Page 7 of Sidhe (The Incubus Saga #3)

Shiarra was giving him looks as if to say she wanted to get him alone.

Nathan would avoid that for as long as possible.

But after dinner when everyone started to disperse as if they had things they could be doing elsewhere, Nathan didn’t mind that he seemed to have been left rather obviously alone… with Sasha.

One on one was easier, and Sasha looked so beautifully whole and healthy and loving. Nathan still wanted to ask what the price had been for his resurrection, but when Sasha smiled warmly at him and walked to the jukebox, he couldn’t bear the thought of ruining the moment.

“Alex downloaded a bunch of Frank for me. Don’t laugh, but…my favorite version of this song,” Sasha said as “My Funny Valentine began to play,” “was from this movie—”

“Matt Damon in The Talented Mr. Ripley ,” Nathan broke in, smiling crookedly.

Sasha looked surprised. “I already told you that? I don’t remember.”

“Eh, you might have been a little tipsy at the time,” Nathan shrugged, moving across the floor to join Sasha, “but I remember. Said the same thing, too—don’t laugh.

Like I can not laugh when a punk actor like Matt Damon’s your favorite version of this.

” Nathan barked out something that might have been a laugh.

Close enough to one to make Sasha’s smile widen.

“It’s a good version. All melancholy but hopeful,” Sasha said wistfully.

“Yeah,” Nathan huffed, hand on the jukebox right next to Sasha’s, “unrequited love.”

“I hate that kind,” the incubus breathed.

They were close now, so close. Nathan moved his hand a little so that his fingers bumped into Sasha’s skin.

They leaned in at the same time, a clear path to each other’s lips.

That was easy. Somehow that was still easy—touching lips, moving lips, slipping his tongue past Sasha’s teeth to get at that familiar taste.

It was easy…and made his heart race just like he remembered.

As they kissed, soft presses of their lips and strokes of their tongues, Sasha pulled Nathan close against him and away from the jukebox, hips swaying gently to the music.

“A little early for a slow-dance,” Nathan teased, lips damp and still so close to Sasha’s as he spoke.

But instead of playing along, Sasha had to ruin the moment by asking almost tearfully, “Are you really okay, Nathan?” His hold was as tight as Jim’s had been, only this was face to face so it was harder for Nathan to keep his real response hidden.

“I’m okay right now.”

“Nate.”

“I’m adjusting. But this…this is good.” He slid his arms around Sasha’s waist and held firm. “This is okay. This is me being okay.” It was the truth even if it was fleeting.

Sasha smiled, melancholy like the song. “Okay.” And they danced, sort of, more like swayed and held onto each other as the music played and switched to another song in Frank’s smooth voice.

Nathan looked up at Sasha’s face. There was that blue, cobalt brilliance glittering at him.

It was early evening, the sun coming in low and dark orange from every window to fill the bar with mood lighting, and they were alone.

Nathan couldn’t even hear signs that the others were anywhere around.

He knew they had left them alone on purpose, subtle really for them since it almost would have seemed natural if it hadn’t been all of them that mysteriously needed to be elsewhere.

Maybe they thought Sasha would be the key to reminding Nathan that he was grounded, he was here, he was okay—and not just in words.

Leaning up further, Nathan kissed Sasha again just to feel it.

Sasha. He was a large part of Nathan’s world, that’s why Jim had used him—why Malak had used him to make the torture worse.

Nathan kissed Sasha deeper as soon as his mind began to wander.

He didn’t want to think about that. He was home now.

Dancing like that, kissing Sasha, hands about each other’s waists, Nathan immediately thought of the last time they had slow-danced alone in the Gatehouse bar, one night when it was empty and quiet like now.

“We are so dead if Alex comes down here.”

“Want to stop?”

“Hell no.”

They hadn’t. They had writhed and stroked each other and fumbled their way over to the bar, leaving their sleep pants to settle on the floor.

Nathan could almost see it like real-time played in front of his eyes as he kissed Sasha with newfound fervor, their swaying half-dance faltering as they gripped each other harder.

Yes, he could see it—Sasha braced against the bar top, Nathan thrusting behind him, the music playing…

Nathan shuddered.

“Nate?”

He tried to push Sasha away. It was too clear, too vivid. Nathan’s hands running up Sasha’s back and down again with just the tips of his fingers. Sasha shivering back against him. Their pace fast, faster. Sasha reaching for him. Sasha’s… claws digging into his skin.

Nathan tried to shake the vision off but it was too late; he had conjured it himself and now the image was marred, changed, taken from him as the Sasha in his mind turned from the bar and fell upon him.

“Nathan!”

He had passed out at some point, maybe from the blood loss, maybe just from the pain, he didn’t know, but pain stung him now at every pore of his body as he came to.

He couldn’t move but he was shivering, his body in shock.

He used what strength he had to look down his body, laid out on the cold floor, and all he saw were jagged cuts and ruby red.

The sobbing beside him told him why it was over.

Sasha had gotten what he needed, enough to pull him from frenzy, and he was whole, human, back to his senses, sitting naked beside Nathan.

His pale skin was smudged with red though it otherwise remained unmarred and perfect.

Sasha’s legs were pulled in tight to his chest and he was sobbing into his knees.

Nathan wanted to reach for him, tried, but his hand only gave a slight twitch at his side. The incubus had certainly done a number on him but it hadn’t been his fault. Sasha needed to know that. Nathan needed to tell him.

But another voice broke into their bloody little world before Nathan could try.

“I told you this would happen,” Jim said, walking up to them so coolly and crouching down in front of where Sasha was shivering and rocking, “and it can happen as many times as is necessary. Do you understand?”

Slowly, Sasha’s head tilted up from his knees to look at Jim. His eyes, although blue, were reddened around the edges from crying.

“Will you choose me now?”

It was a trick. Nathan knew now. Jim had known all along the choice Nathan would make, that he wouldn’t be able to kill Sasha and that Sasha, after this, would see no other way out.

Nathan couldn’t let Sasha give in. He couldn’t allow this to go the way Jim wanted. But he couldn’t do anything, couldn’t move or speak for all the pain.

He saw Sasha nod, unable to look at Nathan beside him and see the damage he had inflicted. Jim stood and reached out to Sasha then. And damn everything…because Sasha accepted.

“Nathan, stop!”

“Nathan!”

“Hold him!”

There was no here, there was only there . Nathan could see it when he closed his eyes, when he opened them— everywhere . This was the illusion, this far worse torture, something that promised peace but never gave him more than the meagerest taste of it.

Sasha had called for the others and they were there, but Nathan could only see Jim, startled and frightened in front of him.

There were hands grabbing him everywhere, hands holding back his arms, hands around his waist, hands waving in front of his face to bring him back to his senses.

Nathan had no sense. Jim had taken everything. Everything .

“You promised!” he screamed as he leapt toward his brother’s form, only to be lurched back by a collective grip.

“You said…it wouldn’t hurt anymore. You said you’d take it away!

But I still feel it. I feel it…and its worse.

Worse . Why won’t you stop, Jim, why won’t you leave me alone…

?” He trailed, his knees going weak. He fell and the hands holding him loosened.

The voices of the others were a chorus around him and finally he started to hear them again. “Nathan, it’s okay!”

“You’re here! You’re safe!”

“No one’s hurting you!”

“Come back, Nate.”

“It’s over.”

“No, it’s not…” Nathan shook his head, glancing up again to see Jim standing a ways away in front of him, looking confused and saddened. “I’m still there…”

He could feel panic creeping ever closer and he couldn’t stop it, couldn’t fight it.

A feral sound left him as he threw the loosened hands from his body and jumped to his feet.

He rushed Jim, knocking his brother back against the bar, hands gripped in the front of his shirt, not realizing that with the kind of harsh intent behind his actions, the Gatehouse wards should have blasted him backwards.

“You promised!”

Jim’s eyes swam with tears. And they were blue— blue . “Nathan…”

Again, hands tried to grab for him, coming from behind, and Nathan swung an arm to knock them away, releasing Jim so he could turn and yell, “Leave me alone!”

Silence fell instantly. Nathan could see them all now, those whose hands had held him. Everyone was in the room—Sasha, Iain, Alex, Shiarra—and all of them were staring at him with horrified expressions.

Reality struck Nathan hard. Jim’s eyes were blue. The others were there. He was safe, it was over, he was home now, but when the visions of the past took him, he couldn’t remember that.

The looks everyone was giving him were strange, though. It wasn’t the right kind of fear.

Then Iain, whose eyes were widest said, “Your eyes…”

Nathan didn’t know what he was talking about, and maybe it was his honest uncertainty that kept any of them from acting. There was a mirror in the bar, large and covering most of one wall. It stood above the jukebox. Nathan was even facing it. All he had to do was look up.

He back-peddled, ramming hard into Jim behind him who was still against the bar. Strong arms came up to hold him. Nathan had to be seeing things. It couldn’t be real.

His eyes were black.