Page 77 of Of Monsters and Mazes

I didn’t need any particular spot when she felt that good everywhere our bodies connected. That squeeze was unlike anything I’d ever experienced, and my own hand couldn’t have dreamed of replicating the warmth, the slickness, and the completeness of the contact. I’d been with Jericho an untold number of times, and he’d never let me feel anything like this. She sheathed me perfectly, and her body felt hotter than any devil had ever been in my hands.

She loosed a ragged breath as she started to pull off me. Desperation struck me, and I grabbed her hips and forced her back down, before she could sever our connection completely. I settled inside her, not ready to lose this brilliantly tight sensation of raw pleasure. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

I shook my head. “Trying to run away again?”

“No.” She spoke with unexpected confidence and smiled at me with satisfaction. Then, as if she’d figured out she’d found a chink in my armor, she started fucking herself on my cock at the most devilishly slow and teasing pace she was capable of. “I don’t think I need to run from you.” She sank onto me fully and unhurried again, drawing me in at a pace that allowed her body to compensate for my size, while bringing her more pleasure than pain. Bringing me more pleasure than pain. “Because you couldn’t stand to watch me die.” She started to move more consistently now, rocking her hips and drawing her tight ass up and down my full length. I swallowed as that brilliant tension sent full body shudders through my every nerve. Somehow, she’d managed to show me a sensation I’d not known at any point in my very long life. “Because Jericho might tell you you’re a monster, but I think you’re a guardian”

“Shut up.” I growled involuntarily as she kept rocking. Kept driving me fucking mad with that perfect ass.

In a bid for control, I pulled out of her suddenly, then I flipped her onto her stomach, putting her face first into the blood puddle. I reveled in the way crimson death dripped down her painted skin, and I coated my cock before I lifted her to her knees, hips high, and chest to the ground. I slid back into her ass, needing to make her mine by blood and body.

She gasped sharply, she adjusted carefully, and I let her find her favorite angle. She tested a few bold and brutal strokes, before she propped herself on her elbows and settled into a position.

I drew out slow and pressed in meticulously as a test. “Is this the angle you want?” I asked with a severity that told her I was giving her one last chance to back down or change position before I fucked her into another realm.

The girl kept her chest low, bracing herself with her hands interlaced, and she glanced over her shoulder to look me in the eye as I gave her one more preview of what I was about to do to her. She nodded softly as my pelvis connected with her firm ass again.

“Yes.” She whispered.

I nodded in response, then I gripped her hips roughly, assuring the force of impact wouldn’t allow her body to move. I slickened myself with another helping of viscous fluids, then I drove against that spot that made her gasp for breath and claw at the ground. Every time I made her legs shake, her eyes roll back, and her red lips cry out in pleasure, my mind fell further from the edge of sanity.

And I took this warrior princess for myself. Because if I was going to save her, then I was going to own her, and no one else would ever get to threaten my bonded again.

Not in my Labyrinth, and not in any realm thereafter.

Chapter 42

I dropped my forehead into the mud, near naked and still shaking through an unfamiliar mix of pain and pleasure and a full body high that shook through my spine, This orgasm was completely different than anything I’d ever felt, and I couldn’t say if it was due to our shared feelings, or if it was that otherworldly way his prince albert piercing skated through my ass. The heat of his come warmed me from the inside out, and I was about to beg for him to stay inside me, even as Rai’s cock softened while we were still connected. The feel of his release, paired with my own, left my mind more calm and quiet than it had been in years.

He lingered with his hands still resting on my hips, no longer gripping me harshly, but with the clear sense that neither one of us was ready to cease contact just yet.

His piercing dragged along every pleasure point as he very slowly started to pull out, and if I’d been able to vocalize my needs, I might have begged him to just stay there until he was hard again. Maybe these were my thoughts, or maybe they were his, but all I could think about at the moment was what it would be like for him to take me in every hole he could until we were both blacked out and sated.

Insane.

Rai wasn’t safe. He’d kidnapped me to kill me, right?

That’s what he’d said, despite the fact that he’d saved my life and murdered everyone who hurt me with a permanent stake through the heart.

He let me believe he wanted me dead while he proceeded to pick me up and carry me, princess style, back to a safer and less bloody clearing in the woods. And I told myself he meant it, even when he stopped by a flowing waterfall and spent half an hour cleaning us both from head to toe, until no trace of the goblins lingered on our skin.

He hated me and wanted to humiliate me, which was also why he’d taken off his own leather vest so I could cover myself, clearly out of disgust for my fragile human body. That’s what he’d said, even if a deep and undeniable feeling in my gut told me he was as confused as I was.

The Minotaur’s red slitted eyes were distant. The soft sheen of melancholy sunk into my heart, but he didn’t speak as we left the ruined village behind.

When at long last he came to a stop, he set me down gingerly and took his seat back on his large rock. Without his leather vest, every perfectly defined muscle on his body was visible, only accentuated by the beautifully painted tattoos, and the glints of silver from the piercings through his nipples, and the dermal piercings that followed the deep V of his abs, disappearing beneath his belt.

Still wordless, Rai sank into his seat, with the expression of a man who was contemplating his entire life.

“Are you okay?” He broke the silence with a simple question, while looking anywhere but at me with his complicated expression.

“I’m okay.” I confirmed. I contemplated asking him if he was still planning to kill me, but it seemed like it would sour the mood even further, and I wasn’t in the business of reminding people to violently gore me. So instead, I brilliantly asked a different insensitive question. “Are you going to be allowed to return to the castle after slaughtering the entire race of those cannibals?” The ridiculous thought that I’d made life harder for him shouldn’t have ever been allowed in my head.

“Probably not.” He laughed in a way that was noticeably accidental. “I wanted the Cronus dead regardless of anything regarding you, but I don’t have any acceptable way to justify my actions to the king.” Rai threaded his fingers through his lush black hair. “Though if I’m being honest, mass genocide wasn’t the event in this sector that condemned me.” His cheeks reddened and so did mine, in clear and mutual understanding. “This wasn’t how this was supposed to go at all.” He stared into the orange ferns.

I almost straight up giggled at that. “Considering we both felt that on both sides, I think that was the better of the two options.” The small confidence was nice for once. I’d been in a constant state of terror since I got here, and this rare moment of calm was like crashing on the couch after a marathon. I stood up and sat down on the rock beside him. I let my forehead fall on his bare shoulder, and he didn’t even bother to move. “So if our feelings are linked, does that mean you’ve felt everything I’ve felt up until now?” I asked. “Not just between us but…”

“I…” He laced his hands together. Nerves reflected in those scarlet eyes. “Yeah…”