Page 76 of Of Monsters and Mazes

Maybe we were more alike than I’d realized. The blood bond might not have been the only way we were connected.

“N-no. No I don’t want to run from you again. Can we start over? Your name is Rai, right? I’m Sela.” She spoke so innocently through her shaking voice, like she thought she could negotiate with a devil. It was almost as if she was trying to hide her terror with words. Even if I hadn’t had the ability to read her every emotion, her heart beat was loud, fast, and hard enough to give her mask away before she’d even put it on.

“To you, I’m the Minotaur.” I pinned her beneath me now, placing my hand firmly against her neck, and shoving her head into the deep crimson puddle of dead Cronus. Blood splashed from the impact, spattering my face and hers. “I’m the heartless monster of the maze.” I added pressure, not enough to suffocate her, but more than enough to show her I was serious. “And you’re the lost lamb who doesn’t belong here.”

She inhaled sharply through her nose as I shoved her chin back, dipping the crown of her head into the blood puddle and soaking her hair in red. It reeked of the Cronus, so putrid I could taste it, while pieces of their dismembered bodies were still scattered all around us. One could hardly tell the sector was supposed to be orange with the sheer amount of death painting the ferns and the stones.

Fucking demons that no one would miss, and yet I was unexplainably angry that I had been forced to deal with them. I’d navigated this Labyrinth for eons, and I’d never been so slow and pathetic as to be caught by these infernal cannibals. But this fucking girl was. She was killable, easily breakable, easily edible. She would have been on their table in pieces if I’d waited another minute, and though it would have been a means to an end, that thought only made me fucking angry.

“You still saved me though.” She managed before I cut her off with another squeeze of her throat.

“Saved you?” I couldn’t help but laugh. “You think being with me is safe?” I stretched my lips into a crooked grin, bearing my fangs for her view. “You think I slaughtered your enemies to keep you alive?” I reached down and gripped her bare thigh, digging in my claws until I drew blood. I could feel that too. “You think I would waste my time saving a worthless human for any reason that wasn’t to directly serve myself?”

“You did though, didn’t you?” She looked up at me with those curious, foolish eyes, and that only infuriated me further. I wasn’t like Theron, falling for the charm of anyone who offered me affection or kindness. I wasn’t like the fox who toyed with tributes for his amusement. I wasn’t helping her.

I was surviving because that was what I did. The fact that she was beautiful, and the fact that the King was infatuated with her had nothing to do with why I ripped her enemies to shreds. This was purely about our bond that I’d forced between us, having no idea of the consequences.

“No.” I shoved her knees upwards, positioning myself between her legs. “I saved you because you’re pathetic.” I growled as I cut into her quad muscles with my nails, wanting to ground myself through her pain. I scraped across her tender flesh, leaving a lacerated trail behind each fingertip. The cuts healed more slowly when I was the one inflicting them.

That would make it easier. I’d be able to drain her and put her out of our shared misery. There would be no point in keeping her alive even if we hadn’t been bonded. If she were going to survive here, she would have to be able to take pain and violence every fucking day. Her soft, perfect body wasn’t strong enough to exist in Tartarus.

Perfect? Soft?

I squeezed my eyes shut like it would crush those unwanted thoughts.

No, weak. She was weak.

She wasn’t good enough. She didn’t deserve the freedom I didn’t have. She didn’t deserve to win this game on the backs of everyone else. And I’d show her that. I’d learned that a long time ago, and it was about time I pass on the lesson.

“Then why not just let them kill me?” She started pleading again, and the notes of her voice struck a chord deep in my chest. “You wanted me dead anyway. Wouldn’t it have made more sense to let them pull me apart? Yet instead, you decided to save—”

“Because they didn’t deserve to devour you.” I interrupted her, not wanting to hear her call me her savior again. She was wrong. I wasn’t trying to help her at all. I didn’t want her alive. I dug my fingers into the tender flesh of her neck, just to prove it. I leaned in closer, and connected our hips, grinding against her pelvis in a single smooth motion. The way she swallowed against my palm had an involuntary growl slipping down my throat. Keep it together. “Because I’m the one who decides when and how you die.” I dipped my finger in the blood of the head hunters, and I rubbed the viscous fluid around my fingers. “Because this is my maze, and no one breaks my rules.” I pushed up her skirt and ripped the delicate lace that she’d somehow thought provided any protection from monsters. Her thighs tensed against my sides, and that small motion was the final straw that snapped the last of my discipline. I could feel my pulse in my ears, while I was straining in my pants with the need to feel that little cunt as she took me. I shoved one wet finger into her ass, slickening her with death’s lubricant. “Because you’re a worthless fucking human.” Another finger elicited a silent gasp, while her body swallowed me easily. The look on her face paired with the need pulsing through our combined nerves was a perfect drug. “And you’re my worthless fucking human.”

What the hell was I doing? Why couldn’t I seem to stop myself? The way her ass squeezed my fingers, the way her leg tensed in my grip as I slid each digit in, deeper and deeper, and the overwhelming need in her speeding heartbeat, her flushed skin, and her breathtaking eyes, were all getting to me. The frustration I’d felt when she’d been with Alessi was still prickling on my skin, and that fucking expression she was making as she watched me, now more curious than scared…

What did I come here to do?

I was going to kill her. I’d erased her signature from the king’s view, I’d taken her from her protectors, and I’d resolved to drain her past the last inch of her life. I wasn’t here to keep her safe. I wasn’t here because I wanted to feel her break on me, then watch her lose her beautiful mind as I took what every devil wanted. No, I wasn’t going to fuck her.

Because I absolutely hadn’t come because I craved that freedom she was fighting for. I kidnapped her for my own sake. Right now, I was simply blowing off some steam, because this whole fucking debacle had been stressful. She was getting in my head, and I knew it. I hadn’t been thinking straight, and I couldn’t rationalize what my goal had ever been when our heart beats synced to a dangerous melody.

I’d wiped the Cronus out of existence, and now I was slowly stretching this ridiculous woman beneath me with careful, probing movements of my fingers. The blood on her face was spattered like war paint, and the deep crimson that soaked her messy hair made her looking like a devil all her own. My lungs hitched each time hers did, as I dragged overly gentle fingertips along her sensitive nerves.

If she’d just look at me with contempt—with hatred and anger—I wouldn’t feel this way. It had to be her feelings that were getting to me—her desires that were messing with my brain. But why was she looking at me with a calm mind and a wet cunt, rather than terror and fight instincts?

“A worthless fucking human who you protected.” She breathed the words as I slipped my fingers back out of her. I slowed my breathing in my hunt for rationality.

Her shirt was already half shredded, and I absentmindedly opted to finish the job. I tore the weak material effortlessly, exposing her soft, rounded breasts. The way they moved each time her chest rose and fell with a new breath was hypnotizing. I wanted to see more of her. I wanted to feel more of her. She’d already taken my blood into her body. We’d shared a magic connection for days now, and a primal part of my soul needed more than that.

Her gaze followed my hand as I undid my belt buckle. I shook my head, not wanting to know what sort of buzz that was sending through her.

“Eyes on me, and maybe I won’t kill you.” I demanded. Every word and movement was a calculated attempt to override her growing arousal with fear, but my own heart wasn’t pumping the right emotion through me now either. I stroked my cock from the base to the stud that pierced the tip, and she bit down on her lower lip, not disguising any of the wanting in her eyes.

Sela nodded in acknowledgement—what she was agreeing with, I couldn’t say—then she lifted her hips to align her well-lubed body with mine.

My eyes widened with surprise, but I couldn’t compel myself to retreat from her. She pressed her ass down on the head of my cock, no fear in the face of my platinum piercing. She bit her lip as she took me in, and that connection was electricity through my fucking soul.

I let her control the speed at which she reshaped her insides with my body. Her thigh tensed as she shifted forward, until she’d taken me all the way to my base, then she moved her hips just a touch, like she was trying to rub the metal stud over a very particular spot.