Page 37 of Devil May Lie

It just didn’t.

Not only would getting involved with one of the Retinue members be a bad idea, getting together with Royal Madden Odell, of all people, would be idiotic. Madden either took everything too seriously or not seriously enough. He was like a coin with both sides, and could flip to either on a whim.

Sporadic and unpredictable.

Berga didn’t like anything he couldn’t carefully contain. Even his experiments had some level of predictability to them.

“I have no idea what you want from me,” he admitted. “And that’s a problem.”

“I’ll simplify it for you then,” Madden offered. “For now, I just want to spend the night here with you. In this bed.”

“You want sex?” He weighed what was most important. It was too late to continue his abstinence plan, so…Berga could do that. If it meant making him leave, why not. “Fine. Let’s fuck and then—”

“You look like you’re about to fall over,” he held up a hand, stopping Berga’s approach. “I want to sleep with you, Butcher. But I’ll count that as an offer to fuck whenever I feel like the timing is right.”

He huffed. “It was not, and no you won’t.”

“Stop me,” he dared. “If you can.”

“Madden.” The man was absolutely infuriating. “You do realize I could melt your insides, right? You wouldn’t even know it was happening until it was too late.”

“Yeah,” he grinned, “that’s kind of hot.”

“What is wrong with you?”

“Cute, coming from the guy who just threatened to turn me to goo.”

So they were both fucked up. Shocker.

Madden was right about one thing though, Berga was about to fall over. Those episodes of his struck hard, and he was feeling the mental drain of it all. If not for the Mad King, Berga would have bathed and been passed out on his comfortable bed already.

“You can’t stay here,” he said. “No one ever spends the night here.”

“Have you ever asked anyone to?”

“No, and I don’t recall asking you either.”

“Has anyone ever asked to stay?” Judging by Madden’s cocky expression, he already knew the answer to that question.

It wasn’t like Berga didn’t have friends. He had Flix and he had Bay. And the other guys in the Satellite were okay, too. He didn’t dislike any of them, and as far as he knew, none of them disliked him.

Just because they weren’t having sleepovers and braiding each other's hair didn’t mean Berga was a friendless loser or anything of the sort.

“Flix has slept on the couch before,” he remembered suddenly, uncertain when all that did was cause Madden to boldly laugh at him.

“On the couch? Not in the bed with you?”

“Why would he sleep in bed with me?” Did friends…do that? “Do you share a bed with Kelevra sometimes?” Berga pictured it.

And didn’t like it.

At all.

“Whatever.” He gave in only because it was easier than continuing this useless argument. As it were, if things got physical between them, Berga wasn’t entirely confident he’d be able to forcefully remove Madden in his current state. Better just to roll with the punches and plot his revenge tomorrow once he was recovered and had his wits about him. “Stay or don’t. I’m going to shower.”

“I’ll join you.”

“You will not.” Berga still needed that moment to think, and it seemed whenever Madden was around, that was next to impossible.

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