Chapter 6

Cha pter 6

I tugged at the leather collar on my neck like a nervous tick, attempting to loosen the uncomfortable tightness around my throat for the thousandth time today. The slight restriction on my breathing was just enough to be burdensome when I was out for a run .That was all part of Master's need for control. To allow me freedom even on my own time was a lot to ask of the King.

I rolled my shoulders in my leather vest, cracked my neck, and stretched my arms over my head. Then I ran my fingers along the length of my long horns and pricked myself on the sharp tip, just to remind myself that I was more powerful and deadly than my slave collar implied. The Senseless Forest laid ahead of me, just on the outskirt of my Labyrinth. A place that robbed a man of all of his senses would be harrowing if not for the fact that I could navigate any of these treacherous places without nerves, sight, or sound and never fear stumbling.

Not that the magic in these trees affected me anymore. I'd built a resistance to the Tree Sprites' poison long ago.

Enough thought. It was time for a hunt.

I sniffed the air as I started through the forest, and I listened closely for the rustle of leaves and the squish of mud in the distance. A goblin was my usual prey, but the forest was quiet today.

Though it was rare to hear anything at all in this place, even when fully aware. The pests had been learning to better hide themselves.

Deeper still, I picked up on careless rustling. Something foreign thrashing about, I'd wager. Perhaps it was a stray that had slipped in from the human world. Master had been out for a while, and he often neglected to close the portal when he ventured through to other realms.

So careless.

If not for all of us who served him, I didn't know how he would manage Tartarus. I appreciated the portals he scattered through the Labyrinth for faster transport, but I'd come across the corpses of too many feral humans who accidentally stumbled upon the door to our realm over the years. I didn't understand why he never took the initiative to close the pathway during his increasingly drawn out selection processes. Cleaning up the scattered gunk of half eaten mortals was the worst part of my hunts.

If he was going to be so careless, maybe I'd slip through one day and see what it was Master kept going back for. He was always in such a good mood during the yearly tribute selection, and I'd always wanted to see some of the other realms. I'd heard so much about Earth from the king, and I couldn't help but be curious about a place that produced such weak and simple creatures. He could have chosen any number of worlds ruled by Olympus to pluck his tributes from, but something about Earth, specifically, seemed to call to him time and again.

Though I was expressly forbidden from entering the portal, what Master didn't know, wouldn't hurt him.

But then again, Master claimed that I would stand out too much—that humans didn't have horns or red eyes and it would be obvious that I didn't belong. It was hard to know what was fact and what was fiction, but of the hundreds of tributes he'd brought back, all were bland and dull and magic-less, so I couldn't contest his claims. Even Master had to enchant his appearance before he left.

Though I often wondered if he'd forgotten that my father was one of Olympus' shifters, and I wasn't a pure-bred devil. I could always shift away my horns to look more ordinary. I only kept them partial shifted for the sake of conformity.

Maybe someday I'd try it.

I shut out my inner monologue with the endorphins of a hard run. Soft leaves brushed my bare shoulders as I weaved through the foliage, and twigs snapped against my horns. These mindless hunts were sweet indulgence, and I savored the rare comfort any time Master was away.

I closed my eyes and drew in a deep breath, honing in on the scent and sound that wasn't familiar. Ordinarily, the creatures of the forest reeked of its sap, smelling something akin to burned sugar, but this scent was something else. An unfamiliar fruit mixed with unfamiliar meat.

I ran through the trees and bushes, occasionally swatting away the small, insect-sized fairies, before they could shove their feeder needles into my arms. The first time I'd come here, I'd ended up with a thousand Tree Sprite bites, and they'd stolen every sense and ounce of power I had. If not for Master scooping me up and giving me an antidote, I might have stayed in that void forever.

They were such pesky little things. The sense deprivation was bad enough, but even once I'd recovered, the itchy bumps they left behind had lingered for a month. There was nothing good about them. Tartarus could do with far fewer of these deplorable pests, but one could no easier rid an entire forest of Tree Sprites than they could rid a beach of all its sand.

Getting closer to my careless prey, the noisy rustling and breathing and screaming intensified. If this animal was still moving through the forest, it either had a resistance to the poison, or simply an indomitable will. The aroma was nothing like a bore or a wild dog. Nothing native to the realm for sure.

What intruder would choose to enter this perilous place of their own free will? How brave must they be to take on this emptiness alone?

The rotten stench of the Skolex pricked my senses next, accompanied by the fresh blood of newly caught food. Not an entirely unfamiliar combination, even though the blood wasn't a type I recognized off the top of my head. Goblins were their common prey, and it certainly didn't have that sulfurous tinge of goblin goo. If it was a human, then it must have still been alive. Dead humans smelled nothing like this.

I slipped between tree trunks and sidestepped into a large clearing, just off the main path to the portal, all the way on the Labyrinth's side of the forest's edge. The walls of my maze were visible through the thin line of trees, to the point we were barely in the forest at all, and I would be at the door of my stone walls in a matter of seconds from here. I knew the area well. This small section of woods had been heavily deforested by the Barren Beetles, and I oft used it for meditation.

In the center of the clearing, five Skolexes were dragging the body of a woman through the grass, hauling her back towards the heart of the forest. Each one was digging their fanged mouths into her hair and clothing. One tugged her by her ponytail, and four others gripped each of her limbs, pulling at both material and flesh. There were multiple bites on her arms, but not enough to kill her, presumably. My assumption was vindicated by the fact that her eyes were wide open, staring up at the treetops, and she was thrashing aimlessly, as if she was trying to run or fight, despite being on her back and on her way to being digested by parasites. It was impressive. I'd never even seen a human fight like that in the maze itself.

A shame that she would be little more than energy for the worms soon. Yet another human who slipped into the portal on accident somehow and wandered where she shouldn't be. Considering Master hadn't returned to the maze yet, she couldn't be a tribute. I would have felt his presence in the Labyrinth the moment he set foot in it, and he never wasted time getting home upon returning to Tartarus.

The woman kept pumping her limbs through an impressive fighting spirit. It was obvious that she was functioning on nothing but consciousness at this point in her journey through the Senseless Forest. How lucky for her that I'd happened upon her in time.

I approached the worms, then stomped each one of their bulbous bodies into the grass until they exploded with an ugly pop. I made a point to cover my ears to avoid the ear shattering screech that escaped their high pitched vocal chords on their deaths. Their thick, segmented exoskeletons became their own personal Skevington's Gyves as they burst with a mix of green oozing internals and the girl's freshly drained blood.

Skolexes, like Tree Sprites, were one of so many things the realm was better off without.

With all of the pests disposed of, I knelt before the woman who was still sprawling and gyrating about. She'd need an antidote for the poison at the very least. The toxins would clear on their own, but it would take at least a few days, and there was no guarantee she'd still be in one piece by then if I left her here. She also would need some healing assistance. I'd never come across a stray that was still alive, and I didn't see any reason to sentence her to a blind, senseless death just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

If I helped, she'd live, if I didn't, she was guaranteed a swift end. The forest was as ruthless as it was harmonious in its brutality, and no one lasted here. Some creatures disabled intruders, some sucked them dry, some left behind meaty, paralyzed corpses as food for scavengers, and the full cycle would end with enough remains to rot into mulch for the trees themselves.

The circle of life and death and oblivion.

I pricked my thumb using the sharp tip of my right horn, then I pressed the bead of blood to her lips. She was gritting her teeth, despite having no sense of anything—probably because she had no sense of anything, really—so I had to pry her jaw apart before I could drip my blood directly into her throat. She didn't fight me on the basis that she probably had no idea she was being touched at all, so I took the care to squeeze out a solid ten drops directly onto her tongue.

I closed her mouth, then covered it with one hand and pinched her nose with the other. I waited until I saw her throat bob on an impulsive swallow, then I held her until her eyes fluttered closed. Her body stopped jerking, and she fell into unconsciousness. I released her to let her breathe again once she was fully sedated, so my blood could properly do its work.

With an antidote now in her throat, I pricked my thumb again, more deeply this time. I dripped more of my blood into her open wounds to help speed up the physical healing. It would be a moment before my blood parasites could absorb all of the poison, but the closer we were to my Labyrinth, the faster her injuries would mend. Once the toxins cleared and her wounds healed, I'd drop her at the portal and release her back into the wilds of Earth. As soon as she left the realm, my healing bond would be severed, and I could feel like I'd done my good deed for the day. I should have plenty of time. Master wouldn't be back until—

A spark of electricity burned through my chest as the most powerful devil in Tartarus entered my living maze. It was then that the loud ticking of the Twilight Clock caught in my ears. My body, heart, lungs, and soul froze in place.

Fuck. That's not good.

How hadn't I noticed it? Either it hadn't started until after I'd already been in the thick of the sound cancelling trees, or I'd simply been so focused on the hunt that I'd tuned out its constant droll. The heavy tree cover had blocked my view, and I'd become so used to the sound, I hardly noticed it even at the height of the event.

But then, if she was this deep into the forest, Master should have been back home in the maze long before now. It's not like he guided or protected the tributes. He'd never hung back this long.

I fucked up.

Eyes wide, mortified by my mistake, I stared down at the resting face of the woman on the forest floor. Pretty painted lips, long hair, big eyes, muscular, and the small crinkles in her skin that spoke to a fully matured, adult woman—she was everything that Jericho loved most.

How could I have been so oblivious?

This wasn't a stray. It was one of his tributes . Which means I need to get back.

Without time to dawdle, I threw her over my shoulder, then hauled her just outside the bounds of the forest. As soon as his highness arrived at his throne and she was bestowed with tracking marks, he would be able to watch her journey through his projection screen. I couldn't make it obvious I'd interfered. I needed to drop her somewhere before he noticed I was gone. I'd be lucky if I had seconds before he would be looking for me.

I dumped her unconscious, fully healed body in the safest place I knew, confident she'd be taken care of and able to continue her journey, then I slipped back into the maze.

It wasn't my place to help her. I'd not received any orders yet in regards to this year's tribute, and I could only hope Master wouldn't notice my mistake.

She wasn't my problem now.

Hopefully.