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Matty twisted in his restraints to frown down at the slumped form. “He’s not dead already, is he?”

“No, sweet.” Nightmare glided forward, slicing through the ties so Matty could sit up on the gurney.

“Okay, that’s good.” And for some reason Matty was shaking again, his teeth chattering loud enough to be heard in the quiet. “You s-said he w-would hurt. You p-promised.”

Nightmare’s limbs were still eerily long, his talons more claws than fingers, but his grip on Matty as he lifted him off the gurney was the gentlest touch Matty had ever felt. “And he will.”

There was something in Nightmare’s voice that Matty had never heard before: a barely contained rage that in anyone else would have sent Matty scrambling. But this was Nightmare, so it only made Matty cling tighter.

“You’re trembling, little mate.”

“I kn-know. I c-can’t stop. B-But I knew you w-would come for me. I kn-knew .”

Nightmare’s shadows draped around Matty like a cloak, and suddenly Matty was so perfectly warm.

His shaking didn’t cease entirely, but it lessened.

Nightmare set Matty on a chair, and then that skull face was pressed to Matty’s, forehead to forehead.

His demon smelled like smoke and safety and the faintest hint of death.

Matty breathed in deep. “Where are we?” he asked.

“Some business for sale. In the back room.”

“Will we be interrupted?”

“No, sweet.”

Matty let out his breath, then leaned back in the chair. He watched as Nightmare set Dominico on the gurney where Matty had just been strapped. Watched as Nightmare shrank back down to the tall, slender demon form Matty knew best.

“Is he just…asleep?” Matty asked.

“He passed out.” Nightmare returned to Matty’s side. “I may have been overzealous with the venom.”

“You were hurt,” Matty said, suddenly remembering that flash of pain.

“Just a touch.”

Matty glared at him, relief and some other overwhelming emotion making him tetchy. “It was more than that. I felt it.”

Nightmare slipped his hand into Matty’s, squeezing tightly. “I’m unharmed.”

So they waited, their hands clasped together. They didn’t speak anymore, at least for now. Nightmare seemed to sense Matty’s need for silence, wrapped in this little pocket of time before his long-awaited retribution.

Finally, Dominico stirred. He groaned, his eyelids fluttering. He turned his head toward them, his gaze widening almost comically as he took in the sight of Nightmare at Matty’s side.

And while Matty might not have been able to eat fear like Nightmare did, he could almost swear in that moment he tasted it on the air.

“Dominico, this is my Scary,” Matty said, as pleasant as could be, making his introductions. “Scary, this is the man who tortured me. The one who wanted to own me. The one who thought he could take my life in the most painful way possible and then desecrate my corpse.”

Dominico jerked, his entire back lifting off the gurney with the effort to escape. But there were shadows on each of his limbs, holding him in place. “My demon—”

“Your demon is dead,” Nightmare interrupted in a deadly rasp. “Your men are gone. There’s only you, Dominico Caruso. Friendless. Powerless.” He stretched and lengthened again, back to his spidery nightmare form, his sharp fangs bared in a vicious grin. “Doomed.”

Matty watched the pulse throb in Dominico’s neck as Nightmare approached the gurney in a silent glide. He watched that same pulse skitter and skip beats as Nightmare began Matty’s retribution, neatly and carefully slicing into Dominico’s flesh.

Dominico didn’t scream at first, not even when Nightmare began using his talons to recreate every single one of Matty’s many scars.

He whimpered, yes. Grunted. Groaned. But he didn’t yell out.

Matty could even give the man credit for that, if that sort of meaningless display of toughness meant anything to him.

But when the shadows came into play? When they flooded Dominico’s senses and began playing with his disgusting mind in the same way Nightmare played with his disgusting body?

Then Dominico screamed loud enough to wake the dead.

It took hours for Dominico to die.

Matty barely blinked at all during that time, his eyes so dry by the end that it was starting to get painful. But he didn’t want to miss a moment.

And he didn’t, did he? He watched every single second of Nightmare’s torture.

But then the last scream turned to a gurgle, and that gurgle turned to silence, and finally Matty closed his eyes, tears slipping out from beneath his lashes.

It was done.

His ghosts were finally gone, sent back to the wretched hell they’d come from.

Warmth and smoke enveloped him.

Matty opened his eyes to find Nightmare kneeling in front of him. He’d returned to his usual demon form, the skull mask gone away again to the ether. Matty could just make out his shadows behind him in the dark, cleaning up the blood and gore.

And until this moment of overwhelming, debilitating relief, Matty hadn’t realized the fear still hiding in his mind. The fear that Nightmare really would disappear when Dominico was gone and their contract ended, even with the bond in place.

But he was still here, Matty’s demon. He was still Matty’s.

Nightmare pushed back a lock of Matty’s hair. He stroked his cheek with his lovely, warm hand.

Maybe Matty wouldn’t need a hundred showers to feel clean again after all.

“Time to go home, Matteo,” Nightmare rasped, the bridled rage finally gone from his voice. He’d worked it all out on Dominico’s bloody body, Matty supposed.

“Okay, Scary.”

Matty was feeling strong enough to walk now, but Nightmare made a move to lift him from the chair anyway.

Matty held out a hand. “Wait.”

And Nightmare waited.

Matty had been thinking during these many hours together, making the man who’d hurt him so badly hurt just as badly in turn. He’d been thinking, and he had something to say, and he wanted to say it now, before the exhaustion of the night caught up with him.

Matty clasped his hands in his lap, meeting Nightmare’s glowing white gaze.

“I don’t know what makes a person good or bad or evil, exactly.

That compass in me—if I ever had one—got messed up a long time ago.

I know I don’t like seeing innocent people hurt.

And I know you don’t feel the same. You don’t care, which is maybe supposed to worry me.

But you care if I hurt. You care about that more than anything else. And I’m selfish enough to want that.”

“Good,” Nightmare told him immediately. “Be selfish. Take all of me.”

“I will,” Matty said. “And I know that’s enough for you. That you’d be happy if I took and took and never gave you anything in turn. But I still want you to know that I love you.”

Matty placed a hand on Nightmare’s chest, right on the spot where he felt the bond strongest in his own.

“Maybe you can already feel that. And maybe you already know the way I feel when I’m with you.

Safe and whole, like you patch up my little broken bits, and they’re not suddenly fixed, but they’re not falling through the cracks anymore either.

But I wanted to say it anyway.” Matty dug his fingers harder into Nightmare’s chest—hard enough to hurt.

“I think I’ve loved you since that very first time you caught me in my dreams, back when I thought you were a figment of my imagination.

When I had no idea you were coming to keep me. ”

Nightmare’s white eyes weren’t just glowing anymore—they were shining. The shadow blanket tightened against Matty’s skin, and Nightmare pressed his hand against Matty’s chest in turn, his touch as gentle as ever. “You are my soul, Matteo, and whatever heart I have is yours to own.”

Matty slumped his head forward, pressing against the back of his hand on Nightmare’s chest. “Good. I meant it. I want it all.”

“And you have it.” Nightmare’s arms came around Matty, lifting him in a bridal carry. “Come, sweet. Let’s wash away this night.”