“Kai,” he purred, sweet as sugar, his talons digging in hard enough to pierce even Kai’s thick skin.
“Yes?” Kai asked, eyeing Nix warily, ignoring the blood beginning to run down his arm.
“Stay the fuck out of it.”
Kai’s heavy brow furrowed. “You care for him.”
The surprise in Kai’s voice was…irritating, for some reason. “And why is that so hard to believe?” Nix asked. “He had the same fucked-up upbringing as your mate. Just because he developed different coping mechanisms doesn’t mean it was all his fault.”
Kai shook off Nix’s hold, his wounds healing immediately. “You watched too many human talk shows in the Void. You think you understand him.”
Nix narrowed his eyes. “Idounderstand him, Kaisyir.”
They remained in a standoff for another long moment, and then Kai raised his hands in surrender. “It’s your mistake to make. I’ll stay out of it from now on.”
That would have to do.
Kai waved at Matteo to continue, then pulled out a small gadget from his pocket when a dinging sound rang out.
“You have a phone!” Nix gasped, grabbing for it and pouting when Kai lifted it out of his reach. “I want one.”
“It’s Sascha,” Kai said after looking at the screen. “He wants more time with Ivan.”
Well, if that didn’t make Nix feel all sorts of smug. “Would you look at that. Not gonna check to make sure Ivan doesn’t have him tied up somewhere, sending out messages pretending to be him?”
Kai’s fist clenched, and his poor little phone’s screen cracked.
Nix rolled his eyes. “I’m joking. Don’t be daft. You’d be able to tell.”
Kai’s bond with Sascha would alert him to any mortal peril or extreme distress Sascha could be experiencing. Not that much could hurt Sascha with a bond in place, anyway.
Yet another reason for Nix and Ivan to have one.
They followed the path down to a pleasing little cove, the ocean a remarkably beautiful sight. Even Matteo seemed pleased to be there.
And despite Kai’s bullshit, Nix was feeling remarkably good himself. It was nice to have goals, wasn’t it?
Except for the fact, of course, that due to his own actions, the Book wasn’t actually in their possession. They really would need to track down Cooper (and Chaos, if he’d been lucky enough to be summoned, however unlikely that outcome). Nix would add it to the list.
Item one: Fix Ivan’s empire so dear Vanya could relax a smidge.
Item two: Make Ivan fall completely and irreversibly in love with Nix, so much so that he’d decide he needed Nix to stay at his side forever.
Item three: Find the Book and make it happen.
Three simple steps. Easy as pie.
Nix,Kai, and Matteo returned to the house to find that Ivan and Sascha had migrated from the kitchen to the couch in the living room, where Sascha’s wild giggle and the loose set to Ivan’s shoulders—not to mention the massive bottle of whiskey on the coffee table—suggested both brothers were quite tipsy.
Nix stopped in the doorway, Kai and Mateo behind him. Ivan welcomed him with a smirk, and Nix matched it. “And here I thought you said it would be vodka.”
“Sascha only had this.” Ivan lifted his mug, his smirk deepening. “He’s shaming the family name.”
“Hey!” Sascha protested before falling into giggles again. “It came with the house,” he said when he caught his breath. “Plus, the family name totally deserves it.”
He and Ivan clinked their coffee mugs together, but Ivan froze with his halfway to his lips. “You just…found this?” he asked, eyeing the whiskey bottle like it had personally offended him.
Sascha rolled his eyes so hard it looked almost painful. “It’s not poisoned or anything.”
