Page 6 of Wreaking Havoc (Demon Bound #1)

5

Sascha

S ascha woke with a start, eyes blinking open to soft morning light.

Huh. He must have forgotten to close the curtains last night.

He was tempted to roll over and go back to sleep—it wasn’t like he had anything he had to do today anyway. Or any day, for that matter. And he’d had such a weird fucking dream: a big, hot, horned demon promising him protection or vengeance or whatever.

And if he was going to dream about built, beautiful monsters, couldn’t those dreams be about them fucking him into the mattress? Otherwise, what was the point? Maybe if he closed his eyes again and thought real hard about thick, muscled arms and huge pecs and bare—

“You’re awake.”

Sascha shrieked, eyes flying back open. What the fuck .

He looked to the side. There was that same massive blue beast sitting in his bedroom chair, staring at him with glowing blue eyes.

Once, as a child, Sascha had woken to his dad at his bedside, loaded gun in hand.

He wasn’t sure which experience was more disconcerting, really.

“Oh God,” he moaned when some furious blinking didn’t make the apparition go away. “You’re real.”

Kai let out an amused rumble. “Did you think me a figment of your imagination?” A massive hand landed on top of Sascha’s, where it was clutching the bedspread. Kai’s nails were black and pointed at the tip, like talons. “I’m as real as you.”

Sascha snatched his hand back—were all demons so hot-blooded their touch practically burned?—and tossed the covers over his head. “I really can’t be doing this before coffee.”

“You said you could procure some. Where? When?”

The naked longing in Kai’s voice had Sascha peeking out from under his blankets. God, he looked hungry . Or thirsty, as it were. “You really like coffee, huh?” He sat up, the strange normalcy of the demon’s craving somehow giving Sascha the strength to face this supremely weird day. “I need to get it from the bakery, then.”

“I’ll accompany you.”

“What? No. You’re not exactly someone I can bring around town. You’re all…” Sascha gave up on finding a word for it, waving a hand in demonstration instead. Like, seriously, how did Kai look even more massive sitting down?

He wasn’t just sitting on top of Sascha’s furniture. He was furniture. Furniture Sascha wouldn’t mind climbing on top of and—

No. No horny morning thoughts. He is a literal demon.

He focused back on the present to find Kai frowning down at him. “I can’t allow you to go alone.”

“Why not?” Sascha asked, sliding out of bed, careful not to brush one of Kai’s overly long legs on his way out.

“How am I to protect you if I’m not by your side?”

“My enemies aren’t here .” Sascha laughed at the thought, walking over to his dresser and grabbing a fresh stack of clothing, a pair of leggings and an oversize sweater he wouldn’t be caught dead in outside the house.

“Where are they?” Kai asked.

“I don’t know.”

“ Who are they?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Why are they after you?”

“Oh!” Sascha snapped his fingers. “I know this one. My brother pissed them off.”

Kai did not look suitably impressed by his knowledge. “Your brother,” he repeated.

“Yeah, he’s the leader of the, um, family business.”

“Business.”

“Yeah. You know…” Sascha lowered his voice to a whisper. “The mob? Russian Mafia?”

“His business is leading a mob of men?”

“Oh Lord. Coffee. We need coffee.”

Sascha grabbed his phone. Seacliff was small, sure, but not small enough not to have at least one meal delivery app that was usable. He put in the order before heading into the bathroom with his clothes, shutting the door on Kai when he tried to follow him.

“No enemies in the bathroom,” he called out through the door.

See? This was why he hadn’t wanted his brother’s stupid bodyguards, either. No privacy. Not a moment alone.

Although, his brother’s bodyguards weren’t anywhere close to the piece of terrifying eye candy Kai was, so there was that little perk, he supposed.

Sascha got dressed in a flash before brushing his teeth and splashing some water on his face. His usual skincare routine would have to wait for a day he didn’t have a seven-foot behemoth lurking at the bathroom door.

Sascha exited the bathroom, narrowly avoiding smacking his face into an absurdly broad chest on his way out.

“So!” he said brightly, leading Kai down the stairs and doing his best to avoid thinking about motorboating giant demon pecs. “The mob. Or Mafia. You know, take your pick on the terminology. Basically my brother is in charge of…a business, of sorts, like I said. But, um, illegal stuff. Like, we have legitimate fronts—nightclubs and the docks. But there’s also gambling, and a decent amount of drugs, and maybe weapons, but I can’t remember if that’s still going on. No people though. We don’t do human trafficking.”

Jesus. Was he really trying to justify his family’s shady dealing to a demon? “We’re not the biggest game in town, but we’re not tiny either. And there are a few families we deal with on a regular basis. Or compete with, depending how you look at it. And my brother pissed one of them off.”

“And what do you do?”

Sascha missed a step in the hallway. “What?”

Kai’s massive hand landed on his shoulder, righting him like a wayward tenpin. “You keep saying it’s a family business. What do you do?”

“Oh. Um, nothing,” Sascha told him, shrugging off the touch, a little disconcerted by the part of him that wanted to push up into it instead. “I’m not really involved. Our dad didn’t want me to be.”

“Because you faint at the sight of blood.”

“No. That’s—” Sascha turned in his tracks, scowling up at the demon. “I didn’t always faint at the sight of blood. There was an incident.” He cleared his throat. “Anyway, he just…didn’t. Said one of his sons should be paving the way for legitimacy. Sent me to school instead. Schools plural. Boarding school, then college to get a business degree. But when I graduated, he never gave me anything legitimate to do, so I guess that was all bullshit. I think what he really wanted was to be a real father to at least one of sons, and I needed to not be his goon for that to happen.”

Kai was staring back at him intently, his face unreadable. Why was Sascha even talking about this? There was no possible way the demon cared about any of his—or his brothers’—daddy issues.

Not to mention the mommy abandonment issues.

The doorbell rang, and in an instant, Sascha was flung against the wall, Kai looming over him, lethal-looking dagger in hand.

“What are you doing? Put that away. It’s not a hit man, it’s our coffee order.” Sascha pushed his way out of Kai’s grasp, ignoring the warm tingling at each of the places Kai’s body had touched. “Stay here, you lunatic.”

He opened the door to find the same buff dude from the bar the other night, coffee order in hand. “It’s you,” Sascha said with surprise.

Buff Dude nodded amiably. “You bought the old Eisner place. Right on.” He held up his closed fist, presumably for a bump of some kind.

Sascha narrowed his eyes, his own hand remaining at his side. “I thought you were a bouncer.”

“Oh, I do a lot of stuff,” Buff Dude told him with an easy grin, lowering his arm. “But my passion’s fitness. I post my routines online and everything.” He gave Sascha a once-over. “If you ever want to bulk up some, I’m your guy.”

Sascha hummed noncommittally. He would not be doing that. Twink death might be inevitable down the line, but that didn’t mean he had to go and help it along.

He was about to politely shut the door in the guy’s face when Buff Dude’s eyes widened comically, his gaze fixed past Sascha’s shoulder.

Oh fuck.

Sascha turned, expecting the worst. Would they have to erase the guy’s memory like the suited dudes from Men in Black ? Where did one go about acquiring a memory-erasing pen?

But it was not a giant horned monster in his entryway, after all.

It was a giant human man instead.

A giant human Kai , presumably, unless he had a human twin he’d been stashing away somewhere. He had the same unnaturally gorgeous face, but he was about half a foot shorter than his demon form—topping off at an almost reasonable six foot five—his armor gone. He was just as shirtless, with miles of tanned skin on display and that gorgeous hair falling to his chest. His weird swirling tattoos had turned into ordinary dark-blue ones that didn’t move at all.

He still looked fierce as hell, reminding Sascha of some legendary Highlander from a trashy romance novel.

What he was, when it came down to it, was sex incarnate.

Sascha swallowed with a dry throat. Oh God. This was just a disaster, wasn’t it? There was no use denying it anymore.

Sascha really wanted to fuck this demon.

Sascha wasn’t sure what he said to get rid of the delivery guy, only that he was suddenly back in the kitchen with a still- human-looking Kai, who was making absolutely obscene noises over his coffee.

At least Sascha knew he’d gotten the order right: large black coffee, no sugar, no cream.

He held his own oat milk latte—still too hot to drink—between his hands, praying to whoever would listen he didn’t spring a hard-on over a demon and his caffeinated beverage.

“Why didn’t you tell me you could do that?” he asked. “Change into human form?”

Kai took a break from his pornographic coffee moment to shoot him an amused glance. “How else did you think I appeared on the battlefield without causing a panic?”

“I don’t know! Turn invisible or something?”

“Invisibility is a challenge,” Kai mused, casually blowing Sascha’s mind. “Although, I can merge with the shadows well enough. Not like Nightmare, but…” He shrugged a shoulder. A massive, muscled shoulder, all tattooed and lickable and no longer covered by any armor.

Sascha took a huge swallow of his latte, burning his tongue and throat and possibly his entire digestive tract. “Can you turn back?”

Kai arched a dark brow. “Why?”

“Just turn back, please,” Sascha pleaded. “It’s…disconcerting.” Mostly because it looked like a model from the cover of a cheesy romance novel had appeared in Sascha’s kitchen like a wet dream come to life.

Kai let out a heavy sigh, like Sascha was being unreasonable, and set down his coffee. “All right then.”

It turned out it was equally disconcerting to watch him transform from human to demon—it was almost too fast for Sascha’s eyes to follow, the way he grew half a foot in a split second, horns sprouting from his head, Sascha’s kitchen chair suddenly looking like dollhouse furniture beneath him.

Oh God. He was still hot. Why was he still so fucking hot?

Unfairly oblivious to Sascha’s inner turmoil, Kai threw his head back and downed the rest of his coffee, throat working in ways that weren’t helping Sascha’s sexual panic a bit.

Maybe he should have gotten him a gallon of the stuff.

But no. Sascha needed a distraction. He found himself asking a question that had been niggling at the back of his mind. “If you haven’t had a bargain in centuries, why do you speak modern English so well?”

“It’s part of the magic of the Book,” Kai explained. “I speak whatever language needed for my bargain.” He gave Sascha a strange look, then added, “Zaychik.”

The familiar nickname—one given to him as the baby of the family—coming out of the demon’s mouth had Sascha’s brain going haywire. Had he even heard that right? “What was that?” he asked faintly.

“Zaychik,” Kai repeated perfectly, setting his presumably empty cup down with a mournful look.

“There’s no reason for you to speak Russian,” Sascha told him snippily, ignoring the way his traitorous heart was racing. “That’s one of the only words I know. And it’s just a stupid nickname.”

Kai ran his tongue over sharp teeth, looking amused. “I know. Bunny .”

“It can also just mean, like, darling. Or honey or whatever.” Sascha gave him a stern look. All the more reason for the demon to stay away from using it. Sascha was an adult , goddamn it. “You better not start calling me bunny. Pup is bad enough.”

Jesus. This wasn’t the distraction Sascha had been looking for. “There’s pastries too,” he offered, holding up the white paper bag the delivery man / bouncer / online exercise sensation had brought. “I didn’t know what you liked, so I ordered a few different kinds.”

Kai shot the bag a disinterested glance. “I don’t eat human food.”

“What do you live off of, then?”

“In the human realm?” Kai placed a taloned hand on his pec. “The piece of your soul sustains me.”

Sascha brushed that aside immediately. He couldn’t think too hard about a chunk of his soul existing in someone else’s chest. “That’s all you need?”

“All I need , yes.” Kai gave him a heated glance, his eyes beginning to glow slightly. “Sometimes our bargains will give us a bit extra for a job well done.”

“More of their soul?” Did people really part with their spiritual bits so willy-nilly? Sascha was no stranger to impulsive decisions—he often made bad calls when scared, or angry, or sometimes just when he was particularly hungry—but damn.

“I can feed off other things,” Kai mused. “Strong emotions, particularly anger or rage. Blood.”

Sascha choked on a sip of his latte. “Demons drink…blood?” He’d been very much hoping that finger biting was a one-off.

Kai leaned back in his chair, seeming to get into the topic. “Different demons specialize in different things. My kind are warriors. So rage, violence, bloodshed.” His eyes took on a faraway look. “Once, after a particularly fruitful battle, a chieftain cut open his wrist for me over a goblet. That was a good day.”

What. The. Fuck.

Sascha clutched his hands to his chest, scooting his chair back as far away from Kai as he could manage. “Oh, I think the fuck not .”

Kai only gave him a sly grin. “That was a special occasion. An incubus, however—just as an example—would feed off your lust.”

Oh shit. Sascha cleared his throat. “But you don’t—you don’t do that?”

“It’s not my specialty.” Kai’s grin turned positively wolfish. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t smell it on you.”

“Um…”

Kai leaned forward, his eyes beginning to glow again. “You desire me, pup,” he crooned, sounding entirely too pleased with that fact. “There’s no use hiding it.”

“I—What—I—” Sascha searched for the appropriate denial, only able to come up with a blurted, “You’re not my type!”

“Oh?” Kai asked coolly, not seeming at all convinced. “And what is?”

“I like my men like I like my coffee: big and dumb and always nice to me.” Sascha gathered the shreds of his dignity around him and gave Kai an exaggerated, appraising look. “You’re big, but I don’t think you’re dumb. And you haven’t been very nice to me either.”

Kai’s stupidly pretty lips formed into a mock pout. “But I put you to bed ever so gently.”

“After you cut me!”

“A mere scratch. A nibble.”

Sascha straightened in his chair. This demon was teasing him, the wretch. He sniffed haughtily. “I’m used to a certain level of treatment. I’m very spoiled, I’ll have you know.”

“Spoiled how?”

That caught Sascha short. He’d never had to explain how before. It was just a given. Sascha was the baby. Sascha was the weakling. Sascha was spoiled. He thought it over. “Well, mainly they give me money and don’t ask me to do things I don’t like to do.”

Kai cocked his head. “They spoil you by ignoring you?”

Sascha let out a groan. “Ivan hardly ignores me, the controlling bastard.”

“Then I don’t understand.”

“Well, just—I’ve never had a finger broken for flinching, or been forced to shoot a man, or—” Sascha broke off there, suddenly finding it hard to get air. His stomach had twisted into knots, and his throat wasn’t working properly for some reason.

He didn’t like talking about this stuff. Why was Kai making him talk about this stuff?

“Hey. Human. Human. ”

Sascha opened his eyes—when had he closed his eyes?—to find a glowing blue gaze locked onto his. Kai’s hands were hot on his cheeks. “Breathe, pup. With me. In. Out. Just breathe.”

Sascha did as Kai said, focusing on the unnatural glow of those eyes, the strange shifting tattoos on his neck.

Eventually, when breathing came naturally again, he attempted a smile. “See?” he said, unable to help how petulant he sounded. “You got me all worked up. Not very nice of you.”

Kai’s voice was low, his tone soothing. “No, I see you’re correct. I don’t meet your criteria at all, do I?”

Sascha sniffed, shaking his head out of Kai’s hold. “No, you don’t.”

Although, that didn’t explain why Sascha wanted nothing more than to bury his head in that massive chest, to let himself be held and comforted by a literal demon.

Stupid. It was so stupid of him, to want that.

Maybe he was the dumb one after all.