The Scent of Desire Chapter 11
AO3/ Chapter 10
Find Chapter 1 here!
“We’re still going through everything we found at their base, but so far it hasn’t turned up anything we didn’t already know,” Kieran reported.
“Everyone’s still keeping their eyes and ears open though,” Luke added. “And three different bar managers have said they’re willing to bet actual money that whoever this is is going to make a move soon, and it won’t be a small one.”
“Mmm,” Sylus hummed in acknowledgement. When he’d asked for a status update on their efforts to find who it was blatantly obvious now had been spying on himself and Zayne, since there was no other way they could have learned about his visits to Linkon City, he’d expected as much. Like Kieran had stated, the files they’d recovered five nights ago hadn’t yielded much new information. Whoever the spy was was careful not to reveal their name or anything that might identify themselves in their correspondence with the faction leader Sylus had personally killed.
That didn’t mean Sylus wouldn’t find out who they were, of course. He had his own network of spies at his disposal. It was only a matter of time before he had a name and a location.
And as much as he detested the idea, he might have to wait for them to make their move as well. If it came down to it in that case, all he could hope to do was keep Zayne out of the crossfire.
Zayne was safe at the moment, at least. Sylus currently had Mephisto’s live feed opened on his phone. Mephisto was currently at his post on that tree branch outside Zayne’s office, and Zayne himself was currently speaking with a patient at his desk.
Sylus no longer felt bad about using Mephisto to watch Zayne directly. Twenty-four hours ago, he had a drunken Zayne in his arms offering him everything he’d wanted from the moment they’d met, and that morning he had a sober Zayne returning to his arms, however briefly, after admitting to both of them that it was what he himself wanted also.
“Should we post people around Doctor Zayne?” Kieran asked.
“Not yet,” Sylus answered as he turned off Mephisto’s feed and put his phone down. “I want to speak to him about it personally first. It’s well past time I fill him in on what’s going on, anyway.”
“Noted. How is he, by the way?”
“Working at the moment. Keep me updated on your progress.”
“Will do.”
“And tell him we said hi,” Luke said as he and Kieran stood from their chairs and left the room.
Sylus sat back in his chair once they were gone and his eyes drifted shut. Not for the first time that day, everything from the night before replayed in his mind. How Zayne had tasted, the feel of smooth skin under his hands, his muted pheromones seeping off of his skin and nearly causing Sylus to completely let go of his control and just take what Zayne was offering him.
Sylus knew without a doubt that had he not clawed back some of his self-control, he’d have marked Zayne the night before. But Zayne was drunk, and Sylus hadn’t wanted to take the chance that Zayne might regret it in the morning.
Even so, Sylus wondered not for the first time just what effect Zayne’s pheromones would have on him if he were to go off of his suppressants.
For the first time in his life, Sylus was actually worried about what he’d do to another person if he’d completely lost control of himself. He knew he’d never forgive himself if he hurt Zayne in his enthusiasm to be mated to him.
Sylus’s thoughts were interrupted by the ringing of his phone, and the screen showed the call to be from the very man currently occupying them.
“Quite the impressive talent to know that I was just thinking about you,” he greeted.
Zayne chuckled on the other end. “Did I, now?”
“What other explanation is there?”
“That I was thinking of you.”
Sylus laughed. “I’ll accept it. How has your day been?”
“Busy. Speaking of—” But he was cut off when, on the other end of the line, Sylus could hear rapid knocking on Zayne’s office door. “Hold on,” he said to Sylus, then called out to the person knocking. Another voice joined Zayne’s, urgently explaining about a patient’s vital signs, and then Zayne’s voice, turning authoritative, instructed the other person to prepare the operating room and that he’d be right down.
“Sorry about that,” he said to Sylus. “If you have time later, would you come by?”
“For you, Doctor? Always. Your house?”
“The hospital, actually. Or did you forget I’m also still trying to help you figure out a solution to your pheromones?”
Sylus opened his mouth, then closed it again. With everything that had happened recently, he had in fact forgotten that. “Did you think of another test to run?”
“That’s what I need to discuss with you. But I won’t do it over the phone, and I’d rather not do it anywhere besides in my office.”
“Alright,” Sylus said. “I’ll be waiting for you to get out of surgery.”
“I didn’t mean—” Zayne cut himself off with a sigh. “Never mind. I need to go.”
“See you soon, Doctor,” Sylus said with a smile, ending the call himself.
Sylus cursed himself out for forgetting the pretext he’d used to get close to Zayne in the first place. Of course Zayne himself hadn’t forgotten.
He was naturally curious what Zayne wanted to discuss about it. Did he come up with another test? Or was he going to tell him he needed to do more observation? Was he going to try to make another argument for going to the N109 zone?
Or was he going to tell him he was at just as much a loss as all the other doctors Sylus had consulted?
Sylus immediately decided that that last one didn’t matter anymore. He was Zayne’s for as long as Zayne would have him, and if Zayne didn’t want him in the end, then it didn’t matter if no one else could stand to be near Sylus, because there wouldn’t be anyone else for Sylus.
That decided, Sylus stood and left his office to head in the direction of his kitchen. He had time to eat and then change into his biker’s gear before heading to Linkon.
Zayne sighed in relief as hot water slid over his body. The patient had nearly crashed twice during his surgery, and Zayne and his team only just pulled the man back. Now he was rinsing off in the showers of the hospital’s changing room, deciding to get out of his scrubs before heading upstairs.
Sylus was undoubtedly waiting outside of his office for him.
Zayne couldn’t help but let out a quiet laugh. Even he had noticed that he’d gone from annoyance at Sylus just showing up at the hospital in spite of Zayne’s protests to resigned acceptance to, well, this.
He actually couldn’t wait to see Sylus.
He finished his shower and pulled his clothes back on perhaps a touch faster than necessary. When he emerged from the stall with his lab coat over one arm, tossing his scrubs and damp towel into the laundry bins, most of his team had finished changing and were preparing to leave the hospital for the night.
“Zayne?” Greyson caught him as he was headed for the door. “Yvonne left a message, she said you have a visitor waiting for you at your office.”
Zayne didn’t say anything in response, but he didn’t have to. A smile pulled at his lips.
The moment it did, all activity in the changing room immediately stopped.
“What?” Zayne demanded, the smile replaced by confusion and suspicion. Everyone in the room, including Greyson, was staring at him with wide eyes. Some were even slack-jawed.
Greyson blinked. “You…smiled…” he said in disbelief.
“Yeah, you never smile,” one of the nurses chimed in.
“At least not that we’ve seen,” another nurse added.
Zayne let out an annoyed breath and rolled his eyes, then left the changing room.
Hurried footsteps sounded behind him, and Greyson caught up to him at the elevators, his bag over his shoulder and his own lab coat over one arm.
“It’s that alpha, isn’t it?” he questioned as they boarded the elevator. “Something’s happened with him, hasn’t it?”
Zayne had always prided himself on never letting his emotions show on his face. Other people were rarely ever able to read him immediately, if at all.
But Greyson evidently picked up on something, because Zayne didn’t need to answer a single one of his questions. His face lit up with delight.
“Something has happened!”
Zayne’s face twisted with annoyance now. “Whatever you think you know is not to be repeated,” he warned.
“Zayne, you know good and damn well I won’t need to say a word. Everyone knows that alpha is waiting at your office again, and everyone also saw you smile in the changing room just now. And given your other recent behavior, they’ll put two and two together themselves.”
Zayne groaned. “Since when did my personal life become the center of the hospital’s gossip?”
“Zayne, this isn’t a bad thing! Everyone’s talking because they’re happy for you. Besides, this is such a rare occurrence that I think everyone just can’t help themselves.”
Zayne drew in a calming breath. The elevator doors opened on the office floor, and he and Greyson stepped out.
The scent naturally reached them just before Zayne saw him there in the same chair as before, his posture relaxed and his phone in one hand.
Greyson bit his lip, trying and failing to not smile as he wordlessly headed for his own office. They were, of course, the only ones up here so late at night.
Zayne shook his head as he went to Sylus. “My colleagues are talking,” he announced.
“Is that a bad thing?” Sylus asked without looking up from his phone.
“I haven’t decided yet,” Zayne answered as he unlocked his office and let the both of them inside. He shut the door behind the two of them and Sylus headed for the chairs across from Zayne’s desk.
Zayne hung his lab coat up and when he returned to the desk, this time instead of sitting down behind it, he sat down in the chair next to Sylus and turned it to face him.
“Well, this is a nice change,” Sylus commented.
“I can go sit over there if you’d prefer,” Zayne said, leaning forward to prop his elbows on his knees and interlace his fingers.
“Absolutely not,” Sylus argued as he turned his own chair to face Zayne. “If you go over there, I’m only going to follow you.”
Zayne smiled. “I suppose we can’t have that, can we? The hospital does have rules about that sort of thing.”
Sylus let out an amused snort at that. “Tell that to the rest of your staff. Mephisto caught a couple of your nurses sneaking into a supply closet several days ago. They didn’t come out for quite a while.”
“Really?” Zayne sat up. “Who were they?”
Sylus’s shoulders shook with laughter. “I’ll show you the clip from the feed later. You asked me to come for a reason, didn’t you?”
Zayne adjusted his glasses and resumed his earlier posture. “Right. I might have a diagnosis for you. Or an extremely strong theory if not.”
“Alright, hit me with it, Doctor.” Sylus propped one arm on the armrest of his chair and waited.
“It’s your aethercore,” Zayne said without preamble.
“My aethercore,” Sylus repeated.
“Yes,” he said. “I haven’t run a test that the other doctors you’ve seen haven’t run, and I’ve consulted with reproductive specialists here at the hospital. I’ve also observed you around others, and honestly, I just don’t have any other explanation for the cause. A case like yours is pretty much unheard of, and the only variable is the presence of your aethercore doing something to amplify your pheromones to the degree it has.”
“Zayne, my aethercore allows me to see people’s innermost desires, how can it be influencing my pheromones also?”
“Doesn’t it also influence the strength and capabilities of your evol?”
Sylus opened his mouth, working it for a few seconds, clearly looking for words. He finally settled on an acquiescent “Huh.”
Zayne didn’t say anything, simply letting Sylus sit with the information.
“What about you?” Sylus asked when he was finally able to form words again.
Zayne blinked. “What about me?”
“The fact that I have an aethercore might explain everything with my pheromones, but it doesn’t explain you. How from the moment we met, you’ve been able to be near me at all, much less without getting sick.”
“The most immediate note to your pheromones is the smell of blood,” Zayne said. “And I’m a surgeon, I’m well accustomed to that scent.”
“That’s not what I mean,” Sylus said. “I mean, that night at the ball, you sat down one stool over from me without even realizing I was there until I spoke to you. The nearest person to me up until that point was at least four seats down.”
Zayne looked away, his brow furrowing as he tried to remember the other details of that night, but he came up empty. There had been nothing else about that night that had truly been noteworthy besides the fact that he was exhausted and wanted to leave. He shook his head in the end.
“I really don’t remember that much about that night,” he admitted. “I remember being tired and wanting to leave.”
“It’s true, though.”
“What are you getting at?”
“I’m sure you’ve heard of the concept of ‘fated mates.’”
Zayne shot him a deadpan look. “Don’t bring mythology into this.”
“You know, it’s interesting that pretty much all myths have a grain of truth to them. At the very least, they aren’t stories that came out of nowhere.”
Zayne waived a hand. “Yes, I’ve heard the theory debated over and over again. There has yet to be a case of it reported.”
“Then let me make the argument that there is a case sitting right here in your office.”
Zayne stared at him, but whatever argument he was about to make died on his tongue. His thoughts went back to his conversation with his mother and what she’d said about the two of them having bonded already.
Fated mates, though…
“Zayne?” Sylus’s tone was tentative, and his face was all concern.
Zayne shook himself. “‘Fated mates’ so far is only a theory,” he said quietly, thoughtfully. “There are so many factors and variables to it, and it can even be interpreted in so many different ways. There isn’t even a reliable test for it.”
“Does there need to be?”
“Physical pheromonal compatibility tests exist. Even so, that doesn’t factor in the implications of the term itself, which suggests that you don’t have a choice in who you’re meant to be mated to, which in itself can be dangerous.”
“Is that the reason you don’t like the idea?”
“Most likely. I don’t like the thought of not having a choice in who I could ultimately be mated to.”
Sylus let out a breath and reached over to take one of Zayne’s hands, clasping it in both of his own. “But don’t dismiss the possibility out of hand, either. Don’t doctors have to consider all possible variables?”
“Yes, we do,” Zayne said, his gaze drifting down to their joined hands.
“Exactly. There’s a reason you and I are able to sit here like this, and I fully believe it’s something more than physical attraction.”
Zayne’s gaze returned to Sylus’s. He had nothing to say to that, because Sylus was right.
They’d bonded emotionally already, and there’d been a gravitational pull towards each other from the very beginning. One Zayne had tried so hard to resist.
One that he had no reason to resist anymore.
It seemed Sylus could see his thoughts playing out on his face. His grip on Zayne’s hand tightened. “Take your time, sweetie. I’ll wait as long as you need me to.”
Zayne smiled at that and his eyes drifted shut. “What if you’re waiting for years?”
“Then I’ll wait for years.”
Zayne’s eyes slid open at that to meet Sylus’s, and he found nothing but sincerity in that ruby-colored gaze.
“You really would, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes.”
Something in Zayne’s chest loosened at that while at the same time something else seemed to heat up. His grip on Sylus’s hand tightened, and he pulled their joined hands in to press a kiss to Sylus’s knuckles.
“I’ll try to not keep you waiting too long, then.”
Sylus smiled. “In the meantime, sweetie, get your things. I’ll take you home.”
Zayne’s smile broadened as he and Sylus stood up, and Zayne reluctantly withdrew his hand to go pack his laptop bag.
Sylus’ attention was on absolutely everything as he followed Zayne home on his motorcycle. That didn’t stop the frankly giddy feeling from rising in his chest at the memory of the conversation in Zayne’s office, though.
The drive to Zayne’s house seemed to take no time at all. They arrived there without incident. Sylus parked his motorcycle behind Zayne’s car and turned off the engine as Zayne climbed out of the car with his laptop bag over his shoulder.
He had dismounted the bike and pulled off his helmet as Zayne locked his car, then followed Zayne to his front door. The moment he had the door open, Mephisto materialized out of the darkness to swoop through the door first.
Sylus shook his head. Perhaps he should reprogram him after all.
“When you said you’d take me home, I expected you to take my keys from me again. Not to escort me to the door like this,” Zayne said.
“You aren’t too exhausted or intoxicated to drive yourself tonight,” Sylus said. “Besides, there’s something I want to ask you about before I leave.”
Zayne paused mid-step in the doorway and blinked back at him. “You didn’t want to stay?”
Sylus smiled. “Not tonight,” he said, and he knew that Zayne knew everything he meant.
Zayne flashed a smile of his own as he continued into his house. Sylus followed close behind, shutting the door behind him.
“Well? What’s going on?” Zayne prompted as he set his laptop bag down in a nearby chair and returned to Sylus, who hadn’t left the door.
“I’d like your permission to have some of my people follow you for a while,” he answered.
Zayne stared for a moment, and Sylus could see him putting the pieces together on his own. “You think something’s about to happen.”
Sylus nodded. “Yes.”
“Why can’t you do it yourself?”
“If I’m suddenly sticking closer to you more than I already have been, it’ll tip off the people I’m looking for that I’m onto them. Then they’ll go to ground and wait until Onychinus’s guard is down to make their move.”
“Wouldn’t it be the same thing if you suddenly have people following me everywhere?”
“My people are capable of being extremely discreet. You’ll never know they’re following you.”
Zayne drew in a breath and lowered his gaze, staring off into the middle distance as he considered.
“No,” he finally said, then held up a hand when Sylus drew in a breath to protest. “Whoever it is that’s looking to take advantage of what’s happening between the two of us has proven already they’re incredibly smart. They used the rumors going around the N109 zone to manipulate someone else to act on their behalf already, didn’t they?”
Sylus knew he was referring to the attack the night he was shot. He nodded in confirmation. “We’re still going through the files we recovered from our raid on their base, but yes, that’s what we’re thinking so far.”
“Which means whoever this is has already been watching. If people are suddenly following me around, they’ll notice that too, no matter how discreet they are. And that too could tip your hand.”
Sylus let out a breath. Zayne was right. He hadn’t thought of it that way.
“I suppose you have a point,” he conceded. “So Mephisto will continue to follow you and watch as he has been. In the meantime,” Sylus continued, one hand taking one of Zayne’s and the other coming up to cup his cheek, “keep in contact with me as much as you’re able to. That way I’ll know you’re still safe.”
Zayne’s free hand came up to grip his wrist and he turned his head to press a kiss against Sylus’s palm. “Of course,” he said. Then he leaned in to press an all-too-chaste kiss to his lips.
Sylus grinned. “I’d better leave before I forget what I said about waiting for you,” he said. “Good night, sweetie.”
“Good night, Sylus,” Zayne said with a smile of his own as he pulled away so Sylus could open the door to leave.
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