Page 21 of Wreaking Havoc (Demon Bound #1)

20

Sascha

S ascha was mush. A puddle of mush.

Kai dropped his thighs and made as if to pull out, and it took everything in Sascha to lift his limbs and lock them around him. “Don’t you dare,” he warned.

They’d put in all that hard work to get him to this point of mind-melty goodness, chasing all his tragic thoughts away, and Sascha wasn’t ready for it to be undone.

Kai’s heavy-lidded eyes lit up with new interest. “You wish for another round?” he asked, reaching for Sascha’s spent cock.

“No, I—” Sascha squirmed, weirdly irritated to have to spell out his need for continued contact.

But it turned out he didn’t have to spell it out at all. Kai nodded with a grin, his hands caressing Sascha’s thighs instead. “Ah. You wish for me to remain inside.”

And then he was switching into his demon form, growing in size not just around Sascha but inside him.

Sascha squirmed again, this time experimentally. “Oh,” he gasped. Kai was very much staying firmly inside him. “That’s…convenient.”

He smiled his pleasure up at Kai, and the demon’s own smile softened, gazing back at him. Sascha couldn’t help it—he traced his fingertips first around that smile, then up to Kai’s cheekbones, then began petting the silken strands falling around his face. He stretched his arms to reach Kai’s horns, stroking around the base.

Kai let out a rumble. “I’ll swell again if you continue,” he warned.

It was tempting, but Kai had gone hard—as promised—and Sascha was feeling too well used for another round. Plus, he was sore. Not his entrance—the venom was still delightfully helpful in that department—but his heart.

His soul.

He wondered if Kai could feel it.

So Sascha left the horns alone, stroking at Kai’s hair again. He could feel the angry, heartbroken thoughts at the edge of his consciousness, trying to break through, but he wasn’t ready to let them back in. He needed a distraction.

“How do you fight with all this hair?” he asked. “Doesn’t it get in the way?”

“I braid the front portions back for battle.”

“You do?” Sascha asked with surprise. He’d expected something more like, I’m a badass demon warrior, mere strands of hair could never impede my wrath.

“Mm,” Kai hummed, his eyes almost completely closed now, like a cat being pet.

“Can I do it for you?”

Kai’s eyes opened in a flash, subjecting Sascha to a weirdly intense look. “You wish to braid my hair for battle?” The rumble emanating from his chest grew louder.

“Yes?” Sascha answered. Or asked. Had he just offered up something completely taboo?

But Kai gave him a smug smile. “Mating behavior,” he murmured.

Something twitched inside Sascha. He gasped, pushing at Kai’s shoulder. “Hey! You’re getting hard again. Take it out.”

Sascha hadn’t been prepped for the monstrosity that was Kai’s demon dick in full, erect glory. What if that thing got stuck in there?

Kai withdrew his now half-hard cock with a pout, mumbling something about “stroking horns and teasing with mating promises.”

But his sulk didn’t last long.

Sascha shrieked as Kai turned them both without warning, rolling until Sascha was perched on his stomach, gazing down at him.

Which was all well and good, but there was too much space between them. It was allowing too much cool air to touch Sascha’s sweaty skin. He lowered his torso, curling his body into Kai, pressing his cheek against Kai’s broad chest.

Kai began rubbing his back in long, soothing strokes.

There. That was much better. Warm and cozy. Safe.

Just enough safety, really, to allow those dreaded thoughts to return. Sascha’s father hadn’t just murdered bad men, thugs already entrenched in the Mafia world. He’d murdered Sascha’s mother, someone who—if Alexei’s memories were to be believed—had been kind and decent and loving, if a bit sad and distant.

Sascha let out a long breath. “I don’t know what to think right now,” he admitted. “Or how to feel.”

“Should you?” Kai asked, his voice a soothing rumble against Sascha’s cheek. “Truths such as these can take years to process.”

“I just…I wish I could hate him completely.”

“Your father?”

Sascha folded his hands on Kai’s chest and propped his chin on top, meeting Kai’s eyes. “He used to sit me on his lap when he was doing paperwork,” he recalled. “Before he sent me away to boarding school. He’d let me stay up past my bedtime like that, if I was quiet. Sometimes I’d fall asleep there. He always smelled like cigarettes and milky tea.”

Kai brushed a strand of hair back from Sascha’s face. “Hatred and love can coexist, zaychik. Even if it hurts for them to do so.”

“But I don’t like pain.” It was easy to admit to Kai. He didn’t care that Sascha wasn’t some badass warrior or hardened mobster. He didn’t mind that Sascha was soft.

“Most don’t,” Kai told him. “What do you do when you’re hurting? What dulls the pain?”

Sascha thought it over. “Sex, I suppose. Shopping.”

“Mm. What else?”

“Oh!” Sascha sat up with a start, ignoring Kai’s disgruntled noise when he kneed him in the chest with his movements. “You’re gonna like this one.”

Kai peered up at him suspiciously. “Why do I doubt that?”

Within ten minutes—after a cursory clean and changing into silky sleep shorts—Sascha had them both settled in the living room, his duvet from the bedroom draped over his shoulders, Kai sitting cross-legged in front of him on the hardwood floor.

Sascha had “Viking braid tutorials” pulled up on his phone next to him on the couch, but Kai’s eyes were fixed on the TV screen. “I don’t understand,” he said, frustration in his voice. “If these housewives are so wealthy and pampered and famous, why do they yell so much?”

“The yelling is why they’re famous,” Sascha explained for the third time. “It’s all about drama.”

“I hate it,” Kai grumbled.

But two episodes later, Kai’s eyes were still on the screen. “The blonde woman should apologize. She has greatly wronged the brunette.”

“Don’t hold your breath,” Sascha warned him, putting the last braids into place. “Apologies are rare.” He patted his handiwork. “There, all done. But don’t get up!”

He hopped off the couch and ran to grab his compact from his vanity. He handed it to Kai, smiling at the way the thing looked so ridiculously minuscule in his hand.

But Kai held it with great care, bringing it up to his face and eyeing Sascha’s efforts. When he turned back to Sascha, he was grinning. “These are very fine braids, zaychik. I’m lucky to have you as a mate.”

Sascha’s cheeks heated. He leaned down, placing a chaste kiss on Kai’s lips.

Kai’s smile grew even wider.

Sascha cleared his throat, willing himself to be brave. “Speaking of mates. Is it a whole to-do? Like candles and robes and whatnot?”

Kai’s grin dropped, his expression taking on a new intensity. “No props. Only words, to be spoken by each of us with intent.”

“Oh.” Sascha shifted on his feet. “Okay.”

Kai cocked his head. “Now?”

Sascha took a deep breath. “Now,” he confirmed. “Except, wait.” He grabbed the remote, turning off the TV. “I can’t get demon-married with The Real Housewives playing in the background. It’s too tacky, even for me.”

Once they’d collected the Book and returned to Sascha’s bedroom—Kai had declared his living room “too sterile” for bonding—Sascha could only giggle.

While Kai looked fairly regal (Sascha had done, he had to admit, a fucking fantastic job on his braids), Sascha was apparently going to bond his soul to his mate while wearing a pink silk pajama set.

Kai cocked a brow. “What amuses you?”

“Just…we’re going to have to have a real wedding, you know?” Sascha told him, surprising himself in the process. He waved a hand to encompass his whole ensemble. “I can look much better than this, I promise.”

Kai’s eyes gleamed at he looked him over. “But you look good enough to eat, zaychik.”

Sascha considered Kai’s sharp teeth. “I’m a little worried you mean that literally.”

Kai huffed at that, and Sascha giggled again, his nerves making him a little loopy. “I’m just saying, we’re both too hot not to have professional photos of us in our matrimony finest. It could be small and still be fabulous.”

It would have to be small, actually. Kai came from another dimension, and Sascha didn’t have any real friends back in New York. It had been too difficult, with his family, to befriend normal people, and the other Mafia sons had all terrified him.

Oh God, he was almost thirty and he didn’t have friends. That was pathetic. He was pathetic.

Kai was in his face in an instant. “What happened?” he asked, brow furrowed in concern. “Why are you sad? We may have a wedding,” he rushed to say. “Whenever you like.”

“No, just—” Sascha couldn’t help his pout. “I don’t have friends.”

“You desire friends?” Kai asked with surprise. “Then we’ll procure some for you.”

Sascha let out a helpless laugh. “I don’t think that’s how it works. It’s not like coffee, we can’t just order a delivery with an app.”

“What of the round-cheeked fellow with the painted nails?” Kai mused. “He’s been friendly.”

“Seth? He’s just being nice.”

“And friends aren’t nice?”

“They are. But it’s—it’s complicated.” Even as the word left his mouth, Sascha suddenly wasn’t so sure they were true. Maybe it was that simple. He was starting a new life in a new place, with a new partner by his side. Maybe easy niceness was how it all began. Maybe people just…kept being nice to each other over a period of time, and then it became friendship?

Was there a YouTube demonstration he could watch about this?

Kai laid a warm hand on Sascha’s cheek. “We will procure you friends,” he promised again, apparently deciding to ignore Sascha’s explanation on why that wasn’t a thing. “And, in the meantime, I will be your friend.”

“You will?” Sascha asked, his voice coming out thick. He was unaccountably moved by the offer, which was ridiculous. They were about to bond souls, but Kai promising to be his friend had him on the verge of tears.

“I’ve never had a friend before either,” Kai told him.

“What about Nix?”

“Ach.” Kai made an irritated noise. “A pest. And soon to return to the Void.”

“Not back to the demon realm?”

Kai shook his head. “This is not his final contract.”

“What if he bonds with my brother?”

They stared at each other for a long moment, and then both burst into laughter at the thought.

When they’d caught their breaths, Kai grinned at him tenderly. “Enough jesting, zaychik. I’m making you mine tonight. My own, sweet Sascha Kozlov.”

“And you won’t regret it,” Sascha reminded him.

“And I won’t regret it,” Kai vowed.

Sascha let out a breath. “So what do we do?”

“You’ll repeat the words after me. With intent .” Kai gave him a look, as if to bring that point home.

“With intent,” Sascha repeated dutifully.

Kai released his hold on Sascha’s face, turning toward the bed. But his words still came out perfectly clear, if very fast. “And then just the exchange of blood and we’re done.”

Sascha froze in place. “ What? ”

Kai sat down cross-legged on the floor at the foot of Sascha’s bed, his expression serene. “It will be just like the contract. A mere nibble.”

Sascha pointed a finger at him. “You said ‘exchange.’”

“You may keep your eyes closed.”

“ Obviously ,” Sascha snapped.

“It will be but a moment,” Kai promised.

Sascha was tempted to throw a fit, but he knew Kai wouldn’t have said it in the first place if it weren’t completely necessary. And Sascha was doing this. He was bonding to this arrogant-ass demon. Not even his distaste for blood was going to get in his way.

He plopped down across from Kai, crossing his legs to match, the Book in his hands. He opened it to the last page, where Kai had told him there was a final poem, not connected to any demon mark.

“What do the words mean?” Sascha asked Kai. “If I’m supposed to say them with intent.”

Kai hummed in thought. “A direct translation is difficult. But, in essence: I bind myself to you, body, heart, and soul. To be parted from each other only by death, and that parting merely temporary. My soul for my mate, and my mate’s soul for me in turn.”

“Oh,” Sascha sighed, tracing the poem with his finger. “That’s kind of nice.”

Kai began saying the words, the strange language coming much more naturally out of his mouth than it had Sascha’s during the summoning. Sascha repeated it all as best he could.

With each word spoken, Kai’s eyes gleamed brighter, and blue smoke began filling the room. Sascha was tempted to ask if all this was going to set off his apartment’s smoke alarm, but he wasn’t sure he was allowed to say anything non-demony during the bonding.

Eventually Kai went silent, and Sascha did as well.

Kai’s glowing eyes met his. “Turn around now.”

Sascha turned in place, closing his eyes in preparation for pain. There was the hot blow of Kai’s breath on the back of his neck, then a sharp pinch. “ Oh .”

But it lasted only a moment. Then there was a warm wetness at Sascha’s lips, pressing against them. “Open your mouth, Sascha.”

Oh God. What if Sascha threw up during the ritual? But he did as Kai asked, choosing to trust his judgment. He realized it was Kai’s finger pressing into his mouth. And it didn’t taste like coppery grossness—it tasted smoky and spicy, like Kai’s scent. Rich.

Maybe it wasn’t his blood at all?

But it must have been, because suddenly Sascha’s every nerve was alight, his whole body shaking.

“Easy,” Kai murmured, in front of Sascha now.

Sascha’s eyes flew open. Kai’s body was trembling as well. “What’s happening?”

Kai might have been shaking, but his voice was firm. “The bond is taking effect.”

“Oh. It’s— It’s—”

“Overwhelming,” Kai finished for him. “It will pass. I promise.”

“H-How?” Sascha asked, teeth chattering. “W-When?”

Kai somehow managed a sly grin. “Consummation eases it, I’m told.”

Of course. This pervy fucking demon. But Sascha needed…something. And he realized he was hard in his silk shorts. Which was weird in and of itself. Sascha didn’t even remember getting turned on in the first place, but now his whole being suddenly felt like it was on the edge of something.

That something might as well be an orgasm.

“Take off your pants,” he ordered, sliding out of his shorts with trembling fingers.

Kai was blessedly hard as well, and Sascha didn’t waste any time on foreplay or moving them onto the bed. He was still stretched from earlier, and the floor was as good as anyplace else.

He clambered over Kai’s thighs, wrapping his arms around Kai’s neck and burying his face in his smoky skin. Sascha lowered onto his cock, Kai’s precum easing the way.

It was still a tight fit, but that didn’t matter. Because as soon as they were joined, it was like pure magic. The jittering energy that had invaded Sascha’s body faded, and all that was left was Kai.

Kai.

Sascha could feel him. Kai’s soul, it must have been. A solid, warm weight in Sascha’s chest that screamed safety .

“Your soul is lovely,” Sascha whispered against Kai’s neck.

He leaned back. Kai was grinning as wide as Sascha had ever seen. “And yours is perfect,” he told Sascha. “But I already knew.”

Sascha highly doubted that. He was pretty sure his soul was worn and ragged, bruised all over by proximity to violence and a lack of care. But maybe it was perfect for Kai. Maybe his soul felt just as comforting in Kai’s chest as Kai’s did in his.

“You still like the taste of it?” he asked anyway.

Kai stroked Sascha’s cheek. “My precious mate. I’m going to take such good care of you.”

Sascha smiled, tucking his head back against Kai’s neck. Mates. They were mated.

Their consummation was slow and sweet. Kai lifted and lowered Sascha over his cock almost leisurely. He kept murmuring all the while, about all the ways he was going to ensure Sascha remained certain of his choice.

He didn’t have to, not really. The feel of Kai’s soul was confirmation enough. It felt right, like it had always belonged there. Like Sascha had been incomplete before, walking around without that reassuring presence.

See? He’d known he was codependent.

Sascha’s orgasm built with a sure, steady pressure, and he came with a sigh, Kai following close behind.

Afterward, Kai lifted them both from the floor with ease, keeping Sascha in his hold. “Now I will bathe you,” he told Sascha. “A tub is not a river in the demon realm, but it will have to do.”