Page 42 of Incubus
The newest woman laughed. She had something menacing in her suddenlysliteyes that looked almost black. "You know your lore, Nathan Grier," she said. "Tell us—"
"Yes, tell us," echoed the others.
"What lies inside ofyou?"
Chapter 16
Thethirdwoman'shandshot out to touch Nathan's face before he had time to react. Heat surged into Nathan's body at the contact of her skin, carrying no scent, no scent at all, only feeling. He was reminded for a brief moment of Sasha sharing the feeding experience with him, only this heat had nothing to do with pleasure.
Nathan was soangry.
"Nate!"
Red flashed behind Nathan's eyes. His vision blurred and he felt his hands clenching into fists so tight that he could feel his nails biting into his palms. Someone grabbed him by the arm and pulled. Images flew past him as he was forced to move even though he could barely focus on what was in front of him. He was running, stumbling forward as he was dragged away from the Weird Sisters and out into the night.
Distantly, Nathan could hear Jim and Sasha yelling to each other that they needed to get away, get back to the hotel andcome up with a new plan. The rational part of Nathan’s brain agreed, but all he could think about was how stupid he had been for getting ambushed, how stupid the whole plan had been, the whole damn thing, and how mad it made him that Jim was holding his god damn hand!
Nathan wrenched his arm out of Jim’s grasp, skidding to a stop in the middle of the dark street. Everything in his vision looked red and jagged.
“Stop treating me like a kid because of two fucking minutes of difference!” Nathan yelled at his brother, who already looked panicked that Nathan had stopped running. “This is all your fault! You never listen to me! Why do you always have to fuck everything up when I just want you to listen!” He very nearly screamed, pushing Jim hard in the chest with both hands.
Jim tripped over his feet in surprise. “Nate,” he said, looking at Nathan, hurt. “What are you talking about?”
“We have to get back to the hotel,” Sasha said, rushing up to both of them and grabbing Nathan’s arm as Jim had before. “We don’t have time for this.”
“Don’t touch me!” Nathan yelled louder, pushing Sasha away as hard as he had pushed his brother. He was disgusted and so blindingly angry at both of them, ateverything, that the only thing he could imagine bringing him peace was to get rid of them both.
He didn’t realize he was pulling out his gun until Jim tackled him to the ground.
“Stop it! Just stop it!” Jim cried.
It was like waking up from a deep sleep. Nathan was on his back, with Jim’s heavy weight on top of him, holding each of his wrists to the ground. The gun lay useless beside them.
Nathan didn’t really remember how he had gotten away from the three fae women, or why he had been so angry in the firstplace. All of his fury dripped away and he felt perfectly calm, relaxed and yielding under Jim.
“I…I’m okay,” Nathan said. “I’m sorry, Jim. One of them touched me and I was just so…somad, I…I don’t know what I was thinking. I’m okay. I’m okay.” He looked into his brother’s eyes, repeating that mantra, as if they were kids again and needed each other’s reassurance to believe in anything.
Jim sat back, his breathing tight and hands shaking as he released Nathan’s wrists. Nathan felt so foolish when they were getting up and he had to reach back down to retrieve his gun from the ground.
“You banished their power just by touching him,” Sasha said in awe, like he wouldn’t have believed anything like that was possible. “How did you do that?”
“I…uhh…” Jim stammered. “I have no idea. I just wanted him to calm down, and I…I don’t know. I didn’ttryto do anything, I just—”
“Did it,” Sasha finished.
“It doesn’t matter. We have to go,” Nathan said, in his right mind enough to know that they really needed to move. “We have to get somewhere safe before the Witches of Eastwick catch up to us. Come on.”
This time it was Nathan grabbing Jim and Sasha by the arms and pulling them along until somehow they reached the hotel.
Nathan’s pulse wasn’t racing as much anymore and his skin didn’t feel so terribly hot. Jim’s touch had soothed him. But he still felt shaken from the fae’s influence that had been enough to get him to pull a gun on his brother.
“There were three women,” Sasha said once they had made it back to Jim and Nathan’s room. “It has to be Weird Sisters.”
“That was my guess,” Nathan said. “And I saw their eyes. They’redarksidhe.”
“What? You mean someone summoned them?” Jim asked.
“No,” came the somewhat faded voice of Walter, appearing with a flicker again but able to join them now that enough distance had been put between them and the sidhe. “I do not believe they were summoned, Nathan. This feels different. Stronger.”
