Page 75 of Of Monsters and Mazes

Which didn’t matter. I couldn’t lose focus on why I’d taken her. The only reason I cared that she was in danger was because it would be directly unpleasant for me. I could handle the assault on my nerves, and she could suffer until I caught her and showed her what true violence looked like. The Cronus might be able to kill her by consuming her every piece faster than her wounds could heal, but they hadn’t earned that right. I was the only one who deserved to end the girl’s life. She was mine and mine alone.

I didn’t like that sentiment the moment it hit my mind. Another obnoxious symptom of this mess I’d made. The aggression and lust was still pumping through me with vicious abandon, and I was no longer interested in trying to parse through it. Not the least of which because I knew which one of those emotions she couldn’t have the mind for right now.

I vaulted over the bog to shorten my route. The metallic scent of blood and the unwashed odor of Cronus bombarded my nostrils as I propelled myself forward.

A sharp sting radiated through my shoulder, and I winced without slowing my pace.

That metallic scent was human blood. Sela’s blood. I was well acquainted with the smell of murdered men and women, but the extra spike of nutty pine I’d put in her was easily parsed from her injury. I had to intercept this situation before anyone else happened upon the scene and learned information they didn’t need to know.

I flexed my knuckles and my eyes narrowed. It had been a favor to allow the Cronus in my Labyrinth at all, but if they wanted to fuck with her, I’d do the whole realm a favor by systematically executing each and every one of them. I’d wanted to for centuries anyway, but they’d been allowed to remain purely as an obstacle for tributes. They were disgusting creatures, born of the titans and presented to our realm like they were a gift rather than a curse. Monsters who would eat their own children weren’t worthy of existing even in a place as brutal as Tartarus. I wouldn’t be asking Master for permission.

The Labyrinth was mine, and it was about time everyone remembered that.

I neared a heavy smell of roasting meat, and I wasted not another second before I slammed my skull, full bore, into a tree, felling the massive trunk with a loud crack, and sending it careening into the camp of goblins. A low grunt, a pop, and a scream filled the humid air, as the trunk slammed down on a handful of unsuspecting villagers.

Cronus scattered, some tripping over their robes as they tried to get away, others hobbling on missing limbs that were freshly roasted on the table. As immortals, they’d discovered they could eat each other’s nonfatal pieces, and their limbs would always grow back eventually, as long as they kept the bones. The disgusting maggots took entirely too much pleasure in that fact. Every single little demon was missing one piece or another: some ears, some legs, arms, or patches of skin. The stench was as horrid as their dinner table, and it would make it especially simple to assure not one of them got away.

I scanned the camp, ignoring the spit roast and the boiling cauldron of nondescript liquid, and I centered my gaze on the one thing I’d come for.

There, in the center, was the tribute. The glisten of moisture painted streaks down her cheeks, while the butcher’s knife was still in her shoulder, cutting deep enough to have struck bone. The wound was trying to heal to no avail, while the weapon was slick with her blood, and her expression was contorted with pain.

Pain I was feeling with equal intensity, and anguish that only fueled my rage. The only respite I could find was in the multiple knives speared through the demons surrounding her, as she’d attempted to fight the things off. She hadn’t had a chance, since Cronus lived for their own dismemberment, but I admired the effort.

I shook off the distraction, and returned my focus to the task at hand. This was my only chance to slaughter this entire camp without intervention or immediate reprimand. There was no buzz from my collar to try and limit my ability, because Master wasn’t watching. He didn’t need to know what I was about to do. If he had any objections, he knew where to channel his magic.

It wouldn’t do him any good though. Loyal as I was, this had stepped into the realm of nonnegotiable carnage. He could suppress my magic to the point my flesh became more human than the girl’s, and I still wouldn’t stop.

I approached the sobbing tribute, while her assailants scattered. I crouched down beside the butcher block, then I took a firm hold of the handle of that butcher knife, using the same arm they’d tried to remove from her body. I ripped the blade from her flesh, ignoring the searing pain we shared, then I hurled the knife into the nearest Cronus. The blade cut clean through its straight, pointed horn, sending a sharp shard into the bushes on impact. With the unrelenting speed and strength in my legs, I shot for the lost appendage, I gripped it in my fist, and I shoved the Cronus’ own horn straight through its heart.

With a shrill scream, the slaughter kicked off. I charged on another Cronus who was trying to escape into the woods, and a charging head butt sent it splattering against a tree.

Not enough.

I ripped off its horn and skewered it just like the last, then I pounced on another, hunted a fourth, chased down a fifth, sixth, tenth, fifteenth, seventieth. They thought they could escape me, but I was this fucking jungle, and nothing moved within these walls without my notice.

Nothing hid within these walls either. I filled the jungle with a symphony of gurgling screams, breaking bones, and bursting hearts until every last one of them was dead and never coming back. Two thousand had thrived in this jungle, and ten thousand pieces were now scattered in their place. The Orange sector was painted heavily in crimson, blood puddles flooding half the camp, trees drenched in death, and leaves dripping like they were thick with morning dew.

I kicked a corpse out of the way and sent it careening into the bog, where the black water swallowed its essence and fed its magic back to my maze. Then I approached the woman who was fully healed, but still reeling from the trauma of it. I stood over her, and I looked down on the frail human tribute.

Her clothing was torn and ruined, blood, mud, and bruises marred her skin, and her eyes were still red from tears. The heartbeat pounding fiercely in her chest intensified every emotion in my own. The girl was a passenger to atrocities, and she had no power in this place.

No, that wasn’t true.

I’d given her all of the power she could ever need in that ill begotten moment I fed her my blood. She had no idea what she was capable of.

And maybe I had no idea what she was doing to me.

The girl lifted her chin and met my gaze, wide-eyed and shaking. Her fear spiked at the sight of me, more strongly than it had been when she was in the hands of cannibals.

As it should be. I was more powerful than anything she’d encountered in this fucking place. And I had far worse intentions than simply serving her for dinner.

“You saved me.” Her words were shaky with disbelief. I felt that too, but that wasn’t the emotion radiating most strongly through our bond now.

“Did I?” I rolled my shoulders, and stretched my neck, savoring the satisfying crack. It had been a long run getting here. I knelt in front of her, and her wary gaze followed me the whole way down. She never took her eyes off mine. “Do you think I’m here to save you, tribute?”

“I… I don’t know.” Her throat shifted in a nervous swallow. “I just know that’s what you did.” She started to scoot away, like that would somehow result in a successful escape. I grabbed her ankle and pulled her closer to me, dragging her through the mud and the blood.

I shook my head. “Do you really want to try to run from me again? Is that a contest you think you’re going to win?” I yanked her closer still, putting her on her back beneath me, forcing her to look up to keep that terrified eye contact. I liked it better when she had to look up at me. She had the scared expression of an animal the second before it was eaten by a predator, and I couldn’t say which one of us that pang of lust was coming from. Nor could I tell where her fear ended and her desire began.