Page 49 of Sidhe (The Incubus Saga #3)

The breath knocked from Nathan’s lungs as he watched Iain jolt.

Clutch his chest.

Crumble.

“Iain!”

He ran to his friend, nearly forgetting his own gun, though it remained gripped in his right hand. For a moment, Iain was still conscious, looking at Nathan with questioning and terror. Then his eyes fluttered, closed, and he went still.

Iain was dead. And Nathan hadn’t been able to do a damn thing to save him.

Jim and Sasha came dashing out of the med room, alerted by the gunshot. They both froze, looking on in disbelief at Nathan, on his knees beside Iain, with blood staining his shirt. Nathan knew Solrin wouldn’t hesitate to shoot Jim and Sasha just the same.

He rose and pointed his gun at Solrin’s head.

It was all the answer Nathan needed when Solrin’s response was merely, “You will not shoot me, Nathan.”

“You should have listened, god damn it,” Nathan said coldly—numb. “Between you and them? You. Don’t. Win .”

Nathan fired.

A split-second later the bullet was caught— caught —between the thumb and forefinger of a well-manicured hand.

“Now, now. You can’t go doing something like that, Nathan. This boy is under my protection.”

The gun nearly dropped from Nathan’s hand. Standing between Nathan and Solrin was Malak, with the bullet flattened like a penny between his fingers. The first thought that rang through Nathan’s head was, Walter!

Malak laughed. He tossed the bullet into the air and caught it. “Nathan, Nathan. Not this time. I’m not here for you, so your little… friend …can’t appear out of thin air to interrupt. I am here on behalf of Solrin. And a good thing too or you might have unjustly killed a good and righteous man.”

“You fucking son of a bitch!” Nathan snarled. “You’re a fucking liar and eventually Sol’s going to realize that.”

“Nathan.” Malak tucked the flattened bullet into his suit coat pocket, his fucking perfect suit , and stepped forward to meet Nathan.

“Why won’t you realize how much easier all of this would be if you just chose me?

Jim and Sasha would be fine, protected, as I’ve promised you.

That poor boy on the floor there would never have had to die.

You can’t blame Solrin for what he did, how he wanted to take the monsters around you out of the picture.

He was only thinking of your best interests. ”

“ Fuck you .”

Malak’s mouth twitched. “Always missing the bigger picture. You should listen to Solrin, Nathan. He is not wrong that there is something very different inside of you. Tell him, Solrin, why you know your beliefs to be truth.” Malak turned, looking back at Solrin with a wide smile.

It sickened Nathan how much of that same reverence Solrin had shown him was now being bestowed upon the king of dark sidhe.

“Because,” Solrin said, “the light I see in Nathan is an echo of you.”

That sinking, ground falling out from under him feeling returned. Nathan didn’t want any light in him if it echoed Malak. He knew how Malak could seem glorious. He had seen it himself. But he had also seen the other side, the shimmering fangs and engulfing darkness.

Maybe Nathan was tainted. Maybe the black and white of the world was so messed up it wasn’t even grey anymore, it was fucking flipped . Nathan didn’t know. But he did know where to place his faith and it would never be in the bastard before him. Not after everything.

Not after Iain .

“I wish you didn’t see it that way, Solrin,” Nathan said, truly heartbroken for him. “There is a good side in this, but it’s not Malak.”

Solrin just looked at Nathan with pity—always pity.

“Can’t you accept where you belong?” Malak asked almost tenderly. “You are mine, Nathan.”

“No…I’m not. Not anymore.”

“Oh, you will be. You will.”

Nathan didn’t have another comeback.

Malak had won and it showed on the bastard’s face as he moved back to Solrin. “You have done so well,” he said to him. “I have much work for you now. Nathan will join us in the end.”

“Yes.” Solrin nodded, wholly devoted. He looked at Nathan and smiled as if it didn’t matter that Nathan had tried to shoot him, that he had killed one of Nathan’s friends. “You will join us. It is what you were destined for. I know it.”

One last flash of Malak’s too white smile, his hand coming down to rest on Solrin’s shoulder, and they vanished right there on the spot.

Nathan didn’t move for a whole minute. When he did, he made for the others, who had gathered by Iain. They looked at him and there wasn’t accusation on their faces, not for Nathan having wanted so badly to prove Malak wrong and save Solrin. There was only pity.

More fucking pity.

Nathan threw his gun to the ground.

Alex returned too soon after their fight with Solrin to find Nathan and the others burning Iain’s body over a pyre in the backyard. She didn’t ask what had happened. She understood. It was Walter who looked on with deeper remorse and blame he turned on himself.

“You couldn’t have known,” Nathan told him.

“Solrin made his choices. You couldn’t have helped.

” But at the same time Nathan understood why those words did little to ease the grief from Walter’s face, because he would have felt the same way.

He did feel the same. He’d failed Iain, because he’d failed Solrin and let Malak win.

Later that night, having already spent perhaps more time than he should have alone, Nathan let his feet carry him until he found himself stepping into the library at the end of the upstairs hall.

It was empty. Of course it was empty now.

Taking a seat on the large sofa, Nathan fiddled through the piles of books on the coffee table.

There was one pile that wasn’t occult or fae-related at all, just regular fiction, probably something personal of Iain’s.

Nathan noticed a collection of short stories and started to page through it.

It was a textbook for a literature class, but it wasn’t college or even high school age.

It seemed to be more like middle school or even elementary.

Nathan would have snickered but he didn’t have it in him to laugh.

Some of the short stories and snippets from larger novels were things Nathan recognized, even some he vaguely remembered from school himself. He was a bit surprised when he paged to a tiny section of science fiction and stumbled upon Vonnegut. His favorite Vonnegut short story, “Harrison Bergeron.”

Jim would probably shit a brick if he ever found out that Nathan had pretty much read everything Kurt Vonnegut ever wrote.

There weren’t many authors Nathan could say that about.

Hell, there wasn’t much of any writing Nathan had ever given as much of his attention to, but Vonnegut, well, that guy just… got it.

Nathan read through “Harrison Bergeron” from the textbook, smirking at the deceptively simple language, the jokes, the epic moment when the Handicapper General came in with a double-barreled ten-gauge shotgun and took Harrison and his ballerina chick out in two seconds flat.

Kind of deep for fourth graders, morbid too, but then Nathan supposed that was probably the point.

Gunned down in their prime, because they’d been something different…

He didn’t notice the tears until they dropped onto the last page of the story.

He tossed the book onto the table and sat back, wiping fiercely at his face.

He had never wanted to be anything special, anything more than anybody else, but he’d be damned if he’d ever let someone tell him to be something he wasn’t.

The thing was, he wasn’t so sure anymore who or what he was supposed to be.

If he was supposed to be a savior then why couldn’t he save Solrin? Save Iain?

Nathan sat on the couch, alone, for what must have been an hour.

Sasha never once called for him or came looking for him, and neither did anybody else, not even Wally.

He needed the time, he supposed, and the others probably knew that, but it bothered him too.

Even when he wanted to be alone, he never really did.

That’s why it hurt so much when people walked away.

He wanted to fix what was now broken between him and Sasha. Maybe he had been hoping the incubus would come to him, but now wasn’t the time to sit around waiting for anything good to just cross his path.

Slowly, Nathan got up, feeling stiff and sore from sitting for so long, and from the whole damn day beforehand.

He closed his eyes and clutched the back of the couch as he came around it.

There was a prayer on his lips, a plea, like he wanted to just collapse and maybe have Walter catch him, maybe ask the Spirit Guide to make things better somehow, but even Nathan knew that prayers weren’t supposed to be about that.

He couldn’t ask for help every time things went sour.

Out in the hallway, Nathan turned to walk down to his room where he could only assume Sasha had hidden himself away, but he came face to face with Iain’s room first across the hall from the library.

Iain had wanted this life, or so he’d said, and it had been the death of him just because of what he was, because a lost and broken man saw something in him that wasn’t normal enough to be allowed to live.

Nathan pressed a hand to Iain’s door and willed the ready tears in his eyes not to fall. He had to make things better, that’s how he’d make this up to Iain. He had to win. And he had to start with what was wrong right in front of him that he still had a chance at fixing.

With slow, patient steps he finally made it down the hallway to his and Sasha’s room.

He didn’t see the redhead when he first went inside, closing the door behind him, but he could feel Sasha, feel his presence like a beacon, something he often took for granted.

He walked to the bathroom, pleased to find the door slightly ajar, and pushed it open.