Page 17 of Wreaking Havoc (Demon Bound #1)

16

Kai

K ai was in front of Sascha in an instant, his wings blocking his human from view. Blocking him from harm .

Kai’s heart was in his throat. What if this brother had aimed the gun at Sascha instead? It didn’t matter that Kai knew deep down he would have been fast enough to stop it. The thought of it—the what-if of it—had his hackles raising.

What he wouldn’t give to snap Ivan’s neck.

But it seemed he would have to wait in line. Because the bloodsucker Jay—who had, the night before, been distressed by the violence of Kai cracking an egg too hard when making pancakes—had Ivan on his back on the floor and was crouched atop his chest, two small hands wrapped around his throat.

Jay’s true vampire face was out—the all-black eyes and snarling fangs—but with his diminutive size and delicate features, the effect was slightly muted. Still, Kai knew he was stronger than he looked.

Much stronger.

“You do not hurt Alexei,” Jay was telling Ivan, his sweet voice as close to a growl as was possible. “You’ve hurt him enough already.”

Ivan, for his part, looked remarkably unfazed for someone a hair’s breadth away from death’s fangs. “I was told he was a monster now,” he said, not even attempting to fight Jay’s hold. “That you both are. It seems I was correctly informed. I didn’t kill him, did I?”

“That’s doesn’t mean it didn’t fucking hurt .” Alexei was still upright, two dark splotches of blood growing on his chest and stomach. “What if you’d been wrong?”

Ivan cocked a blond brow at his brother. “You’d deserve it.”

“I don’t hurt humans, and I don’t like violence,” Jay said evenly, some of the tension having left his frame after Alexei had spoken. “But I think you could be my exception.”

But he was already removing his hands from Ivan’s neck—he hadn’t even been holding him hard enough to leave a bruise on his skin—his face returning to its human visage as he crawled off him.

Ivan suddenly turned his head, meeting Kai’s eyes.

Kai had known what the eldest looked like from his photo, but it was still odd to see a face so similar to Sascha’s without any of his warmth, or enthusiasm, or sulky charm.

“And it seems our baby brother has acquired his own monster,” Ivan drawled as he rose to a seated position, looking surprisingly put together sitting there on the floor in his suit. “A conspiracy, is it?”

Sascha, who’d been mumbling something about “big fucking bat wings,” yelled out from behind Kai, “Stop being so paranoid, Ivan! There’s no conspiracy. I summoned him on accident.” He tapped at Kai’s shoulder, lowering this voice. “I’d like to come out now, please.”

“Not until the little bloodsucker grabs the weapon,” Kai insisted, keeping his wings exactly where they were.

Jay had knocked the gun out of Ivan’s hand when he’d tackled him, and it was lying on the hardwood floor between him and Alexei.

Jay—already back at Alexei’s side, fussing over wounds that were surely healed by now—shook his head. “Oh, no thank you. I don’t like guns.”

“I’ve got it,” Alexei told them, bending down to grab the thing. He nodded at Kai. “You can let Sascha out now.”

“No. Change your shirt first.” At Alexei’s glare, Kai arched a brow. “Sascha doesn’t like blood.”

“Oh.” Alexei’s glare dropped in an instant. “Right. Sweetheart, would you grab me one? I don’t want to leave these three alone.”

At the pointed look Alexei gave him, Kai realized he was brandishing two of his daggers. Did he think Kai would kill Ivan in his absence?

It was tempting. Unbearably tempting. But Kai hadn’t forgotten Sascha’s words.

I still love Ivan, even when he’s controlling and vicious.

Sascha wasn’t the kind of human who wanted vengeance, who yearned for violence to answer violence. It wasn’t just blood Sascha hated—it was suffering. That was the part of the story from his childhood he’d told Kai that clearly hurt him the most—the man’s suffering, and his inability to do anything to help.

And Sacha claimed his soul wasn’t sweet.

But it was. He was. Sascha didn’t want either of his brothers to hurt, however much they themselves may have hurt him in the past, intentional or not. Kai was certain if this rival Mafia family weren’t an active threat, Sascha wouldn’t want them hurt either, no matter the past stabbing. He didn’t want power or carnage or to have Kai wreak havoc in his name. He wanted to exist in peace. He wanted someone by his side while he did so.

So Kai put his daggers back in their sheaths with a nod to Alexei as Jay bounded up the stairs and back down again, fresh shirt in hand.

Ivan stood slowly from the floor, dusting off his suit, as if being threatened by a vampire had been no more than a minor inconvenience.

There was a cleared throat from behind Kai.

Right.

Kai lowered his wings, and Sascha stepped out from behind him.

But Ivan, for the moment, seemed to have eyes only for Alexei. His lips quirked in a cold smile. “Tell me, Alyosha. Are you going to shoot me now?”

Alexei studied the gun in his hand. “I’m thinking about it.”

Sascha made an exasperated noise. “No one’s shooting anyone. Jesus, Vanya, what were you thinking? Alexei, are you really all right?”

Ivan took his eyes off Alexei to narrow them at Sascha. “Don’t call me that in mixed company.”

Sascha’s lower lip pushed out into a pout, and he rolled his eyes. “You just called Alexei Alyosha. Plus, it’s not mixed company. They’re like your brothers-in-law.”

Both Alexei and Ivan stared at Sascha incredulously.

Kai grinned. He’d known Sascha was softening to the idea of the mate bond.

Ivan shook off his surprise first, turning to Jay, who was looking a little sheepish at Alexei’s side, then to Kai, whose wings were folded but not yet returned to their hiding place. “And what species, pray tell, are these brothers-in-law of mine?”

Sascha pointed to Jay. “Vampire.” Then to Kai. “Demon.”

Ivan nodded slowly. “The text you sent. Your summoning.”

“See?” Sascha smiled winningly at him. “I even tried to tell you. There’s no conspiracy.”

Ivan cocked a brow. “That singular text was your attempt to inform me?”

Sascha put his hands on his hips. “It’s not my fault you don’t take me seriously! You wrote me off like a dick.”

Was this what having brothers was like? It seemed exhausting at best. Kai was newly grateful to be the sole member of his brood.

“And how did you accidentally summon a demon?” Ivan asked.

“I found a book. I’ll show you.” Sascha looked to Alexei and immediately threw up his hands. “Alyosha! Put down the gun!”

Instead, Alexei used it to point at Ivan’s face. “I don’t trust him.”

“I can vanish it,” Kai offered, if only to stop the bickering.

“He has more than one on him,” Alexei told him. “He always does.”

“Then he may leave.” Kai would allow no more gunshots near Sascha. There was no bond in place yet, and his human was too fragile to risk it, even with Kai’s supernatural reflexes.

But a soft hand landed on his bicep. “Kai, it’s fine,” Sascha told him. “He won’t hurt me. He just needs to feel protected.”

Kai sneered in Ivan’s direction. “As if a mere pistol could protect him from the likes of me.”

He didn’t miss Sascha’s eye roll. “Yes, yes. Everyone here is very tough and scary, except for me.”

And yet it was Sascha herding them all into the living room like wayward children, keeping his older brothers on separate sides of the room. And while he may have thought he loved too easily, it was clear that love was returned. Even Ivan’s cold mask slipped for an instant when Sascha sat him down with a pat on his shoulder, a look of unmistakable fondness there and gone in a flash.

Perhaps he truly had been worried by Sascha’s silence.

But Kai wasn’t letting down his guard. Ivan looked to Kai to be the exact sort of man who would have summoned him in the past. Power-hungry, paranoid, determined to be an army of one against the world.

His only saving grace was that his soul didn’t yet have the stench of rot. There were humans for whom it was too late, whose actions had corrupted them past a point of no return. It was useless making bargains with them—their souls provided no sustenance.

Ivan wasn’t there, at least not yet. But Kai was sure he had the potential for it.

Kai would need to keep an eye on him.

Kai had sat in on war councils with less tension than this reunion of brothers.

There was nothing but barbed jabs and hostile silence passed continuously back and forth between the two elder brothers—all while they refused to speak directly to each other—and, for his part, Sascha repeatedly attempted to break the tension with silly remarks about silly subjects.

Kai was beginning to understand where Sascha’s spoiled reputation came from in the family—he seemed to brandish his own foolishness like a sword, hacking down the others’ aggression when it grew too potent.

Eventually Ivan insisted on a full recounting of Kai’s summoning, and Sascha obliged, in much more specific detail than Kai would have preferred.

Finally Ivan addressed Alexei directly for the first time since they’d entered the living room. “And your own monster?” he asked, head tilted toward the bloodsucker Jay, who’d remained uncharacteristically quiet since his mate had been shot. “How did that come to pass?”

“Don’t call him that,” Alexei said, the words escaping through clenched teeth. There was another prolonged silence, but before Sascha could interject with another aside about wealthy television housewives or the latest in New York socialite drama, Alexei spoke again. “You were supposed to protect him.”

“And I have,” Ivan told him coolly.

“He was stabbed .”

Ivan shrugged. “Not by me.” He sneered at his brother. “You’re the one who left, Alyosha. Leave me out of your guilt.”

The callousness with which Ivan treated Sascha’s attack had Kai’s shoulder blades aching, his wings itching to come out again. The horrible, violent things he could do to this human, if only Sascha would let him.

But Sascha had already leaped up from the couch, asking far too loudly, “Who wants to come see the attic?” At the ensuing silence, he let out a strange half cough, half giggle. “It’s where I found Kai’s Book.”

“We’ll pass,” Alexei answered, his hard stare still focused on Ivan.

It was a fair enough answer, considering the offer was a clear attempt to cut through the hostilities, although Kai himself was curious about where his Book had been hiding.

Surprisingly, Ivan stood from his chair. “All right. Show me, then.”

Sascha led the way, and Kai inserted himself between him and his brother, reverting to human form before climbing the ladder in order to fit into the smaller space.

The small, dirty, nondescript space. Such an odd location for a demon’s binding Book to be found. It was all ordinary cardboard boxes and a few dust-covered pieces of furniture.

Sascha waved a hand, encompassing the mess. “So this is it.”

Ivan opened the nearest box, mouth pinched as a small cloud of dust erupted in front of his face. “And how would we know if anything else of consequence was up here?”

Kai reached out with his demon senses. He wouldn’t be notified of absolutely everything, but that which pertained to demons would trigger a certain awareness. Like his Book, downstairs on the coffee table—he could sense the presence of demonic energy in its pages.

“There’s nothing else of note here,” he surmised after a moment. “I’d be able to feel it.”

Ivan arched a brow. “Neat trick.”

They fell into silence.

Ivan brushed his fingers against another box. “You called Alexei,” he murmured.

Sascha shrugged, avoiding his brother’s eye. “Technically, Kai did.”

Ivan did not seem to find that reassuring. “And do you share our dear brother’s belief that I failed to protect you?”

“ I do,” Kai told him.

He was ignored.

Sascha fidgeted with the sash of his robe, his eyes on his twitchy fingers. “I think… Well, Alexei has always thought…even growing up, you know?”

It was a nonsense jumble of words as far as Kai was concerned, but Ivan seemed to catch their meaning. His affect grew even frostier, if possible. “I should have done more? Been nicer ? Forced our father to be nicer? What was I to do? A boy in a roomful of guns. The only way to protect us all was to learn how to be just as ruthless.”

“Mission accomplished…,” Sascha mumbled.

“Yes,” Ivan agreed, voice like ice. “And here we all are. Still alive.”

For some reason beyond Kai’s understanding, that seemed to be enough for Sascha, and his gaze softened, his hand reaching out toward his brother. “Vanya…”

Ivan turned away before the hand could reach him. “But I may have a solution to your problem. That’s why I’m here. The Caruso family wants a trade.”

Sascha’s arm dropped. “A…trade?”

“They’d like the use of our docks for a new venture. One I’ve refused in the past.”

Sascha seemed to take a moment to translate his brother’s words, then his eyes widened. “Ivan, no. Not—not people .”

“It would put an end to the price on your head,” Ivan told him, peering out the small attic window, as if he didn’t care one way or another.

Sascha was trembling, the soul piece in Kai’s chest roiling with confusion and sadness and anger. “You said we’d never do that. You said never .”

“And we wouldn’t, would we? We’d be looking the other way while someone else did.”

Sascha’s hands clenched into fists. “ No .”

“And what would you have me do instead?” Ivan straightened from the window, cocking his head at Sascha. “Start a war between our families? You and Alexei have no idea the cost of business,” he hissed. “You never have.”

“That’s not fair.”

Ivan’s voice grew cutting. “I’m not interested in fair . You have a new protector now, don’t you?” he asked, cold eyes moving to Kai. “Fix the problem yourself, then, Sascha. I’ll be going now. This was a waste of time, and I have business to attend to.”

He made his way out of the attic, ignoring Sascha’s protests.

Kai did nothing to stop him. He wanted the eldest out of the house. Preferably permanently, or at least until he could learn to stop distressing Kai’s human.

Sascha was staring around the attic, looking dazed. “He’s talking about human trafficking. He’s never— He said he’d never …”

Kai tugged Sascha to him, running a soothing hand down his back. “And he isn’t now, zaychik,” he reassured.

“What?”

“He’s using us,” Kai told him. “You have a weapon at your disposal now.” Kai placed a hand on his own chest. “One he wishes he possessed. He’s manipulating you so you use it.”

Sascha might not have been used to having power to wield, and the complications that arose from it, but Kai was. He’d marked Ivan’s game from the beginning: hit Sascha where it hurt—innocents being harmed—then guilt him until he acted himself.

Some of the tension in Sascha’s frame relaxed. “You think so?”

It was like a dagger to the chest, the hope in Sascha’s voice. Like he would rather be ruthlessly manipulated by someone he loved than believe his brother capable of evil.

Sascha pulled back, peering up into Kai’s eyes. “You think he’s lying about the Caruso family completely?”

Kai thought it over. “I think it’s highly possible the proposal is real. The question is whether Ivan actually intends to take it.”

Sascha’s brow furrowed as he considered. “He wants us to act. So he doesn’t have to.”

“Perhaps it’s time, pup.” Kai cupped Sascha’s cheek, keeping his voice low and soothing. He didn’t want to alarm him, but they had realities to face. “They know where you are now.”

But Sascha surprised him. He didn’t panic, didn’t lose himself to strangled breaths. “So…we need to bond now?” he asked, looking at Kai with clear eyes. “Before we deal with it and end the bargain?”

Kai tried to tamp down the rush of greed that arose with Sascha’s words. He should by all accounts say something measured. If you’re ready , or, Take your time .

But what came out was a fervent “ Yes. Yes, Sascha. Now.”

Sascha narrowed his eyes. “And you won’t change your mind down the road?” he asked.

“I won’t.”

“And you won’t regret it?”

“No.” Kai tilted Sascha’s head up with a finger under his chin, searching his face. “And what of your regret, zaychik?”

“Who, me?” Sascha gave him a cheeky grin. “I’d never let future regret stand in the way of an impulsive decision. How do we do it?”

Kai had been told long, long ago. He gave silent thanks he still remembered. “There’s a ritual at the end of the Book.”

“Okay.” Sascha let out a slow breath, then cocked a brow at Kai. “This is when you ask me if I’m sure.”

Kai cupped his cheeks with both hands. “I will be sure enough for the both of us,” he promised.

“You’re very arrogant.”

“Yes,” Kai agreed.

Sascha bit down on his lower lip. “God, why do I like that so much?”

Kai grinned down at him. “Because our souls are matched, my zaychik. A perfect fit.”

“They’d better be.” But Sascha’s eyes were on Kai’s mouth now. “Can I try kissing you without the fangs?” he asked.

In answer, Kai grabbed Sascha under his thighs and lifted him, wrapping his legs around his waist, the silken robe bunching up under Kai’s fingers. He claimed Sascha’s lips, and Sascha met him greedily halfway, licking into Kai’s mouth like he’d been dying for it.

He was easier to reach with a half foot less of distance between them. There could be many benefits to fucking him in human form, for that matter. Kai could go harder, not need to stretch him quite so thoroughly.

He used his hold to press Sascha down against his hardening cock, and Sascha gyrated against him accommodatingly, moaning into Kai’s mouth.

Perhaps they should practice now.

But a throat clearing pointedly had Sascha pulling away from Kai’s lips, gasping for breath.

Alexei’s head had popped up from the attic opening, and he was frowning at them both. “I hate to break up this display, but—”

Sascha glared at him. “Fuck off , Alexei. I’m busy here.”

“I thought you’d want to know—”

“There’s nothing—”

Alexei raised his voice to be heard over Sascha’s protest “—that Ivan’s run off with your Book.”