It didn’t.
It took all Ivan’s self-control not to close his eyes and groan. How long had it been since someone had touched him like this? It wasn’t a kind of familiarity he allowed his random fucks.
But just as quickly as they’d surprised him, the hands were gone.
“There,” Nix said with satisfaction.
Ivan blinked dazedly at him. Had Nix only been…messing up his hair?
What the fuck was this creature’s game?
“Listen, demon,” he started harshly.
“Listen,Nix,” the incubus had the gall to correct.
“Listen, Nix.” Nix had a long, elegant neck, and Ivan wanted nothing more than to wrap his hands around it and squeeze. Would he listen then, with Ivan’s tight grip around his throat? “You are here to serve me, aren’t you? Mine to summon. Mine to command.Mydemon.” Ivan wasn’t sure the point of that last part, but it felt right coming out of his mouth.
Nix didn’t look chastised. He looked…intrigued. He trailed his finger down Ivan’s chest. “Mm, tell me more about how I’m yours, baby.”
“I—that’s—”
The intercom at Ivan’s desk went off, loud enough to be heard in the bedroom. “Sascha’s on his way up,” the security guard at the front desk reported.
Ivan would deal with this—thisinsubordinationlater. “Stayhere,” he told Nix before making his way into his main office, taking a seat behind his desk.
Sascha arrived a moment later, dressed in a way that was clearly meant to be a “fuck off” to Ivan’s old constraints. Instead of his old black suits, he was wearing white and baby blue, and gold fucking jewelry.
He looked so similar to Ivan—the same pale coloring, with similar refined features—only younger and smaller. Softer. Was it the softness in him that had made their father choose to protect rather than torment for the first time, when it came to his children? Or had it just been the unlucky happenstance of the order of their birth?
Close behind Sascha came the demon brute, his horns and blue skin nowhere to be found.
He was still a huge fucker though.
“Sascha,” Ivan greeted. “I expected you ages ago.”
Sascha, predictable as ever, immediately started with demands. “We need the Book, Ivan.”
Anger flared, hot and bitter in Ivan’s veins. It was so like his baby brother, to have a weapon at his disposal and not think to share it with Ivan. To not think their family might need every bit of protection it could get. He was selfish, just like Alexei.
“Why?” Ivan asked. “To summon more demons, perhaps? Maybe give one to Alexei? Then the two of you can really fuck me over.”
Sascha threw his hands up like the spoiled brat he was. “God, Ivan, what the fuck? You really think we’re conspiring against you? When have Ieverwanted even a piece of your empire? You’re such a lunatic.”
“Am I? I had two brothers who were supposed to be at my side. Now I have none.”
“Well, maybe you should take a long, hard look at the way youtreatpeople.”
Ivan sighed. It was always like this with his brothers. As if feelings trumped safety. As if they hadn’t been raised in the same dangerous world Ivan had. (Never mind that Sascha hadn’t, really. Had been sent away to school for most of it. He still knew enough to know better.)
Sascha thought Ivan power-hungry without ever considering that Ivan’spowerwas all that kept him from being shot down in the street.
Their father’s rise to the top hadn’t come without its costs, and one of those was a host of enemies that would be eager to bring any one of the Kozlov children down.
“I don’t have time for this,” Ivan told him.
“You never do!” Sascha yelled. Predictably, he began chastising Ivan for being the way he was. The way he’d always been. “What would it take for you to just chill out for a few seconds and act like a real brother and not a controlling asshole?”
Ivan didn’t have an answer for that. He might be controlling, but he’d been that way for a long, long time. It was too late for him to change, and Sascha should know that by now.
