Page 43 of Sidhe (The Incubus Saga #3)

“It’s okay,” Sasha said pleadingly, trying to find the kid amongst the shadows, “I know you’re scared but we’re not going to hurt you.”

“Hrrnngg,” came an unintelligible sound, half between a growl and a word. This time Nathan saw Sasha glance the direction it was coming from but he didn’t point his light. “Hrrr…hrrrunnn...hunnnters…” the strained voice finally managed, close enough to the real word for Nathan to understand.

Sasha stepped slowly towards the voice, keeping his light on the floor in front of him. “I am. I’m a seal. But we’re not here for you. I won’t hurt you. Neither will he.” Sasha glanced back imploringly even though he knew Nathan still had the knife out.

“…w-w-won’t…hurt me…” the voice said more clearly, “but I-I’ll…

hurt him .” He growled again, not moving away from Sasha’s approach but obviously hunched low and curled in on himself for how his voice was muted.

The growl sounded lower too, like a warning or…

or desire , Nathan thought, because the kid had to be starving by now, and if Solrin’s presence could lure him out despite how scared he was, then Nathan being so close and so temptingly human had to be torture.

Closer now, right upon the corner the boy was hiding, Sasha crouched low and let his light slowly drift up the shivering figure.

Nathan held back a gasp. He had seen partially and fully transformed incubi many times, but this was different.

The caking of dirt and dried blood thick enough to mostly hide the kid’s clothing nearly trumped the fierce incubus aspects pushing through.

He was wearing jeans, what had once been jeans, and an oversized sweatshirt that might have been brown but maybe that was just the dirt.

The zipper on the sweatshirt was busted, and the kid had used safety pins to keep it closed.

Safety pins. Nathan thought of the one he’d found in the barn, and even though his mind went to pity for a moment since several pins were missing, he had a feeling that it hadn’t been some recent try for modesty after the zipper broke but a teenage fashion statement now lost.

The worst was the kid’s face, his red eyes flashing wildly, his skin so pale, almost its natural white but smudged and covered in filth. His hair was brown, hopefully brown and not just coated, and it curled slightly just past his ears.

He was a kid all right, too, eighteen at the most, like Sasha had guessed. The teal Nathan had seen was the color of the kid’s markings starting to show through, coloring his hands that were almost full claws now. He was dangerously close to frenzy, closer than they had anticipated.

Nathan suddenly felt very vulnerable as the resident incubus happy meal. He couldn’t possibly miss the hungry stare that looked past Sasha right at him.

“It’s okay,” Sasha said once more, not trying yet to get any closer but remaining crouched a few feet in front of the kid, “you won’t hurt him. I won’t let you. I won’t let you hurt anyone. Do you understand what’s been happening?”

The kid’s face was half hidden as he clung to his knees, curled up tight in the corner of the cellar. Nathan couldn’t help noticing how he flinched at Sasha’s question, his eyes squeezing tight for a moment as a tear left a clean wet streak down his dirtied face.

“Hey…” Sasha tried to reach for him, very subtly with his hand inching closer along the ground like approaching a wounded animal, which Nathan realized this kid sort of was.

The young incubus flinched away. “I…I-I know…what I did,” he said, his voice more than just a growl but hoarse from disuse.

“He won’t…leave me alone now. I tried …to tell him how s-sorry I am, but…

” He couldn’t get the words out, his head shaking back and forth as more tears streaked down his face.

“I tried to get away, but he…followed me…from the barn. He won’t let me go.

I…I didn’t mean …” He dissolved into piteous sobs then, clinging more tightly to his legs and pressing his whole face into his knees.

“He’s keeping you here,” Sasha said in realization, “so you’ll keep feeding him.”

“I…” muffled words rose up that Nathan almost couldn’t understand, “I never…wanted to h-hurt…anyone. I-I just…wanna go home. Please , I…” he looked up, stared a moment at Sasha who hadn’t tried to move again, and then his eyes slid slow and ravenous up to Nathan, “I’m so hungry .”

Nathan could see the beginning of horns curling out from the kid’s temples now, dark teal pushing past his hair, the shape so much like Sasha’s. Nathan knew frenzy pretty well by now and this kid was just about there.

The worst of lead weights dropped down into the pit of Nathan’s stomach as he realized they couldn’t save him. It wasn’t the kid’s fault. An accident created a monster and the monster made it worse. But if this kid frenzied again there was no saving him without killing him.

“Sasha…”

“What’s your name?” Sasha asked the boy, pulling his hand back so as not to spook him.

Those shimmering red eyes didn’t leave Nathan’s face. “Adrian…” he choked out past drying tears. Drying tears.

“It’s going to be okay, Adrian. We’ll get you out of here.”

“ Sasha .” Nathan clamped his free hand down on Sasha’s shoulder, the other still holding his knife, though somewhat hidden so the kid wouldn’t see it.

He didn’t know what to say when Sasha turned concerned eyes on him.

“It’s too late,” he hated to admit, even though it was so obvious now, how little of a boy was left as the incubus aspects took firmer hold, transforming the kid—Adrian—into something that would no longer feel remorse.

Sasha’s expression melted first into accusation, into blame and anger.

But then there was grief again. He looked back at the kid and had to see how much the incubus shook, his horns fully formed and wings sprouting out the back of his already wrecked sweatshirt, his claws deadly. There wasn’t any time.

Nathan was ready with the knife; he’d do it, he’d never make Sasha do it even if the damn martyr begged him to.

He was ready to offer that, ready to make it quick and easy, as painless as he could for the kid…when Sasha stood and began pushing him forcibly back toward the stairs.

“ Go ,” the redhead growled at him, growled , his own eyes red and shimmering.

“What?” Nathan tried to push back against Sasha; he must be out of his freakin’ mind. “Sasha—!”

“How do we feed during the change, Nathan?” Sasha asked without really needing an answer, those red eyes looking sorrowful and so damn…apologetic.

“ No .”

“I can give him what he needs and no one has to die.”

“You think I’m that stupid? This isn’t two frenzied incubi helping each other, or two fine and dandy ones either.

He’s gonna be taking a helluva lot more from you than you’ll get back from him.

After the other night with Malak…that could kill you.

You . That sounds like someone dying to me!

” Nathan could see over Sasha’s shoulder that the kid was getting up, tearing at his clothes, growling and almost totally gone now.

“I’ll be okay,” Sasha said, even though he wouldn’t meet Nathan’s eyes as he said that, just kept pushing him up the steps with his damn superior strength that Nathan’s hardest struggling did nothing to overcome.

Nathan nearly tripped several times, trying so hard to keep his feet down the steps instead of being forced further and further up.

Sasha just smiled, fucking smiled back at Nathan like he wasn’t about to throw himself to the wolves. “He’s just a kid, Nathan. And I can save him.”

Nathan was almost up the stairs, the knife gripped too tightly in his hand, growls emanating from below, and there was nothing he could do, no amount of pushing back at Sasha that could possibly be enough. “He’ll kill you,” he said desperately.

“He won’t.”

“You don’t know that for—”

“He won’t ,” Sasha said firmly. Then he was kissing him, fierce and claiming and too much like goodbye. “I have to do this, Nathan. I’m sorry.”

I’m sorry .

It was the last thing Nathan heard before the wind was brutally knocked from him, Sasha sending him flying out of the cellar to land several yards away back inside the house.

By the time Nathan could breathe again and focus enough to get up, the cellar door was closed. He didn’t have to try the door to know it wouldn’t do him any good. But he had to anyway. He couldn’t let Sasha do this . To hell with jealousy, it had nothing to do with that. Sasha could die down there!

He was seconds from pounding on the door when he heard the first scream.

Panic twisted in Nathan’s gut as he thought the sound had come from the cellar.

Then he realized it was coming from somewhere else in the house.

It wasn’t Jim or Solrin, which could only mean one thing: it was the nach, and if it was screaming then that meant the others had found it.

Considering the creature sounded a hell of a lot more angry than injured it also meant that they might be in serious trouble.

Nathan knew Jim wouldn’t use his powers unless there was no other choice, the risk of Solrin seeing him and overreacting being too great. Nathan had to help them. At least with them he could do something. With Sasha…

Nathan pounded on the door once anyway, just to be sure Sasha heard him and knew that this was not something he would ever forgive the bastard for, not if he never came back.

Teeth gritted, one fist clenched and the other still tight on the knife he had never lost, Nathan cast the cellar one last angry glare, silently praying, don’t you dare let him die on me, Walter , and then he was off, grabbing the bag of stakes he’d dropped when he landed up the stairs, and sprinting toward the other side of the house.