Page 10

“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 focus more 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.

“What, Majesty?” He blinked at her, noticing her frown and only recalled where they were and that they were alone too late. “Forgive me, Lyra. I’ve been distracted lately. Exams are coming up.”

The corner of her mouth tipped upward and she leaned back in her chair. “That isn’t the only thing keeping you distracted, is it?”

It wasn’t really a question, and he felt himself stiffen. How much did she know?

She waved his concerns off with a flick of her wrist. “Word spreads, love. Of course I’ve heard all about how Pavel Hart tore through your flesh in front of an entire classroom.”

“I—”

“I’ll give you the lie this once,” she cut him off. “You’re always cleaning up my brother’s messes, you deserve to make one of your own now and again. I assume Samuel pushed his luck, even if he wasn’t the cause of your gruesome injury. But heed my warning. Next time one of my people does something to piss you off, you aren’t allowed to act alone. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Lyra. Forgive me.”

“Why did you lie about the Hart boy?” she wondered. “Do you…like him perhaps?”

There was no rule about Zane sleeping with other people. He was allowed to take physical pleasure from whoever he wanted, however and whenever he pleased.

But that didn’t mean he could fall for any of them.

Lyra might have found herself a new man, but that hadn’t changed the possessiveness she felt toward Zane. Like a child still insisting that her favorite toy belonged to her, despite leaving it on the shelf to collect dust.

Maybe it seemed hypocritical, but Zane didn’t want that kind of obsession turned his way. He didn’t want to be just another toy on someone’s shelf. Now that things with Kaz had ended, he found he no longer even wanted to settle for being someone’s first choice.

He wanted to be their only choice.

Period.

And he would never get that from Lyra.

If he’d been able to walk away from her, he would have done so years ago. Kelevra had offered to buy him his own place, but Lyra had hated the idea, insisting Zane stay with her so she wouldn’t become lonely.

He’d never really been hers because she’d never fully wanted him to be. But that still didn’t mean she wouldn’t throw a fit if she found out there was someone out there who was making serious moves on him.

Not that he could definitively say that’s what was going on with Pavel…There was always the chance the guy was messing with him. Hell, that made a lot more sense than Pavel waking up one morning suddenly interested in learning what Zane’s insides felt like.

What had he said last week in that crumbling, damp library?

He’d been curious about his refractory period.

“It’s nothing,” Zane forced himself to reply. “He’s nothing. Just a fling.”

He could tell her what really happened. It would be embarrassing and she’d probably think less of him afterward, but Pavel wouldn’t be able to walk away unscathed. As much as he hated the feeling of being trapped in this house, chained to her side, there was a method to this madness that he understood.

Pavel Hart was a conundrum through and through, and Zane didn’t have the time for one of those.

“He assaulted you,” Lyra frowned. “Did you at least report it to Kelevra?”

“Your brother knows.” Everyone knew. As she’d already pointed out, rumors were already abuzz. “I told him the same thing I’m telling you. It’s nothing. We had an argument and Pavel took things too far, that’s all.”

Zane had met with Kelevra, intent on asking his questions but…He’d gotten cold feet part way through. He was higher up the hierarchy than Pavel, and knew that Kel would take his side, but that didn’t mean the prince wouldn’t think of him differently if he discovered what’d transpired between them. Not to mention, there had to be a reason he was keeping Pavel’s secret.

He’d played it over, and Zane was confident he’d figured it out. Having a shapeshifter in his arsenal gave Kelevra an edge that most other rulers didn’t have.

More of an edge than having a Royal Doctor in his pocket?

Probably.

That was what had stopped him. What’d kept him from demanding answers. Zane had found himself sweeping the whole bite under the rug, acting like it’d been no big deal.

Acting like he hadn’t been plotting his bloody and violent revenge ever since.

Lyra set her fork down and slowly glanced over at him. “On some planets, biting someone on the juncture of their shoulder and neck is a statement. If we ask Aodhan—”

“Your brother knows,” Zane reiterated. “Mine doesn’t have to.”

Aodhan Solace probably wouldn’t care. They were only brothers because his parents had adopted Zane, they’d never been very close aside from pleasantries. There’d been one moment two years ago when Aodhan had tried in his own twisted sort of way to get closer to him, but somehow Zane didn’t think going on a murder spree with the older man would bond them for life.

No, instead, he’d helped out one time, had gotten caught by Lyra, and had ended up tied even more tightly to her side. That was when Samuel had started openly spying on him as well, tracking his movements so he could show up at school or the bar to all but drag Zane back to the Little Palace whenever Lyra called for him.

Zane didn’t blame Aodhan for how things had turned out.

He blamed Kazimir.

But he’d already enacted petty revenge for that by messing with Kazimir’s boyfriend Nate Narek. As far as Zane was concerned, they were even.

Still.

Didn’t mean he was any less pissed whenever he thought about it.

“You seem upset,” Lyra pointed out, reaching for her wine glass. “There’s no need to be worried. I took care of that little problem for Aodhan that same day you rushed back here to see him. He’s been more careful.”

It wouldn’t last.

“He’d be forced to find a different means of dealing with his problems if you would stop helping him out,” Zane said.

“Is that really what you want?” She eyed him over the rim of her glass. She and Kelevra had similar features, the same hazel eyes and dark brown hair, though hers was more wavy than curly. What she lacked was the same intensity, that same emptiness.

So why had she always had the uncanny ability to rattle Zane more than her brother?

“Do you want me to pull my resources?” she continued when he didn’t immediately respond. “I’m not sure how long he’d last without my organization there to help sweep his atrocities under the rug.”

Organization was a nice way of putting it.

Somehow, Zane didn’t think organ trafficking, no matter which way it was spun, was all that nice. But what did he know? And, more importantly, how much did he actually care?

Hint.

Not much.

It didn’t even matter to him that Aodhan claimed he only killed people who deserved it, not really.

Lyra Diar might not have ever shown socio or psychopathic tendencies.

The same could not be said about Zane.

“I appreciate all of the help you’ve given,” he tentatively began, carefully navigating this new landmine she’d thrown. “The entire Solace family does, you know that.”

“I would never abandon my brother,” she shrugged, “but maybe you—”

“No,” he stopped her. “No, you’re right. Of course. I owe a lot to the Solaces and my brother. Forgive me.”

Forgive me.

Forgive me.

Forgive me.

He was like a broken record.

Her pretty broken instrument she’d sat on the shelf and left to collect dust.

The roast he’d been eating turned to ash in his mouth and he downed the contents of his glass in a poor attempt to chase the taste away. He was wallowing. Again. It was the stress and the anxiety brought on from lack of contentment. At least when he was getting fucked whenever he needed, he could blow off this extra steam and refocus, but now…

Sex was a temporary solution, but it was effective. When he was being pinned down by someone, he could convince himself he was wanted. That he mattered to someone, even if just for a moment.

Even if it was just to get them to release.

Zane parent’s hadn’t wanted him . They’d wanted a second heir, one they could sell to the Diar family in order to form a lifelong connection. Aodhan would never have gone along with their plans, which they’d realized early on, so they’d turned to the orphanage on the planet they’d happened to be visiting for business. They’d left Hexa with Zane and that had been that.

To the rest of the universe, Zane was their biological son. There was a whole backstory/explanation as to why no one had known about him until his eleventh birthday. He’d been sickly since birth and kept on a separate planet for treatment, blah blah blah. Very few people knew the truth.

That was another reason he’d been chosen over someone else. Zane had matched their appearance well enough to pass as their real son. He and Aodhan were almost always pegged as siblings out in society, despite not having a drop of shared blood between them.

Aodhan hadn’t wanted him either. He hadn’t cared that a brother meant he could live the life he wanted and not worry about catering to his parents’ demands because he was always going to do that anyway. In the early years, Zane was mostly just there the same way a new piece of furniture would sometimes turn up in the Solace mansion.

When he’d been eighteen and finally brought to Vitality and gifted to Kelevra, the Imperial Prince hadn’t batted an eyelash. He might have said cool, but that was the extent of it. Then again, being given literal people as presents was pretty par for the course for Kel, so no wonder Zane wasn’t considered all that special.

The two of them had lived at the Little Palace up until high school graduation. When Kelevra had moved out, Zane had stuck behind because it’d been easier for Kazimir and Lyra to fuck him behind everyone else’s back when they had an entire palace to do it in.

Lyra had lost sexual interest in him first, which was fine since he and Kazimir had their own fling separate from her.

Then Nate Narek had come along and spoiled that good thing as well, resulting in Zane the only one all alone and not getting his dick or his pussy wet.

Unwanted. Unimportant. Again.

For once, he just wanted to be someone’s main choice. He didn’t want to be an option or a possibility bred from convenience, and the only way he could see that happening was for him to become the Imperial family’s doctor. Once he had that title, they wouldn’t just want him. They would need him.

No one else was going to make him matter. Clearly he had to do that on his own.

“I don’t recall you and Pavel Hart being particularly close,” Lyra said.

“We aren’t.” Not if knowing how having practically the guy’s whole hand shoved up his ass counted, and Zane didn’t think it did. The only thing he’d gleaned from that exchange had been that Pavel was a sadist.

And good with his hands.

But whatever.

“Are you certain?” she asked.

“If there’s something you want me to do, just tell me.” They both knew Zane would get it done, no matter what her request entailed. Even if it had something to do with the psychotic man suddenly showing interest in him.

If they were going to bring up things that mattered, Lyra, who was helping to keep the International Police Force off of Aodhan’s heels, meant a great deal more to Zane than a guy who’d chaotically hunted him through the forest one time.

“Could you get close to him for me?” she asked, and when he blinked at her, obviously caught off guard, added, “I don’t mean romantically. I’d just like for you to take advantage of you both being members of the Retinue and keep an eye on him.”

That…was weird.

“Why?” What did she suspect? Did she know it’d really been Pavel who killed Samuel? If so, surely she would have called him out on it like she had the other lie he’d told.

“I don’t trust him,” she explained.

“Why not?” No, that wasn’t the right question. “Do you think he could mean harm to your family?” Zane shook his head. “Pavel is unhinged, but he’s loyal.”

She tapped the tips of her long silver nails against the tabletop. “Yes, but the real question is, who is he loyal to?”

He frowned. “Kelevra.”

“You don’t know what I know about him,” she disagreed, admittedly piquing his interest. Before he could ask for her to elaborate, however, she held up a hand. “I won’t tell you. It’s a secret, and it needs to stay that way. For now, at least. The second I think the perceived threat may be real, you’ll be the first I tell, Zanie.”

No he wouldn’t be, but Zane didn’t have the luxury of calling her out on her lies the same way she did with him.

What could she possibly know about Pavel that needed to be kept secret? Unless she’d discovered that he was a shapeshifter…? Zane still hadn’t taken the time to research into that, but now it didn’t seem like such a waste of his time. For the life of him, that was the only secret he could think of her having, and for some reason, it scared her.

Enough to have her asking him to spend time with someone else instead of just sit here in her palace like the shiny trophy she viewed him to be.

“Perhaps this was a bad idea.” Lyra was looking at him oddly all of a sudden. “You seem too…excited. You said the two of you weren’t close, so I assumed this wouldn’t be a hardship for you, but if you’re just going to use it as a reason to try and—”

“I’m excited about there being a potential mystery revolving around a man I thought to be utterly boring,” Zane corrected her. “That’s all it is.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course.” He gave her a soft smile, the one he knew would instantly convince her he was head over heels for her. She thought she could sniff out all his lies? Funny that she’d never caught that one. “Let me do this for you. And for Kelevra.”

She nibbled on her lower lip, but unlike her, he could see through when she was putting on an act. She wanted him to feel bad for making her doubt his devotion to her. “I suppose that is technically your responsibility, as a member of the Retinue.”

His responsibility was to protect the prince, not her, but sure. He liked this too much to point that out. Liked that she was giving him so much of her attention, that she was pulling out all the stops in an attempt to manipulate him to do what she pleased. It’d been so long since she’d bothered putting in that kind of effort where he was concerned, even these dinners were fewer and farther between.

It was too bad he didn’t actually like her. If he did, he might reciprocate, might turn on the false charm and sweet talk her back into his bed instead of letting her leave for her date with her other lover.

But Zane didn’t like her, so he wouldn’t bother, no matter how much fun it was to see her try so hard and think she was getting away with it.

“Thank you. I knew I could count on you.” Lyra smiled back at him and then stood from the table, indicating they were finished now that she’d gotten what she wanted. He remained seated, stilling when she came around to his side and pressed a chaste kiss to the top of his head, but if she noticed his stiffness, she didn’t comment on it. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

He hummed, Lyra undeterred by his nonverbal agreement. His consent had never mattered to her one way or the other, after all.

It wasn’t until later that night when he was getting ready for bed that it hit him what he’d truly agreed to do. While he’d been so caught up in leading Lyra into a false sense of connection, he’d missed the most important part of the whole request.

She’d asked him to get closer to Pavel.

And Zane had agreed.