Page 55 of Unleashing Mayhem
“Oh, Soren? I think just because he can.” Sascha shrugged. “You know. Fashion.”
Chaos’s eyes gleamed. “Fashion,” he mused, straightening and giving Cooper a glance.
Cooper flushed, tugging on his hoodie strings. “I’ll stick to my sweatshirts, menace.”
“But don’t you thinkI’dlook good in a fur coat?” Chaos asked, snuggling into him and rubbing his head against Cooper’s shoulder like a cat asking for scratches.
“You would,” Cooper agreed, patting at Chaos’s head. “You can wear whatever you want, in whatever season you want to wear it.”
“A tiara? I saw a woman wear one at the ballet that one time. It looked ridiculous. I loved it.”
“Ten tiaras.” Cooper pressed a kiss to Chaos’s shimmering hair, which had gone kind of rainbow at some point. “Go nuts.”
Matty beckoned to Nightmare, and his demon left the doorway, stalking over to the couch. He didn’t exactly lookhappy, but he wasn’t covered in blood either, and nothing too murderous was coming down the bond. His white eyes were flat too, and not glowing with any sinister intent.
“You talked?” Matty asked when Nightmare was in front of him.
“We talked.”
Matty grabbed hold of Nightmare’s outstretched hand and used it to stand from the couch. Nightmare didn’t move back when he did, so Matty ended up with his face basically pressed into Nightmare’s chest. He tilted his head back. “I’m going to chat with him too.”
“Mm.”
“Scary?”
“Yes, sweet?”
“You’re holding my hand very tightly.”
“Yes.”
Matty wiggled back and used his free hand to tug on Nightmare’s shirt until he was bent low enough to press their foreheads together. “A little conversation,” Matty murmured, staring kind of cross-eyed into Nightmare’s white gaze. “Because he kept me alive long enough for you to find me.”
A low rumble left Nightmare’s chest. He pressed a hard kiss to Matty’s lips, and then he straightened, his shadows rushing out to drape over Matty’s neck, shoulders, and arms, all the way down to his wrists.
There sure were a lot of them.
Matty grinned. “Thank you, Scary.” He pushed Nightmare toward the couch. “Why don’t you take a seat and look at Sascha’s pictures. I’ll be right back.”
Sascha made a little strangled sound as Nightmare sat next to him, but he didn’t move away. He didn’t move at all, really. He seemed kind of frozen.
He’d probably warm up to Nightmare eventually, right?
Matty made his way through the back of the house and into the backyard. It was lovely in the summertime, with its lush grass and the big tree in the corner and the overgrown flowers left behind from the previous owner. Matty didn’t spend nearly enough time in it—he’d been too busy hiding on the couch under his blankets.
And there was Kai, standing with his arms crossed, kind of glowering at the tree trunk. He turned at Matty’s arrival, his scowl deepening at the sight of the shadows swirling over Matty.
“Possessive bastard,” he growled.
Matty kept going until he was right next to the demon. He crossed his arms in solidarity, and they both stared at the tree.
“You’re angry with me,” Matty finally said, eyes locked onto the bark in front of him.
Kai made a vague grumbling noise. “Not with you, little chick.”
With Nightmare, then.
“He didn’t do anything wrong though,” Matty argued. He didn’t know why everyone kept acting like Nightmare had stolen him from his bed in the middle of the night and whisked him away to some hell dimension. It was Matty who’d summoned him. Who’d asked for his help.
