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Then she left. I remained at the gate long after her car disappeared. Finding her should have been difficult. It wasn’t. She had purchased her ticket online. I had a name. A city. An email address I never used because sending her something directly would have broken the rules Rhys built. I waited eleven months.
Then I mailed the invitation anonymously. It gave Sloane a choice. Ignore it. Destroy it. Report us. Or complete the application. When her answers arrived, I locked myself inside the chapel and read every word. She wanted masks. Restraint. Three men. Fear she could stop with one word. But beneath every sexual request was another need. She wanted to be seen without being judged. I understood. I selected her before Rhys or Dante finished reading. Then I rebuilt the chapel around her fantasies.
I told myself it was for one night. That was a lie. I want her mornings. I want her laughter drifting through the farmhouse. I want her boots beside the back door and her clothes tangled with ours. I want to watch her run through the corn knowing every path will lead her home.
But obsession doesn’t entitle me to her. That is the difference between being a monster and becoming her nightmare. I will frighten her because she asked me to. Restrain her because she chose it. Claim her body within every boundary she gave me. And when sunrise comes, I will open the gate.
Even if it fucking destroys me. Sloane believes tonight is about whether her screams can wake the dead. She’s wrong. The dead have been awake since the moment she whispered through the gate. They know what I know. Sloane didn’t find Blackwood Farm by accident. She came home.
Prologue One
THE WILLING PREY
SLOANE
There are three rules for surviving the Blackwood Farm corn maze. Run when the final bell rings. Scream if I want them to chase me. And never let the Scarecrow catch me last. I signed my name anyway. Sloane. Twenty-six. Consenting participant. The woman behind the registration table turns the form toward herself and examines my signature. Her crimson nails tap beside the final paragraph.
“You understand that you may withdraw your consent at any time?”
“Yes.”
“Even after entering the maze?”
“Yes.”
“Even after one of the hunters catches you?”
“Yes.”
She slides a black envelope across the table.
“Everything you approved is inside. Your limits, safe word, color system, and nonverbal signals. Read them again.”
“I memorized them.”
“Read them anyway.”
I open the envelope. Three ribbons spill across my lap. Black. Red. Gold. Beneath them rests the consent sheet I completed three weeks ago after years of pretending I didn’t want everything written on it. Chasing. Restraint. Blindfolding. Primal play. Three masked men. Fear without danger. Surrender without losing the right to stop. My safe word is graveyard. Green means continue. Yellow means slow down and check in. Red means everything stops. One tap requests a check-in. Two means continue. Three means stop. The rules are clear. The boundaries are mine. I can still leave. I tie all three ribbons around my wrist.
“I’m staying.”
The woman studies me.
“Your hunters reviewed every application.”
A nervous thrill crawls along my spine and down to my throbbing pussy.
“They chose their participants?”
“They chose you.”
“All three?”
“All three.”
My pulse jumps beneath the ribbons. The black iron gate opens. Beyond it, cornstalks tower beneath a blood-red harvest moon. Fog creeps through the narrow paths. Somewhere deep within the maze, metal drags across dirt. Then a man whistles.
Low. Mocking. Close enough to raise goose bumps across my skin. I stand. The white dress I selected brushes the tops of my thighs. Beneath it, black lace hides the evidence of how wet I became before the game even started.
