“Cooper will let you know,” Chaos told them. “Or he won’t. But you two can go now. You’re still scaring him.”
A vein in Ivan’s temple throbbed, and he seemed to lose his battle with politeness. “Are you sureyou’renot scaring Cooper?” he asked icily.
Chaos’s eyes flashed red with flames, then back to gold. “It’s different when it’s me. I’m afraid your tiny human brain wouldn’t understand.”
“Um, you can send me the details,” Cooper told Ivan, his gaze bouncing between the two, seemingly torn between his employer and the overprotective demon at his side.
“You’re sure you two will be all right?” Nix asked. He wasn’t usually too fussed about the welfare of humans he didn’t know, but this whole situationwasjust a teensy bit his fault.
“Go away, Nix,” Chaos said breezily.
Cooper shrugged helplessly.
So Nix and Ivan left, the twenty different locks engaging again behind them.
Ivan turned to Nix immediately. “Thisis why I didn’t want any other demons summoned.”
“This exact scenario?” Nix asked skeptically.
“You know what I mean. Can you honestly say we have any control over that situation?”
“I’m sorry,” Nix told him. “I don’t know what else to say. He’s my friend.”
It showed how far they’d come that Ivan only scowled, grabbing his hand and tugging him down the hallway. “Come. Before our car gets impounded with our very illegal cargo inside it. I don’t have time to be angry with you.”
Nix smiled as he was pulled away.
They might have a few fires—literal or otherwise—to put out down the road, but on the plus side, Ivan was obviously totally sweet on him.
Nix would take his wins where he could get them.
18
Ivan
Ivan resisted the urge to press his fingers against his forehead yet again in an effort to counteract the tension headache that had been steadily forming the last half of the day.
Whether the brutal ache was caused by the residual stress from the encounter with Cooper’s wayward summoning or the tangle of logistics Ivan was dealing with, it was hard to tell.
At least they had Sergei stowed away safely, and Nix had—perhaps wisely—denied Ivan any further conversation with him. (“He’ll have nothing useful to tell you, and it’ll only make you crabby,” he’d insisted.)
Nix hadn’t exactly been wrong that any conversation with Sergei would have left Ivan on edge. Or more on edge than he was already. But they also both knew by now that Nix would have been able to soothe away the sting afterward.
They both knew Ivan was putty in Nix’s hands.
Was it folly to rely on one person so much? Undoubtedly. This…dependence was a situation Ivan had worked his entire adult life to avoid. Whether that person be family, minion, or lover, he’d never opened up, never thawed, never lowered his walls even once.
Because then what did one do when that person inevitably disappointed? When they disappeared? What wouldIvando when Nix returned to the Void he’d sprung from?
But of course, Nix claimed he didn’t have to go anywhere. That he and Ivan could tie themselves together permanently by way of a demon bond. He’d offered Ivan a path to ensuring he stayed forever. Tied to Ivan forever.
It was a thousand times worse than a marriage, wasn’t it? A demonic matrimony that had, as far as Ivan knew, no divorce clause. The thought should have been fucking horrific.
It wasn’t.
Even if the demon in question was currently sprawled on his back on Ivan’s office rug in some sort of dramatic demonstration of his boredom.
Nix had at least been silent for the past hour or so, but he registered Ivan’s attention immediately, lolling his head back and forth and whining, “What exactly is there even for you todoat this point?”
