Page 122 of Incubus
Jim’s command was extreme enough that Nathan retained full consciousness of what he was doing but had no control over his traitorous limb as it started to lift. Nathan still had the gun he had been pointing at Gabriel—hammer ready, fully loaded. He tried to fight Jim’s message of control but Jim’s intent had never been stronger. Jim didn't even really need words. He had gotten Gabriel to shoot himself with sheer will.
There were only a few yards separating Nathan from his brother. He wouldn’t miss if he fired.
No, Nathan screamed inside his head, unable to actually speak.Don’t shoot! Stop! It’s Jim!But Nathan’s arm wouldn’t listen. It continued to raise, his finger tight on the trigger, the gun leveling and aiming right at Jim’s head.
BANG, Nathan thought with a cringe of anguish.
“I’m sorry,” Jim said, so sorrowful and obviouslyJimregardless of any darkness or slit eyes that Nathan knew this couldn’t be the answer.
Jim closed his eyes.
Nathan’s mind-controlled hand squeezed the trigger.
The force of the gun firing made Nathan gasp. Or maybe it was the impact of suddenly being on his back, flat on the floor with a too heavy weight on top of him. Nathan strained to focus his eyes. His chest was searing and the world wouldn’t stop spinning around him. Slowly, he began to make out blue veins and a pale neck that was covered in cuts.
Sasha.
Nathan’s gun was sandwiched between them. With no easy or obvious way to stop Nathan, the incubus had thrown himself on top of him, catching the bullet with his own body.
Distantly, Nathan heard Jim calling to them, but right now the last person Nathan wanted to listen to was his brother. He searched frantically in his brain to remember what bullets were in his gun.
“Sasha?” Nathan said, pushing his friend’s body carefully to the side and off of him. Nathan could hardly move after the aggravation the impact had caused to his own wounds, and he had completely bled through the T-shirt wrapped around his chest. “Sasha?” he said again.
Bloodshot and heavily veined blue eyes blinked up at Nathan. The bullet would have gone all the way through but, as Nathan looked at the hole in Sasha’s stomach, he saw the skin slowly closing up, healing on its own and leaving Sasha no worse than he had been before. Whatever the bullets were, they weren't iron.
“What the hell were you thinking?” Nathan choked out.
“Had to…s-stop you,” Sasha said. “Can’t…lose either of you.”
Nathan knew the feeling. He looked up past Sasha to glare at Jim across the room. At least Jim looked stricken and ashamed, having finally noticed just how hurt both Sasha and Nathan were, and staring worriedly at Nathan’s blood-soaked chest.
Movement caught Nathan’s attention and he looked back at Sasha to find the incubus starting to crawl and scramble over to Jim.
“Why?” Sasha said, his face anguished as he moved. “Why would you…do that? Nathan…risked everything for you. How could you…toss your life away…like that means nothing?”
“Why?” Jim repeated, bitterness quickly returning to his words. “Thisis why!” He slammed a fist against the invisible barrier at the edge of the trap. “It’s only a matter of time before there’s no me left. There’s dark fae blood in me, tainting me, I always knew that. And it’swinning.”
“Dark fae…blood?”
Sasha had reached the runes on stumbling feet and finally collapsed inside the trap to land against Jim, completely at his body’s limit after pushing himself so hard. Sasha looked up at Jim, both of them clinging to each other for support, and Jim’s face was twisted with turmoil.
“I have more dark fae blood in me than you,” Sasha said.
He pushed Jim forcefully away from him and fell, barely catching himself with his hands as he hit the ground hard. Immediately, Sasha lifted one arm up and struck out toward the trap’s edge. He met the same barrier as Jim.
At first, Nathan was confused. He looked over his shoulder at the trap he and Sasha had been in together. The marred paint was clearly visible where Nathan had kicked it. He had broken Sasha free from the trap without even realizing it.
Sasha was an incubus—dark and light fae combined.
“See…?” Sasha’s trembling voice drifted across the room. “Dark fae blood…doesn’t meanyouhave to be dark. It doesn’tmean evil. You choose that yourself. Unless…you want Nathan to shoot me too.”
Jim’s eyes clenched tight against Sasha’s words and a choked sound left him just as a few stray tears streamed down his face. He fell down beside Sasha, pulling the incubus’ fragile body into a fierce embrace, the two of them crumbled there inside a trap neither could escape.
“I’m sorry,” Jim said, his dark blue eyes opening, no longer slit, and lifting to look at Nathan.
Not good enough, Nathan thought, and he hoped his own eyes said that clearly.
He fought to push up onto his feet. His chest was on fire and his steps swayed when he finally started to move. Approaching the trap slowly, Nathan feebly pressed a hand into his now freely bleeding wounds through the T-shirt.
