Chapter 38

"Wake up." A harsh command ripped me from my sleep, and my eyes shot open in alarm. My vision was immediately filled with apricot colored foliage sprouting out from trees at every angle, accompanied by the vague sound of a rattle in the distance. Startled, I thrashed my way out of the too-well-woven blanket, trying to gain use of my limbs to fight off whatever had dragged me into the forest.

Theron and his soothing scent of chocolate cinnamon was conspicuously absent. So was Alessi's once relaxing air of lilac. Instead, my nose was filled with the sharp aroma of walnut and pine, while in a tropical forest characterized by neither plant.

"I hope you got enough sleep." The voice sounded from behind me, and I whipped around to meet a pair of crimson slitted eyes, framed by jet black hair, and massive, dangerous horns shooting straight up in a killing point. His voice was deeper than I'd expected. I'd only heard it briefly in the Blue Sector, and I'd been too overwhelmed to really notice it. Now it was the only thing I had to focus on. That, and the glints of piercings on his tongue, beneath his lip, through his nose and septum, above his eyebrows—how many piercings did this guy have? I counted something like twelve on his face alone. Twenty on his ears. Who knew how many in places I couldn't see.

"I'm sorry, did I startle you?" Rai spoke casually, with a calmness unbefitting a monster. The talk of sleep automatically had me glancing up in search of the clock, hoping I hadn't been out too long. I couldn't see anything through the dense palms. "You still have thirty six hours, technically." He confirmed for me, my thoughts obvious through my panic. "But you won't need them anymore from here."

"What do you mean?" I tried not to appear rattled by that cryptic statement. I glanced down at the marks on my arms wondering if I could call Theron to my location by pressing on them. The dots that once adorned my palm had disappeared somehow, but the rest were all there. I had no idea what to make of that. "Where are Theron and Alessi? What's going on? Why did you kidnap me?" I asked next. Honestly, if didn't matter where they were at this point, so long as they weren't here, and I was on my own. But this kind of idle chatter was more about buying time to figure out what my potential escape options might be than it was real conversation.

"I wouldn't worry so much about your companions. They're not the ones in danger." Rai continued to be matter-of-fact on the situation. His words were harsh, but his tone was eerily calm. "I've cut out your tracking marks, so you don't have to worry about the king interfering either. This little interaction is completely off the record. No one else will have to watch you die."

A lump stuck in my throat, and it took everything to swallow it down. "Isn't that going against the King's wishes?" I'd thought the Minotaur was supposed to be loyal to Jericho, but then again, who knew what loyalty looked like to a devil.

"It is. But sometimes the only person who will advocate for you is yourself, and this is one of those times. We're at the point that I can't ignore the trouble you're causing anymore." His toneless neutrality continued to be oddly alarming. "You've done well to stay alive this long, but then, you've had a lot of help."

Rai grabbed a large stone from the ground. He examined it, like he was testing its size, weight, and grip-ability in his hand.

"I promise I don't want to be here. I'll gladly leave right now, and you'll never have to see me again."

"We both know that's not possible without the King's portals." He tossed and caught the rock idly, maintaining relentless eye contact that was making me increasingly tense and self-conscious. "Which means either you make it through the Labyrinth, or I stop your quest right here, and we can be done with this whole debacle."

"Why would you go against Jericho's wishes to end the game early? We're almost done. I'm following the rules. I'm not doing anything to hurt you." I was practically pleading, but what else was I supposed to do in the face of someone I stood no chance against in any capacity. The only weapons I had were my words and whatever barely there charisma was left in me .

"Is that what you think?" He never so much as blinked as he reach across his body and smashed his left knuckles in five strong, savage, bloody hits.

I gasped and grabbed my hand in sympathy pain, just from watching the violent and terrifying display.

Then I started tearing up, feeling my own hand crumpling in my grip, while stomach churning agony had me on the verge of puking. My eyes were watering, and my vision was fading black, while Rai stood from his stone throne, tossed aside the rock that was dripping with scarlet, and held his battered limb in front of my face.

"W-what the hell." I whimpered. When I looked at my own hand, I couldn't see the damage, but I could vividly feel it. I covered my mouth, trying so hard to keep the contents of my stomach down where it belonged. Not that I'd eaten much of anything since I'd arrived, but the vile taste of my empty insides wasn't improved by the fact.

Before my eyes, his hand healed at a rapid pace. My pain subsided at the same rate.

"Have you noticed how fast you heal?" Rai's voice was steady. "Any idea why that might be?" He grabbed me by the arm before I could answer, then he twisted my elbow behind my back and shoved me into a tree. I kicked back, slamming my heel hard into his shin with all of the strength in my glutes as leverage—which was substantial, in my opinion. He didn't buckle, but I yelped at the blaring ache in my own shin.

"What the fuck."

"Figure it out." He growled in my ear as he forced me more snuggly against the tree trunk with his body.

"Why are our nerves linked?" I asked the obvious.

"How did you think you got through the Senseless Forest?"

"What?" My eyes widened at the confession. I had no idea how I'd survived it. At best, I'd assumed Theron had found me there before plunging me into his dream space. "What does that have to do with you?"

"You would have been digested by Skolexes if I hadn't stepped in." He stopped talking as if he was catching himself, ashamed to admit he really had helped me. "I found you being dragged to their lair, I killed the maggots, and I healed you, giving you blood that could reject the senseless poison and close your wounds. My blood."

I was stunned. Completely taken aback. At a total fucking loss for what to make of that.

"Why would you do that?" How many times had Rai saved me, directly or indirectly, that I hadn't known about? How much of my success could be attributed to this connection? And how much of the Labyrinth's challenges were made easier by this link to his mind and body?

He sighed.

"Because you looked defenseless, and I didn't realize you were a tribute. I shared my blood to heal you, thinking I'd just return you to the human world and go about my day. But all of that changed when you entered the maze and fully linked our bodies, emotions, and nerves." He twisted my arm harder until I yelp, and he was gritting his teeth. "Now you're nearly as much a part of this maze as I am."

"I don't understand." I did, but I also didn't. His words made sense but their meaning was completely lost on me .

"It means that so long as you have my blood in your veins, you can't be killed," Rai lifted his chin, and his nostrils flared as he took in a breath. "And so long as we share that connection, I'm going to have to endure your pain, your emotions, your…" He cut himself off as his body pressed me more snugly into the tree. I felt him swallow at the same time I noticed he wasn't entirely… soft. He cleared his throat and inched back just far enough hide his body's reaction. "You're a fucking nutcase who feels way too much for way too many people, and I'm not going to be your puppet."

"How long will this last?" I tried next, the sense of dread filling me from the depths of my gut. "My body will replace all of my blood cells eventually, right? Probably even faster with all of my injuries." Never mind that it supposedly took years for someone to fully replace their cells.

"I don't think you understand. I'm half devil, but I'm also half angel. My blood is nothing like what you're used to." He wrenched down his grip on me again, twisting my arm and grabbing me by the back of the neck, shoving my cheek into the scratchy bark. "You'll continue to bear this connection until I drain every last drop from your worthless mortal body."

"S-so you're just going to kill me? After everything, you're going to bleed me out, even knowing you'll feel the same pain and anguish I will?" My words as weapons had failed me, and I knew it. How could I reason with someone who could feel everything I felt. I couldn't lie to him, and I couldn't manipulate him.

"You seem scared." Rai returned to calm and casual. He must have felt my panic, but it didn't faze him. "Is that what you're most afraid of, Sela? Is death really the worst fate you can imagine?"

"No." I shook my head best I could, but his grip and the tree allowed for little movement. "What I'm afraid of is if I die here, then I've failed the one I love the most. Everyone who ever loved me, counted on me, believed in me—it doesn't just affect me." My voice broke on the last word. No one was coming for me at this point. "If the pain was mine alone, I wouldn't be so afraid. But imagining my parents grieving, my cat never knowing what happened to me, and every ambition I'd ever had being snuffed out before I'd accomplished even a fraction of the things I'd set out to do…" My lip was quivering as I fell prisoner to a man who had no reason to care about any of this. "Death means something in my world. It's an end, it's never again, it's failure, and it's leaving everything you ever cared about behind. We're not all immortal, heartless monsters."

"Heartless." Rai repeated the word without emotion. "I suppose that's a fair assessment." With a suddenness, he released me. He stepped back, and I rubbed at phantom pain from his grip. "Ages ago, I killed my own mother. I gutted her right here in this maze—this Sector even. She called me heartless too, moments before the light faded from her eyes." A smile too soft for his words graced his lips, and I knew I'd fucked up. "The irony was that she was a devil who did anything she wanted, even if that meant destroying her home and family. I'd caught her as she was trying to flee the castle, alone, without her lover and without her son. She had freedom, and she used it as a weapon that only served herself." He flexed his fingers and rubbed his own wrist in the same place he'd grabbed me. "After that, my father was murdered for sport. I watched him breathe his last breath for a cheering, raucous crowd, and no one mourned his passing. He was an angel who lived in slavery, and fell for the beautiful woman who offered him an escape. She used her silk tongue to control and manipulate him, and he paid the price for his weakness."

I didn't respond. I didn't know what to say.

"I didn't mourn him either. I had nothing to learn from a man who only knew how to run, hide, and cower before his enemies." He cracked his knuckles. "But in the end, I was the one left over." Then he tugged at the leather collar on his neck. "I was the one who took on the punishment for the sins of my parents. Neither had cared about what happened to me when they died. They only cared about what would happen to them. Because being ‘heartless' is in all of our natures, isn't it? You speak as if you're so noble, but how many people would you destroy if it meant you would survive another day?" He started stroking his right horn, sliding his fingertips along the smooth black bone. "Would you accept your death if you knew it meant others would be safe and happy? Would you die, right here and now, to free a stranger from your influence?"

"Would you?" I managed the words, but only in a whisper.

"Me?" He lingered at the point, rolling his thumb around the narrow diameter of the sharp tip. "A heartless monster?" A low chuckle reverberated in his throat. "My life has never belonged to me. I'm a weapon and a tool, just like everything else my mother created, so my death wouldn't make a difference."

I shook my head, not willing to accept anything so sad. "Don't you think Jericho would care?"

That question seemed to strike him, his eyes opening wider the moment before he closed them. I might not have noticed if not for that subtle sense of surprise I felt through this bond. I'd had no clue we were connected before, and now that I was doing my best to hone in on where my emotions ended and his began. The subtle and unexplainable feelings that had settled in my gut no longer seemed so obscure.

"The king isn't so sentimental."

"But he built this maze for you." I protested gently but firmly, and I was thankful for Alessi who had given me the basics. "He trusts you to stay with him in his castle." I didn't know much about Rai, but I knew the traces of orange cat hair on his vest weren't from the worms or the hundred-handed giants, so he must have been living with Jericho. "What would this place even be without your heart, turning these soulless walls into a home."

Rai stared at me in well-disguised shock, and he said nothing when he at last shook his head. A sense of fear washed through me as he closed his eyes and stole my window to his soul.

"Enough of this nonsense." Rai scoffed. "I don't know why I'm telling you all of this, but you clearly don't understand anything."

I knew that was a lie. I'd gotten to him, and I could feel it. I just needed to lean into it now.

I scooted one foot, slightly towards the forest, preparing myself to run, while I tried to appear strong and confident. He'd been talking a lot, but he hadn't killed me yet, so there must have been some reason he was delaying the inevitable. Little thoughts like that were what gave me strength. "You're wrong. Maybe I haven't experienced your life, but I can feel your emotions too, remember." I distracted him by touching my hand to my heart, drawing his eyes away from my subtle shift to a stance that would make it easier to launch for a run .

The corners of his lips twitched like he was fighting a scowl. "Those are your own weak, human feelings. Not mine."

"I don't believe that, and neither do you." I tried to be subtle as I took a single step back. Obviously it was unrealistic to think I could outrun him, but maybe I could leverage the heavy plant cover to hide.

"You think so?" He shifted his weight on his heels, but he didn't move any closer. I inched another step back. "And yet you're flight instincts are firing on all cylinders." My heart froze in my chest when that elicited a wry smile. It was absurd that I thought he wouldn't notice. "Go on. Try to run. I'll give you a head start."

Rai's laugh was void of amusement. He took one step in my direction, and I dug the balls of my feet into the mud. Though we both knew he had the upper hand in every way, shape, and form, any chance at escape was going to be better than doing nothing, no matter how hopeless.

We stood in stalemate as he lifted his chin, putting me so far below him. There wasn't a hint of compassion anywhere in his body language.

"You heard me." He said. "One minute. Choose your hiding place wisely, tribute."

He shifted a fraction of a millimeter on his heel, and I bolted into the trees like it was a gunshot for the start of a race. I was going to take any advantage I could get, real or imagined or something else entirely. I didn't know what other choice I had.

All I could hear was the sound of the trees as I tore through the ferns, well off the beaten path. I gripped the marks on my forearms, hoping it might serve as a call for help, and I narrowly missed slipping into the bog in the process. I didn't know how much time had passed, or when I'd used up my minute, but if he was chasing me, he was damn near silent. I wasn't bold enough to look back and verify either way.

When my lungs were burning so intensely that not even will power and adrenaline could keep me going, I ducked under a fern in the thickest patch of vegetation, then I darted behind a rock. I got low beneath the shrubbery, and I listened for movement in the distance.

I peeked carefully around the boulder to see if he'd given chase, and I clamped back down when I saw the ferns sway. I held as still as I could, not breathing, and wishing my heart would stop beating for long enough to evade his notice. An eternity passed, and I listened until the ferns were no longer being disturbed.

In mild disbelief that I'd outsmarted him, I loosed a single, silent breath.

The sound of a rattle punctuated a hard, sudden, and violent impact on the back of my skull. That was the last thing I recalled before, in my final moment of consciousness, I'd accepted I was very, very wrong.