Page 52 of Calling Chaos

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Cooper

Cooper leaned against the restaurant’s kitchen counter, willing his weak knees to keep him standing.

The kitchen was several noticeable degrees colder than the main dining area, and the cool feel of the stainless steel was a refreshing contrast to his overheated back. He’d gotten weirdly sweaty during the mayhem, considering he hadn’t been doing any of the heavy lifting—sweaty but shivery at the same time.

Shock, probably.

Cooper had watched Chaos slice through a man’s chest today. Chaos had cackled afterward, delighted with himself. He was outside now, setting corpses on fire per Ivan’s orders.

You’re not afraid of me again, are you?he’d asked Cooper, the question sweetly hesitant.

Cooper should be. He definitely should be; he knew that much. He was used to violent men at this point—although they still made him nervous as hell—but the bloodshed today had been a little out of his league, hadn’t it? He’d seen someone shot before, but he’d never seen anyone rip a man’s throat out with his teeth.

Plus, after he’d seen that guy shot, Cooper had hidden in his house for a week, barely getting out of bed to use the bathroom.

So why wasn’t he running in the other direction right now?

A sudden silence had Cooper looking around the kitchen. Sascha and Kai were on a folding chair at the other end of the counter, Sascha curled up in Kai’s lap. Cooper wasn’t sure how the flimsy thing was holding both their weight—Kai alone was a massive dude. They’d been murmuring together quietly, but they’d stopped now. They were looking at him.

On a normal day, Cooper would have felt awkward as hell intruding on their moment, even if he hadn’t meant to at the time. But he’d needed to get away from the smell of smoke and blood, and he frankly didn’t have the energy to care about whether they minded his presence here.

“Coop?” Sascha asked, his pretty face scrunched in something that might have been concern. Funny, seeing as how he’d been the one who’d fainted.

“Yeah?” Cooper had to clear his throat when that one word came out thready and strange. He tried again. “Yes?”

“You’re shaking.”

“Oh.” Cooper shrugged. He’d already known that. “It’ll pass.”

Sascha’s frown deepened, but he didn’t push. Kai wasn’t looking at Cooper at all, too focused on Sascha in his lap. Kai looked human again now, but Cooper had seen his demon form earlier. He was giant. And blue. And he had tall horns and these wings that were nothing like the small, cute feathery ones Chaos had. Kai’s were big and leathery and…bat-like. Frightening.

But he looked at Sascha like he was some precious creature. One that needed to be cared for and tended to. It was similar to the way Chaos had looked at Cooper earlier when he’d tried to…comfort him? Was that what he’d been doing? Cooper had been too out of it at the time to register much. He’d only been able to think that, if Chaos touched him, he’d have broken down. Not because he was afraid of him, but because somehow, that manic little demon had become Cooper’s place of comfort. A safe place to fall apart.

Cooper took his glasses off while he thought, cleaning them against his shirt and replacing them to find Sascha still staring at him.

He tried to think of something to say. He settled on, “You never did like blood much.”

Sascha gave him a small, strained smile. “No.”

Kai let out a frustrated growl, the sound echoing through the kitchen as he smoothed Sascha’s pale hair away from his face. “We willnotbe doing this again. Ivan can handle his own messes from now on.”

Sascha let out a sigh, slumping against him. “No arguments from me, big guy.”

“You’re a…warrior demon?” Cooper found himself asking.

Kai finally deigned to look at him, nodding once. “I am.”

“You’ve spilled blood, then.”

Kai hadn’t spilled any at the meeting, too busy taking care of Sascha. But that didn’t mean his talons were exactly clean, not after what Ivan had said about Sergei.

Kai’s blue eyes gleamed. “Rivers of it.”

Cooper looked between the two of them—Sascha and Kai, human and demon. “I don’t get it.”

He really didn’t. What was a warrior demon doing with a human who fainted at the sight of blood? Cooper poked his fingers under his glasses to rub at his eyes as he asked his cousin, “You didn’t get enough of violent men already? The life you’ve led?”

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