Page 116 of Sidhe
“Nathan, stop.” Jim stepped forward, his simple utterance a clear warning.
Nathan looked at Jim, his hand still suspended, then looked at Sasha again with sympathy as if the problem was simply that Sasha didn’t get it. “Okay,” he said, his hand starting to lower. Then those red on black eyes flicked sharply to Jim. “You’llunderstand.”
Nathan’s hand came back up toward him, and two fingers pressed firm to his forehead. The rush that filled Jim was electric, forcing a gasp from his lips that fell off into a low moan. His vision shook and he knew that his eyes were flickering from blue, to amber, to white, and back again. It was hot and painful andincredibleall at once.
By the time Nathan’s hand fell away, the cries of the others barely audible to Jim as he came back to himself, he knew without a doubt, without a singledoubt…that he had never before felt so strongly and amazinglyalive.
Chapter 41
Sasha
Jim’seyesflickeredlikea burnt out television, switching colors from his normal deep blue, to that awful amber, to full-on white, only to start the process over again. It filled Sasha with terror, the suddenness of it, the way Jim’s body went rigid, completely incapable of pulling away from Nathan or fighting what was happening to him.
Is that what Nathan had meant to do to him, Sasha wondered. Guilt and panic flared in his chest, standing there as rigid and frozen as Jim. Alex, Walter, and Shiarra were equally immobile and resistant to try and stop Nathan physically.
Then Nathan pulled his hand back from Jim’s forehead, Jim’s eyes no longer flickering but stationary on a single color—amber. Amber filled up the irises along with the whites, the pupils still slit, the way they had looked outside the cave in Colorado. The crooked, blissed-out grin forming on Jim’s face did not make any of it less daunting.
Sasha wished he could move away from them, but he was paralyzed. Jim was gone. Sasha didn’t need to see the strange smile on Jim’s face to know that, or the way Jim and Nathan smiledat each other.
“Whoa,” Jim gasped with laughter in his voice, “you bigliar.” He tugged on Nathan’s collar, bringing the brothers’ faces mere millimeters apart. “This isn’t like the cave at all. It’s so much better.Fuck,” Jim dropped his head back, eyes fluttering, “is this what you feel like?”
A pleased smile wormed onto Nathan’s face, but before he could reply, Alex came around the couch to step up next to Jim. “Jimmy…?” she called tentatively.
Walter and Shiarra had gotten up as well, standing in front of the couch watching.
Finger by finger, Jim released his hold on Nathan’s shirt, turning to look at Alex with a wide smile. He moved to her with sudden urgency and she flinched, though she didn’t try to back away.
“It’s okay,” Jim said, holding up his hands placatingly and then placing them gently on her shoulders. “I’m not hurt. I feel…great. Like everything’s clear again. Like nothing’s holding me back. I really think it’s going to be okay, Alex. Nathan’s not lying to us. It’s just hard to understand right now, that’s all.”
“Oh, God, juststop this,” Sasha sputtered before he even knew words were leaving him.
Finally, he could move again and he backed away quickly for the wall, moving along it toward the door. He couldn’t just leave when the others were still in there with Jim and Nathan, but he couldn’t stand to be near them anymore.
“What did you do to him?” Sasha demanded, eyes hard on Nathan, no matter how pained and confused Nathan made his expression look. “What do you want? Why are you doing this? Just tell us! If there’s nothing to be afraid of then why won’t youtell us…?” Sasha’s voice trailed, his back half against the wall and half along the open space at the door. He clutched the doorjamb, needing something to ground him since his legs felt so limp and boneless.
“Sasha…” Nathan said somberly.
“Calm down, it’s okay. You just don’t understand yet,” Jim said, his amber eyes vibrant, making it so hard for Sasha to look at either of them, Nathan’s eyes back to that red on black that he just hated,hated.
Sasha looked to Alex pleadingly, who still had Jim’s hands on her and looked like she didn’t know what to do. Sasha didn’t want to imagine Nathan doing what he had done to Jim to anyone else, changing them into a goddamn Stepford recruit. It sickened him to think Nathan had meant to do that to him.
He had no plan. He and Jim hadn’t come up with any plan, other than to keep their eyes open, find out as much as they could, and hope that whatever Nathan had meant for them to do to fix this would present itself. How were they supposed to do that if Nathan started infecting them and changing them to his image?
“Get everyone to bed, Jim,” Nathan said without taking his eyes off of Sasha, his expression cold and so verydisappointed. “They need the sleep.”
Sasha feared the worst when Nathan approached him. He waited for Nathan to touch his forehead like he had done to Jim, but he didn’t. Instead, Nathan walked up to Sasha, took his arm gently but firm, and began pulling him out of the lounge.
For a few moments Sasha was utterly dumb, silent and stumbling behind Nathan as he pulled him toward the stairs. He fought to regain some sense of self-preservation, of god damnconfidence, and finally tried to wrench his arm free from Nathan’s grip.
Nathan was just so much stronger now. He was some unstoppable being that was and was not Nathan all at the same time.
Sasha fought harder against Nathan’s hold, yanking his arm and dragging his feet to stall Nathan from pulling him wherever they were headed.
“Stop fighting me,” Nathan commanded in a voice that was strangely emotionless, cold. “I’m just taking you to our room. You need sleep too. Sleep will help clear your head.”
That didn’t sound reassuring. Sasha dropped as they reached the stairs, his knees caught against one of the steps like he was a child throwing a tantrum over being forced to bed. “I’m not going to bed with you,” Sasha said as he had before, the very idea of sharing a bed with this not-Nathan making his skin crawl.
Before in the library when they were still figuring this new Nathan out, Sasha had almost fallen for the charm, the promises, the way Nathan’s touch felt the same, his voice, his masked eyes, but the truth had been thrown right back in Sasha’s face—Wally hissing in warning, Nathan’s dismissal of it. This wasn’t Nathan. Itwasn’t.
