Page 133 of Changeling
Nathan did the only sensible thing he could think of, given the situation.
He reached for his gun.
Chapter 51
Nathanhadhisgunsteady and aimed in moments, allowing the door to close behind him with an unsuitably soft click.
“Get the fuck away from my brother.”
The redhead’s back went instantly rigid, his movements stilling as he pulled away from the body beneath him. Jim, however, didn’t seem to notice Nathan and whimpered at being neglected, his hands still pawing at the smooth marble chest, searching out some way to reconnect.
Although Sasha’s body had indeed tensed, he did not seem upset when his eyes turned and looked at Nathan with an unnatural light. He ignored Jim’s eager hands pulling and pleading for him to continue as a cruel grin curved at his mouth like the twist of a knife.
“Nathan,” purred Sasha’s voice from damp and reddened lips, “did you want to join us?”
“I said,” Nathan growled again, making a cautious half-circle around the bed to bring him closer to Jim, “get thefuckoff of him.”
As Nathan risked a glance at his brother, he saw Jim finally start to cease his reaching for Sasha, his face twisting in recognition and growing horror as he looked more closely at the redhead and realized the position he was in as if he had been in a daze. His eyes were glossy and unfocused when he turned to look at Nathan in mute shock.
“Jim, come here,” Nathan commanded. He kept his gun on Sasha with one hand while the other reached for Jim.
The older Grier looked as though he was going to be sick. “N-Nathan…?” Jim slurred—not like he was exhausted, but as if he’d been drinking, or drugged.
“Hn,” Sasha’s voice huffed, pulling Nathan’s attention back on him. “Just like that? You didn’t even pause to think about it,Nathan. You just point your gun at me, all the faith in the world still resting in dear, big brother Jim. What,” he said with that wicked smirk, “don’t you have any faith inmeanymore?”
“Fuck off,” Nathan sneered, both hands on his gun again as he took a threatening step closer to the bed. “You’re not Sasha. Sasha wouldn’t do this. And totally blitzed or drugged or whatever happened while I was gone, Jim would never mojo Sasha into bed, even as a fucking accident from too much to drink. So you get away from him right now and tell me who you are and what thefuckyou’ve done with my incubus.”
As soon as the imposter grinned wider and stepped a foot off the bed obligingly, Nathan reached a hand forward to snatch Jim up off the bed too. Jim’s limbs weren’t cooperating though, and he toppled into Nathan. Nathan was able to keep them both steady and on their feet by sheer will.
The thing wearing Sasha’s face looked so damn smug it made Nathan want to shoot it out of spite. He shouldn’t have left Jimand Sasha alone, he knew better than that. Something must have happened while he was gone; maybe the real Sasha went off on his own and this look-alike took his place, he didn’t know, but he knew better than to be fooled.
“I-I’m…s-sorry, Nathan,” Jim mumbled into Nathan’s shoulder, shaking and barely able to stand even with Nathan’s support, “I didn’t…mean to. I’d never…I…I-I don’t…know what happened.”
“It’s okay, Jim,” Nathan hushed him, only one hand holding the gun again so he could keep an arm around Jim’s waist and hold him up. He hugged Jim against him. “Where is Sasha?” Nathan demanded of the imposter.
Sasha’s voice chuckled in malicious amusement.
Nathan tightened his finger on the trigger. “Where is he?”
“You’re looking at him.”
Holding Jim tighter, Nathan managed to take just one small step closer. “You asshole. Don’t think I’ll hesitate to shoot you.”
“Oh? Go ahead,” Sasha’s voice taunted. “But I think we both know this is the one body you won’t shoot.”
Nathan faltered. While trying to play out scenarios in his head and think of a further plan of action, he suddenly felt dead weight in his arms and almost got taken right to the floor. He looked to Jim and saw that his brother’s eyes were fluttering like he was close to passing out. Nathan tried to keep his gun pointed at the bastard with them, but he had to check on Jim. He used his free hand to look more closely at Jim’s eyes, barely able to hold Jim up anymore.
His pupils were blown.
“What did you do to him?” Nathan shifted Jim in his arms to better hold him and looked back to the man with Sasha’s face.
“Well, I knew he couldn’t sense me, but that didn’t mean I wanted to put up with all those other…more annoying abilities. That would have just been careless.” Sasha’s pants had beenpulled up but they were still unbuttoned and unzipped, left open to reveal red boxer briefs beneath, like this stranger couldn’t be bothered to do them up again.
Nathan wanted to rush the bastard, but he didn’t know for sure what he was dealing with. Before he could say anything else, Jim suddenly dropped, fully collapsing in his arms so that the weight of Jim brought him straight to the floor hard on his knees. Nathan hissed and cursed himself for not being able to support his brother better.
“Jim!” he called, smoothing back Jim’s hair to search for signs of consciousness.
He was out.
