Page 20 of Wreaking Havoc (Demon Bound #1)

19

Kai

K ai stood at the door, not precisely eavesdropping but listening for tone. Should even a harsh word be spoken between Sascha and his brother, he’d be there. He didn’t trust Ivan with Sascha, not fully.

He didn’t trust anyone in that cursed family with his soon-to-be mate.

The damned incubus—seemingly not at all concerned with the goings-on in the larger office—sauntered over to the window, looking down at the busy street below. “It’s changed an awful lot, hasn’t it? The human realm.”

Kai glared at his back, not in the mood for niceties. “What are you doing here?”

The incubus turned, a false expression of innocence on his face. “Why, Kai. A bargain, same as you.”

Kai scoffed. “And what possible use could a mobster have for an incubus?”

Nix’s specialty was, as he would put it, desire. Kai called it lust, plain and simple. There were a myriad of ways he could be used—igniting passion between those who lacked it; creating intricate, realistic fantasies brought to life for his summoners; or, occasionally, serving as the object of desire himself.

None of which seemed particularly helpful for a power-hungry mobster.

“Oh, I can think of a myriad of ways our dear Vanya could use me,” Nix told him with a sly smile, licking his lips for good measure.

Always evading the point, and never with a single ounce of subtlety. Kai pressed, “What was the bargain for exactly?”

His only answer was another sly smile.

But Kai had spent centuries with this creature. He might have laughed, if it were any other human they were discussing. “You tricked him, didn’t you?”

“Ah, ah.” Nix wagged his painted talon at him. “You know how it works. It was a bargain, fair and square.”

“And why not wait for someone who could use your real…services?”

Nix shrugged, studying his nails. “I only have three contracts left. Maybe I’m eager to be finished.”

“You hate the demon realm. You’re in no hurry to—” Realization came swift and sudden. “Ah,” Kai murmured. “You plan to draw this one out? Stay in the human world as long as possible?”

Nix’s purple eyes flashed, then darted away. “A bargain’s a bargain,” he said easily. “Plus, he has a deliciously complex soul. Very tasty.”

“Rotten, more like.” Kai knew that wasn’t true, exactly. But it was damn close.

Nix pursed plush lips. “Not rotten. More…twisted.” He shimmied his shoulders. “Gives me the chills. In a good way,” he said with a wink.

“From what I’ve gathered, he doesn’t dally with men.”

Nix stood to his full height, cocking a hip in a practiced pose. “But I’m more than a mere man, aren’t I?” he purred.

Pain .

Kai stiffened, the frustrating conversation immediately forgotten. Sascha was hurting. Not physically—he hadn’t been harmed, or Kai would have smelled the blood. But his soul piece felt…wounded.

Kai put a shoulder to the door to the office, but before he could open it, there was the incubus in his way. “Now, now,” Nix scolded, ignoring Kai’s warning growl and the hand upon his throat. “Your bargain’s safe. Vanya’s not going to hurt him. Let them talk. Humans need to air their trauma. Let it breathe, as it were.”

Kai squeezed. “What do you know about what humans need?”

“Babycakes, my entire existence is about what humans need.” Nix wrapped a hand around Kai’s wrist, and Kai allowed him to lower his arm from his throat. “Let them talk,” he repeated.

The insufferable creature had a point. So Kai held off, standing there at the door, tense and miserable, his ear keyed into the soft murmur of voices. He ignored Nix’s many attempts to start another conversation.

After an eternity, Sascha’s voice rang out clearly. “You can come back in now.”

Kai was at his side in an instant, hands on either side of his lovely face. Sascha’s eyes were red-rimmed, his cheeks pale.

“You’re hurting,” Kai murmured, running his thumbs along the soft skin of his cheekbones.

“I’m okay,” Sascha told him. But the tone was all wrong, dull and lifeless, with none of his usual saucy spitfire, or even a demanding pout. “I’ll tell you on the way to the apartment.”

“We can leave now?”

“We can leave. And look what I’ve got.” A shadow of a smile graced Sascha’s lips as he lifted the Book.

Kai grabbed Sascha’s other hand, tugging him out of the office. He wanted out of this poisonous place with this poisonous brother.

The incubus’s voice followed them out. “Leaving without a goodbye? Does this mean you don’t want to spend another eternity together? I’m hurt, Kai!”

Kai hit the button for the elevator with more force than necessary, furious they had to wait for the contraption to arrive. Sascha was quiet at his side.

“What did he say to you?” Kai asked, half expecting him not to answer.

“He told me my father killed my mother.”

Ah. Kai felt only a small measure of surprise—he was sure, if he’d been able to taste their father’s soul, it would have been rotten to the core—but the small amount of shock was quickly overshadowed by rage. He’d never met this mother, could hardly care about her fate, except that the news had upset Sascha, had wounded him deeper than Kai had yet seen.

If Kai could resurrect Sascha’s father and kill him all over again, he would.

“Zaychik,” Kai murmured, keeping his voice soft, tugging Sascha into his arms.

He was stiff in Kai’s hold. “I come from evil stock,” he said woodenly. “Half of me…half of where I came from…it’s corrupt. Rotten.”

“I’ve tasted your soul,” Kai reminded him, stroking a hand down his spine as they entered the elevator. “There’s no evil there.”

Sascha tucked his head into Kai’s chest, his next words muffled by the fabric. “Maybe your taste buds are faulty.”

They weren’t, but easy reassurances didn’t seem to be enough for Sascha at the moment. “What do you need?” Kai asked.

“I need to go to my apartment,” Sascha murmured. “And I need you to help me forget.” He lifted his chin, meeting Kai’s gaze. “Can you do that, demon? Can you help me forget?”

Kai could do absolutely anything, if it meant lessening Sascha’s pain. “I’m at your command,” he told him. “Always.”

Sascha’s New York apartment wasn’t at all like the house in Maine. It was…cold. That was the only word Kai could think of to describe it. Large and modern and technically beautiful, but cold, with its white couch and white walls and white appliances.

Kai shot a questioning look at Sascha after the brief tour. Sascha only shrugged. “I went out a lot, when I lived here,” he explained, voice still listless. “Watched TV in my bedroom when I stayed in. I didn’t really make it a home, I guess.”

He led Kai to the bedroom. There was a bit more of Sascha’s essence here: a colorful bedspread and an overflowing closet, for example. Although, the clothing was all wrong—black and gray and beige.

Sascha flopped face down on the bed, then turned his head to the side to speak clearly. “My mother didn’t leave me.”

“No, she didn’t.” Kai sat gingerly on the edge of the bed, not sure how best to comfort. He knew nothing about families. Demon parents—if one could call them that—didn’t stay with their spawn. They raised them to self-sufficiency and moved on.

“But I lost her anyway.” Sascha rolled onto his back. His limbs were limp, but his gaze was suddenly fierce. “Promise I won’t lose you,” he ordered Kai. “Promise that you’ll never, ever leave.”

“Never,” Kai swore. He could give Sascha that, easy as breathing.

Sascha smiled weakly. “The fact that I’m asking you—after we’ve just met, really—that’s all wrong, you know. It’s just evidence that I’m too fucked up for a relationship. Too codependent, given the chance.”

“I care not.” It was the opposite, in fact. Kai wanted Sascha to need him, to demand for him to stay. Kai had found exactly what he’d never known he was waiting for—nothing could make him leave now. If that made him codependent, so be it. What did that matter to him?

Sascha kept eyeing him, like he was looking for an answer to something. There was a brittle edge to him now. He was all sharp edges, but it was like he’d crack to pieces at one wrong word. One wrong answer.

“You said you wanted to fuck me in your human form,” he eventually said, almost conversationally. “So you could fuck me as hard as you wanted.”

“Yes.” Heat flashed through Kai at the reminder of their time on the dance floor, Sascha pressed against him, swaying so enticingly.

“Well?” Sascha cocked a brow.

Kai hesitated. “You don’t wish to…talk?”

“I do not wish,” Sascha said firmly. “I want to forget, for a little while. Who I am and where I come from. I don’t want to know anything except the feel of your cock inside me. Can you do that?” He smiled meanly. “Or do I need to call in another stud?”

Kai growled, no matter that he knew Sascha was only pushing at him, making sure he wouldn’t break under pressure. “You think to toy with me?” he asked, his voice soft and dangerous.

Sascha’s eyes flashed. “I’m asking you to toy with me .”

His anger at the mention of another man aside, Kai’s cock was filling rapidly with Sascha’s demands. Perhaps Kai should offer soothing words, should tell Sascha fucking could wait for another time. Perhaps that was what a human man would have done, one who knew what the pain of losing a loved one was like.

But Kai was not a human man.

“Take off your clothes, then,” he ordered, standing from the bed.

“No,” Sascha countered, his tone petulant. “You do it.”

Kai bared his teeth. “Gladly.”

He tugged Sascha to the edge of the bed by his ankles and swiftly removed his clothing, until Sascha was bare before him, looking defiant and wounded and unbearably beautiful.

Sascha drew his legs up and let his knees fall open, revealing all of himself to Kai’s stare. He was half-hard already, eyeing Kai like he was starved. “And you?” he asked.

Kai waved a hand, his clothes disappearing.

A small hitch of breath escaped Sascha’s mouth. He rose onto his elbows. “You’re very attractive, you know.”

“Yes,” Kai acknowledged. He knew he had a fine form.

Sascha’s lips twitched. “Arrogant as well.”

“I am.”

“Possessive?” Sascha asked, cocking his head.

“Very.”

“Would you let me leave you?”

“No,” Kai answered, without hesitation. A mating bond was permanent and sacred. They would stay at each other’s side always. He would make sure of it.

“Would you kill me to keep me?”

“If I killed you, I would not have you. It’s an illogical choice.” Humans were so stupid that way. Sascha’s father had been stupid. Cruel and stupid, a wretched combination Kai had seen too often in his time in this realm.

Some inner tension seemed to leave Sascha. His gaze trailed down to Kai’s cock, his questioning taking a different direction. “Is your precum still venomous in that form?”

Kai gave himself a lazy stroke. “Yes.”

Sascha fell back on the bed. “Open me up, then,” he demanded.

Kai climbed onto the bed on his knees, draping himself over Sascha. He gathered his precum and brought a finger to Sascha’s entrance, breathing in Sascha’s soft sigh of relief at the touch.

Kai kept it light at first, softening the muscle there with gentle, thorough circles, watching Sascha’s face all the while.

His human kept up the brittle front for an admirably long time, but eventually he cracked. His features slackened, his eyes shut as if in pain. “Kai,” he pleaded, vulnerability in his voice for the first time since that cursed office.

“Yes, zaychik,” Kai crooned.

“Kiss me.”

Kai captured Sascha’s mouth. Without his fangs in the way, Sascha met him furiously, as he had in the dance club, battling Kai’s tongue, trying to devour Kai from the inside out. He was writhing against the tip of Kai’s finger, wordlessly begging Kai to give him more.

Kai leaned back, grabbing Sascha’s hips, lifting them off the bed and folding him in half.

“Oh,” Sascha gasped, his eyes widening at the new position he found himself in.

Kai draped himself back over him, pressing in one digit, then another. He scissored them, reveling in this close-up view. He didn’t realize how lost he was in it until Sascha gave a breathless laugh. “You really have—have a thing for fingering me, don’t you?”

“You’re so small,” Kai murmured, pressing in a third finger, watching Sascha take it. “It’s fascinating.”

Sascha pouted. “You’re supposed to be fucking me into the mattress already.”

“Am I?”

But Kai shuffled his knees closer, letting Sascha’s thighs fall into the crook of his elbows. He pressed the head of his cock against Sascha’s hole, but without his hand to guide it, it slid away at the slightest pressure. He did this again and again, rubbing his leaking head against Sascha’s entrance, teasing them both.

“Kai,” Sascha pleaded.

“Guide me, then,” Kai demanded. “Get your hand on my cock and place me inside you.”

Sascha reached for him immediately, bending his torso in half to get a hand on Kai’s cock, notching it against his entrance and bearing down to let him in.

“Oh fuck,” Sascha gasped, releasing his hold and dropping his head back onto the bed. “I thought you’d be manageable like this. But you’re still fucking huge.”

Kai pressed a hand down onto Sascha’s lower abdomen, smirking when it made him keen. “You can take me, zaychik. You were made for it.”

Sascha huffed, then moaned again. “Of—of course I can.”

And he did, his body making way, his inner muscles sucking Kai in until he was bottomed out. It was still a tight fit—Sascha wasn’t wrong about that—but there was more give than when Kai was in his demon form. A smooth glide out and a quick press back in had Sascha gasping, his hands clenching on the bedspread.

This was real. This was truth. Sascha’s rotten Mafia legacy meant nothing in the grand scheme of things. He’d been born to be claimed by Kai, as Kai had been born to be at his side. Destined to be his mate.

Kai knew it as well as he knew anything.

“Better?” he asked, his hips pressed flush against Sascha’s pert bottom once again.

Sascha clenched around him experimentally. “So much better,” he sighed.

“You no longer wish to call another stud?” Kai asked, smirking down at him.

Sascha smiled to himself. “Well…”

Kai growled and started moving, snapping his hips at a brutal pace, and Sascha’s head bent back with a strangled yelp.

“You will have no one else,” Kai demanded.

It took Sascha a long moment to find his words, his throat too busy creating high-pitched moans with each of Kai’s thrusts. “N-No one else.”

“You will be mine alone.”

“Yes. Oh God . Yes, Kai.”

Kai halted his movements, ignoring Sascha’s mewling protest. He leaned in close, every word deliberate. “I will care for you and spoil you and claim you as my mate. And in return you will give me your soul.” He ran a hand up Sascha’s stomach, caressing his chest. “Not a taste, Sascha. Not a mere morsel. All of it. Every bit.”

Sascha pressed down against Kai’s hand on his chest, arching his back up into his touch. “Yes, Kai.”

Kai wrapped his hand around Sascha’s leaking cock, stroking him without mercy. He moved his hips again, knowing just the right angle to hit that bundle of nerves unerringly. “And now you will come for me,” he ordered.

“Yes, Kai,” Sascha sighed. And he did, with a gasp and a weak moan, his legs trembling in Kai’s hold, his cock dripping cum all over his stomach.

Kai went hard and fast after that, chasing his own release relentlessly, until Sascha’s bones were loose as jelly in his hold and Kai had filled him to the brim with his cum.

If this was what Sascha needed to forget the sorrows of his life, Kai would oblige him. All day, every day for the rest of eternity, if need be. He would give Sascha anything he asked for.

His Sascha. His mate.