“What?” Pavel chuckled. “Did you expect me to thank you for erasing me from your memories?”
“Is this,” he pursed his lips, “revenge then?”
Pavel went still at the hint of hurt in the other man’s tone. No matter how angry he was, he never wanted to wound Zane that way. “Gorgeous, let me up.”
“No.”
“This isn’t revenge. I’m not getting back at you because of hurt feelings—” He rolled his eyes when Zane’s brow wingedup in disbelief. “All right, fine. I’m also getting back at you, but that’s not all that this is about. That’s not the crux of it.”
“You’re punishing me for something that happened when we were children?” he asked incredulously. “Seriously?”
“Yes, seriously.”
“It’s not my fault I don’t remember. I—”
“Almost drowned when you were twelve, yeah, I know that too.” Pavel had heard the story too late to do anything about it, even comfort him. By the time they’d met again, Zane had already found a way to work through any trauma that may have developed thanks to that incident. “That’s why you trained yourself to hold your breath so long, and why you get off on being oxygen deprived.”
It wasn’t really about the chemical rush that took place in his brain once he was allowed to breathe again, not like it was for other people. Zane’s high came from dancing with death. From getting close to that dark end and telling it to go fuck itself.
“You lost all of your memories prior to the adoption,” Pavel finished. “But that doesn’t matter to me. I’m still upset with you.”
“What were we to each other?” Zane held him firmly against the table. “We were children.”
“You were mine,” Pavel stated, “and I was yours. It was simple—itissimple because nothing has changed. You still belong to me, and I still belong to you. Which means if you want to slit my throat here and now, you have every right to do so. I won’t even try to stop you, bashert.”
“That,” Zane homed in on his phrasing, “you keep saying that. What does that mean?”
“It means you’re my person,” he explained. “When we were kids, you were my best friend, the thing I wanted to protect the most. When we were teenagers and reintroduced, you weremy horny teenage wet dream. Now that we’re adults, and we’ve been reunited, you’re my lover. We’re soulmates.”
“That is the cheesiest crap I’ve ever heard.”
“That’s only because you aren’t very romantic.”
“It’s because I don’t believe in stuff like that,” Zane corrected.
“Right, it was easy enough for you to screw both Kazimir Ambrose and Lyra Diar at the same time.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t I?” he snorted. “Gorgeous, I’ve been shadowing you for a hell of a lot longer than a couple of months. If anyone knows what’s going on with you, it’s me. I had to watch you slip into those seedy motel rooms to fuck him. Stood outside and waited to see how long it would take you to come back out.”
“What is wrong with you?”
“Bashert doesn’t mean soulmates in the way you’re thinking,” Pavel chose to reply, instead of answering his question. “I’m not like plain Hexans. Part of what I am, part of whatever concoction makes me, has this instinct to form a lifelong bond. When we were little, I chose you.”
Zane was silent for a moment and then, “So—”
“When we met again,” he cut him off, knowing exactly what he was about to suggest, “I chose you again. This was always my choice. You were always going to belong to me.”
“And where ismychoice?” Zane pressed against his arm, causing pain to shoot up to Pavel’s shoulder.
“You don’t get one,” he replied, despite the obvious threat. “You can throw your little tantrum, break my arm or slice my throat, it won’t change anything. After you’re done, once you’ve calmed down, you’re still going to be in the exact same position you’re in now, Doctor.”
There was another quiet moment and then he let him go and stepped back, watching cautiously as Pavel carefully lifted back up into a standing position and turned to face him.
“Put the knife down, gorgeous,” Pavel coaxed, rubbing at his wrist. He kept his distance, sensing they were on the precipice of something important. How he treated Zane from here on out would determine which way they fell, and he wasn’t about to risk losing everything he’d been striving for simply because he couldn’t keep his cool.
Pavel waspatient, damn it.
