Feel My Pain (Curse Bound 1)

“Same here, dipshit,” Zane hissed as he browsed through the kit, trying ignore the hair peppered all over the muscular stomach. He needed to focus on the blood. “Can’t fucking count all the days I felt like an absolute mess because of you,” he said, taking out a wound-cleaning liquid and cotton wool pads. This would hurt more before it got better.

Roach shook his head. “I’m a bouncer. What do you expect?”

“This will end now. No more booze unless I’m there to tell you when to stop,” Zane said and shuddered when his own flesh stung from the disinfectant poured onto Roach’s wound, only it was weird because the sensation seemed to come out of nowhere. He couldn’t believe this was happening to him, that his health was now dependent on this lowlife.

Roach chuckled, and that once more hurt Zane’s stomach. “You gonna tell me how to live my life now?”

“Yes,” Zane said, producing a curved needle. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad?

“What do I get in return?” Roach caught his gaze, and Zane couldn’t comprehend the audacity of this motherfucker. Zane had come here to kill him, and Roach was still trying to get laid?

“You have no self-respect,” he said, ignoring the handsome face that didn’t belong in this backwater town. He’d focus on the needle going into flesh.

Going into flesh.

Going into—

“Fuck,” Zane growled, rolling the needle between two fingers while the gash in skin stared back at him with a mocking smile.

He’d cut Roach’s face with a switchblade, and now he couldn’t fucking prick him with a needle?

“Easy. Your hair’s getting into everything.” Roach got a rubber band out of the first aid kit and handed it to Zane who barely held back a howl of frustration.

“I’m fine,” Zane barked, his gaze drifting up Roach’s stomach, away from the source of his own ache. It should be easy. If he only imagined the skin as bits of fabric—

He choked and looked away as soon as he pressed the sharp needle to the bloodstained skin. If this had just been about Roach, he could have done this with far more ease. He wouldn’t have an issue ripping into him and leaving his guts in the open, but every time he pricked the skin, he felt pain stabbing at his own stomach, and it was driving him mad.

His cheek stung as if it had been splashed with acid, and he glanced at Roach’s face with a yelp. The fucker was wiping his face with disinfectant but froze when their eyes met.

“Sorry. Forgot.”

“I’m trying to focus, so that we don’t end up with messy stitches, okay?” Zane grumbled with exasperation. But Roach kept watching him, and he’d ask to switch places any second, so Zane pushed the needle through and… that was much worse than having his ears pierced in junior high school.

“Come on, just make it quick.”

Banging at the door. Again. Zane was about to go mad if he hadn’t already.

“Reeeeed? Travis said you were making a lot of noise. Are you okay?”

Roach rubbed his forehead. “It’s fine!” But then he glanced at Zane. “That’s Gale, he could do it. He once dated a vet and helped stitch up a cat. Whatcha think?”

Zane stilled, wondering whether Gale wasn’t someone who’d help Roach get rid of him for good, but his voice, high-pitched and exaggerated in the way it emphasized some sounds, couldn’t belong to a brute.

So the fucker had a real name after all.

“I guess.” He grabbed a large black hoodie and covered himself with it. The last thing he needed was whoever-Gale-was questioning their identical injuries.

Roach stared at him. “Go on. Open the door. Do I really have to get up when there’s a needle in my belly?”

Zane’s lips tightened. “I’m not an idiot,” he remarked and walked across the room, ignoring the ache in his wound. He tried to remember whether anything like this ever happened before. Sure, he’d had headaches, minor scrapes and bruises, and then there was the tattoo, but he'd never experienced unexplained symptoms this intense before. Had he been lucky, or did whatever-this-was get stronger if Zane and Roach were physically closer?

He unlocked the door and opened it without a word.

Of course. Gale was the blond pixie boy with the eyes of a crackhead.

“Oh, my God! Reed? What’s going on?” he whined and passed under Zane’s arm.

“It’s fine. I’ve had an accident. Zane’s been trying to deal with it, but he’s shit at it. Can you help me out?”

Gale cast a curt glance over his bony shoulder. He wore makeup. Nothing excessive, but he definitely used blush to accentuate his cheeks or perhaps to get rid of the grayish pallor Zane spotted beneath his jaw line.

“What kind of accident?” he whispered, bending over to remove his white cowboy boots.

Zane paced back and forth, unsure how he felt about the familiar way in which Gale kneeled next to Roach on the mattress, or how little he hesitated before touching Roach’s bare flesh. Roach didn’t deserve friends or lovers.