Page 97 of Sidhe (The Incubus Saga #3)

“And you could have sent them away without harming a single one of them.” Malak pushed closer to Nathan, forcing him to stumble back.

“You could have kept the fae, incubi, and succubae safely in the Veil. You could have dismissed my forces entirely, you just didn’t want to.

Those decisions were yours, Nathan. If you had chosen me truly, you would have had the chance to make things different.

You could have saved lives. Now you are the cause of a hundred deaths, more by the end of this. ”

There was a wall at Nathan’s back, jarring him as he attempted to escape Malak’s proximity. They were near the jukebox and it was crackling as if the very presence of Malak caused it to fritz, even with the power out.

A part of Nathan mourned the loss of what Malak offered, the way his power had felt, the way it had made him more than himself. But no. He knew he didn’t need to be anything other than what he was. Because he was Nathan Grier, damn it, and the Devil was not going to get the better of him.

“Nice try,” Nathan smiled around any fear lingering in his belly, “but I’m not crawling back to you, asshole. We’re gonna win .”

Malak snarled, pain spiking through Nathan’s head as the dark sidhe king grabbed him roughly by the hair and yanked him over to the windows. “Win? You think you’re winning? Look at the whole of it, Nathan, and tell me if you still believe that.”

Defenseless against Malak’s superior strength, Nathan found his face pushed harshly to the glass looking out over the fields. He could see everything, from Alex and Ula outside the doors, to the farthest reaches of the fight.

So many had fallen. More than a hundred, Nathan saw now. Lindsey was pulling his injured wife back behind the stockpile outside the Gatehouse doors with Alex and Ula, one of Charis’ wings looking half torn off.

Cam and the twins still seemed to be alive out there, so far away that Nathan could barely spot them, but out on the middle of the fields, Jim, Sasha, and Walter were being hit by wave after wave of fiercely fighting dark fae that were not stopping even though they had lost their leader and any true direction.

Nathan struggled to spot Shiarra, Oberon, or Gwen.

“You see now, Nathan, how much you’re winning ,” Malak snarled beside his ear.

“It all looks so promising until you step back and see just how much I surpass you with sheer numbers. Your horsemen can accomplish little, their powers almost all used up now, and for what? You’re going to lose , Nathan.

You made me stronger with every decision you made this past year.

I don’t need you anymore to win. And do you know what happens if I win without you?

Oh, the ways I can think up to torture those you love… ”

“You think you can get me to choose you again by threatening me?” Nathan scoffed. “Nothing could ever make me throw everything away again.”

Calm now, confident, Malak smoothed his mussed hair back as he stepped away from Nathan, leaving him against the glass.

“Who says I want you back? Even if you crawled and begged and pleaded for your fellows’ lives, as I said…

I don’t need you anymore.” Reaching for Nathan again with a surge of anger, Malak grabbed him by the front of his shirt and lifted him straight up off the floor.

“I’d rather watch your world burn. And all the people in it. ”

Fear and futility bubbled up from Nathan’s stomach into his throat, and he hated it, hated that Malak could still turn him into the weakest version of himself.

But not all of him felt weak. Because Malak was still a part of him, still wrapped up inside of him, and Nathan had to fight that every moment to remain solely himself.

Suddenly, the remnants of disheveled wildness in Malak’s eyes looked like more than whatever Sasha’s power had done to him or any consequences from the fighting outside. Malak was struggling just as Nathan was struggling, fighting against how wrapped up they were in each other .

Nathan could see it. With the goggles firmly in place, altering his vision, he could see past the shade of darkness, the monstrousness of Malak, and he understood.

It wasn’t just that the goggles let him see through glamours.

They let him see through lies . And the dawning of that caused a smile to spread wide across his face.

“What’s so amusing?” Malak asked with a touch of frustration.

It was hard to breathe, lifted up as he was, but Nathan had dealt with far worse. “More like…fucking hilarious, pal,” he choked out. “You don’t even mean half of what you’re saying. Kinda pathetic if ya ask me.”

The red on black eyes glaring up at Nathan flashed in warning. “You think I won’t honor what I’ve promised you?”

“Maybe. But there’s doubt written all over your face. Guess being an evil overlord prick …gets a bit tougher when you got a little human inside of you.”

If Nathan had any doubt that he was right, the way Malak’s face twisted angrily rather than in denial or dismissal proved otherwise. “Human? I have been many things, am many things, but never human, like you miserable wastes of flesh,” Malak growled.

The added pressure on Nathan’s neck made it even harder to breathe, but he wasn’t defeated yet. “I know my lore. You found a way here before, after the war. You thought you were so much better than us lowly humans.”

Malak snorted. “My thoughts haven’t changed on that.”

“Maybe not. But maybe, a few thousand years ago, when you were last here, you wondered . Maybe it was another chance like this. Like now . And you had a human body all your own like you almost had mine. You probably planned your whole lay waste and world domination bit and everything. But something changed, didn’t it?

You met a pretty redhead and it changed everything.

Believe me, man, I can relate.” Nathan smirked.

His vision grew cloudy as Malak threw him to the floor, but he could see the way Malak stared maliciously down at him without advancing, the light he could see at the center of the darkness flickering. Whether it was against his better judgment or not, Nathan spoke on.

“I don’t think you were playing games. You really loved her. She really loved you. You were gonna change your tune, even, I think. You finally saw something in humans you couldn’t just pass off as corruptible.”

“And I was wrong ,” Malak snarled, his tongue snaking out of his mouth and looking, for a moment, forked. “I was wrong not only in believing humans have something to offer, because she wasn’t human, was she? I was wrong that it mattered at all .”

“Why?” Nathan countered with honest, even sympathetic curiosity. He sat up as best he could and pulled the goggles from his eyes, no longer needing them. “Because she rejected you? So what? She panicked. Plenty of people panic. She’s regretted it every day since. What about you?

“See, I don’t think you’ve ever been the same.

I think there’s still some human in you from back then, and hey, mix it up with a little of me ,” Nathan placed one foot on the ground and rose back up to his feet, “and you start to wonder again, don’t you?

You start to doubt. It was a great plan and all, this round, get back at Oberon and Gwen, get back at Dave using his own lesser creation against him— me —to prove your point.

Maybe you really are the Devil, like Solrin thought.

Genius, either way. Too bad the joke’s on you. ”

“Enough,” Malak snapped, grabbing Nathan by the front of his shirt and pulling him in close. “You think you can appeal to me this way? Appeal to my sense of humanity ? You are a fool, Nathan Grier. There is no humanity in me.”

Nathan touched his thumb to the divided circle scar carved into his hand—the mark that had started it all, even before the Messenger scarred his chest. “You’re lying.

Why else would you have been so interested in Sasha?

You said yourself that he wasn’t part of your initial equation, but you just loved when he became part of the package.

“I heard Gwen say that Sasha reminded her of her child. The first incubus. The son she had with you . That’s why you wanted him, isn’t it?

Though I gotta admit it’s kinda creepy you were looking so forward to fucking him, even if you were in my body.

Or maybe that was more because Sasha reminded you of Gwen. ”

“ Stop ,” Malak bit out, actually shaking now.

“Why?” Nathan said again, facing Malak without fear, because even if a part of him was terrified, that didn’t matter now. “Tell me. Why ? Is it because you’d give anything to have her back? But you figure she’d take one look at you and see you for the evil sonuvabitch that you—”

Nathan didn’t get to finish, his jaw cracking from the force of Malak’s punch and the whole room turning topsy-turvy as he fell, once again, to the floor.

Spitting blood onto the hardwood beneath him, Nathan’s vision was a massive blur again.

“It’s okay…ya know,” he figured he’d go for broke, doubled over on the floor and half-blind after that hit, “if you…wish you could take it all back. That’s why you came to earth that time, wasn’t it?

Coz you wondered if you were wrong for starting the war.

Coz you wished you could take it back . I can feel you, asshole, and you’re not all dark like you pretend.

You feel even more human coz of me. But you just won’t let yourself say you’re sorry.

Can’t . And all because of the same thing that started this mess in the first place. Your god damn pride .”

A fresh kick slammed into Nathan’s side. Then again. Again . Vicious and unceasing for what seemed like minutes. Nathan spat more blood onto the wood. His vision was nearly black now, but he kept on talking.