Pavel.
He shot around him, eyes widening when he saw the other Retinue member was gripping his side, his fingers staunching blood flow around the hilt of a knife. It’d only slipped in a couple of inches, but he was smartly leaving it in, glaring daggers at the customer who’d stabbed him and was now shaking.
The customer who’d clearly been about to stab Zane in the back before Pavel had intervened.
“Do you have any vital organs in that location?” Zane asked, trying to scan Pavel’s body. Without knowing exactly what he was, it was impossible for him to know, and that… “Answer me. Now.”
Pavel, still glaring at the customer, shook his head, wincing when that must have caused him to jostle the wound. The flash of pain across his face was a rare show of vulnerability.
A rare show caused by someone else.
Maybe Zane didn’t want anything to do with the other Retinue member. Maybe he’d really come here to get answers and put a stop to whatever twisted game Pavel was playing with him. Either way, it didn’t matter. What mattered was he was the one Pavel was currently playing that game with.
“I have been wanting to do that to you for the past two months,” Zane stated, trusting Pavel’s answer that at least nothing major had been damaged by the small weapon. He turned, tilting his head at the customer who was in shock and stupidly still standing there. “You. Are you Vital born?”
The man had shaved his head, but there was a bit of Sherbert orange peach fuzz that sort of helped identify that he could be. Still, just to be safe, Zane took a second to ask.
The customer stared at him, seemingly struggling with basic comprehension, and then started nodding frantically. “Yes! Yes, I am! I—”
One of his star crystal daggers slipped free from its hidden sheath, a high-pitched whistle cutting through the air as he flung out his left arm in a wide arch. The tip of the blade sliced through the customer’s right cheek with ease, and while the man was screaming, Zane slipped the other blade out.
He slammed it down into the meat of the customer's left thigh, expressionless when the man fell back onto the table, his sounds of pain turning shrill. It was so tempting to twist the blade, but he recalled they had an audience, and could even make out some of the flashes as onlookers not so subtly took pictures.
Damn it.
He was doing it again.
Being all possessive.
Zane yanked his weapon free and returned to Pavel’s side, allowing the other man to lean on the back of his shoulder. Several guards had arrived while he’d been working and he motioned them toward the customer with his chin.
“If he’d like to file a report against me,” Zane told them, seeing as how the sobbing man was far too out of it to be able to listen to his words, “have the paperwork sent to the Little Palace.” He cleaned the smears of blood from his blades off on the customer's shirt as he spoke. “For now, take him to the hospital and tell Doctor E’Ka that I avoided all major blood vessels.”
They didn’t even hesitate or check with Pavel, their actual boss, following the orders without question. As they hauled the customer away, they left a blood trail in their wake, but it wasn’t there long.
A cleaning man with a mop came up almost immediately.
Chapter 14:
“Your reason for leaving me out here better be phenomenal,” Zane practically growled when the door to Pavel’s bedroom in the penthouse suite at the top of Concealed finally opened and the man stepped out with his brother. He set his glare on Ledger. “Last I checked, you are not medically trained to deal with a stab wound.”
“We get stabbed all the time,” Ledge reminded with a roll of his eyes. “Relax. This was nothing. I’ve been patching him up since we were kids. He’s just used to me doing it, that’s all. No need to take it so personally.”
“I’m not.” He was. He absolutely was.
“Careful, Doctor,” Pavel drawled, seeming far too pleased with himself, all things considered, “I might start thinking you actually care about me.”
“Your delusions are your own.” Zane followed the two of them down the long hallway and the stairs, unable to contain his displeasure when they entered the kitchen and Ledger helped his brother onto one of the black bar stools set around the granite island.
This was too cozy. Too…domestic.
The opposite of why he’d come here.
“You ever been here before, Doc?” Ledger asked, moving to the refrigerator.
“No.” What possible reason could Zane have had to visit Pavel at his home?
The kitchen was situated to the left of the entrance, with the living area at the far center, and a dining area to the right. There was a hallway between the two, and then next to the kitchen, the stairwell they’d just descended since Pavel’s room was located on the second floor.
