Slowly, everyone turned their attention to me. Dozens of white eyes burned into me, making the little hairs on my nape stand. My heart was beating so hard, I could feel it in my mouth.
“Titus,” I whispered. “What’s going on…?”
“I think I figured out a way to get us out of here. But you’re not going to like it.” He turned back to face me, taking both of my hands in his. I wasn’t sure if it was a trick of the shadows or if he was really smiling like a maniac. “Or maybe you will.”
There was a dark bend to his tone that had my insides twisting into knots. “Spit it out, devil.”
“I made a bet with the Elder One.” His mismatched eyes glinted in the bonfire’s glow. “He thinks I’m more human than devil.”
Titus took a step closer to me. His demeanor was so menacing, I instinctually took a step back. “He thinks me weak. He’s challenged me to claim your soul. Right here. Right now.”
Another step forward.
I took another back.
I swallowed thickly. “Now? In front of everyone?”
Titus nodded, talking toward me with tumultuous hunger banked behind his inhuman gaze. “Yes. I know my little lamb does well with an audience. If I can successfully mark your soul and claim it for myself, he’ll allow us to leave.”
“And if you can’t?” Something told me I wasn’t going to like the answer.
“If I fail to take your soul, then he’ll devour both of ours.”
I froze. My heart thundered inside my rib cage. I wasn’t sure what I’d been expecting, but it wasn’t that. I’d entered the center of the ritual circle knowing I probably wouldn’t be leaving without some devil or another sinking his claws into my soul.
Titus was so sure of his abilities—even though he’d never marked a soul before—that he was staking his own soul on it. Risking himself for a chance to save me.
The butterflies in my belly turned to angry bees. I wanted him. And he was right. As it turned out, I was a bit of an exhibitionist.
The fact that we didn’t have much of a choice here should have sobered me up from my lustful haze…but it didn’t.
Titus’s nostrils flared as he breathed in my arousal. A smile twitched on his lips.
The little space left between us buzzed, and adrenaline raced through my bloodstream. He was watching me so intently, his one pale eye bright.
He tweaked an eyebrow at me, a silent question. “Are you ready to do this?”
Part of me said“hell no,”but there was a bigger, louder part of my brain screamingyes.
I gave the slightest of nods, and mouthed, “Okay.”
In that heated moment, everything snapped. The pressure was on to make it out of these woods alive, heightening the stakes and making this the darkest and most dangerous game we’d ever played.
Lucky for us, we were the perfect players for the challenge.
Chapter Fifteen
Lore
IfTituswasnervous,he didn’t show it. This was it.
Do or die. Or rather, fuck or get eaten. And not the fun kind of “devouring.”
“Run, little lamb. Or be slaughtered.” The dark intent dripping from Titus’s words had me running. It’s not like I had anywhere to go. Everywhere I turned, I was blocked in by the wall of cultists. Their glowing eyes leered from behind the slits of their masks, but I was barely paying attention.
Titus’s claws sank into my sides, wrenching me back into the circle’s interior. I yelped, my core pulsing and throbbing at his touch.
He threw me to the ground and we went rolling, stopping with him on top of me with his palms flat against the dirt on either side of my head. “Finders Keepers?”
