Page 13

Matty

M atty stopped short at the bottom of the stairs.

Sascha’s entryway was pristine.

No dead body, no broken glass, not a sliver of splintered wood to be found. The floor even looked cleaner than before, the hardwood almost sparkling in the early morning light.

Matty felt more than heard Nightmare come up behind him.

“You doubted me, little human?”

Matty shivered as that low rasp caressed the back of his neck. He hadn’t doubted his demon at all, but seeing the reality of it was different. It also begged the question—had Nightmare’s shadows eaten the dead man?

It probably didn’t matter. Either way, Matty didn’t want to know. The body was gone, and that was enough.

“Your shadows did a very good job,” Matty admitted grudgingly.

Nightmare let out a low chuckle behind him, and a weight settled on Matty’s shoulder, followed by a tickling touch on his cheek.

Had one of Nightmare’s shadows just kissed him?

Matty sighed, reaching sightlessly behind him to grab Nightmare’s hand and tug the demon into the kitchen. It was too hard to hold on to a bad mood when adorable, murderous shadow monsters were distributing cheek kisses.

It was a shame though. Matty had really intended to grump around for a bit, at least until his better sense got the best of him.

He’d woken up disturbingly well rested. He’d been wrapped around Nightmare again, both of them clearly aroused, and Nightmare had just…

let Matty get up and get started on his day.

He hadn’t asked for a hand, or offered Matty one, or alluded to the night before at all.

And Matty had been too nervous to do it himself.

But he’d wanted to. He’d really, really wanted to.

Nightmare had been so big and warm against him, and Matty had wanted to…

slide around on him. Under him? On top of him?

Or something. He wasn’t sure, exactly, but it probably would have involved rubbing on or rubbing off the demon. Rubbing of some kind, definitely.

But no rubbing had been offered, and thus had come the grumping.

Matty sat Nightmare down at the kitchen table, placing him in the oversized chair Kai usually chose. Then he set to work toasting his day-old blueberry muffin, since Nightmare didn’t seem to have any interest in “sampling the local flavor.”

He could feel Nightmare’s eyes on him, watching Matty in that unblinking way he had. The way that made Matty feel like nothing could ever escape Nightmare’s notice.

“What distresses you, sweet?”

There it was.

“Nothing,” Matty lied, peeking out of the corner of his eye to see how well that untruth landed.

Nightmare cocked his head. He’d disappeared his antlers again during the night, but they were back now. That was good—Matty had missed them. “I left not a trace of blood.”

“Clearly.”

Matty’s snark was met with silence, and Matty didn’t attempt to fill it.

He was all weird and itchy and uncomfortable in his own skin.

He wasn’t used to playing the brat. He wouldn’t have survived it in his old life and he was too scared of losing everything to try it in his new one.

But he was…irritated. And he didn’t even know why. And that was doubly irritating.

“I do desire your touch, sweet.”

Matty froze at the counter, a tub of butter in hand. “You do?” he asked, not daring to turn around just yet.

“Did I not tell you I came to this realm with selfish pursuits in mind?”

Matty frowned down at the counter. “Some would say actions speak louder than words.”

“And what about my actions do you find displeasing?”

“I’m not sure,” Matty hedged.

He really wasn’t. He knew enough to know he was being unreasonable. He wasn’t owed Nightmare jumping his bones at every opportunity. No one was ever owed the touch of another being.

But Matty wasn’t used to wanting things.

His life before had been about survival.

Avoidance. And now he’d summoned this demon to his side and the demon was bigger and scarier than anything Matty had ever seen and Matty wanted him to stay .

And he wanted him closer. And he maybe wanted to crawl under Nightmare’s skin and fuse them together so Nightmare couldn’t ever leave.

It was terrible, this wanting.

And possibly not very normal.

But Matty would worry about that part later.

Matty finally summoned the courage to turn around, only to find Nightmare leaning forward in his seat, his taloned hands clasped on the kitchen table. He looked so strange and out of place in this quaint New England kitchen. Tall and gaunt and gray, his antlers wreathed in shadow.

“We have a task to complete, Matteo,” Nightmare told him, his raspy voice as gentle as it was capable of. “I need you to aid me in finding Dominico Caruso.”

Matty bit his lower lip, only distantly aware that at some point his wounded skin seemed to have healed. “So you can leave?”

“So I can keep you.”

The hope those words induced was sharp and painful, so Matty ignored it, choosing instead to butter his muffin in silence and bring it to the table.

Nightmare grasped Matty’s wrist when he was within reach. “How do I find Dominico?”

After a moment of deliberation, Matty motioned for Nightmare to scoot back from the table, then took a seat on his lap. If they were going to be talking about terrifying things, Matty wanted to be as close as possible to his terrifying demon. “I don’t know.”

“Who does?”

Matty thought it over. “Ivan, maybe. Sascha’s brother. He’d be keeping track of Luca’s key players.”

“Ivan Kozlov. The incubus’s mate.”

Matty twisted to look back at Nightmare. “How do you know that?”

“Call him,” Nightmare ordered brusquely, completely ignoring Matty’s question.

Matty looked down to his muffin. If he ate slowly enough, he could delay things by…twenty minutes? He’d need to chew really thoroughly though. Crumb by crumb.

“ Now , Matteo.”

Matty sighed, reaching across the table to where he’d set his phone earlier. He pressed Ivan’s contact, mildly shocked when Ivan picked up promptly.

“Matteo Caruso,” Ivan greeted in his cold, monotone voice. “Did you change your mind about the babysitter?”

A lot of people found Ivan pretty scary. His name was whispered with fear in plenty of circles; Matty knew that much. And Matty even got it—he really did. Ivan was a cold and intimidating mob boss, and Matty had only ever seen him smile for his gorgeous incubus mate.

But also, a couple months ago, during one of his visits, Ivan had walked up to Matty—nestled in blankets on the couch, fighting back tears as he selected another horror movie to keep himself awake—and apropos of nothing, had told him, “The kind of men who raised us, they should never have been in charge of children. Fuck them.”

And then he’d walked away without another word.

So overall, Matty thought Ivan was pretty okay.

“No, um…I haven’t changed my mind about the babysitter. I have a request.”

“Sascha isn’t giving you enough funds?”

Before Matty could reassure Ivan that Sascha was more than generous with funds, he heard Nix’s voice in the background. “Ohh, is that Matty? Put him on video call! I want to see the little chickadee.”

Ivan let out a loud, put-upon sigh, but he also immediately did as his incubus asked, so the sigh seemed more like a performance than anything else.

Matty accepted the video call, smiling shyly when the screen revealed Nix’s beautiful face in front of Ivan’s, sly grin included.

The grin fell in an instant.

“By the Book,” Nix whispered, his pretty purple eyes wide and focused on the demon behind Matty. And then, much louder, “Holy fucking dick and balls!”

“What is it?” Ivan tilted the phone toward himself, presumably so he could see what had Nix so surprised. His lips thinned. “Who is that?”

Nix snatched the phone back, his brow furrowed in an uncharacteristically serious expression. He cocked his head, his long red ponytail swishing behind him. “Matty, little darling, are you doing okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“And can you perchance see the infernal creature lurking behind you?”

Matty turned around with a start, but there was only Nightmare, still seemingly content to be used as Matty’s chair, staring at Matty’s phone without any particular expression.

Matty turned back to Nix. “Of course I can see him. I summoned him.”

His words didn’t seem to reassure Nix at all, and now Ivan was looking decidedly cranky. “As I currently have the Book in my possession, how did you summon him, Matteo?”

“Dominico Caruso,” Nightmare interjected, and though his voice was quiet, it halted any other discussion immediately. “Where is he?”

Nix murmured something that sounded like, “Best to answer him, darling,” and Ivan’s jaw clenched.

“I don’t know.”

When Nightmare said nothing more to him, Nix started making crazy motions with his eyebrows, and Ivan added, “Cooper has gathered some surveillance data. Nothing he nor I would be comfortable sending over digitally.”

“I can’t come to New York,” Matty told him immediately.

“Can’t or won’t?” Ivan asked icily.

“Won’t.”

Even with Nightmare at his side, Matty wouldn’t do it. And he knew it made him cowardly and stupid, and he didn’t care. New York was Dominico’s territory. Matty would be staying far, far away.

Ivan gave him a single sharp nod. “Give me a moment, then.” He stepped away, and Matty could see him in the background, picking up his office phone.

Nix gave Matty a strange sort of smile. “It’s always lovely to see you, Matty, but let me talk to Nightmare for a minute, hm?”

Without you present were the unspoken words.

Matty slipped off Nightmare’s lap and took a seat at the other side of the table. He could only hear vague murmuring on Nix’s side of things—apparently the brash incubus could be quiet when he wanted to be—but Nightmare said nothing.

When Matty’s demon finally did speak, his raspy voice was colder and crueler than Matty had ever heard it. “I don’t answer to you, incubus. Interfere at your own risk.”

And that seemed to be that, because Nightmare put the phone down on the table, and Matty had to slide back over onto his lap to reach it.

He found Ivan back on the other end, Nix nowhere to be found. “Cooper and his demon can meet you in Portland,” Ivan told Matty without preamble.

Matty winced. “Or we can just wait for the next time you vis—”

“We will meet them,” Nightmare said.

“I’ll let them know.” Ivan was shamelessly studying Nightmare now, his expression blank. He looked so similar to Sascha—who was always vibrant and occasionally mercurial—that it was always strange to see that same face so unanimated. “Is this a permanent sort of—?”

“Yes,” Nightmare answered, and then he put the phone face down on the table again.

Apparently he was done with talking. Although, he didn’t actually press any button to end the call, so hopefully Ivan would take care of that on their end.

Maybe Matty wasn’t the only one in a grumpy mood this morning.

Nightmare shifted Matty further back onto his lap, wrapping an arm around his middle. His shadows pulled Matty’s plate closer. “Eat your muffin, sweet.”

So apparently they were going to Portland. To get information they needed to find the person Matty most dreaded ever having to see again. So Nightmare could complete the contract they’d made.

Matty bit into his muffin with a scowl.

Yeah, this morning was the actual worst.