Page 35 of Paramour of Sin
Zane just shook his head. Then he reached into the inside pocket of his blue blazer and his hand emerged with his car key. He hit a button, causing a horn to honk close by, and two headlights popped on. “Nothing. Let’s just go.”
“Great idea,” I said sarcastically, then headed for the lights.
I slid into the passenger seat and tucked my skirt around my legs.
Zane paused outside his door for a few seconds, his face too high above the car’s low-slung ceiling for me to see. When he climbed in, he was expressionless, but his scent filled every empty space around me.
As soon as the engine roared to life, I rolled down my window and leaned into the fresh air, where I stayed silent all the way back to my house.
Chapter Ten
Zebulon
“How’d it go?” I asked as I opened the door to grant Zane entry to my bedroom. I’d felt him arrive with one of my Portal Dwellers a few minutes ago downstairs. They’d grown used to retrieving the incubus for me over the years because, for whatever reason, he chose to live in Nashville, while I preferred the heart of the midwest—Chicago.
It was why I’d originally assigned him to mentor Guinevere—they lived near each other. And while I could teleport there at will, it still expended energy. It was much more efficient to enlist a trusted ally capable of helping. Him being an incubus just made it all the more appropriate.
His silver-blue irises flared with dark emotions. “I just dropped her off. Gleason was there. He had no update. And Ragus told me on the way up that the Tracker is following Guinevere’s conquest. So that’s done, too.”
Tension radiated off him, something I wasn’t used to him exuding at the door to my bedroom. Well, sexual tension, maybe. But this wasn’t sexual in nature.
“How’d she do at the club?” I wondered out loud.
His jaw ticked. “Fine.”
I lifted a brow. “Doesn’t sound fine.”
Zane sighed as he stepped through the threshold, the sound uncharacteristically somber for the incubus. “She’s scared.”
“Hmm.” I closed the door and nodded. “I’d be more concerned if she wasn’t. Someone’s not only framed her for these murders, but has ensured Ashmedai found out about it, too.”
“Do you know who informed him?” Zane asked.
“No, and I should probably ask him,” I realized. “It would be an obvious link.” Because none of my men had told the Archdemon about the incident—I knew because I’d asked around afterward—which meant the leak had come from outside my circle. And very few knew about the case as it was localized to the Nashville area right now.
Zane rubbed his brow and glanced around the room, looking a bit more undone than I’d ever seen him, causing me to frown.
“What happened at the club?” I tried to keep my voice calm, but an order underlined my words. A natural response from one in my position, I supposed. Something was clearly bothering him and I wanted to know what had caused his discomfort.
Fortunately, Zane didn’t seem bothered by my tone.
He merely faced me and replied, “We had a slow start. She wouldn’t choose, I confronted her and coaxed her mood a little.” He swallowed, his gaze capturing mine. “I kissed her.”
My eyebrow winged upward, surprised by his blunt admission. I’d been rather bold in the beginning when I told him not to involve himself with her. She needed a chance to grow, and I didn’t want him seducing the innocence out of her. At least, that’d been the reason I told myself. But there might have been more to it—more that I refused to acknowledge, even to myself.
“Why?” I demanded, needing to understand what would possess him to kiss Guinevere while knowing it was expressly against my wishes. Zane could be daring, but he knew better than to defy me. Which meant he had a good reason to do it, one I was very interested in hearing.
“Remember when she refused to feed in the beginning? Because she was afraid of hurting someone?”
I nodded, very familiar with her hesitation. “Yes.”
“Well, she regressed tonight because she was uneasy with the idea of marking someone as bait. She said she didn’t like the idea of not being in control, which, given her history, I understood. So I seduced her a little in an attempt to provoke her succubus side. It worked… and I’m pretty sure she hates me now.”
“Did you hurt her?” I asked, my heartbeat thrumming in my ears.
“No, nothing like that.”
“Then what?” I asked through my teeth, innately protective of the woman. “What could you possibly do to make her hate you?” A kiss was harmless. I’d engaged in that embrace with her multiple times. Never once did she hate me afterward.
