Page 16 of Calling Chaos (Demon Bound #3)

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Cooper

C ooper leaned against the restaurant’s kitchen counter, willing his weak knees to keep him standing.

The kitchen was several noticeable degrees colder than the main dining area, and the cool feel of the stainless steel was a refreshing contrast to his overheated back. He’d gotten weirdly sweaty during the mayhem, considering he hadn’t been doing any of the heavy lifting—sweaty but shivery at the same time.

Shock, probably.

Cooper had watched Chaos slice through a man’s chest today. Chaos had cackled afterward, delighted with himself. He was outside now, setting corpses on fire per Ivan’s orders.

You’re not afraid of me again, are you? he’d asked Cooper, the question sweetly hesitant.

Cooper should be. He definitely should be; he knew that much. He was used to violent men at this point—although they still made him nervous as hell—but the bloodshed today had been a little out of his league, hadn’t it? He’d seen someone shot before, but he’d never seen anyone rip a man’s throat out with his teeth.

Plus, after he’d seen that guy shot, Cooper had hidden in his house for a week, barely getting out of bed to use the bathroom.

So why wasn’t he running in the other direction right now?

A sudden silence had Cooper looking around the kitchen. Sascha and Kai were on a folding chair at the other end of the counter, Sascha curled up in Kai’s lap. Cooper wasn’t sure how the flimsy thing was holding both their weight—Kai alone was a massive dude. They’d been murmuring together quietly, but they’d stopped now. They were looking at him.

On a normal day, Cooper would have felt awkward as hell intruding on their moment, even if he hadn’t meant to at the time. But he’d needed to get away from the smell of smoke and blood, and he frankly didn’t have the energy to care about whether they minded his presence here.

“Coop?” Sascha asked, his pretty face scrunched in something that might have been concern. Funny, seeing as how he’d been the one who’d fainted.

“Yeah?” Cooper had to clear his throat when that one word came out thready and strange. He tried again. “Yes?”

“You’re shaking.”

“Oh.” Cooper shrugged. He’d already known that. “It’ll pass.”

Sascha’s frown deepened, but he didn’t push. Kai wasn’t looking at Cooper at all, too focused on Sascha in his lap. Kai looked human again now, but Cooper had seen his demon form earlier. He was giant. And blue. And he had tall horns and these wings that were nothing like the small, cute feathery ones Chaos had. Kai’s were big and leathery and…bat-like. Frightening.

But he looked at Sascha like he was some precious creature. One that needed to be cared for and tended to. It was similar to the way Chaos had looked at Cooper earlier when he’d tried to…comfort him? Was that what he’d been doing? Cooper had been too out of it at the time to register much. He’d only been able to think that, if Chaos touched him, he’d have broken down. Not because he was afraid of him, but because somehow, that manic little demon had become Cooper’s place of comfort. A safe place to fall apart.

Cooper took his glasses off while he thought, cleaning them against his shirt and replacing them to find Sascha still staring at him.

He tried to think of something to say. He settled on, “You never did like blood much.”

Sascha gave him a small, strained smile. “No.”

Kai let out a frustrated growl, the sound echoing through the kitchen as he smoothed Sascha’s pale hair away from his face. “We will not be doing this again. Ivan can handle his own messes from now on.”

Sascha let out a sigh, slumping against him. “No arguments from me, big guy.”

“You’re a…warrior demon?” Cooper found himself asking.

Kai finally deigned to look at him, nodding once. “I am.”

“You’ve spilled blood, then.”

Kai hadn’t spilled any at the meeting, too busy taking care of Sascha. But that didn’t mean his talons were exactly clean, not after what Ivan had said about Sergei.

Kai’s blue eyes gleamed. “Rivers of it.”

Cooper looked between the two of them—Sascha and Kai, human and demon. “I don’t get it.”

He really didn’t. What was a warrior demon doing with a human who fainted at the sight of blood? Cooper poked his fingers under his glasses to rub at his eyes as he asked his cousin, “You didn’t get enough of violent men already? The life you’ve led?”

Sascha straightened in Kai’s lap, as if affronted. “Kai isn’t some ‘violent man,’” he argued, shaping his fingers into air quotes. “He’s a…protector. My protector. He takes the violence for me, lets me close my eyes to it while he keeps me safe. At least until we can leave it behind for good.”

Well, yeah, that sort of sounded like a good deal. Cooper looked to Kai. “And what does Sascha give you, then?”

It was definitely the shock making Cooper open his mouth again and again. He would never normally pry into another couple’s life like this. By all rights, Kai should be telling him to shut the hell up and mind his own business.

But Kai answered, his voice a deep rumble, “Sascha gives me a reason. A purpose. He…anchors me.”

From what Chaos had said, that was what the mate bond was, in a way. A person becoming a demon’s anchor to the human realm. But Kai clearly didn’t mean it literally, judging by the look in his eyes. He meant something romantic. Soulful.

Was that what Chaos was looking for? His soul’s anchor, in more ways than one? Cooper couldn’t picture it. Chaos was wild and silly and sweet. What if he picked the wrong anchor? What if they tried to ground him too much, and they snuffed out what made him such a perfect menace?

As if reading Cooper’s mind, Sascha spoke again. “You summoned a demon too, didn’t you, Coop?”

“Yes.”

“Did you mean to?”

“No.”

Sascha gave him another smile, this one less strained. “Me neither.”

Cooper didn’t know what to say to that. It had obviously worked out well enough for Sascha. He hadn’t been left alone in the end.

Sascha frowned off into the distance. “Although, yours doesn’t seem to like me much.”

Kai growled again. “Ignore Chaos. He’s a brat.”

Defensiveness had Cooper narrowing his eyes at the demon. “He’s not,” he protested, even though Chaos kind of was. “He’s just protective.”

Kai cocked a brow. “He thinks Sascha would harm you?” he asked, making it clear how unlikely he found the concept.

“No. He’s just—I was just—” Cooper searched his brain for a way to talk about it without embarrassing himself and failed. He let out a breath, admitting, “I was lonely. He wants to blame someone. My family gets the short stick, I guess.”

Instead of seeming offended, Sascha gave Cooper a knowing, rueful look.

The thing was, other than being gay and adjacent to the Mafia, the two of them had nothing in common. Sascha had always like clubbing and shopping and reality TV. He’d been young enough when his mother had died that he barely remembered her, and he often seemed to forget exactly how Cooper was related to him, calling him a distant cousin. He wasn’t cruel, but whether he felt like acting charming or sullen seemed to turn on a dime.

Cooper was his nerdy, antisocial relative but definitely not a friend.

“You never liked blood much either,” Sascha eventually said.

Was he trying to get to an area of common interest? Not wanting to watch men get dismembered wasn’t the most solid basis for friendship Cooper had ever heard.

But Sascha continued, “You know, if you wanted to get away to, like, recover from the shock of all this, we have a place in Maine with extra rooms. Our housemate, Matty—I think you’d get along. He’s…quiet also.”

Kai made a vague, affirmative sound. “Leave Chaos here.”

Sascha swatted lightly at the big guy’s arm. “He can bring Chaos if he wants to.” He cast Cooper a sidelong look. “If— Are you—? You’re…together?”

“He’s my friend,” Cooper said simply. Then immediately complicated it by explaining, “He’s, um, trying to find the right human to bond with. Down the line. He’s with me until then.” He left it vague as to what being “with him” entailed, and Sascha and Kai exchanged an indecipherable glance.

“Well, either way, then,” Sascha eventually said. “Come visit. Stay a while. I didn’t mean to neglect you.”

Before Cooper could protest that Sascha wasn’t at fault, Chaos’s voice rang through the kitchen. “We’ll consider it,” he declared loudly, sounding all kinds of haughty but maybe slightly less acerbic toward Sascha than before.

He’d come in through the swinging door leading to the main room of the restaurant, and then suddenly he was right in front of Cooper.

“Come, puppy,” he said at a much quieter volume, his golden-yellow eyes boring into Cooper, their noses almost touching. As always, he smelled faintly of smoke, but it didn’t turn Cooper’s stomach the way the scent of the restaurant had. “Time to go home.”

“You’re done with…” Cooper trailed off, reluctant to finish his own sentence. “You’re done?”

“All done.” Chaos’s brow dropped into a scowl. “You’re still shivering.” He made it sound like an accusation, zipping up Cooper’s sweatshirt for him and pulling the hoodie over his head aggressively.

He grabbed Cooper’s hand, tugging him to the back exit, then stopped, looking over his shoulder at Sascha and Kai. “Your brother’s about to lose it,” he told Sascha. “Should be fun to watch, if you’re interested.”

Sascha heaved a sigh, rising from Kai’s lap. “What’s happened now?”

“Nix was sent back to the Void.”

Kai stood in a flash. “ What ?”

Chaos waved a hand, dismissing Kai’s shock. “Ivan’s getting him back already. Get out there if you want to see the show.” He turned, dragging Cooper behind him. “Puppy and I have places to be.”

Places to be apparently meant in Cooper’s bed, with Cooper tucked under a million blankets—more than he’d known he owned—sweating his balls off while Chaos insisted they all stay on until he’d “made a full recovery.”

Cooper wasn’t sure what Chaos’s version of a full recovery even was—it seemed to involve Cooper taking a nap. But that was kind of hard to do when Chaos was hovering over him, his fox eyes wide and unblinking.

“You didn’t like that,” Chaos finally said, after making Cooper finish yet another water bottle. It was the third one. At this rate, Cooper was going to have to get out of bed to pee long before he fell asleep.

Cooper licked the last drops from his lips, cheeks warming when Chaos’s eyes tracked the movement. “No. I told you I wouldn’t.”

Cooper had been to meetings before where men ended up dead. They were nothing like what had just happened in that restaurant—the abject terror and frantic chaos. But that was probably the thing about the supernatural and why Ivan had wanted a show of more than just the usual guns and muscle. It provoked a deeper, weirder kind of fear than what Mafia men were used to.

Cooper should have been paralyzed by it, that fear. More than he had been, at least. He should have tried to run from Chaos the moment he’d seen his demon slice through a man’s chest. But maybe Cooper’s history—the constant thrum of anxiety that already ran beneath his skin—had broken him in some way.

He still liked Chaos just fine. So what if he was a little scary? So was going to the grocery store.

Chaos nodded thoughtfully. “I’ll handle any meetings from now on. You’ll stay home and manage your computer work. There’s no need for you to do both.”

Should Cooper be offended that Chaos was declaring him unfit for duty? He was acting like it was a sure thing too, like he’d be around to handle the unpleasant side of Cooper’s work for the foreseeable future.

It was an odd echo of what Sascha had said about Kai, the way he used his naturally violent nature to protect Sascha from more of the same. But Kai was Sascha’s mate. And Chaos was…not that for Cooper.

Still, Cooper was too worn out to let the comparison hurt. He let it warm his chest instead. His demon did care for him, in his way. “Okay,” he said easily. “I’d rather stay home, anyway.”

Chaos continued to stare at him. Cooper stared back. Chaos finally spoke again. “Nix was taken back to the Void.”

Cooper blinked at him, his eyelids heavy. “So you said.” Should he be comforting Chaos? Was that why Chaos was acting a little strange, even for him? His friend had been taken away. That had to be painful.

But Chaos spoke again before Cooper could think of what to say. “It’s because he completed his contract before he could bond.”

He looked expectantly at Cooper, like that was a revelation.

Cooper let the words penetrate his tired and fuzzy brain. Oh. Chaos didn’t want to go back to the Void. And…he thought the same thing could happen to him? He was worried?

Cooper closed his eyes. Opened them again. “And you’re worried about that?” He tried to think of what would end their contract and came up blank. “What were our terms again?”

Chaos answered immediately, “I’m to be your friend until you no longer need one.”

“Oh.” Cooper let his muscles relax, settling him deeper into the mattress. He was still too hot, but it was kind of soothing now. He wasn’t sure if he was falling asleep or passing out, but he also wasn’t sure if it mattered—Chaos would watch over him either way. “Well, that’s no problem, then. I’m probably always going to need you to be my friend.” He gave Chaos a loopy grin. “I think maybe you made a bad deal, Bracchus.”

If Chaos felt that way, it didn’t show on his face. He only grinned back at Cooper, his sweet dimple flashing, and then settled next to him on the bed, on top of the covers. He laid his head on Cooper’s shoulder, a wonderful, warm weight. “Sleep, puppy. We’ll talk more after you’ve rested.”

Cooper let himself drift into oblivion.

He was safe here, with his demon.