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Evan startled, completely forgetting the red-clad figure looming behind him. People passing by on the sidewalk eyed Xen, some amused, others confused, but they stared nonetheless. Why wouldn’t they? Xen was a sight to behold.

In contrast with his blood-red suit, Evan was in all black, like a thorn in a rose.

Irritated for some reason, he snapped, “Like who?”

Xen tilted his head, trying to catch Evan’s eyes. “Celie Blackwood.”

Evan’s gait faltered. He glanced at Xen, who was staring at him with such focused intensity that a faint burn stirred up Evan’s cheeks.

“She’s my sister,” he grumbled. “Of course I like her.”

Xen didn’t speak, but his brows slightly furrowed as he straightened again, eyes narrowed at the ground. He went back to brooding again.

What was his problem? And what the hell was that reaction?

Evan stole more than a few peeks at Xen but couldn’t read his mind at all.

Speaking of reading minds…

“Oh, I believe we have some things to discuss of our contract, in detail,” Evan prompted, pocketing his hands. “I mean the blood bond.”

Xen’s brows remained knitted, eyes boring into the shadows at his feet. “What would you like to discuss?”

Oh. That was easy.

Wait, that was too easy.

“Benefits,” Evan sent a skeptical glare sideways at Xen. “I’m not your servant. You called it a bloodbond,right? Not a slavery contract. Then why do I not get anything out of thisbond? What’s in it for me? And don’t you dare tell me you allowing me to have my soul is the benefit—”

“What do you want?”

Evan blinked. “Huh?”

A faint red glint flitted through his dark eyes, alight with amusement and something else, something secretive. “I’ll do anything you ask of me,” he murmured, words laced with an unspoken intent. “You need only say the word.”

A sharp exhale squeezed Evan’s lungs as heat crept up his face. Warm. Unwelcome. He clenched his jaws, detesting thebeating organ in his chest that had suddenly forgotten how to work steadily.

Xen was deadly gorgeous, and he was well aware of it. And more often than not, he used it to his advantage against Evan.

God, for the zillionth time in my life, I wish I was straight.

“I’ll think about it,” Evan cleared his throat, adjusting the collar of his coat over the heated skin of his nape, trying to regain his composure. “So, how do we go about digging up this trash you’re after?”

Xen’s lips twitched. “Relic.”

“Same difference. It’s unimportant to me, and I want it—along with you—out of my house. Just like trash.”

Out of the corner of his eyes, Xen’s head turned to Evan. But he didn’t retort.

Exactly when Evan had become so feisty as to argue with a demon and call him trash, he didn’t know. Maybe he was just trying to vent his nervousness on Xen before going home to his sister with a broad smile. He distractingly touched the dark strands falling into his eyes, then the ones tickling his nape.

I need a haircut.

As they crossed a junction and left the busy street behind, something warm grazed the side of Evan’s neck. The muscles around that patch of his skin tensed in surprise. He threw a deadly glare at Xen, who seemed indifferent as they walked.

A tendril of demonic energy caressed Evan’s throat, eerily resembling the shape of a hand, coiling through the overgrown locks of hair at his nape and toying with his coat collar. It was the same kind that he’d seen the night he’d first met Xen, with red sparks gleaming amidst the black mist. Like a piece of the galaxy of the demon realm.

The Shadow’s fingers bounced around him, adjusting his collar and playing with his hair, tickling him every now and then. After a while of secretly enjoying it, he huffed.