Page 54 of Unleashing Mayhem
Apparently not satisfied with a chaste press of lips, Nightmare pulled Matty off the ground, claiming his mouth more thoroughly. He kissed the same in his human form too. Possessive and heated and hungry, like all his careful restraint left him the moment he had Matty in his clutches.
Matty was panting and a little lightheaded by the time Nightmare let him go.
“We should...head inside?” Matty asked, no longer sure which direction that even was.
“Mm.”
Nightmare set Matty down, and Matty grabbed his demon’s hand. He stood there for a second too long, and Nightmare very thoughtfully turned him by the shoulder toward the house’s porch.
Ah. Right where Matty had left it.
Matty pulled Nightmare through the door, where Sascha was waiting for them inside the entryway. Matty’s friend looked concerned. “Kai’s out back,” he said quietly, his fair brow furrowed as he looked Matty over.
Nightmare released Matty’s hand, turning to presumably head out back after Kai. Matty tugged at his shirt before he could get too far. “A conversation only?” he reminded.
“Mm.”
Sascha sidled up to Matty as Nightmare walked away. “That’s Nightmare?” he whispered. “I didn’t think he’d be so…hot.”
Nightmare whirled in the hallway to face them, twisting back into his demon form. Matty realized why a second later, when Nightmare’s shadows swarmed his way.
Sascha let out a loud yelp as the shadows whirled past him. “Agh! Fucking fuck!” He lowered his voice again as Nightmare stalked out of sight. “Okay, well... Those antlers. Yeah. And—and those eyes. The whole— He just—” Sascha shuddered dramatically. “That’s more what I was expecting.”
Matty didn’t have anything to say to that. He thought Nightmare’s demon form was lovely.
Sacha stared at one of the shadows, which was making a pretty good smoky impression of Nightmare’s skull mask about a foot in front of his face. “Those are his shadows.”
“Yes.” Matty smiled at his little friends. “These are them. But don’t touch.” Matty eyed Sascha’s hands, making sure they stayed right where they were. “They’re cute, but they’re shy.”
Matty might have been lying a little bit. It was more like they were his, and he didn’t want anyone else pawing at them, even if it was his extremely generous and good-hearted friend Sascha. But he didn’t know how to say that to Sascha without sounding unhinged, so he kept it to himself.
Sascha’s gaze tracked the shadows’ swirling movements. He shuffled a little further away from Matty, since the shadows were mostly congregating in front of him. “Chaos said they were incorporeal, but Kai said they can touch things. Hurt people.”
Matty shrugged. “They can be both, I think. Like, they can get inside someone and stir their mind up from the inside. But also I’m pretty sure they can consume a dead body.”
“And you think they’re cute.” Sascha gave him an unreadable look. “And also shy.”
“I do.” The shadows came to wrap around Matty’s neck, settling like a scarf around him in the way they sometimes did, and he grinned. “See?”
Sascha pinched the bridge of his nose, a move Matty had seen Ivan make when he was getting overwhelmed with the idiocy of the masses. “I’m starting to understand Kai’s concern.”
The front door burst open, and it was Matty’s turn to yelp, the shadows sliding off his neck and rushing to the door to fend off whoever was arriving.
But it was only Chaos and Cooper.
Chaos bounded through the shadows like they were nothing, tugging Cooper with him, completely ignoring Matty’s scowl at their disregard for the shadows’ personal space.
“Was there violence?” the chaos demon asked eagerly. “Did I miss it? How many arms does Kai still have? Or did Nightmare rip off one of his wings instead? Do you think he’d let me keep it?”
“Congratulations on the bonding,” Cooper said when neither Sascha nor Matty answered Chaos’s questions. He gave Matty a smile that was a little awkward but seemed kind enough.
Sascha’s brow furrowed as he looked between the three of them, his gaze lingering especially long on Chaos, who was now snapping his teeth at the stray shadows that kept trying to cover his eyes. “This whole time I’ve been worried about my ownfamily, but I didn’t quite understand the family I was marrying into.”
“Aw,” Chaos crooned, his eyes flashing through different colors before settling on a painfully bright pink. “Please let me be in the room when you tell Kai you consider us his brothers.”
By the timeNightmare came back inside the house to lurk in the living room doorway, the four of them—Matty, Chaos, Cooper, and Sascha—were crowded on the couch, oohing over photos of Alexei’s vampire den.
“Why’s the pretty one wearing a fur coat in summertime?” Chaos asked, pressing his face to Sascha’s phone.
