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Chapter 29

I was still rubbing my back as I followed Alessi towards the next chamber. The last of the gashes and bruises had already healed, but the phantom pain still lingered in my mental database, vividly enough that I couldn't forget it. Any lowered inhibitions I'd been feeling in the first challenge had cleared, and I was now acutely, and unfortunately, aware.

"You sure seemed tortured by that awful challenge." I glared at him as we walked. He tapped the folded whip over his shoulder in response.

"I told you this sector is absolutely awful." He shrugged, not even attempting to hide his smile. Being asked to bend over in front of him was bad enough. Having to stay still as he whipped the King's name into my back was worse. Not the least of which because I could hear the glee through his covered mouth and fake gasps of feigned disgust all the while.

Fuck this guy, for real.

"Right, this sector is the awful one." I pursed my lips, and Alessi chuckled. I tried not to think about everything he'd made me feel in the last couple hours of our lives. Not the vibrator, and not the sharp cracks, and certainly not the part where he'd made me turn on the vibrator to distract myself from the sharp cracks. We would not be discussing the way my body reacted to any part of that. Not with my future therapist, and not between each other. That would only make this guy more smug about it anyway.

It wasn't long before we came upon the next crossroads. I didn't feel ready at all when, once again, the walls slammed down around us.

What fun little game would they have for us this time? Presumably, Jericho was watching us from somewhere. I bet he was totally into this shit. He was probably jerking off as I was tortured to orgasm over and over again.

Or maybe not, actually. He had probably also been hoping I'd picked the box cutter. He seemed like the type.

My only sense of relief was that it was my turn to pick. I waited anxiously for the cubby doors to appear, ready to get the theatrics out of the way and face the next obstacle already.

It wasn't long before words started etching themselves through the gold again.

Sometimes fears are also kinks. Choose your weapon , the magical maze demanded. Not sure what I thought about that, but the nails that permanently scarred my wrists might agree somehow. Though no one had a serial killer kink, so to call my fear a kink was a bit of a misnomer.

Wait, DO people have serial killer kinks? Do I?

No, that's crazy. I was absolutely not one of those girls who became a groupie to murderers. I just had a domination kink, which was completely tame and normal and sweetly vanilla. Maybe a being held down kink, which was similarly functional and conventional. The nails were a metaphor.

So were the headless bodies?

I cleared my throat for no one but my own crazy.

Anyway .

Four cubbies appeared this time before I could think on any of that any deeper. Thank fucking god for timing. Or thank Olympus? Or the devil? Or whoever it was I was supposed to thank down here. None of those entities seemed worthy of gratitude at the moment, so maybe I should just thank myself. Whoever was supposed to be watching over me had clearly fallen asleep on the job.

I avoided an audible groan, then I approached each one and slid them open smoothly.

A hammer and nails rested in the first glass box, and I found myself immediately thinking of Theron again.

Nope, Noooo. Hell no. Not picking that shit.

Ropes and blindfolds were in the second. I'd put those on the maybe list. If I was lucky, maybe the challenge would involve hog tying Alessi while I channeled my inner dominatrix. I think I could handle that. Tartarus owed me some petty revenge.

The third sported knives, nipple clamps, and collars. That was a lot to process, and the possibilities were a bit more endless than I was prepared for. Yeaaaah, all good on that. Thank you but no thank you.

And the last one was… empty? Was that, like, kink free missionary sex? No toys or pain or anything—just happy little orgasms and getting my pussy rocked?

No, that was too simple. It had to be a trap. There was zero chance that I was going to move on from here without some sort of traumatizing regrets.

Plus, these choices weren't necessarily sexually charged at all. I was just assuming based on my current lived experience and the very secure vibrator still nestled between my over stimulated pussy lips. But maybe the rope meant I had to scale the wall with a blindfold. Maybe the nails, the nipple clamps, and the knives were… uh… part of an arts and crafts project? Maybe the empty box meant "No challenge! You're free you pretty, perfect, awesome tribute girl!"

I sighed as I glanced from one box to the next, thankful the only countdown this time was the clock ticking above. I still had forty eight hours to get to the castle, which seemed like more than enough time considering there were only two sectors left beyond this one. Here I thought Jericho was being unreasonable, but this was going quick and easy, all things considered.

Granted I'd had a lot of help up until this point, but Alessi didn't seem in any hurry to ditch me, so presumably that assistance would continue. He owed me, if the amount of joy he was getting out of playing my body was a form of debt.

I thought it was.

My gaze wandered back to the nails.

Theron was still nowhere to be found. I really thought I'd be able to count on him, but he was currently a huge disappointment. But then, what man wasn't, you know?

I really needed to stop thinking about him like that. He was a devil here to sabotage me, not my friend.

Forcing my mind away from that depressing thought, I opted to talk myself through the puzzle at hand.

"So the obvious choice is the box with nothing, which leads me to believe it's not the obvious choice at all." I pouted to the companion I was quickly becoming entirely too intimate with.

"Look at you, learning. Who knew even the most stubborn humans could be taught?" Alessi's amber eyes blended in well with the gold of the Yellow Sector. And his attitude blended in well with the psychopaths of the Labyrinth.

"It's no wonder you let Theron fuck you. You're both just so charming and compassionate and understanding. You must have felt like instant soul mates." I shot back with a puff to my cheeks.

Alessi's jaw dropped in full offense. "Whoa now, why would you ever assume I was bottom? I'm technically an angel, and he's literally a devil. I was born on top of him."

With two raised brows, I made an exaggerated point of looking him up and down .

"Seriously? Considering the way you play with your tail like it's your emotional support puff ball, no way you're taking control of a guy with those kinds of muscles and scars. You're just like me when I—" I stopped myself, realizing I just walked into the totally wrong point.

"I'm just like you in the sense that I must fantasize about being dominated by a powerful psychopath?" He finished my sentence with words I was definitely not planning to say, and he seemed incredibly proud of his completely wrong answer.

"No, in the sense that you aren't as tough as you pretend to be." I whispered, unable to stop my cheeks from flaring again. "And sometimes it's nice to let someone else take charge for once, when you're used to always doing everything yourself." Those words were even quieter, so much that they were barely there at all.

Alessi blinked with surprise and astonishment. "That's… so cute." He uttered with a laugh. "You are truly a precious gem in a maze of coal, Bijou. So innocent and pure." And now he was stifling his body shaking laughter. One hundred percent he was making fun of me.

"I'm not that innocent, and I'm not that pure." I fired back, trying to take back some dignity here. It's not like I was some blushing virgin. I'd been with plenty of men. Sure I'd never actually culminated any of those men into lasting relationships, but it's not like I was an untouched princess.

"How so?" He asked without any pause to his laughter. I flattened my lips in a line. "You think laying on your pillow while you take a dick or twenty in missionary position makes you wild and filthy? Because that is the only explanation as to why you would think the Dream Weaver, of all the devils in Tartarus, might be rough, and dominant, and want to protect you."

"He… he did protect me though." I fiddled with my fingers and glanced to the side in embarrassment.

I knew Alessi had obviously spent more time with Theron than I had, but that didn't change all of the things Theron had done for me throughout the maze. If I hadn't run into Alessi and ignored Theron's request to let the wall eat him—a decision I currently mildly regretted—he'd probably still be here and still be keeping me safe. I didn't think either of us believed that he would actually sell me out in the end.

I didn't anyway.

Fuck, am I becoming na?ve? Did he dickmatize me in my dream without me realizing it?

The more Alessi looked at me through that amused expression, the more I felt like an idiot. Maybe it wasn't too late to go back and shove him into the plants.

"This is fascinating. Nightmares and all, you see him as someone safe?" His grin didn't have the menace or mischief it did before, but there was something else in the dim glow of his eyes that I couldn't quite place. "Do you have a crush on my little Dream Weaver, Bijou?"

"N-no, of course not." That was completely absurd. I wouldn't even entertain such a ridiculous question. "I just felt safe with him, that's all. He was still a dick 99% of the time, but this place is insane and I don't have magic, so I had to work with whoever was willing. And he was willing, so… "

"Precious." He approached me and ruffled my hair. Still I couldn't read the look on his face. "Maybe we are the same, after all."

"Both terrible judges of character?"

"The worst." His grip dropped from my hair to my neck where he began slowly drawing sharp lines up and down my pulse. It was both gentle and threatening and that made my heart skip. Then he moved in close enough for the quietest of whispers, "But make no mistake, Sela—there is nothing submissive about me. Not for him, and most certainly not for you."

The low growl to his voice made me shiver, and I stepped away for much needed space.

"Whatever. That doesn't answer my question." I turned away to hide the redness in my cheeks. He had a way of getting to me, and I was not proud of that. "What do you think I should choose here? Knowing we'll both be involved somehow, I mean. I have some of my own guesses, but you know this place a lot better than I do, so I'd love to hear your thoughts on this."

Alessi turned his head to evaluate our options, while not receding an inch from my personal space. "Personally, if it were me, I'd probably most enjoy door number two." His grip moved to my shoulder, where he continued to draw small circles over my collarbone. "Tying someone up, stealing their eye sight, seeing them bound and completely at your mercy, with no choice but to be your little fuck toy." He practically purred as he spoke. "I think we might have fun with that one." His partially shifted claw nicked my skin, and a thin bead of blood dripped from my collar bone. He caught it before it could stain my V-neck, then he brought his finger to his mouth to lick the blood from his nail.

"What if the task is that I tie you up? Maybe the maze will want me to have you blind and at my mercy. I could imagine it flipping the script. The Labyrinth can't always be too predictable, you know?"

"The more I think about it, I'm not really into box two. Let's move on." He dismissed my inquiry with a wave, and I rolled my eyes at his immediate change of tune. "So, if I were the Minotaur, I'd probably nod towards door number three. Rai has always worn a collar, and I know he has a thing for whips. I'm fairly certain that's where this came from." Alessi twirled the whip in his grasp like it was a baton. "The first door is completely lost on me. I have no clue who would have interest in nails and hammers, and I have even less of an idea as to how those could be used sexually. Unless it's for some kind of construction kink, and the challenge is going to tell us to build a cute bench to fuck on, I wouldn't want anything to do with whatever the maze has in mind with that one."

Right. A construction kink.

Nope, I would not be clarifying that one for him.

But also, "bold of you to assume we're just going to move straight from whips and vibrators to fucking me."

"In my defense, usually the fucking comes way before the whips and vibrators." His smugness didn't make it better. "The Yellow Sector seems unusually sexually charged this iteration, so it's a reasonable assumption. I would say I feel a bit bad I skipped the courtship before putting you in these positions, but you were just so adorable each time you came all over my hand."

"I think I'm going to pick the blindfold, just so I can wad it up and shove it in your mouth." I grumbled .

"I would love to see you try, Bijou." He flashed his fangs in a grin.

"So what about the fourth box?" I said loudly, as a not at all subtle demand to change the subject. "What the hell do you think nothing means?"

He tilted his head back and forth for a spell before his gaze landed on the empty box. " Nothing is probably what Rai thinks of Jericho's bland bedroom game." Alessi snorted at his own joke, while that break down had my mind spinning.

"Is that what this is?" I looked to the fox by my side, then back to each choice, one at a time, fully absorbing the meaning. "Is each one of these signifying a different person in the maze? Door one is Theron, door two is you, door three is the Minotaur, and door four is the King?"

His amber eyes widened. He looked between the cubbies again. He nodded along, as if seeing my point, then he stopped short and furrowed his brow. "Wait, why would door one be Theron?" He asked with a scrunched nose.

"Process of elimination." I waved a hand dismissively. "What do you think would happen if I were to pick a box that represents one of the other men?" I had no intention of answering honestly, and he didn't seem to pick up on it.

"I couldn't say. It really just depends on what kind of mood Rai is in. If he's in a bad mood, it'll be something bad. If he's in any other mood, it'll be something bad but nonfatal."

"You're not even trying to be helpful." I glanced between each box again. I wanted to pick the empty box, but not if it could mean summoning Jericho. But then again, even if it was associated with the Devil King somehow, there was nothing to strangle or maim me in there like in all the others. That had to be good, right?

I started towards the empty box, but I hesitated. Glancing back over my shoulder, I stared at the box of nails long and hard.

Was that to signify Theron?

Or was that to signify me .

After all, it wasn't his mind that created that vision. At least he claimed it wasn't.

No, I knew it wasn't.

I turned on my heel, took a deep breath, and I pressed my palm to the clear glass to make my choice. The other cubbies closed, and the barrier faded away.

Then it was just me, Alessi, and a pile of nails.

I swallowed down my fear, then I reached inside and retrieved one of many long, metal spikes. I closed my eyes, touched the point to my wrist, and I spun it around one of the marks that Theron had left on me.

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