Page 7

This place was a maze.

A maze that was falling apart, but a maze nevertheless.

Zane found himself dangerously traveling up a set of stairs, only the half that connected with the wall on his right still intact. He kept going when no warning shouts came from behind him, not willing to take the time to evaluate why his subconscious was so certain Pavel wouldn’t let him climb to his doom.

The guy had just been choking him , after all.

And he hadn’t been able to tell that Zane was lying when he’d said he’d done it before. As far as he was concerned, breath play was out of the question, yet there was no way in hell he was going to stand there and let the other man get even more of a leg up on him.

So he’d fibbed and told him he and Lyra had played around with it, as though Zane would have ever trusted that bitch near his throat.

And when, moments later, Pavel had cut off his oxygen and made him come and it’d been the best rush Zane had ever felt? He’d sort of wished he’d been telling the truth and he really did have experience.

It’d left him wobbly on his feet, and he was actually grateful that Pavel had given him time to recoup before making him do this whole chase scene all over again.

He really was a sadist.

Zane had somehow gotten on the bad side of a sadist.

All these years, he’d been careful to cultivate his relations with the other Devils, happy to let Pavel linger on the sidelines where he seemed to prefer to be. Completely unaware that he was setting up his future self for ambush. Pavel hadn’t seemed like a threat.

How wrong Zane had been.

That was why he was here, following the rules and sticking inside the building—or what was left of it—instead of doing the logical thing and taking his chances. His sense of self-preservation was greater than his ego, and there wasn’t a single part of him that didn’t one hundred percent believe Pavel had meant his threat.

The guy had stared at him far too intensely when he’d delivered it. Zane had only ever seen crazy gazes like that right before Kelevra or Kazimir lost their shit and did something violent and dangerous.

And Pavel’s look had somehow been worse .

Had he always been this twisted? As he made it to the top of the landing and selected a random direction down one of the hallways that branched forward and side to side, he tried to think back on their interactions in the past. No matter how hard he strained to recall a telling detail, however, he came up blank.

There’d never been any signs that he’d noticed that Pavel had issues. Sure, there’d been the rumored disappearance now and again, someone supposedly having gone missing from the guy’s club, but there wasn’t a Devil of Vitality that hadn’t taken a life or two. Truthfully, out of the lot of them, Pavel had always seemed the most normal.

He ran a successful business, kept to himself, did his duty as a member of the Retinue without fail, and had a pretty stable home life. That night outside of Kaz’s apartment had been the first and only time he’d acted out of character in front of Zane, and even then, Zane had chalked it up to being a fluke. An oddity. Something not even worth remembering, let alone wondering about.

But, man, he really should have.

Also, where the actual fuck was he?

Zane came to a stop and frowned, paying closer attention to his surroundings than he had been. He’d made it to what had obviously once been a greeting hall, open archways set in all directions. There was still some furniture strewn about, but the couch was rotted and the table in the corner was bloated. A hole in the ceiling above showed it was still dark outside, and a crack of thunder gave warning a second before rain began to pour down.

Cursing, he slid back to avoid being hit, his frustration growing tenfold with this new development. The idea to fight returned, but he brushed it aside. It was too late for that now, and not just because he’d misplaced his knife.

Pavel was too confident.

Zane was positive there was something else he was missing here.

It was too risky.

Carefully, he sprinted around the splattering water, picking a direction at random a second time. The opening straight ahead led to what appeared to be another bedroom, though there was nothing more than a broken bedframe in there now.

He turned and tried again, not wanting to be in any sort of place that could give Pavel ideas. The hand job had been humiliating enough, but getting off with the man’s hand around his throat?

He itched for his knife but told himself to focus. It wasn’t like that was the first time someone had humiliated him sexually. On the contrary. Both Lyra and Kazimir got off on that sort of thing, and more frequently than not, Zane ended up being the butt of the joke. He’d complained a few times and they’d eased off, but still.

The next hallway led him to a massive room. Bookshelves lined the walls, and stacks took up space within. Many had toppled over, creating a domino effect with the others around them. Some had survived and remained upright, but the tomes were falling apart and moldy. Some were sealed onto their shelf by vines climbing down from one of the gaps in the ceiling.

Zane entered the room, avoiding the holes where rain poured down, toeing at a book or two on the ground out of curiosity. He couldn’t read any of the titles, the gold foiling faded and cracked on all of them. Would a place like this contain any medical findings?

He wandered around, momentarily caught up in it all, the mold, mildew, and sound of the rain enough to block out the most important thing in the room until it was too late.

In the way back, tucked into the right corner, there was a fireplace.

And it was lit.

His hackles rose and he stiffened, sensing the danger a moment before his stalker made himself known.

“I’m so glad you came here of your own accord, Doctor.” Pavel stepped from between two of the stacks, his hands tucked into the front pockets of the lab coat he was still wearing.

The coat he’d worn specifically to help sell that it was Zane who’d killed Samuel in the video.

When he stepped from the shadows, that look was back, wild and excited, making the air crackle almost as much as the logs popping in the fireplace did. He was wet, like he’d gotten caught in the downpour somehow, his clothes sticking to him tightly enough that when Zane’s eyes dropped down the length of him, almost everything was on display.

Zane swallowed the lump in his throat and retreated, matching his steps with Pavel’s as the man stalked forward, moving to block the path he’d taken to enter.

Why did he want him by the fire?

“You look frightened,” Pavel whispered, voice dropping cajolingly. “I didn’t know you had it in you.”

“You’re trying to convince me you don’t like it,” Zane noted, “but you’re the one lying now.”

He grinned, lips stretching until he was baring teeth. “You really are such a fast learner. We’re going to have so much fun together.”

“Pass.”

“That isn’t an option.”

“Make it one.” Zane forced himself to come to a stop. “You’re in charge here, right? So make it one. Find someone else to play with. I’m not interested.”

“So I’ll make you interested,” he shrugged like it was already a done deal. “I’ll have you preening for me, desperate for my attention.” One of his hands gripped himself through his pants. “My cock. Don’t act like you haven’t felt neglected lately, Doctor. You’ve gone too long without a proper bedpartner—No, correction. You’ve never truly experienced one before. I’ll remedy that for you. I’ll teach you everything you’ve been missing by wasting your time on all the people who weren’t me. You’ve been frustrated. Blocked up. Distracted without a cock to ride to help clear your head. Once your anger fades, you’ll realize tonight was all for you. You’ll thank me.”

“I won’t.”

“And beg me to do it again.” Pavel started forward, ignoring the warning sound emitted from the back of Zane’s throat. Actually, it seemed like he didn’t even hear it, his gaze becoming cloudy as he spoke, as though he was imagining all of the things he was saying. “Beg me to hunt you down and put my hand around your pretty neck. Beg me to take it further. Breed you.”

Zane’s mouth dropped open, heart thumping in his chest, the sound of rushing blood momentarily causing a static in his ears. Certainly he’d just misheard…

“Should I do that, gorgeous?” the flip between nicknames came easily, the corner of Pavel’s mouth tipping up. “Should I make you my bitch and breed your tight hole?”

He grimaced.

“What?” Pavel laughed at him, the sound tinged with cruelty. “Being humiliated does it for you, but calling you a bitch is taking things too far?”

“I do not get off on humiliation,” Zane growled, only for the other man to snort.

“If that were true, you never would have allowed that thing with Lyra to go on for as long as it has.” His mood darkened, like a switch had been flicked. Somehow, the change managed to suck all of the warmth from the room despite the fireplace still roaring behind Zane.

The danger was palpable, so much so, he found himself setting his pride aside yet again, opting for survival over anything else. Zane held up both hands. “Pavel—”

The other man practically dove forward, grin widening when Zane yelped and tried to evade. He wasn’t nearly fast enough, and Pavel took him down, his chin whacking against the warped floorboards hard enough he saw stars.

The world momentarily winked in and out and he groaned, inhaling bits of dirt from the debris pile he was now sprawled on top of. He coughed, the hacking motions only making the spinning worse as he desperately tried to regain control of his senses.

By the time he was able to, Pavel had already successfully stripped him of all of his clothes. His eyes focused on his shoes, tossed carelessly across the room where they hit the wall and clattered into a pile of leaves.

Those shoes cost a fortune.

“Don’t pout,” Pavel’s fingers brushed through Zane’s hair before tugging, “I’ll buy you a new pair. A better one.” His other hand slipped between Zane’s ass cheeks, tracing his crack to either tease him or prove a point.

“Get off of me,” Zane growled, bucking in an attempt to free himself. Pavel was draped over him, pinning him to the dirty ground, keeping him at his mercy. In response to his demand, he felt a poke at his entrance and had just enough time to suck in a breath before a finger drove its way past his defenses. “Fuck!”

“Good boys get it soft and sweet.” Pavel kissed the back of his shoulder, the hand in his hair forcing his head back down until his cheek was smushed against soggy pages and dead leaves. “I think you’d agree you haven’t been very good for me tonight, wouldn’t you?”

“This is ra—”

He hushed him. “Let’s not say ugly words out loud. Some things, no matter how true, should be left unspoken.”

“You’re insane.” Zane clenched around the finger that pushed deeper into him at his remark.

“You’re so tight.” Pavel added a second finger that had Zane crying out. “You haven’t been filled up in months, have you, gorgeous? Been waiting for me to come claim you since you ended things with Kazimir. Maybe you should be rewarded after all.”

Zane tried shaking his head but only managed a bit of movement in the other man’s tight grip.

“No?” Pavel’s tone gave away what direction he was going to go in before he could finish. “You don’t want a reward?” He chuckled, kissing the back of Zane’s shoulder a second time before he pressed his teeth to the same spot. “Punishment it is.”

Zane swore when a third finger entered him and Pavel scissored them, stretching him too quickly for his body to comfortably adjust to the intrusion. It didn’t feel like he was going to tear, per se, but there was pain mixed in with the pleasure, and he grit his teeth against both. He refused to play along with this. Refused to give the sick man currently violating him any sort of satisfaction by—

“Don’t try so hard,” Pavel said into the curve of his ear. “You’re only hurting yourself. Surely you know you’re hard for me again, don’t you, gorgeous?”

He made a sound of distress before he could help it. Because he was hard. His dick had lengthened beneath him, caught between his stomach and the filthy floorboards. It felt like his body was betraying him. It shouldn’t be possible for him to be turned on while he was being finger fucked on the gritty ground by a man he had absolutely no interest in.

None.

Even if he had magic hands and an ethereal look about him that was kind of ho—

No.

No.

Pavel shifted, his hand moving to Zane’s nape to ensure he couldn’t get up as he moved into a kneeling position at his side. His other hand twisted, fingers poking and prodding at his insides, flicking against Zane’s prostate until there were tears leaking from his eyes and his breathing was uneven and wheezy.

“Look how you’re opening up for me,” Pavel sounded enthralled. He spread his fingers, stretching Zane’s hole as wide as he could, and leaned over to take a closer look, moaning at what he saw. “You’re going to take my cock so good, gorgeous. Going to squeeze around me as I fuck you.”

“Don’t,” he barely recognized his own voice, closing his eyes. This was humiliating. He held a higher position on the planet, was coveted by hundreds at Vail University, and yet here he was.

Being taken in the dirt like a lowlife.

Like he was powerless.

Even Kazimir had had the good sense to rape him in a classroom, somewhere clean and discreet. And if Zane had appreciated that fact, had touched himself later that night to thoughts of being forced and how much he’d ended up enjoying it? Well, that didn’t matter here.

His preferences, no matter how twisted, didn’t matter, because there was no version of him that would ever choose to be fucked in a filthy place like this amidst rot and mold.

He was a Royal, damn it.

A thought flickered in the back of his mind, that Kazimir Ambrosee had never made him this hard for him, not the way Pavel was, and he growled.

That enraged him and Zane planted his palms to the ground and tried to push himself up again. He managed to make it half a foot before Pavel’s nails dug painfully into the side of his neck and he was shoved back into place.

How the hell was the other man so strong?

“Can you get off just like this?” Pavel asked, acting as though the attempt at escape hadn’t just happened. “Hmm? Can you orgasm from nothing but backdoor play?”

Zane’s ass lifted of its own accord when Pavel pressed against his prostate, harder this time than before.

“Pretty,” Pavel praised. “Your skin is so soft, so golden in the firelight. There’s not a damn thing about you that isn’t perfect, gorgeous, did you know that? No wonder everyone’s always fighting over you.”

What the hell was he talking about? Neither Lyra nor Kazimir had ever fought over him.

Or for him, for that matter.

Everybody always crooned over him and sang his praises, sure. Hit on him and insinuated they’d like to take a tumble between the sheets. But he could tell that’s all it would be. A quick fuck so they could brag to their friends about how they’d bedded the frozen Prince of Medicine.

No one wanted him. They just wanted his dick and bragging rights.

While that was all fine and dandy, that type of attention failed to scratch the itch Zane needed. The one he’d carried with him all his life, whispering that he wasn’t good enough despite his phenomenally good looks and his position within society. It ruled him, that melancholy voice in his head.

Even now, with Pavel’s fingers buried deep in his ass, all Zane could think about was how badly it seemed like he wanted him in this moment.

And how quickly that would change the second the other Retinue member used him to get off. That notion dimmed some of his sparkle, and Pavel seemed to instantly catch on to it.

“I don’t think so.” He hooked his fingers and rubbed and pressed against that spot inside of Zane until he was howling and practically adding his drool to the already disgusting floor. “I haven’t waited this long to hear the sounds you make as you come undone just for you to get lost in your head. You won’t deny me, Zane.”

“Fuck,” he sucked in a sharp breath when those fingers spread his cheeks wider, “you.”

“Soon,” Pavel promised. “Soon, I’m going to fill you up with my cock and pump you full of my seed. Breed you like you were always meant to be bred.”

What was up with all this breeding talk? Zane was not of a species where the males could get pregnant. It must just be a kink. An unexpected one coming from Pavel. There were rumors about all of the Devils, but he didn’t think he’d ever heard mention of this from any of the guy's supposed past lovers.

Then again, a guy with a sex club probably knew all the ways to keep people's mouths shut.

“I’ll chain you to the bed downstairs and won’t let you leave until I’ve had my fill of you. Until you can’t take a single step without my come dripping between these beautiful thighs.” He thrust his fingers in as deep as they could go and wiggled them around. “Would you like that?”

“No!” Zane felt like he was about to combust, his balls tightening and his ass clenching around the invasion against his will. He’d already embarrassed himself by coming earlier, he would not—

Pavel hammered into him, fast and hard, laughing when Zane’s toes curled and he struggled to claw away from the onslaught of sensation. “Have I made my point yet, Doctor? I can make you like it. Just as I can make you orgasm from nothing more than this.” He jabbed against his prostate with every inward thrust, causing Zane to sob.

“Oh yes. You’re definitely my bitch now. Mine to play with and fuck. But the breeding will have to wait,” Pavel sounded disappointed by that notion. “That’s not what tonight is about. Tonight, I’m getting answers to some of my burning questions and teaching you a very important lesson at the same time. It’s a lesson that’s well overdue. That’s my fault, gorgeous. Perhaps if I’d forced you to spread for me sooner, this wouldn’t be so hard for you to accept.”

“Stop.” Zane was struggling to hold onto the words being spoken, fighting against his own body and the burning need to come.

“But you will accept it,” he kept talking as though Zane hadn’t spoken. “You’ll accept me. With the exact same fervor your greedy hole is accepting my fingers. I’ll train you so you’ll loathe the empty feeling without me. Train you to strip yourself on your own the second I enter the room. You’ll hold yourself open and let me fuck you into oblivion, and you’ll thank me for it. Each,” he punctuated his last words with his fingers curling against that spot inside Zane that made his vision go black, “And. Every. Time.”

He tried to resist, he really did, but his body locked up a second before a rush of electricity blindsided him. He jerked and whined as he came, his trapped dick gushing beneath him, spilling an impossible amount of come on the nasty floorboards. His hole clenched and unclenched around Pavel’s fingers, even once they’d stilled, still buried knuckles deep, and the other man waited for him to ride out the waves.

When it was finally over, Zane went limp, lips parted on gasps that just kept coming, the room seemingly spinning. He winced when those fingers were pulled out of him, turning his head into his arm to hide when he processed the feel of his hole slowly closing up. In his mortification, he didn’t realize Pavel was no longer holding him down and had risen to his feet.

“Your refraction time is twenty-two minutes—at least, when I’m only touching you from the back. We’ll have to find out if it differs when there’s added stimulation to the front.” There was a pause and then he said thoughtfully as if to himself, “Perhaps I should have choked you again as well.”

Zane forced himself to turn and glance over his shoulder, watching as the other man cleaned his hands off on the lab coat he’d stripped out of.

“Though, that was also an answer I needed,” he met Zane’s gaze with a soft smile. “You can come just from having something in your ass. That’s exciting. Don’t you agree?”

He wanted to tell him to go fuck himself, but didn’t trust his voice so glared instead.

Pavel shrugged like it was no big deal he wasn’t going to respond, and then balled up the lab coat and chucked it over Zane straight into the fireplace. “The temperatures will drop within the next hour. I suggest you get yourself dressed and back to your car before then. The fire should keep you warm until you’re ready to peel yourself off the floor, but don’t linger too long.”

Zane blinked at him.

Wait.

Was he seriously about to just—

“I’ll see you in class Monday, Doctor.” Pavel turned on his heels and wandered off, disappearing between the stacks without so much as a second glance back at Zane who was still a puddle on the ground.

It was absolutely asinine, but Zane found himself angrier about that than anything else the man had done to him.

Screw the video.

He was going to plunge his dagger straight through Pavel Hart’s left eye.

Just… as soon as he regained feeling in his legs.