Page 36

Nightmare

T he unfortunate drawback to claiming a sweet, wounded soul was that sweet, wounded souls inevitably attracted devoted companions.

And while Nightmare wanted nothing more than to carry Matteo upstairs to the bedroom and surround him with nothing that wasn’t Nightmare or his shadows—to go over every inch of Matteo’s tender skin and reassure himself it remained intact—there were obstacles in Nightmare’s way.

Living obstacles. And they were Matteo’s people, so Nightmare wasn’t allowed to murder them all for delaying him in his goals.

For Matteo, Nightmare would tolerate them. Even if Nightmare was currently…less steady than perhaps he should have been.

It didn’t matter that they’d planned for the possibility of Matteo being taken.

That knowledge hadn’t done anything to quell the bottomless rage and agony Nightmare had felt at finding Matteo in Dominico’s hold once again, that vile man’s hands and knives and the stench of his rotten soul surrounding him.

If it wouldn’t make Matteo cry, Nightmare would eviscerate Nix this very moment for losing him.

The other demons and their mates were gathered in the living room off the house’s entryway. Chaos was grinning maniacally from his position on the couch, for some reason wrapped in a multitude of blankets while his mate fussed around him, adding and removing pillows seemingly at random.

Kaisyir had cleansed himself of any traces of blood and was resting in one of the room’s oversize armchairs, holding Sascha in his lap with utmost tenderness.

Ivan and Nix were standing off to the side, Nix clasped tightly in his human’s arms, the tears running down the incubus’s face doing little to ease Nightmare’s ire with him.

The room was silent as Nightmare and Matteo entered. Matteo shifted in Nightmare’s arms, moving as if to climb down, and Nightmare tightened his hold.

Matteo looked up at him. “Scary, can I have a few minutes?”

Minutes were nothing to Nightmare. They were inconsequential segments of meaningless time, drops in the bucket of his extended lifespan. But he found himself requesting, “Five minutes only, sweet.”

Matteo pressed a cool kiss to his cheek. “Thank you.”

Nightmare lowered him gently to the living room floor. Matteo was still draped in Nightmare’s shadows, at least. They wouldn’t be leaving him anytime soon; they were just as unsettled by the events of the night as Nightmare was.

Because while it was true that, with the bond, Matteo hadn’t been in life-threatening danger from Dominico, the vision of him on that table…

It had been a glimpse of what might have been. What could have been, if fate hadn’t played out differently. If Nightmare had never found his Matteo in the dream realm. If Sascha and Kai hadn’t found him first, rescued a stranger without knowing what they were doing.

If none of that had happened, it would have been Matteo tied down in some dark room just like that, dying friendless and alone and in wretched, overwhelming pain.

And that thought, even hypothetical, was agonizing in a way Nightmare had never felt. It was ten times more excruciating than the pain demon’s venom, and Nightmare was just as helpless to fight against it.

He couldn’t take his eyes off Matteo. Couldn’t stop reassuring himself that his human was here and whole and brimming with life.

Matteo walked over to Sascha and Kaisyir first, grabbing Sascha’s hands and murmuring to them both.

He seemed to be apologizing for the mess he’d brought into their town, and Nightmare had to bite off his offended growl.

Matteo was shaken from his ordeal—if he wanted to make unnecessary apologies to undeserving parties, Nightmare would have to allow it.

Nightmare focused his gaze on Chaos, even as his attention remained on Matteo. “Aren’t you healed already?”

Chaos’s grin widened. “Of course,” he said happily, accepting a mug of something hot from Cooper. “But my puppy’s taking such pleasure in pampering me. I should get hurt more often.”

“ No ,” Cooper said fiercely, tucking the blankets tightly around Chaos’s legs. “You shouldn’t.”

Chaos laughed brightly, his head thrown back like Cooper had said something hilarious. “You see? He never tells me no. But he was so worried for me, he can’t help it.”

Nightmare watched as Matteo moved on to Ivan and Nix next. Nix was blubbering, apologizing for losing him, and Matteo was patting at his arm. “It was always the plan B, me getting captured,” he said softly. “It just happened in a different way than we expected.”

Ivan tucked Nix under his arm again, murmuring something in his ear, so softly that Nightmare couldn’t hear it, though it made Nix finally wipe away his tears as he leaned into his mate.

Ivan glared out at the room at large. “Nix did nothing wrong. It was chaos out there—we’re lucky he was able to get the others to safety. They might have been grabbed for extra collateral.”

No one argued—the others perhaps because they agreed, and Nightmare because he didn’t care enough to form the words. Not now that Matteo was back in his clutches.

Ivan’s cold gaze landed on Nightmare’s. “He’s gone, then? Dominico?”

“Bits and pieces,” Nightmare told him, unable to stop the curl of his lips at the thought. He’d be reliving the memories of Dominico’s screams over and over again in the coming days.

Ivan gave him an appraising look. “You could come in handy sometimes.”

Nightmare had no interest in being a mobster’s pet. He turned his attention to the wall, irritated by everyone’s presence all over again. “I serve at my mate’s pleasure.”

“And was it Matty’s pleasure to cut that man into bits and pieces?” Kaisyir asked with a decided note of hostility, rubbing Sascha’s back in soothing strokes when his human made a gagging noise at the question.

Nightmare sneered in the warrior’s direction.

Kaisyir had always struggled with foes he couldn’t vanquish with his fists or knives.

Had always been leery of Nightmare’s shadows and thirst for unconventional violence.

Surely that discomfort had been exacerbated tonight, with the pain demon’s arrival and the threat to his own mate.

“It was,” Matteo countered fiercely. Loudly. “It was my pleasure.”

All eyes turned to him, the little human draped in shadows from neck to ankle. He looked tired and lovely and vicious, and Nightmare wanted to kiss him until their mouths were bruised with the force of it.

“I wanted him to hurt,” Matteo said, each word deliberate. “I wanted him to die screaming. I’d ask Sarkaron to do it again a hundred times over if I could.”

He was met with silence, and then Chaos cackled. “I told you,” he said gleefully to the room at large. “Hardcore.”

No one else said a word.

“My five minutes are up,” Matteo announced, lifting his arms into the air. Nightmare swooped in and lifted him, heading to the house’s staircase without another thought to the rabble.

The weight of Matteo in his hold again soothed something in Nightmare. He hitched him up even higher, until his chin was brushing Matteo’s dark hair. “Did I live up to my promises, sweet?” he asked as he stepped onto the stairs.

Perhaps Nightmare should have let Dominico linger for days. He’d wanted the deed done and had extended it as long as his impatience had allowed. But perhaps it hadn’t been enough.

But Matteo let out a happy sigh. “You did, Scary.” He tucked his head into the crook of Nightmare’s neck. “Every single one.”

It didn’t take long for Nightmare to have a clean and naked Matteo tucked into bed.

Naked but for the shadows, that was, who refused to give up their tight hold on Nightmare’s mate.

Possessive little beasts.

“I’m not actually sleepy,” Matteo grumbled, glaring out from under the covers at Nightmare.

Nightmare didn’t call him out on the lie. “It is I who needs rest,” he said instead. “We’ll watch one of your films.”

He turned on the TV in Matteo’s bedroom and chose a horror film with Nightmare in the title, because doing so made Matteo laugh.

Nightmare set the remote on the little bedside table, sent his clothes away to the ether, and curled up behind Matteo on the bed.

He wanted as much of their skin pressed together as possible while Matteo slumbered.

“Could he have killed you?” Matteo asked after the opening scene of a knife-embedded glove being made had played out. “The pain demon?”

Nightmare scoffed, his breath stirring the wayward hairs at the back of Matteo’s neck. “A mere pest.”

Matteo clutched Nightmare’s arm tighter to his chest. “And he’s gone?”

“Kaisyir removed his head with a demon blade,” Nightmare confirmed. “He’s gone.”

“Good.” Matteo relaxed again. After a few more minutes of filmed terror, he yawned. “Scary?”

“Yes, sweet?”

“If I fall asleep, I want you to be inside me.” Matteo hitched his leg up in front of him, making his invitation clear. “You don’t have to be, like, locked in. But I need that—to have you in me. There’s lube in the bedside drawer.”

Nightmare’s cock stirred, and his belly warmed, his hunger for his mate immediate.

One of Nightmare’s shadows—eager as ever to get their mate exactly what he wanted—peeled off Matteo and returned with a little bottle. Nightmare pushed the covers down and traced a finger over Matteo’s bottom, parting his cheeks to reveal that furled pink hole.

After the many unpleasantries of the night, such a gift as this seemed almost outside the realm of possibility.

But Nightmare’s summoner had made a request.

So Nightmare used the little bottle, coating his fingers and rubbing and petting and coaxing those muscles open, drinking in Matteo’s little huffs and groans as his human pretended to watch the slaughter on-screen.

It didn’t take long for Nightmare’s cock to fill adequately, not when Matteo was so soft and sweet and pliant against him. As soon as he was able, Nightmare slipped his cock inside with surprising ease, a rumbling sigh of pleasure leaving his chest at the tight fit.

“Is that better, sweet?”

“Mm,” Matteo hummed, wiggling back until every inch of his body was touching Nightmare in some way.

His eyes fell closed almost immediately, as if having Nightmare’s cock inside him was all he’d been waiting for to drift off into dreaming.

It may well have been. It was almost dawn already, and they’d both been through an ordeal.

Nightmare hadn’t been lying when he’d said he was drained—even nightmare demons needed sleep occasionally—but he found himself wide awake still. He couldn’t stop touching Matteo’s skin, the shadows that coated it dispersing in the path of his fingers and resettling in the wake.

The touch was for reassurance at first. A reminder that Matteo’s scars were the only wounds marring his skin—that no fresh marks had been opened. A reminder that Matteo was here, and he was whole, and any monsters who had sought him were long gone.

And then Nightmare’s hand brushed down Matty’s chest, his talon edging one of Matty’s nipples, and Matty sighed in his sleep, shifting.

The movement added sweet pressure to the firm grip around Nightmare’s cock, and then he couldn’t resist sliding a hand down to Matteo’s lower belly and pressing in, feeling the swell of his cock from the outside. The proof of his presence.

Matteo let out a soft, panting moan, his hips shifting again.

Nightmare should wait to slake his urges. He should let his mate rest.

But maybe this was why so many humans felt such a strong urge to rut against each other at every given opportunity. Maybe it was the fleeting nature of their lives, the slippery edge to their continued connection.

Matteo and Nightmare had brushed up against that edge tonight, and Nightmare couldn’t stop caressing his human.

Couldn’t stop the slow drag of his hips back and the sharp push forward.

Couldn’t stop exploring the way Matteo’s body welcomed him and pressing his blunted teeth into Matteo’s shoulder, just to feel the give of his flesh.

And maybe he was too rough, because eventually Matteo’s eyes fluttered open.

“Wha—?” Matteo groaned as Nightmare pressed his cock in deep. “ Ungh .” He lifted his arm, hooking it around Nightmare’s neck. “Oh fuck, Scary,” he slurred. “H-Hand. Put your hand—”

Nightmare wrapped a taloned hand around Matteo’s cock. Matteo moaned his approval, bending his leg back and over Nightmare’s thigh. He was spread open now, speared on Nightmare’s cock.

At his mercy.

“Oh fuck. Fuck. Fuck ,” Matteo kept chanting with each snap of Nightmare’s hips. He turned his head with his eyes shut again, searching blindly for a kiss, sucking on Nightmare’s tongue hungrily when Nightmare granted it to him.

Nightmare thumbed at the tip of Matteo’s cock as he drove in again and again, unable to stop seeking that tight warmth around his cock, unable to stop spearing into his mate like a demon possessed.

Matteo’s moans only grew hungrier. “Give it to me,” he whined, biting sharply at Nightmare’s lip. “Your cum. Give it, Scary.”

Nightmare growled, turning them over until Matteo was on his belly.

Nightmare reared back and tugged Matteo’s hips up, driving in with determined fury until he could feel himself getting close to giving Matteo what he wanted.

The heat in his belly tightened and spiraled, and then he was filling his mate, the release so sweet he shuddered with the pleasure of it.

Nightmare let his petals latch without fighting the connection. He knew Matteo would want them to remain linked when he fell asleep again.

Matteo’s whine was high-pitched and desperate, and then he was wrapping his hand over Nightmare’s on his cock, encouraging Nightmare to stroke him until he was spurting into Nightmare’s fist with a wail.

They remained as they were, Matteo’s head on his forearms, panting in the aftermath. Eventually he twisted, peering at Nightmare with heavy-lidded eyes. “Is it morning already?”

“No, sweet.” Nightmare carefully turned them onto their sides again, coaxing Matteo to bend his knees and curling his own behind them. “Go back to sleep.”

Matteo yawned, his lashes fluttering down once more. “Mmkay.”

Nightmare’s own eyes were growing heavy now. The shadows would have to clean up the mess tonight.

Nightmare would join his mate in the dream realm.