Chapter 17Nix

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Nix

I t was a lovely day for returning to New York. The birds were singing, the weather was clear and cool, Nix had wrung three orgasms out of Ivan the night before, and they had Ivan's scumbag of a traitor in their trunk.

Or they would, as soon as Kai and Ivan finished transferring him.

Nix had already said goodbye to Matteo, who'd been back in his blanket bundle on the couch, probably thanking the heavens that the intruders were leaving already. And now Nix was getting a lovely hug from Sascha on the porch.

"Thank you for your hospitality, sweetums," Nix said.

"Oh." Sascha's cheeks turned a lovely pink as he blinked up at Nix. "Of course. And we'll be there tomorrow."

He sounded like he wasn't sure Nix would believe him, so Nix patted him on the shoulder. "I know you will. You're a very good brother."

"Right." Sascha craned his neck past Nix. Looking to see if the others were still occupied, perhaps. "Listen." He tugged on Nix's shirt lightly. "My brother pisses me off."

Well, then—Nix bit back a smile—it seemed like they were getting right into the meat of it.

"He forgets to be human more often than not," Sascha continued with a frown. "And he uses his control over others as a crutch, instead of just dealing with his emotions or going to some goddamn therapy. But he's been better with you here." He took a deep breath, then met Nix's eyes. "You should stay," he said firmly, then blanched at his own words. "I mean, obviously, it's your choice. But he might not be able to tell you that he wants you to stay even if he does. And he does."

What a lovely little speech. Nix had to press his lips together hard now to contain his grin. He leaned down. "Don't you worry," he whispered. "I won't let Ivan scare me off."

Sascha nodded, then bit at his lower lip. "But you'll be happy too, right? If you stay?"

After all that, was he worried he'd just coerced Nix or something? Nix chuckled, patting Sascha's reddened cheek. "You're very sweet, did you know that?"

Sascha sighed, his lips pursing into a pout. "That's what Kai says."

Nix hummed. "Even a broken clock is right twice a day."

Sascha's pout turned into a grin. "You really irritate him, did you know that?"

"I'm very aware. It's good for him. As are you."

Nix wasn't even flattering the little human. The warrior demon had been miserable in the Void. Actually, he'd been miserable even in the beginning, when all the demons had been summoned to the human realm regularly. Kai had gotten his kicks battling and all that—to each his own—but there'd always been a certain air of discontent about him. Honestly, it had been part of what made him so fun to tease .

But that air of misery was gone now. With Sascha at his side, Kai was at peace in a way Nix hadn't known he was capable of.

Any other future brother-in-law bonding was put on hold as Ivan and Kai appeared, their task complete.

Ivan stood in front of his brother for a long moment, then nodded stiffly. "Until tomorrow."

Sascha rolled his eyes, wrapping his arms around Ivan in a hug. Ivan patted his back as stiffly as he'd nodded, and Nix had to contain his own eye roll. Ivan seemed to sense it anyway, scowling at him as he tugged him off the porch.

Nix waved at Sascha and blew a few kisses at Kai. "Toodles, Chez Sascha!"

"Chez Kozlov," Ivan corrected as they got seated in the car. Either Sergei was bound tightly or they'd knocked him out, because Nix didn't hear any pounding from the trunk. "I'm the one who bought the house."

"Well you can buy another one if you're so determined to be lord and master of it," Nix told him, slouching down in his seat as Ivan pulled away from the curb, tickled pink when Ivan's hand landed heavily on Nix's thigh.

"Why would I?"

"So we have a place to stay near your brother when we visit. Unless you'd rather stay with him when we vacation in Seacliff, but that does limit our bedroom activities to the actual bedroom, which is a bit of a shame." Nix had a feeling Ivan could get very creative with locations for hanky-panky given the chance, and it would be such a waste to tie his hands that way.

"And when would we be taking these vacations?" Ivan asked in a tone Nix couldn't quite read. He wasn't angry, exactly. Pensive, perhaps?

Nix shrugged. "Annually? Biannually? I don't know, but either way, you should adopt a European work schedule. Take a month off every summer, at the very least." Nix may have been looking to bind himself to a mob boss, but that didn't mean he had to be tied to a workaholic. There was too much of the human world to explore to spend every hour in the office.

"And you're planning to stick around that long, are you?"

Nix gave Ivan a sharp look. "Are you planning otherwise?"

He was met with silence.

It might not be the perfect time, but Nix was starting to realize there might not ever be a perfect time with Ivan. Not with those few walls he still stubbornly kept up standing in Nix's way.

Nix cleared his throat. "If we bonded…"

Ivan cut him off immediately. "You wouldn't want a bond with me."

See? Walls.

"Says who?" Nix asked lightly. He was met with silence again. He went another route. "Would you want a bond with me ?"

Ivan's hand clenched on Nix's thigh. "I would like for you to stay." A lightness filled Nix's chest, until his stomach sank as Ivan finished his sentence. "Until I'm ready for you to go."

Of all the bullshit repressed-emotion statements.

Nix had to fight not to grit his teeth. "And if you're never ready for me to go?"

"You wish to stay in the human realm," Ivan said, neatly avoiding Nix's question.

"Yes."

"You've always wished to."

"Yes." Nix eyed Ivan's clenched jaw. Oh, his human didn't like that. "Two things can be true at once, you know. Wanting to stay in the human realm and wanting to stay with you."

A muscle in Ivan's jaw ticked, and then he relaxed with visible effort. "It's a moot point anyway," he said. "Until we get back the Book you lost."

"I didn't lose it," Nix told him archly. "I gave it away."

Nix wasn't anywhere near done with this conversation, but Ivan's phone rang through the car's Bluetooth before he could respond to that, Cooper's name flashing.

"Speak of the devil!" Nix crowed.

Ivan side-eyed him as he accepted the call. "Cooper."

"H-Hey, Ivan. Hey." Cooper sounded out of breath. And possibly a bit terrified? It was hard for Nix to tell over the phone. Stupid technology got in the way.

"I've been trying to reach you." Ivan made the sentence sound like a threat.

"I know. My phone was—I couldn't get to my phone. But, um, so—"

Ivan cut through the rambling. "You have something of mine, Cooper."

"Right. Sure. But I just need to ask—one of the books you gave me, does it—" Cooper laughed, and the sound was tinged with hysteria. "Have you ever summoned a demon with it?"

Nix's heart soared. Chaos was there, wasn't he? No wonder Cooper sounded so flustered.

But he tried not to look too delighted, not when Ivan was immediately looking so irritated.

Ivan sighed heavily, his hand tightening again on Nix's thigh, as if he could sense Nix's joy anyway. "Where are you?"

Cooper's laugh cut off. "Me?"

" Cooper ."

"My apartment. But—"

"Stay the fuck there," Ivan ordered and hung up the phone.

Now that he wasn't completely in the doghouse like the last time, Nix had a chance to properly appreciate Cooper's apartment building and how close it was to Ivan's own. "You must pay him well," he pointed out after the doorman let them in .

"I pay for the apartment on top of his salary," Ivan told him. "It's part of the deal."

"I'm surprised he wanted to go into the family business at all." From what Nix had seen, Cooper didn't seem like the type.

"He didn't. His father came to my father," Ivan explained as they got onto the elevator. "My mother's brother," he clarified, which made sense to Nix, considering how little Cooper looked like Ivan's father's side of the family. "He was struggling after moving here from Russia, wanted to secure a life for his son. Decent man, but a fucking mess." Ivan shook his head. "My father wasted Cooper on gopher duties. He was…mistrustful of tech. After he died, I changed Cooper's workload. He was shit at gopher duty, anyway. Too thin-skinned around the men."

Maybe it had been wrong of Nix to push the Book into Cooper's hands after all. He sounded like the kind of person Chaos would eat alive, even if it was more out of carelessness than malice.

"I may have miscalculated," he murmured.

Ivan only gave him a look as he rapped his knuckles sharply on the apartment door.

There was the sound of what seemed like twenty different locks unlocking, and then Cooper's auburn head poked out, something between a smile and a grimace on his lips. "Ivan."

"Cooper," Ivan greeted shortly. "Where's the demon?"

"No demons here!" called out a very familiar voice from somewhere in the apartment, bright and chipper.

Cooper rubbed a hand over his eye with a nervous laugh and opened the door wider, letting them in.

No matter how much he might have fucked up, Nix couldn't contain his grin. Because there, sitting cross-legged on top of a dinged and dented coffee table, was Chaos.

A sight for fucking sore eyes, even if Chaos was in his human form .

" This ?" Ivan asked Nix under his breath, eyeing Chaos across the room while Cooper looked on nervously, chewing on his thumbnail.

Nix supposed it did look unlikely. It had been a while since he'd seen Chaos out of his demon form, and while his face was familiar, he was still remarkably…unassuming. Or at least in this current version.

He was slightly shorter than Cooper—who already wasn't a very tall human—and slender, all big eyes and elfin features. His hair at the moment was a rather dull brown, with an eye color to match. He seemed to have borrowed some of Cooper's clothes, for whatever reason. That sweatshirt he was wearing was definitely the same one Nix had seen on Cooper before, at least.

Chaos cocked his head at Cooper, and the human went to stand next to him, still nibbling on his fingers nervously.

They looked kind of cute side by side like that. Definite twink-for-twink vibes.

Ivan was still looking at Nix expectantly, so Nix gestured from Ivan to Chaos and back again with a flourish. "Ivan, meet our chaos demon."

Chaos shook his head, pouting at Nix. "No demons here," he said again pointedly, like Nix was ruining his game. "I'm just a very mortal, human friend of Cooper's here."

Ivan pinched the bridge of his nose. "How—"

"I was uploading the ledgers you gave me," Cooper said hurriedly. "I wasn't quite sure why you wanted that old weird book with them, but I didn't want to miss it if you needed it, so I did it anyway, and then it just kind of—" He raised his hands, fingers spread wide. "—happened."

"You summoning a demon just kind of happened," Ivan said blankly.

Cooper paled a bit but nodded. "Yes?"

"And where is the Book now? "

"I still have it."

Ivan narrowed his eyes. "I should fucking hope so."

Quicker than even Nix could follow, Chaos was off the coffee table and in front of Ivan, every part of him held in eerie stillness, as if he hadn't moved at all. Except his eyes, which cycled through a range of colors—aquamarine, violet, hot pink—before settling on bright, fiery red.

Not a great sign, that. Nix began to shuffle closer to Ivan but stopped when Chaos's gaze darted his way.

When Nix was sufficiently stilled, Chaos returned his focus to Ivan. "Hi," he said brightly, his tone incongruous with his blank face. "You're scaring Cooper."

Nix slowly—very slowly—laid a careful hand on Chaos's shoulder. "Chaos," he warned.

Luckily, Ivan seemed to sense the threat. For once, he didn't scowl or scoff. And he didn't make any sudden movements, thank the Book. "I didn't intend to scare him," he said slowly. "I'm simply…irritated."

"Irritated…," Chaos mused. He cocked his head. "If I set that suit of yours on fire with you inside it, do you think you'd be more or less irritated?" He asked the question like he was genuinely interested.

He probably was.

"Chaos," Nix said again. Then, " Bracchus ."

At the sound of his given name, Chaos finally turned his head to look at Nix fully, his eyes still glowing red.

"I'm rather fond of this one," Nix told him quietly. "I'd like to keep him in top condition."

"Oh." Chaos blinked, and his eyes shifted into the form Nix was most familiar with—golden, with vertical slit pupils, like the eyes of a fox. His hair, for whatever reason, shifted into a bright purple color. "Why didn't you say so?" He grinned, revealing a dimple in his left cheek. "Hello, Nix. You could tell it was me?" He asked it as if Nix hadn't been calling him out from the first moment.

And then he was crashing into Nix's arms for a hug. Nix steadied himself against the force of it, patting his back gently. "Hello, sweets."

He was pleased to see his friend—pleased that Chaos was getting a chance to experience life outside the Void again—but he was also realizing how badly he'd miscalculated the timing.

It had been so long since Chaos had been summoned—and much longer than that since Chaos and Nix had been summoned at the same time—that Nix had forgotten how his friend was in the human realm. Namely, like a human child let loose in a candy shop.

And in this case, more like a starving human child deprived of sugar for centuries let loose in a candy shop.

Oopsies.

Cooper cleared his throat. "Let me just grab that Book for you."

He ducked into another room briefly, then returned with it in his hands, passing it over to Ivan, who was still holding himself stiffly, watching Chaos out of the corner of his eyes.

"There's a meeting the day after tomorrow," Ivan said after a moment, his words a bit stilted. "If you and your demon would like to attend."

Nix bit back a smile as he released Chaos from the hug. He'd definitely messed things up a bit, but it was still remarkably charming watching Ivan do his best to be polite. It definitely didn't come naturally to the poor thing.

"Um…" Cooper didn't seem to know what to do with Ivan's hesitance. "What about?"

"We're making some changes. Getting rid of the rest of Sergei's men, for one."

"Does that mean you found him?" Cooper asked. He sounded relieved .

"He's in the trunk of our car."

"Will it be fun?" Chaos asked, tugging on Nix's arm. "The meeting."

"You might get to kill someone," Nix told him with a smile.

"Fuck," Cooper swore, then blanched as they all looked his way.

Chaos flounced back to the coffee table at Cooper's side, perching on top of it like a gargoyle.

"Cooper doesn't involve himself in the violence, usually," Ivan explained, narrowing his eyes at Nix.

"He won't have to, though, if I'm there." Chaos patted Cooper's hip reassuringly. He'd pulled the human in close, and Nix didn't miss the way he was still tracking Ivan's every move like a hawk.

Or like a minuscule dragon guarding his treasure.

Yep, Nix had definitely miscalculated.

"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 sure you're not 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 situation was just 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. " This is 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.