Page 12

When Zane couldn’t burn off his stressors with sex, he turned to other methods, mainly, tiring himself out in the pool.

It’d been four days since the incident in the lab and the second skin bandage he had sealed over the wound on his neck kept it from getting wet as he did his laps at the Little Palace. Sometimes, he spent time at the one on campus, but for the most part, he preferred to get his workouts here. It was even better knowing Samuel wouldn’t be lurking about, checking on whether or not he was still swimming as the night stretched on.

Lyra had taken his death rather well. Almost suspiciously even. If Zane didn’t know her, he might have been worried, but in the past week, she’d yet to bring anything else about him or Pavel up in conversation. They’d even had dinner again earlier before she’d left for another date, and it’d been filled with small talk about a new art gallery opening and whether his studies were going well.

But that was another reason he’d so readily agreed to her when she’d asked him to keep an eye on Pavel in the first place. If she wasn’t going to keep fucking him, then she was all but useless to Zane in any capacity other than as the sole thing standing between his brother and prison.

If he really wanted to, he could go to Kelevra, just as Pavel had suggested. He could go and explain that Kel’s sister had coerced him into a sexual relationship that he’d never wanted. That she’d ordered him to remain here in this palace prison and that he wanted out. Kelevra would no doubt help him, he would be freed…

Unless she decided to pull rank and dismiss Zane from the running for next Royal Doctor.

And the next time Aodhan needed a hand, Lyra would deny him, he’d end up locked up on death row, and their parents would blame Zane for the impending doom of their son. Their real son.

Zane wouldn’t care about that either, except for the fact he still needed them and the Solace name—not to mention their money—to finish off school. Unlike some of the other Devils who had side hustles or full-blown businesses, Zane had always been instructed to focus on his studies. He was rich now with nothing to fall back on, not until he had his degree, at least.

Which meant playing this game and swimming these laps, over and over again, on a constant, seemingly never-ending loop until—

What was that?

Zane surfaced toward the front end of the pool, pulling the goggles off his face so he could see better. He could have sworn there was a crashing sound just now, but the room was just as empty as when he’d gotten here.

No one else used the pool aside from him. When they’d been in high school, Kelevra would sometimes throw a party, but he had his own pool at his penthouse now and typically held them there. Unlike with dinner, there weren’t any staff members standing off to the sidelines either.

He liked peace and quiet more often than not, especially here, in a place he specifically came to in order to unwind.

A dark shape drifted beneath the surface some feet away, catching his attention, and he burst backward on instinct, almost reaching the edge when a hand shot out and latched onto his ankle.

Zane was yanked under, sucking in a breath just before he was submerged. He fought off his assailant, struggling as long limbs wrapped around him, fighting against the pull of the water. His panic didn’t last long, however. The second he recognized who it was currently trying to drown him, his body locked up.

He began to sink to the bottom of the pool, and his assailant laughed, a million tiny bubbles exploding from his full lips.

Pavel grabbed onto Zane and forced him back to the surface, pressing him against the side of the pool, still laughing as though they’d been playing a fun game and he hadn’t just appeared out of nowhere.

“Are you crazy?” Zane shoved him and then couldn’t help but glance over his shoulder toward the entrance to the pool room. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? How did you get in here?” He sure as fuck hadn’t invited him, which could only mean…He cursed. “Breaking into the Little Palace?! Seriously?!”

“I didn’t break in.” Chuckling, Pavel captured Zane’s chin. “I borrowed this face, gorgeous.”

As in, he’d shapeshifted into Zane again? And what? Had just waltzed in through the front doors? What the hell?

“Speaking of,” Pavel wasn’t done, “is there something you want to tell me?” He crowded Zane more firmly against the pool.

“No.” Zane couldn’t even begin to try to understand what he was talking about, so he didn’t bother. He did, however, try to disengage and shove Pavel away, but the other guy wasn’t having it.

“No? So you’re just going to keep it to yourself?”

“Keep what?” Zane blew out a breath in frustration.

“The fact that the doorman wants to be impaled by your cock?”

Zane stared at him. “You can’t mean Byron.”

“Pretty sure I do.”

“The man is eighty-seven!”

“And?” Pavel quirked a brow. “Old people still get horny, Doctor.”

He couldn’t believe it’d taken him this long and the topic of sex to be brought up before he realized, but now that he had, Zane couldn’t help but ask, “Pavel. Where are your clothes?”

He grinned at him. “I wasn’t going to get them wet.”

“Where are they?”

“Over by the garden entrance.” Pavel tilted his head to the right where the side glass door entrance—which Zane could have sworn was locked—was located.

“Okay. Get out, go put them on, and go home.”

“I have a better idea.” Pavel took a step back and then dove, disappearing only for a moment before returning with a small waterproof black bag he must have dropped when he’d grabbed him. He set it on the edge and then reached for Zane, turning him toward the stairs that led in and out of the pool.

The pool itself was massive, and the domed ceiling above was gilded, with hand-painted depictions of angels and demons fornicating. Zane couldn’t help but catch sight of one particular painting where an angel had a demon bent over a chair and was roughly fucking him from the back when Pavel eased him down to one of the steps.

He was on one low enough the water was almost at the tips of his shoulders, but he didn’t complain when Pavel captured his chin a second time and tilted his head to get a better look at the bitemark he’d left there.

“Pleased with yourself?” Zane couldn’t help but break the silence after a while, a bit perturbed by the intense way Pavel stared at the wound. That shit had hurt, and he really wasn’t down for another one.

“Getting there,” Pavel said, then met his gaze. “You’re not resisting.”

“Is there a question in there somewhere?”

The corner of his lips twitched. “But you’re still a brat.”

“Let—” Zane found himself pushed until the back of his head connected with another of the steps. A hand circled his throat and held him pinned underwater as he flailed, his legs kicking out but unable to make contact with the way he’d been positioned on the steps with Pavel between his thighs.

He was already cursing when he was dragged back up, but Pavel didn’t seem to like that, clicking his tongue at him once before shoving him back down once more.

It took him an embarrassingly long time to get over the panic, going still much like he had earlier when the man had ambushed him. His eyes glared up, catching sight of Pavel’s shifting image above the surface.

This time when he was brought back up, he grit his teeth and kept the swearing to himself.

“Good boy.” Pavel brushed sopping strands of Zane’s hair off his forehead almost lovingly. “Such a fast learner for me.”

“What are you doing?” he was sure to keep his voice even and not raise it, afraid that would trigger the other Retinue member as much as the cursing had.

If he’d had his knife, perhaps he wouldn’t be at such a disadvantage, but as it were…Pavel was stronger than he was, a lot more than Zane would have guessed even, and if the other night in the forest had been any indication, he could, and would, easily overpower Zane if he wanted.

That shouldn’t be even remotely hot, and yet Zane could already feel the heat beginning to creep beneath his skin. He fought against it, not wanting Pavel to notice, but of course that was wishful thinking.

Pavel’s gaze dropped to the spot between Zane’s thighs and he smirked. “It’s not exactly growing as quickly as I hoped it would, but at least your body is reacting to me this time. Last time I had to play with you a lot before you rose to the occasion, do you remember?”

“I do not consent to you touching me,” he snarled, not even surprised when all that did was earn him a mocking bark of laughter. Honestly, he was surprised he’d bothered saying the words as well.

Consent?

Since when did consent matter to a Devil of Vitality?

Pavel’s hand slipped to the back of his skull, gripping his hair hard enough to make him hiss. “Don’t act like you haven’t been thinking about me, Doctor.”

“I haven’t,” he lied.

“Really? Are you sure?” His mouth dropped to his, but he didn’t kiss him, instead he hovered there, just out of reach with his hold in Zane’s hair keeping him in place. “I’m a little more myself tonight, but since I had to use the change to get in here, that might not last.”

Was he talking about his shapeshifting? Did that do something to him afterward? Was that why he’d been so…intense, in the woods?

“I’ll give you a choice, just one,” Pavel continued. “You can tell me the truth, tell me whether or not you’ve been thinking about me, and I can take it easy on you. Or you can stick with the lie.”

Zane really shouldn’t play into his hand like this but…“What’s going easy on me look like?”

Pavel grinned even though that wasn’t exactly an agreement. “It means I’ll open you up nicely with my fingers before I fill you with my cock. If you were anywhere near as tight as you were before, you’ll need it. If we skip that step, I’ll most likely tear you open. Personally? I don’t mind a mixture of blood and come as I breed you, but you might want to keep the pain to a minimum.”

It did not pass his notice that Pavel wasn’t promising there would be no pain at all.

“I’ve been thinking about you,” Zane admitted, pausing for effect before adding, “Thinking about sliding my knife between your ribs.”

“You can play with my insides once I’m done playing with yours,” Pavel told him, and then before Zane could do more than furrow his brow, reached down and tore his swim pants off. A second later, he speared two fingers into his unprepared hole.

Zane cried out, head tipping back against Pavel’s hold, partially submerging his head. The burn didn’t last long, making way for zips of pleasurable electricity as his hole was stretched and forced open.

Pavel’s movements were harried, an indicator he hadn’t been joking about potentially losing his cool. Two fingers turned to three, his hand easing its grip on Zane’s head to cup the base of his skull instead, helping to keep him above water as he finger fucked him into a joined frenzy.

“Here?” He curled his fingers inside of him, nodding when Zane’s jerking body answered his question. “Yes, there it is. There’s that magic spot that can make you come apart for me. Would you like that, gorgeous? Would you like me to bring you to orgasm?”

Zane fought against the pleasure threatening to drag him into submission and growled, practically baring his teeth. “Not if you were the last man on the planet.”

“No?” He pulled his fingers free and groped Zane’s balls instead, pulling at them and rolling them in his palm, his touch gentle yet firm. Possessive. “What if I was the last man on Hexa then, hmm?”

Zane frowned. “What?”

Pavel kissed him the same second his fingers thrust back into his hole, corkscrewing deep inside of him the same way his tongue was. He sucked and bit, careful not to draw blood with his teeth this time, making sure there was no threat of it in his actions even as he drove Zane higher and higher into ecstasy.

Shit.

The moment Zane lost was palpable, clearly felt by the both of them at the same time even, because Pavel chuckled against his mouth and began ravishing him with more aggression. His tongue shot all the way back, practically tapping against Zane’s tonsils and then dipping further, as though checking his gag reflex. He moaned, pleased, when all Zane did was swallow and shift beneath him.

“I wanted this to last so much longer,” Pavel said, voice rushed and husky. He removed his fingers again and reached between his own thighs, not allowing Zane the chance to try and sneak a peek as he grabbed his cock and brought the swollen tip to his entrance. “I wanted to at least try to make our first time special, but I should have known it was always going to come to this.”

“To what?” Zane couldn’t help but ask.

“Me forcing you beneath me. Me,” he notched his cockhead at his entrance, both of them sucking in a sharp breath, “forcing you to learn what I’ve always known to be true. That no one can make you feel the way I can make you feel. No one is ever going to fuck you better than I will.”

Pavel drove into him, grinding himself against Zane’s ass as he filled him past that point of pleasure once more, and into that mildly uncomfortable place where he felt too full and weird. As if sensing that, he eased himself out slowly, taking his time with it, watching the range of emotions splay across Zane’s face as he did. He dragged himself almost to the tip and then slammed back home, water splashing over the steps and spraying into Zane’s eyes, causing him to sputter.

Pavel leaned over him, the glimmer in his eyes, the same one from the other night, Zane’s only warning before he said, “Deep breath, gorgeous.”

Zane sucked in some air and then was shoved beneath the water, his head whacking against the step before being held there. Pavel’s hand held him by the throat, not squeezing but keeping him submerged as he rutted into him.

He could hold his breath for around six minutes typically, but that wasn’t when he was being impaled by a massive cock and forced to feel like he was strapped to an actual electric chair. His lungs started burning far too quickly, the pool water sweeping away the tears prickling at the corner of his eyes as he was assaulted by too much sensation at once.

The feel of Pavel pounding in and out of him, the constriction on his chest and the way it felt like his lungs were burning and shriveling up all at once. He couldn’t keep his eyes open against the onslaught of the water, closing them and almost gasping when Pavel swiveled his hips and started jabbing against his prostate.

Zane was torn free from the water, but only allowed a quick inhale before Pavel’s mouth was on his again. The kiss stole his breath away, literally, the other man seemingly trying to suck his tongue down his own throat before he allowed him to retreat.

“Have you ever fucked in this pool before?” Pavel asked, and it took Zane far longer than it should have for him to process he was speaking at all. “Focus, gorgeous, I know my cock is good, but I need you to tell me if this is your first time being screwed in this room.”

“Why does that matter?”

“It just does.”

“I…” He licked his lips, recalling that he had to be calculating here. He’d never asked for this, and he certainly didn’t—A loud moan was ripped from his lips when Pavel rammed into him as hard as he could.

Okay. Maybe Zane wanted it. A little.

“Answer the question, gorgeous,” Pavel warned.

“Or what? You’re going to drown me?”

“We both know how long you can hold your breath,” he reminded. “But I’m definitely holding you under again, no matter what you tell me next. I want to feel you come on my cock while your body is desperate for air. I want,” he nipped at the curve of his jaw, “to screw you up so badly, you won’t be able to tell what you're desperate for the next time, me or oxygen. You know what happens then?”

Zane’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t actually expect him to answer that one.

“Your subconscious can no longer tell the difference, and you’re left feeling breathless and desperate for just me.” He shoved Zane back under and fucked into him a few times before dragging him back up. “Answer the question, gorgeous.”

“You’ll hurt me if I tell you something you don’t want to hear?” Zane shouldn’t be taunting him like this, not with the ache of the guy’s teeth marks still healing, but he couldn’t help it.

Pavel Hart was impressive, stunning even. He’d snuck into the Little Palace and overcome Zane so easily, like it was nothing. He was towering over Zane, his broad shoulders blocking out everything else, keeping all of his attention on Pavel’s tanned skin and the dark shade of his lips.

On the way his eyes were starting to glow bold, neon yellow, the color growing brighter and brighter the longer Zane kept quiet. It was tempting to refuse to speak just to see how vibrant they could get, but Zane’s balls drew up and his dick gushed and twitched, warning he was close to coming. If he did that before Pavel was fully satisfied, there’d be hell to pay. Zane had learned that lesson from someone else. Someone equally as deranged as the man currently screwing his brains out.

“Kazimir fucked me on that chaise,” Zane said, his voice hoarse. “And in the shower room. And on the floor by the windows . Against the windows—”

“That,” Pavel covered his mouth and glared, “was a very bad move, gorgeous.”

Zane went back under, and this time he was kept there, bent backward over the steps, his legs stretched wide to accommodate Pavel’s wild body. He took him like they really were animals, with the same ferocity he had back in the woods. And he hated it, because Pavel’s cock was so amazing, it didn’t take long for him to forget all about how he had to hold his breath.

He gasped, swallowing a bit of water without meaning to, digging his nails into Pavel’s wrist. His eyes desperately searched for the other man’s, trying to convey he was serious, all while his traitorous dick continued to leak and his hole continued to suck on Pavel’s cock like it was trying to hold onto it forever.

There was a flash of silver to his left, then a sharp pain that had him cursing and losing even more air in the process. The feeling came just behind his ear, and he recognized the smooth sting of it.

The bastard had just cut him with something.

Red started to seep into the water, but Zane didn’t allow that to worry him. Blood would spread even if it were only a couple of drops, and judging from the type of pain and the location, the cut hadn’t been deep or long.

Pavel pressed a finger against the spot below his ear, the hand still around his throat loosening ever so slightly while he did.

Zane took that opportunity to move, lifting himself free from the water to gasp and cough, effectively sinking himself further onto Pavel’s cock in the process.

As though he didn’t care that Zane had defied him, Pavel wrapped his arms around his waist and began to thrust upward, mouthing at the spot he’d bitten. “There you go, gorgeous. Good boy. Ride me just like that. There you go.”

Zane blinked and grabbed at the back of Pavel’s nape, but he didn’t try and pull the other man away. Instead he clung to him as his lungs filled and his vision started to regain focus.

“Come for me,” Pavel ordered, pulling back enough to lick at Zane’s left nipple. “Come for me, bashert. Squeeze around my cock and milk me for all that I’m worth. Let me fill you up until you’re bursting with—”

“Shut up,” Zane got the words out, but that was it before his body was betraying him. He dropped his head back and screamed as the most powerful orgasm he’d ever felt ripped through him. Everything turned too bright and then blacked out around him as he crashed through the intense waves of pleasure, one after the other, his dick emptying out into the pool as his hole tightened around Pavel to the point it might even have been painful for the other man.

Or…not, since suddenly Pavel was joining him, growling as he buried himself deep.

Zane could feel his come filling him, the hot press of it against his inner walls, stretching him to accommodate it as it flooded his insides. He made a sound of protest as Pavel shifted, moving away from the steps to carry him back over to the front of the pool where they’d been standing before.

“Pull out,” Zane demanded when he felt his shoulders press against the hard edge of the pool, unable to open his eyes even though he could feel the other man staring at him. “It’s starting to hurt. Take it out.”

“It’s uncomfortable,” he corrected, as though it was his ass being pumped full of offensive spunk. “You’ll adjust.”

He shook his head and emitted a whiney sound that was so far removed from his personality, any other time and he would have been mortified by it. “I don’t want to. How are you even still coming?”

“This is normal for my kind.”

That caught his attention, and his eyes opened ever so slightly. “What are you exactly?”

Pavel sighed heavily, and then without answering, he finally did as Zane asked and dragged him off his still-hard cock. But instead of putting him back down, he flipped Zane, folding him over the pool so his feet dangled in the water while the rest of him was flat on the heated tiles.

His cheek slapped against the floor and he hissed. “Stop doing that! Every time you toss me around you come close to giving me a concussion!” When he felt Pavel’s fingers on his taint he yelped. “What are you doing?”

Two of those thick fingers pushed back into him, ignoring his protests as they repeated the motion.

“Making sure you keep as much of my come as possible,” Pavel replied, though it came almost a full minute after Zane had asked, like he’d been too distracted by scooping and pushing his seed back into Zane’s body to have noticed he’d been asked anything at all until then.

“That’s disgusting.” But he didn’t fight it, grateful at least that the other man was being gentle with his touches and not finger fucking his raw hole again. “Is this also common for your kind? That where the extremely specific breed kink comes from?”

“I don’t know,” Pavel surprised him by admitting. “I’m not a specific thing, that’s the problem. I’m most likely a mix of several different species, at least a couple of them being of the shapeshifting variety.”

“You don’t know where you come from?” Zane pursed his lips.

“I didn’t say that. Everyone knows what planet I’m from.”

True.

“I’m from Hexa too,” Zane said. “But I can’t change my form at will, and I definitely don’t have any desire to throw someone to the ground and breed them.”

“I want to do it again,” Pavel told him, a dark note to his voice. “I want to breed you in all of the places you let him take you, until your screams ring around the entire room and bounce off of the ceiling.”

“We can’t do that.” And not just because it would bring guards running to them. Zane didn’t want to do that. He didn’t like having sex with this guy.

…Right?

“Your hole just twitched for me,” Pavel sounded pleased.

“Yeah, that’s because you keep touching it. Stop.”

Unsurprisingly, he didn’t listen. Instead, his warm breath fanned against Zane’s presented ass a second before his tongue flicked out, tracing from his balls to his entrance.

Zane groaned, trying to shift away, giving in when his hips were captured and he was forced into place. It was too early for him to get hard again, but with every stroke and dip of that tongue inside him, his breathing labored and his balls tightened.

When Pavel delivered a slap that echoed around them, Zane gasped.

The sound gave him away.

“You like that,” Pavel said.

“No.”

“I won’t debate with you on this, not tonight. I already did what I came here to do.” He plunged his tongue into Zane a couple more times and then pressed his cheek against the curve of his ass and sighed as though he was the one who’d just been violently fucked with little to no oxygen afforded to him.

“You're mine, Doctor.” He started to kneed Zane’s ass. “Aren’t you starting to feel it?”

“No.” He swallowed the lump in his throat, staring across the room at the closed door to the showers—where he had never, not once, slept with Kazimir Ambrosee. “I don’t belong to anyone.”

Apparently Pavel wasn’t in the mood to debate with him on the validity of that statement either. A moment later, he pulled away, leaving Zane folded over the edge of the pool as he collected his things.

And slipped back out the side door and into the night without another word.