“You tie your boyfriend up to fuck him,” Pavel reminded, just as the sound of Nikita’s returning footsteps echoed toward them from the hall. “We all have our kinks.”
“What you’re doing isn’t a kink,” Ledger disagreed, but he smiled broadly at his boyfriend when he appeared and motioned toward the door, putting an end to the conversation. “Ready for work?”
Nikita glanced between the two of them. “I can go by myself if…?”
“Nah,” Ledger said, “we’re finished here. Let’s go.”
“Have a good shift, Nikita,” Pavel called after them, checking his multi-slate for the time. It was late, but there was a good chance his doctor was still awake, no doubt studying like the good little student he wanted everyone to believe he was.
It was so tempting to go find him, but Zane would need space after what Pavel had done to him in the lab, so instead,Pavel forced himself to stand and head to his room on the upper level.
Maybe if he gave himself a couple hand jobs, he’d be able to make it a few more days before the need to touch Zane again got the better of him.
Maybe.
Chapter 9:
“Who did that to your neck, Zane?” Lyra’s voice was unassuming, casually spoken across the dining room table as she plucked at one of the small morsels on her plate.
They were having dinner at the Little Palace, surrounded by servants standing tall and silent against the perimeter of the room. All either of them would have to do to have one or more scrambling toward them was lift a hand, but it rarely came to that.
These dinners were usually informal, at least, as much as a meal with the Imperial Heir could be. Kazimir had attended once or twice, as well as Kelevra, but usually it was just Zane and Lyra here.
She’d at least had the good sense not to invite her lover, not since that first time where things had gone…well, as one might expect.
Just because Zane didn’t want her didn’t mean he was happy about her wanting someone other than him.
Zane hated that she and Kazimir had both found other people to play with. People that they cared about more than they’d ever cared about him. Didn’t matter that having Lyra off his tail was a good thing, or that he’d been able to focusmore without worry about being summoned to her bedroom for mediocre sex.
Sex he’d never quite enjoyed. She just wasn’t able to touch him the way he needed. The way—
He shut that thought down and gave his attention to the question she’d asked him instead. That’s when the gears finally started turning. He almost told her the truth, but wouldn’t it benefit him more to get ahead of the situation Pavel had created?
“It was Samuel,” he lied, trying hard to appear confident. The man had been noticeably absent all week. She’d asked him about it even, but he’d claimed not to know anything. There was a chance she’d chide him for that lie now, or that she’d choose the man whose body was rotting somewhere in the woods over Zane.
He held his breath and waited.
Lyra was quiet for a moment and then said, “Really? Then I hope you made him pay a fair price for it.”
“He’s dead.”
She hummed, clearly already guessing that much. “Did he suffer? He should have, for bothering you.” Her head tipped to the side before he could answer. “Do me a favor though, next time one of my people does something to displease you, come to me first. I won’t let them get away with it. You know how important you are to me, Zane.”
Yes.
Not important enough.
He nodded and feigned interest in his mostly full wine glass. Despite what Pavel assumed, the Imperial Heir hadn’t touched him sexually in almost a year. She’d abandoned him well before Kazimir had, in fact.
When she’d first met her new lover, she’d tried to make it work. Ordering Zane into their bedroom, making him take part in a threesome he’d had no interest in. After a couple of times,she told him that it wasn’t going to work out, that the three of them weren’t a good fit.
But the new lover wasn’t the one who’d been ousted from her bedchamber.
It’d been Zane.
She’d tossed him aside as though their years together hadn’t meant a damn thing. The same way Kazimir had. The same way he was positive Pavel would, the second the other Retinue member had his fill and grew bored with him.
“Samuel always wanted you for himself,” Lyra stated, but Zane barely heard her, too caught up in his thoughts until she called him by name.
