I drop to a crouch, heart hammering, pulse roaring in my ears. I try to scan the shadows for the archer, but it’s all red-lit shapes and stone walls shrouded in mist. I don’t wait to find out who is watching me and launch deeper into the Labyrinth, lungs burning, bare feet stinging. I lose all sense of direction. It feels like the walls are closing in. A groaning, grating sound fills the air seconds before the walls shift, pushing me in a direction I don’t choose.
An echo of laughter fades into the night when I turn into a dead end. I skid to a stop, chest heaving, and hit a wall with my palms. “No!”
Behind me, the path seals itself with a low, grinding growl. Vegetation and foliage rise over the walls, shuddering in the darkness as they grow. Thorns and brittle vines mix with strange glossy leaves shaped like hearts. There’s no way back.
Something thuds behind me—boots landing on flagstones—and I pivot, slamming straight into another wall, this one made of sweat-slicked flesh. Iron fingers clamp around my wrist.
“That was sloppy, girl,” the hunter sneers. “You should watch your back even with a wall behind you.”
A thin, dark line appears along his throat when he backs me up against the icy wall. I think absurdly that his smile is in the wrong place, and then I hear a wet, gurgling choke. He claws at his neck. Blood streams from the wound in ribbons. Two seconds later, he’s dead.
His corpse pins me against the wall. I cry out, hating how I sound so feminine and weak. It’s not me. I’m strong. I’m—ew gross. I have a face full of sweaty, gaping, bloody neck wound. It’s in my mouth. My stomach heaves.
A boot descends from above and kicks the body off me.
Fresh air whooshes in. I devour it as a figure drops from above, landing on silent feet. Thunder claps and lightning strikes, illuminating the tiny boxed-in space—and my savior. Ithink my mind has separated from my body. That’s my only explanation for not running.
The Huntsman and I lock eyes. It’s wrong. Different. My memories paint those eyes as dead, empty, and cruel. When did they become so alive and… wild? And he’s shouting at me, asking me something.
Stone grinds around us, scraping and sliding against our bodies as walls shift, opening new passageways into the Labyrinth.
Blinking, I come back to myself. Self-preservation kicks in. I turn, and I run.
He is the only person who has ever contradicted my logic like this. Not even Kasaros himself had this effect.
I don’t know where I’m going but away is good. Not long after, a group of male shouts echo somewhere close. My steps slow down. The walled passage I’m in leads to a T-junction. Three men jog past. The first two don’t look, but the third glances down my path and does a double-take.
I am a white flag in the darkness.
“BRIDE!” he bellows and tries to stop, but skids out of view.
A strong hand locks around my arm and yanks me to the side. I am shoved toward a wall covered in vines. I brace for pain but am pushed through the foliage and into a narrow crevice between two walls. I barely scrape in. My thorny tiara catches on roots and rips through my hair. The smell of stone, mold, and wet foliage fills my nose. A large, warm body squeezes into the tiny space, and now I smell leather, cedar oil, and, strangely—confusingly—apples.
The Huntsman presses his warm body against mine, pinning me to the wall. I didn’t realize how cold I was until now. He corrects the curtain of vines to cover our tracks.
“Don’t move.” His whisper is so low and guttural that it rumbles from his chest to mine. His painted smile is inches from my mouth—the fabric flutters with his warm breath.
He killed my best friend.
Fear and sorrow empower me. I buck, fight, and try to bite, but he is a force of nature holding me still.
The emotions linking me to Drayven’s death are so deeply ingrained that it feels as if I lost him just yesterday. There is no hope. I’m done for. I open my mouth to scream because I’d rather face two hundred hunters than this man.
Boots thud nearby.
“Be quiet.” His hand clamps over my mouth. “For once in your life, listen to me.”
I thrash my head, and a muffled sound leaks out. His hand presses harder, and I bite his fingers. Salty. Calloused. Apples. The whites of his eyes flash, and he lets go. I suck in a deep, triumphant breath, ready to unleash the full force of my lungs.
But then he grunts, “Fuck it.”
And kisses me.
No, it’s not just a kiss. The Huntsman doesn’t ease in and seduce. He crushes his masked lips against mine and takes. I gasp, and he devours the advantage, deepening the kiss so far as his mask allows. His hands cup my face and hold me steady. His tongue invades and seeks—hits my tongue against the silk, and he groans. The sound is so damn sexual, so perfectly male, that my hormones respond without my permission. I’ve never experienced this kind of hunger in another before, this kind of yearning—for me.
Wrong. This is wrong.
But he smells good. Male. Safe. And… apples.
