But Cooper had been lonely for so long. And honestly, even if this wasn’t real, it was a better situation than he’d hoped for in a long time. It was hard to find someone who could handle Cooper’s dangerous connections and also didn’t mind that he was a shy, nerdy shut-in. He’d had exactly one boyfriend, the one who’d been mean as hell, and Cooper had been too much of a pushover to stand up to him.
Chaos may have been a bit of a bulldozer when it came to what he wanted, but he wasn’t mean. He was even sweet, in his way. And interesting and silly and beautiful.
Cooper had never stood a chance.
Plus, it was kind of a nerd’s wet dream, wasn’t it, to have an otherworldly creature actually want to hop into bed with you?
And going into this meeting of Ivan’s, Cooper would have someone at his back for the first time in…well, maybe his whole life. Cooper would be protected by someone who cared enough to make sure he wasn’t hurt, who wasn’t so lost to his own inner demons that he forgot Cooper existed.
Even if that someone wasn’t staying, Cooper was going to enjoy it while he could.
Cooper thankedthe driver as he and Chaos got out of the car Ivan had sent for them. They were at a familiar side door entrance of a faded brick building.
“Where are we?” Chaos asked, eyeing the peeling red paint of the door as he sniffed the air. “It doesn’t smell like blood or carnage. It smells like…food.” He sounded disappointed by that fact.
“It’s a restaurant,” Cooper explained. “Ivan’s father liked to do business here.”
Cooper could still remember his own father kneeling in front of one of the red booths inside, begging for Dimitri to take him on. Could still remember Dimitri’s cold eyes looking to Cooper instead, sizing him up, calculating whether he’d be useful or if he and his father were just one more bag of trash to dispose of.
Cooper suppressed a shiver—he’d just add the queasy feeling thinking of Dimitri gave him to the nerves already roiling in his stomach—and grabbed Chaos’s hand. “Come on, then.”
He poked his head inside the door. Ivan and Nix were at a booth with Sascha and a big, burly man with long black hair Cooper hadn’t met before. There was another unfamiliar couple at the table, a nervous-looking blond man and his severe-looking partner, who was wearing an unusually ostentatious suit for a Mafia meetup.
Ivan was, of course, pointing a gun at Cooper. It was how he usually greeted unexpected visitors (never mind that he’d sent the car for them). Cooper just nodded at him. He didn’t like violence, but Ivan had a steady hand—he wouldn’t shoot Cooper by accident.
Cooper led Chaos through the door, and Chaos immediately hissed at Ivan, apparently not liking the weapon aimed in Cooper’s direction.
Instead of shooting Chaos for his insolence, Ivan put his gun back in its holster.
There were definitely benefits to being a scary little demon fiend or being a scary little demon fiend’s companion.
When he caught sight of Chaos, the big guy next to Sascha growled, turning to Nix for some reason. “What did you do, incubus?”
“Me?” Nix asked innocently.
Chaos grinned at the massive stranger. He was in his human form, but even with his little dimple, his smile looked kind of evil. “Hello, Kaisyir.”
Oh, right. The warrior demon who’d been in the Void with Chaos and Nix—Chaos had told Cooper about him. With the way Kai tugged Sascha to his side protectively—and the way Sascha gave him an adoring, dreamy little smile in return—it seemed like he was more than just Sascha’s summoned muscle.
It looked like Cooper’s cousin had a demon boyfriend.
That was three of them in the same family shacked up with demons. Jesus. Did they have some sort of blood-borne condition that predisposed them? Or was it just…generally contagious?
Ivan looked weirdly pleased by the ragtag group they all made, his eyes gleaming under the restaurant lights. He was almostsmiling, which was unnatural enough to give Cooper the shivers. “Cooper, this is Kai, Sascha’s…partner. Chaos, this is my younger brother, Sascha, Cooper’s other cousin. We also have Eric and Wolfe here with us. Friends of Alexei’s.”
Cooper barely hid his gasp of surprise, masking it with an awkward cough. As far as he knew, Ivan and Alexei—the middle brother between Ivan and Sascha, and Cooper’s other cousin—were still on bad terms. Murderous terms, to be exact.
What the hell were Alexei’s friends doing helping Ivan out?
Chaos sniffed the air, pointing to the blond, Eric, and his partner, Wolfe. “Why do you two smell so strange?”
“Vampires,” Kai growled in explanation.
Huh. Well, then. Cooper hadn’t known those existed. He’d have to muster up the proper shock later, when he wasn’t about to pass out from anxiety.
No one else seemed surprised by the news, however. And Chaos looked positively delighted. “Wonderful,” he crowed.
He tugged Cooper down at the booth with the others, with Cooper next to Nix and Chaos at the end. The arrangement placed them across from Sascha and Kai.
