Got off on the feeling of being coveted.
Even if it was superficial yearning.
Even if every single one of those people would use him once and turn their backs on him afterward.
Sometimes he got angry instead of soothed though. Sometimes the vapidness of it all, the thoughts about how they wanted his body but not really him ate away at Zane. It made him feel the opposite of important and necessary.
It made him feel alone.
He was curious about Pavel’s actual motives. The man claimed he wanted him, but in what capacity? After they’d slept together, would he lose interest? The bite was deep, but it would heal, and even if that wasn’t the case, marks like that didn’t hold any important meaning on Vitality.
Murdering Samuel had been a bold statement, and even though Zane had resisted that night in the forest, the thrill of the chase had been there. The rush from knowing someone was dead because of him…for him….
His conversation with Lyra soured his mood some, but not entirely. What did she know? Could she be aware that Pavel could shapeshift? Had she guessed that he was the one who’d really killed Samuel? Or was there something else? Something Zane was missing?
There was a very good chance it was that last one. It would explain Pavel’s actions, why he hadn’t simply come on to Zane like a normal person would have.
Why his advances had started up at the drop of a hat, practically giving Zane whiplash.
Was he trying to distract him from something? Keep him so mixed up and confused he wouldn’t have the time to see the real trap until it was too late?
“Um, Zane?” a female student separated from the rest of the group she’d been crowding around a nearby lab table with and approached. There was a glass bottle in her hand, the samebrand that Pavel had been leaving for him. Tentatively, she set it down on the edge of the long desk Zane was working at, almost as though she’d used all her courage to speak and didn’t dare get any closer. “Would you…like this?”
He felt something behind him before he could speak, could tell the second someone else entered the room and he was being watched. Their gaze felt different than the others, heavier somehow, and even though he was notorious for turning down gifts from his classmates, Zane found his hand reaching for the drink.
“Thank you.” He leaned back in his chair and went to twist the cap open, interested in the spark of adoration and pleasant surprise that flashed across the pretty student's features.
She was cute but not his type, and this was merely a show in any case.
Sure enough, before he could fully remove the cap, a hand dropped onto his wrist, stopping him a second before it snatched the bottle away. Zane schooled his features and almost lazily turned to address the newcomer—
Only to find Berga standing there scowling at the bottle.
He masked his confusion quickly, not wanting to let on to the other medical student that Zane had mistaken him for someone else.
“Here.” Berga thrust a different glass bottle at him. “Pavel asked me to give this to you.”
“Did he?” Zane took it but frowned. “Since when were you his errand boy?”
“He happened to catch me in the hallway,” he said with a shrug, “that’s all.”
The female student scurried away and Zane's gaze followed her for a moment.
“You scared her off,” he pointed out.
“I’m sorry,” Berga began setting up the lab table next to his, “did you want to keep flirting with her? She didn’t seem like your type.”
“Since when were you interested in my type?” He tilted his head, scanning the items he set out. There was an anatomy textbook and a tablet, as well as an experiment kit that the professor of their fifth-period had put together for the class.
Therestof the class.
“It’s good you’re here,” Zane began, a running theory spurring him on. “I’ve been meaning to pick your brain about a few things.”
“Such as?”
“Shapeshifters.”
Berga opened the experiment kit and started setting up the Bunsen burner. “What about them?”
