawn over his heart.

It was as if someone had taken a giant eraser to the last year of his life and he was left less marred, less broken. Only his eyes betrayed how he was haunted.

He lowered his shirt and felt at his wrists, still faintly scarred from Sasha’s claws in the cave. Then he let his attention get drawn to his father’s wedding ring, hanging on that same silver chain around his neck, glittering against the dull fabric of the sweatshirt. He gripped it tight.

“Nate?” Sasha asked tenderly.

But when Nathan turned to look, he didn’t see Sasha.

“Nathan,” came a very different voice as this new figure rose from the ground, his smile terrible. “Trying to hide from me? You know better than that.”

Nathan back-peddled, trying to escape, knowing he never could.

His shoulders hit the wall first, his body unbalanced in his haste.

“I-I…wasn’t. I swear.” His voice hitched, it always did, and the figure laughed at him for his weakness, for how he shook and pleaded and couldn’t ever win, couldn’t even fight anymore.

He had fought in the beginning, sneered in their faces, said ‘do your worst’, but he couldn’t go on like that forever.

“Nathan!” the real Sasha said firmly, hands on Nathan’s shoulders, eyes serious but pained as he shook him. “Nathan, it’s just me .”

Blinking out of that unfair vision, anchored by Sasha’s voice, Nathan saw that he had indeed backed himself against the wall, huddled low in the corner of the bathroom.

But Sasha wasn’t looming, wasn’t promising brutality and horrors that went so much deeper than skin.

Sasha was there to help, wanting and needing to help him.

“Nathan, come on…” Sasha begged, tears soaking his words. “Tell me you’re still with me.”

“I-I’m…here. S-Sorry. Sorry,” he said again, making his voice sound stronger for Sasha even though he was shaking again. “It’s just…hard to…” He didn’t know what to say.

Live . It was hard to live .

“I’m okay. I’m okay,” he nodded, probably sounding like some mumbling mental patient. Sasha helped him back to his feet and Nathan drank in the sight of his incubus. His . “I’m okay,” he said once more. “How’s the water coming?”

Frustration passed over Sasha’s face, old frustration, familiar, because Sasha always looked like that when Nathan refused to admit how wrecked he was. “It’s…it’s almost ready, Nate. Might be kinda hot. Better check it before you get in.”

Sasha’s words had Nathan gripping the front of the redhead’s T-shirt. “You’re not gonna go, are you?” He hated sounding so unlike himself—fragile, needy, scared. But he had grown so used to feeling like that and not being able to hide it.

Again, emotion splayed across Sasha’s face. This time it was concern, worry, even fear. “I…I can stay, Nathan. Of course. I just thought you’d want your privacy.”

Privacy? What the fuck is that , Nathan thought. He cracked a crooked grin. “Not like you haven’t seen it all before. I just, uhh….don’t wanna be alone right now.” He knew his voice shook—he was still shaking.

Sasha nodded, holding Nathan steady with large hands on his shoulders. “I’ll stay.”

It might have been erotic a different time, a different life—Sasha undressing Nathan with careful tugs, his soft hands running up Nathan’s chest and down his thighs as he removed the sweats—but this felt more like charity, like Sasha was helping poor incapable Nathan so he wouldn’t do something stupid like trip, or hurt himself, or smash face-first into the mirror, ramming the glass over and over again until there was nothing left of him but jagged lines.

It wasn’t real, it wasn’t real, it wasn’t…

Nathan didn’t have anything on underneath the sweats, not even shorts or socks.

His body didn’t feel dirty, his hair wasn’t greasy, but he felt so unclean.

Part of him hated the reflection he could see so clearly as they passed the mirror to reach the tub.

He didn’t deserve to look that fresh and new.

“Is it okay?” Sasha asked when Nathan first stepped into the water.

The heat was immediate and intense. His foot had been cold before he stepped in, and the water was probably too hot, tingling his skin with little needles that felt both hot and cold, back and forth like frostbite.

“It’s fine,” he said, bringing the other foot in too.

Sasha helped him sit down, lie back, submerge.

“Awesome tub, huh?” the incubus said, forcing a smile. “This thing’s practically like a Jacuzzi. Bet I could fit in there with you.”

“That’d be nice,” Nathan hummed, liking the feel of the too hot water warming his cold skin, even if it stung a little.

He thought of how good it would feel if Sasha joined him, wet skin sliding against his with no threat or fear involved.

“Sometime...maybe,” he amended since he wasn’t sure he could keep that nice train of thought without falling prey to another bad memory.

The bathroom was nicely dim, the curtain of the shower pulled out of the way so Nathan didn’t feel too cocooned in the tub, and Sasha was right, it was a big tub.

He could stretch out fully, sink down into it with only his head above the water, and actually relax, breathe, be okay and safe for the first time in…

Okay, thinking too much was a bad idea. Nathan needed to not think. Not think about anything. He wanted that pizza. And a drink. A hard drink.

“Nathan…about…how we got you out.”

“Don’t,” Nathan cut the incubus off, not even opening his eyes that had closed, “I don’t wanna know.”

“But…Nate—”

“I know what I need to. Someone made a deal. Only way it could have happened. Just tell me…tell me no one’s going where I was.” Nathan wouldn’t be able to stand it if someone had started the whole damn thing over and traded their soul to Malak.

“No,” Sasha said. “It’s not that, Nathan. Malak didn’t want that. Not that I wouldn’t have given him my soul if I thought—”

As soon as Nathan opened his eyes to look at the incubus, Sasha stopped. He looked away, guilt filling his face as he sighed, maybe reading just what Nathan was feeling, and feeling it as clearly as he could see it on Nathan’s face.

“Nathan…I was supposed to save you, but I couldn’t. Not then, not in time. Eventually I’m going to have to tell you how we got you out.”

“I know. But not now. Not tonight. I don’t wanna know what I’m worth when I don’t feel like I’m…worth…” Anything .

He had to stop thinking about it. He was with Sasha, and everything was okay, and it didn’t matter that he had betrayed everything he ever believed about himself. It had just been a very long, very bad dream.

It wasn’t real, it wasn’t real, it wasn’t…

Sasha’s hand was cool on Nathan’s forehead.

He opened his eyes. He hadn’t realized he had sunk low enough that his mouth was below the water.

Pushing up a little, he bucked into Sasha’s hand like a cat pleading for attention.

Sasha grinned crookedly at him, stroking through the wet strands of hair.

He was on his knees just outside the tub.

He was stunning in the dim light with sadness mingling with devotion on his face, his red hair a mess, his T-shirt rumpled like he had slept in it.

The incubus leaned over the tub, replacing his cool hand with cool lips just beneath Nathan’s hairline. “You’re worth everything .”

It would definitely be unmanly to cry again. “Enough with the sap, huh?” Nathan managed, swallowing a sob.

He had to get it together. They didn’t know and they weren’t going to know just what Nathan Grier’s perfect Hell in the Veil had been. He needed to forget, needed to suck it up, move on, get over it—preferably in the next thirty seconds.

After a minute he gave up thinking it would be that easy.

“Hey, guys?” It was Jim, back from his trek to the assembled masses. He pushed on the half-open bathroom door and came right in, startled when he saw that Nathan was naked in the tub.

It took Nathan a moment to remember that he was supposed to be upset by this.

“Dude,” he said as he sat up to pull in his legs and hide his nudity, “not exactly putting on a show here.” There, he could do this.

He could pretend until it came naturally again.

It would happen. It had to. Eventually he’d snap back and he wouldn’t feel like drowning was a better option than trying to live.

“Sorry,” Jim put up his hands, turning so that he was facing the main room. “Pizza’s on its way. A truckload full. Good thing they’re open ‘til two. It’s after midnight, ya know. Malak is a stickler for the rules, and he had you seven days to the minute.”

Nathan figured that was Jim’s way of testing the waters, seeing whether or not Sasha had gotten around to telling Nathan what happened.

“Nathan, uhh…sorta wants to keep a low profile about all that tonight,” Sasha said. “We can eat and then go to bed whenever you want, Nate. You’re probably tired.”

He was exhausted, body and mind wiped. But he didn’t want to sleep. He knew what that would bring. “Nah, I…don’t think I’m gonna hit the hay tonight. Feel more like staying up. You could…fill me in on what I missed. I assume ‘everyone’ means Alex, Iain, and…Wally?”

“And Shiarra,” Sasha added with a bite at his lip. “She sorta freaked, met us here, hasn’t left since. If she drives you crazy, I swear I will tell her to leave.”

Nathan actually cracked a smile at that, real and unintentional. It made his cheeks feel numb. “More the merrier. Tomorrow. I’m sure they’re going out of their minds, but…I’m fine. You told them I was fine, right?” He looked at Jim.

Slowly, Jim turned his head, gaze lingering now that it wasn’t really peeping with Nathan’s legs pulled in.

“Yeah,” he said with too much gauging for that to be the whole truth, “I told them, Nate. I also said you pretty much crashed up here and would barely be awake for the pizza. Figured they’d push less to see you if they thought you were asleep.

Alex made sure the Gatehouse was cleared out for this, so… we have some time.”

“Thanks, Jim. So tell me…what’d you guys do all week?”