Oh, so he was a fan of his and not Zane’s? Interesting. Poor thing.
“That’s never—” Pavel found himself hauled up by the collar of the coat, Zane only giving him a second to blink in surprise before his mouth was on his, tongue brutally shoving past his lips.
Their kisses were never soft or sweet, but there was a ferocious intensity to this one, a sort of wild energy that spilled out as Zane feasted on his mouth, dominating him in front of their audience. He held Pavel tightly and sucked and nipped at him, sure to make all the lewd noises he could in the process.
Just as Pavel’s cock threatened to burst the seam of his pants, Zane disengaged.
He glared viciously at the waiter who looked close to tears. “Fire him.” Then grabbed Pavel’s hand and started swiftly for the door. “Come on. We’ll eat somewhere else where there’s less chance of me committing a murder.”
Pavel allowed him to pull him behind, only stopping once they’d made it back to his car. He went to let go and step to the driver’s side, but Zane yanked him back, that anger from earlier still swirling in his dark gaze.
“For the fucking record,” Zane said. “Iamthe crazy possessive type.”
With that, Zane practically chucked Pavel’s hand away as if burned and stormed to the passenger side in the biggest show of an adult tantrum Pavel had ever seen.
And he loved every damn second of it.
Chapter 13:
Zane stood outside of Concealed with his hands in his pockets, staring up at the way the colors of the setting sun reflected across the glass surface. He’d been there a time or two before but had never really paid attention to its design, not even that night he’d come here to help Muse pull that candle out of his ass.
Had the building always been so…cold?
It towered over the rest of the businesses on the packed street, seemingly stretching up forever. There was an underground and aboveground entrance, and Zane had gone with the above one, standing on the side of the walkway as he pondered whether or not this was a good idea.
The morning after Pavel had hunted him in the woods, he’d woken achy from having to find his way back to the parking lot alone in the dark and the cold.
The bitemark he’d been given that day in class had taken over a week to heal, two for the scar to completely vanish even with his level of healing.
There’d been a knot on the back of his head where his skull had hit the stone steps of the pool that’d lasted an entire weekend.
Every time Pavel showed up, Zane got hurt. He’d appear out of the blue, manhandle him, and then just leave. As though aftercare wasn’t a thing.
As if Zane wasn’t deserving of receiving any of it.
Not that he’d ever required that sort of thing from past lovers before. Hell, typically he was the one putting his clothes back on before Kazimir had recovered, and with Lyra…The aftercare portion had fallen on Zane’s shoulders. Now that he was standing out here, it was occurring to him how illogical his line of thinking had been.
How out of character for him to be mad over something like that.
But it wasn’tjustthat.
The other day at that shitty burger place though…Thatcould never happen again.
Zane didn’t lose his cool. He wasn’t Kelevra or Kazimir. He didn’t do things to openly spite people, like Madden or Ledger, either. He operated in the shadows, behind a smokescreen, pulling people's strings without them even knowing what he was doing until it was too late. He cut them with words and offhanded remarks and saved his knives for true enemies.
That waiter hadn’t done anything more than lust after a Devil of Vitality, which, on this planet, was a given. Yet Zane had completely and totally lost his mind the second he’d looked at Pavel with those puppy dog eyes and confessed his feelings.
Actually, he’d lost his mind before then. When the guy had run his hands all over his lap under the guise of cleaning off the soda he’d spilled. On. Purpose.
Zane was only possessive of a few things. Things that were so important to him, the mere thought of sharing sent him into a rage. A person had never made that list, and yet there he’dstood, the urge to prove to everyone in that shitty burger joint that Pavel was off-limits driving him to do the unthinkable.
And therein laid the issue.
Pavel didn’t belong to him.
Things that weren’t meant to stick around couldn’t be owned. It was like trying to claim air or the ocean waves. No matter what the other Retinue member said, no matter how flowery or right his words, the inevitable was unavoidable.
And the inevitable was, eventually, Pavel would get bored of him or find someone more suitable.
