Page 23 of Sidhe
“I’m sure,” Nathan scoffed. He wanted to move. He was certain he had almost gathered enough strength to move more than just an arm, and Malak grazing her fingers where she had no right to touch only fueled him further.
“We’ll be one perfect being, Nathan, don’t you understand?”
“So this is what? Masturbation?”
Again, the sidhe laughed. “It’s inevitable, Nathan. You’ll choose me eventually. Some act. Some choice. So why not make it now? All the fear and pain, you’ll never have to feel that again, and the ones you love will always be safe, always by your side. I promise. Say yes, Nathan. You know you already belong to me.” Malak dragged a hand over the contours of Nathan through his boxers, like he was property—like she owned him.
Nathan grabbed both of Malak’s wrists fiercely. Using all of his body to back him, he pushed upwards, forcing her to fall back on her ass between his legs. Malak’s eyes were startled but pleased when Nathan pressed down against her.
“Is this what I’m supposed to do?” he said through clenched teeth, fire in his eyes, even if they were black, and all the confidence he could muster filling him as he ground down into Malak challengingly. “Huh? Like this? Taking charge, showing you what kind ofkingI would be?”
“Oh yes, Nathan,” Malak all but moaned, shifting her hips beneath him. “The power is yours if you’ll only take it. Come on then,” she arched up into him again, her legs spreading eagerly beneath her black dress, as she whispered, “claim what’s yours.”
From the deepest part of Nathan, he shuddered. All the pressure was gone. He was no longer under Malak’s thrall. He didn’t have to do a thing she said. But even he couldn’t deny that he was tempted. Briefly he wondered what it would be like if he accepted Malak’s offer and she was actually telling the truth. All that power, him still in his right mind, all those he loved at his side fighting with him to bring about the world he saw fit.
But when the hell had Nathan ever been good at knowing what he wanted? If he didn’t know what he wanted for himself, how could he decide for everyone else? He wanted peace, he did, something he had only ever felt fleetingly, but he knew better than to believe Malak was the one who could give him that.
“Do you think I’m an idiot?” Nathan glared at those smug yellow on black eyes. “Fool me once, youfucker.” He pulled back and jerked Malak upright. “Fool me twice, because you’re a low son of a bitch for using what I love against me. But you areneverfooling me again.” Nathan let one of Malak’s wrists go just long enough to pull back and punch her clean across the jaw. Malak knocked back against the door, her head smacking into the window with a crack.
Nathan’s satisfaction over the sight of his adversary sprawled in the backseat was brief, however, because when the sidhe turned her eyes on Nathan again, they crackled with electricity. Malak snarled, shifting once more into the male form with blond hair and red on black eyes, and something shimmered across his face like a shadow of rows upon rows of fangs.
In hindsight, punching the king of all dark fae might not have been the best idea.
The shadows of the car seemed to flock to Malak, filling him and making him look large and monstrous, like he had wings as big as Sasha’s and they were ready to burst the roof right off the car. He growled and grew with palpable power, his blond andsuit-clad form at the core of what was really a great beast filling the space around him.
Trembling despite himself, Nathan scrambled away until his back hit the other door. Even this image of Malak had beauty to it, radiant with so much power, but what might have been light once was the deepest absence of it now, making Nathan so scared that it choked him. He was going back to the Veil. Malak would take him and he would have to relive those horrors all over again.
“Nathan Grier, you thinkyoucan denyme?” asked a great echoing rumble of a voice.
No, he couldn’t go back, he couldn’t go back. But even as Nathan thought that, he knew he still would. He would if it was the only choice he had instead of giving in to what Malak wanted.
“Damn right I can deny you,” Nathan said, this time without an ounce of fear. “My answer is still no, you goddamn son of a bitch.”
A howl left Malak’s lips, his mouth still shimmering with what looked like sharpened teeth. Then he seemed to grow larger, filling the whole car, and Nathan knew that it was over. Malak leapt for him, but just before reaching him it was as if he struck some unseen barrier that knocked all that darkness and excess power right out of him. Malak tumbled back, just a man in a suit, his eyes even that feigned blue.
The cry that left Malak split the night, so loud and piercing that Nathan had to cover his ears and curl in on himself to stand it. When the sound suddenly stopped and Nathan looked up again, he only caught the briefest glimpse of a snarling expression before the sidhe vanished in a shock of fizzling light.
Immediately, the car pitched, spinning wildly off the road without a driver. Nathan tumbled down between the seats.
Shit.
Chapter 9
Scramblingquicklytocrawlinto the front, Nathan reached ahead for the wheel before he was even halfway out of the backseat. He caught it and the car jerked as it tried to steady, spitting up gravel along the lack of shoulder. Somehow Nathan managed to turn the car straight again so that it hit smooth asphalt and didn’t tumble into the ditch. Dying would have been a very cruel twist of fate.
Slowly, Nathan finished pulling himself into the front seat until he was sitting comfortably again.
Comfortably. Right.
He glanced down at his lap and saw cotton, his pants bunched around his thighs. He tried to just shimmy back into them without thought, but the reality of everything that had happened bore down on Nathan like lead rain. He pulled his pants up, but he had to pull over before he could properly fasten them as bile rose in his throat. Nathan opened his door and dry-heaved downat the road. He hadn’t eaten anything in so long, his stomach didn’t have anything to throw up.
He spit and coughed, his eyes watering from the effort. He groped for a water bottle in the glove box and rinsed his mouth even though nothing had really left him. After he was at least a little more certain that Malak wasn’t about to appear again in the rearview mirror, and his slight trembling was more under control, he zipped his pants, slammed his door shut, and pulled back onto the road.
It was then that he realized his car’s swerving and his own unthinking driving immediately after had pulled him off onto an exit. The sign that said what lay ahead was behind him, but Nathan could see the faint glimmer of lights down the road. It wasn’t much, maybe a truck stop. That would do for now. Nathan couldn’t drive anymore. He needed somewhere a little more solid to sit a while and think.
The place came into view, a truck stop/restaurant/something in the middle of nowhere with its sign blinking bright blue‘Dave’s.’There wasn’t a single car in the parking lot, and for a minute Nathan thought the whole thing was a bust, but the place was lit up like Christmas and sure as helllookedopen. He parked, a hand gripping his ankle blade as he neared the building, tucked into his coat for easier access.
“Hello?” he called tentatively when he went through the unlocked door. There wasn’t anyone immediately visible. The place looked more like an old diner inside, a little 50s style, even including an old jukebox in the corner playing Country. “Hey!” Nathan called again. “Anyone here?”
