Page 54 of Villain

“You’re such an asshole.” Grady pinched the bridge of his nose.

“What? I’ve been trying to make it into the Bishop tier for two years now and nothing,” he whined. “But the newcomer somehow makes it in less than five days? How even?” He pushed out his lower lip, pouting in Nix’s direction. “Tell me your secrets, new guy.”

“Um,” Nix wasn’t sure how to proceed here, “I don’t have any? I just…Ran into them the first day. Grady was with me.”

Grady shook his head. “Seemed like you already knew them before that.”

Well shit. Looked like he hadn’t formed a strong enough friendship with his roommate either.

“Only Lake,” he admitted. “He and I had talked a couple of times before.”

“On the app, right?” the redhead said. He pulled up his multi-slate and opened the app, showing Nix his screen. “This is me. What about you?”

The username was RedHotLover and Nix barely caught himself from chuckling. He’d used a picture of the back of his head as his photo, and the tiny icon showed that he was a part of the Knight tier.

“Aren’t these supposed to be anonymous?” Nix managed to point out, only to have the rest of them snort at him.

“Please,” Khloe rolled her eyes. “Half of us have hooked up in real life thanks to that app, so for the most part, our identities have already been revealed.”

“So,” he didn’t want to hope but felt it anyway, “you all use it?”

“Not me,” Grady stated, but the others all nodded, even Juri.

When they’d first spoken about the Demons, Grady had seemed to have something personal against them. He’d said it had to do with his friend, and considering how he’d asked Juri to back him up…

“Have any of you interacted with one of the Kings before?” he directed the question to the table as a whole, but his eyes were on Juri, searching for any hint that he’d hit a nerve.

“Most people don’t,” Khloe was the one to reply, and she sounded bummed. “And if they are lucky enough, they’re usually ordered to sign an NDA after so they can’t talk about it.”

“That’s because the Demons don’t play around,” Grady insisted bitterly. “They’re monsters. The shit they’re into isn’t normal.”

“How do you know that if you’ve never been with one and don’t personally know anyone who was?” the redhead said, giving off the impression that he was used to listening to Grady complain about them.

“Shut up, Dew. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“No, man,” the redhead, Dew, snapped back, “you don’t. A couple of the guys on the swim team have slept with Yejun and West, and even though they can’t give details, they all say it was a good time.”

“Not Rase,” Juri said.

It was only two words, but it instantly dampened the mood. Even Dew conceded, his shoulders caving in as he dropped his gaze to his folded hands.

Nix frowned. If they used the app, there was a chance they’d interacted with Branwen. He needed to find out more, but curiosity got the better of him, and instead of asking about that, he found himself saying, “Who’s Rase?”

“Don’t say his name so loudly,” Khloe warned, inching her chair closer to the table. “Rase was a senior last year, super popular. Rumors were he’d made it to the King level, but that was never confirmed, and if asked, he’d deny it. He was all set to graduate top of his class, even had a job lined up at Granton Hills, the law firm?”

Nix nodded even though he didn’t really know what she was talking about. Didn’t really matter since he got the idea that it was a fancy firm around here. “And?”

“He pissed off one of the Demons,” Juri picked up the story, looking over his shoulder as if to check and be sure they weren’t being listened in on. It was fairly late in the afternoon and pouring out, so there weren’t many others around.

“He pissed off all of the Demons,” Khloe corrected, and gone was any semblance of playfulness or cheer. She actually shuddered. “Maybe we shouldn’t continue. Nix is involved with them already and—”

“I won’t say anything,” he promised, unwilling to give up this chance to learn more. So far, he’d heard whispers about how the Demons were coveted yet feared, but aside from that time at the Roost, that hadn’t been his experience.

Or, at least, not entirely.

The other day, Yejun had been rather kind, hadn’t he? Pleasant and almost…friendly, and Lake, well. Lake was cold and hard to get a read on, and he’d forced Nix’s hand in that office, but he also hadn’t forced that massive cock inside of him when he’d shown a hint of fear and—

Nix inwardly cursed at himself.