Belial had violated my flesh, leaving it red and stinging, but the burn had only pushed the pleasure higher. His fingers inside me had been the perfect chaser to the pain.
I wanted to tease him for giving me blue balls—or whatever the female equivalent was.
I’d thought he might try to touch me while he was invisible, but he hadn’t. Of course not. He got off on hearing me beg.
So I’d come quickly, knowing that he was watching, with his name on my lips and his marks on my skin. And I’d humored myself with thoughts of his flustered expression as I gathered myself and wandered around until I found the Styx, following it as he suggested.
It was easy to tell which way the river flowed by the bobbing corpses jostling in the current to make sure I was going the right way. Following it gave me hope. It made me feel like I was truly getting somewhere for the first time, like I knew what I was doing.
He didn’t have to give me that tip.But he had…
At the thought of Belial, my stomach fluttered and heat scorched my cheeks.
Fuck. I couldn’t get that asshole out of my head. He had a way of invading my senses. I needed to keep my mind focused on escape, not cock. But my thoughts kept gravitating toward the latter.
I knew falling for a demon was a terrible idea—probably the worst thing I could do if I was trying to escape purgatory—but I couldn’t help it.
Something about him was so mystifying.So god damn sexy.
He was cruel but kind. Rough yet soft. There was something about him that was forbidden, off limits. I loved breaking rules, and venturing places I didn’t belong. It was part of the reason why I raided graves.
Death’s ferryman was everything I wanted, and everything I shouldn’t have.
Maybe I really was losing my mind in the labyrinth. Why else would thoughts of a demon ferryman turn my knees to jello and kickstart a heartbeat between my thighs?
If I knew what was good for me, I’d stop daydreaming about him. Stop letting our moments together occupy my thoughts and stop wanting to repeat every one of them.
Then again, I wasn’t known for making the best decisions in life.
After a while, the ground beneath my feet transformed. The rain-soaked soil was replaced by drier, rockier terrain. Jagged rocks crunched beneath my boots, and the body parts stuck in the brambles were twisted and gnarled with unnatural bones protruding from them.
Torsos with jagged spikes growing out of their chests, heads with extra teeth and bones. Hands with extra fingers, feet with extra toes. They all looked older, more withered, skin peeling and falling off.
Goosebumps crawled over my skin when I realized the whispers had died, no longer a steady ballad drifting around me. Everything was eerily quiet, like the souls trapped in this part of the maze had been here too long, were too tired to bother talking anymore. That, or they couldn’t.
My movements felt too loud, every footstep crunching and disturbing the eerie silence. My gut told me I shouldn’t be here, that I should turn back.
I refused to follow that instinct.
There was nowhere to go back to, except maybe the castle. Fuck that shit.
I made a right around a corner and found myself on a long, straight path. It seemed to stretch on forever, the longest path I’d seen in the maze so far. My heart leapt into my throat. Did this mean I was getting close to the exit?
It felt dangerous to get my hopes up.
Before I could keep going, a rustling sound closeby made me freeze, icy fear prickling over my skin, making my hair stand on end. That was new. It didn’t sound like the hedges shifting or regrowing—a noise I’d committed to memory over the countless hours I’d been trapped in here.
I swallowed hard, my heart galloping against my ribs as my insides knotted.
“Belial?” I said, afraid to call out. What if it was the Lord of Bones lurking nearby? It wasn’t time for him to come again; it hadn’t been a day since he marked me last.
What if it was something else?
My breath stuttered and I took a few shaky steps, treading as quietly as possible. The fear had my blood pounding in my ears. After a minute, I started to think maybe I’d imagined it. The solitude and the lack of noise were making me hear things.
Then I heard it again. A sickening slither.Oh shit.Something large was dragging itself along the ground, crunching against the rocks.
I gasped, every muscle in my body tensing as I swiveled my head around, looking for the source of the noise. Up ahead, the brambles shifted, cutting off the long, straight pathway, and opening up to reveal a new path to the right. My heart bottomed out, and it took every shred of willpower I had to keep walking.
