Exquisite Ruin (The Labyrinth #1)

Chapter 9

DAESRA CAN’T see the mirror in the depths of the cistern from above, just as I couldn’t. I only have to get there without drowning, and then it might transport me away from him before he realizes where I’ve gone. If the maze collapses behind me, that’s not my problem. Whatever I have to face on the other side of the mirror will be, and I hope it won’t be too bad, perhaps in compensation for Daesra’s cheating. This is assuming the maze even cares if we go our separate ways.

Anything will be better than passively waiting as the daemon’s captive. At least, I hope. He has saved my life more times than I care to admit. He’s also threatened my life and put it in danger, and he intends to sacrifice me to a monster.

I’ll only need a moment to take a deep breath on the central plinth and to orient myself to dive down to it. With any luck, on the other side of the mirror, I’ll have time to free myself one way or another. And to run. If the daemon hates water as much as I’m counting on, he might not even follow me.

I’m still half expecting him to jump into the pool after me at any moment, if he can’t use his power to seize me. But he doesn’t. And, as I already anticipated, he hasn’t commanded Deos to come fetch me, because the statue would simply sink.

When I surface, Daesra is pacing and cursing furiously at the pool’s edge, his tail lashing behind him. I’ve almost reached the plinth, Pogli nearby. The little chimera is actually swimming along rather happily, the bulk of his mane seeming to help keep his flat face tipped up and out of the water, and by all appearances his wings aren’t entirely useless, but buoyant and helping propel him along. Maybe they’re more duck wings than chicken. The flood was simply too much for him, as it would be for almost anyone, save Daesra.

This water seems to have stymied the daemon, however.

“Sadaré!” Daesra shouts again, warning in his tone. “This pool is strange. It’s drinking my power like the roots. I can’t manipulate it or pluck you out with force or mold any of the stone it’s touching to lift you out. Believe me, I just tried all of that and more. You shouldn’t be in there.”

What incredible luck. Maybe I have the mirror to thank, its strangeness suffusing the cistern. My plan is suddenly looking a lot less flimsy, if just as waterlogged as before.

“Of course you think I shouldn’t be in here,” I gasp, not too breathless for sarcasm, as I reach the stone surface waist-deep in the pool, illuminated by the oculus above. I stay low in case that helps me further avoid the daemon, crouching on my bound legs and trying to catch my breath. I can see the mirror quite well from here, rippling in the silvery-blue depths.

“It’s really pretty,” I find myself saying out loud.

Daesra halts his pacing and cursing long enough to demand, “ What is?”

“The water,” I say quickly, and I realize it’s true.

“It wants you to think that. Sadaré, listen to me. There are plants that make nectar in a sump to lure in insects, swallow them, and slowly digest them. Look at the statues. I think this pool is an extension of the roots, or at least tainted by them.” He waves at where they curtain the wall behind me, their tendrils dipping below the surface of the water. “They couldn’t seize us up above, so they waited until we went deeper in and stumbled across their next trap.”

“Are you calling me a fly?” I ask, giggling, and then I squint at him. “You’re the only thing resembling a spider that I can see, so I think I’ll stay over here.” Which doesn’t entirely follow because he was saying something silly about a plant eating me, not a spider, but I imagine he’ll get the message.

And yet, wasn’t there something else I was supposed to be doing, other than crouching here? I kiss the top of Pogli’s head between his nubby horns as I try to remember, and the little chimera licks my cheek. He looks delighted to be swimming with me. If only Daesra could relax and join in, too.

“Come on, spider!” I take a mouthful of water and squirt it in his direction. “Get in and have some fun with me.” I give him an evil grin, waggling my hindquarters enough to kick up tiny waves around me. “We could have a lot of fun.”

The daemon is regarding me with wide-eyed concern now. “I think the water is feeding on you. You’re losing your reason. Quickly.” He’s beginning to sound slightly desperate. “ Think , Sadaré. The last thing you wanted was for me to follow you into that pool, remember? I don’t know what exactly your inane plan was, but it wasn’t that.”

I shrug, unconcerned, and spit more water at him.

“Gods, stop drinking it,” he snaps, and then drags his hand down his face. “Of course I would be fool enough to let you in there. Now it’s using you to draw me in after you. I didn’t want a godsdamned bath, after all.”

“But you do want me?” I ask.

He sneers at me. “How like you, to once again act as bait. What do you suppose will happen if this thing gets its claws into me?”

Bait. When was I bait before? Then I remember riding atop him in ecstasy. Telling him to close his eyes. Slitting my throat to put a collar around his. The memory cuts me now, in the present.

“I’m sorry ,” I cry out, laboriously trying to stand atop the waist-deep plinth. It takes me a few tries with my bound feet and hands, but then I face him from within the pillar of light, dripping, and not only with water. Tears are running down my cheeks, while Pogli is still paddling happy circles around me. “I’m sorry I did that to you, back then.”

“You aren’t sorry,” Daesra snarls, “because you would do it again. What you’re feeling now is merely unfettered guilt. Once you get the hell out of there , I have no doubt your conniving little mind will rein in whatever conscience you possess.”

“That’s not true!” I shout, choking on a sob. “I mean it. Tell me you don’t hate me.”

“I don’t hate you.” His growl belies the words. “Satisfied?”

“Yes, you do, and no, I’m not.” I hesitate. “Do you think I’m beautiful, at least?” The light sets the red in my hair aflame and sparkles over the droplets on my pale skin, making me glow. Much of my body is visible under my wet tunic, my nipples dark circles under the white fabric.

He practically claws at his face. “I can’t believe you’re doing this.”

“Tell me the truth.”

“ Yes , Sadaré, you’re very beautiful.”

“You never answered my question, before: Do you want me?”

“I want you in every way I can take you, but mostly I want you back over here .”

“Tell me you forgive me. Please ,” I beg. “I need to hear it. I need you to mean it.”

The daemon takes a deep breath and schools his features to calm, his tone suddenly gentle. “Come back, and I will. Look, I’ll even help you.” He raises a fist, and when he spreads his fingers, his palm runs with blood that looks black at this distance. He must have dug his nails in deep. The red rope unspools from around my wrists and fingers, sliding off to float atop the water. So much effort for so small a thing—the water must resist him that much, even while I’m half out of it, the rope soaked as it is. Except it isn’t a small thing, is it? The sight of my unbound hands jars something within me, just as Daesra reaches out to me in entreaty. “Come back to me, Sadaré. I won’t be angry at you for running, I promise, and I’ll forgive you for what you did in the past. Swim to me now, and I’ll prove it.”

He must not be able to reach the bindings around my legs through the water, but with my hands free it would be easy enough to swim back to him—if I believed what he was promising. But I don’t. I could also free my legs now, dive into the water with Pogli, and kick for the mirror that I’ve just now remembered.

But I don’t do any of those things, either. Instead, I scoop up water in my palms and splash it over my face, laughing in delight. “Thank you!”

Daesra’s cry of frustration is resounding. “Get back here now or I swear to the gods I will come over there and drag you out.”

“ That sounds more like you. You like the chase, don’t you?” I grin, crooking my finger at him. “Come and get me.”

He starts backing up from the cistern with long strides of his hooves, his voice low and dangerous as he does. “You may not like me once I do.”

“I already don’t like you.” I start laughing so hard I have to paddle my arms wildly in the waist-deep water to stay upright on my bound feet. “That’s so amusing, isn’t it? I like you, but I don’t .”

With a snarl of rage, the daemon makes a running leap, launching himself from the edge of the pool on powerful legs. He clears the deep section in a single bound, landing explosively on the plinth next to me. He immediately scoops up the loose length of rope floating atop the water with one hand and grabs my wrists with the other, jerking me to his side.

I spring on bent knees and ram the top of my head up into his chin. His head snaps back. While he’s stunned, I bite his hand as hard as I can, feeling his skin give way, my teeth hitting bone. He cries out and reflexively lets me go.

All I know is I can’t let him take me. But take me where? At least not away from here.

When he snatches for me again, I throw myself at him instead of away, clawing for his eyes and catching him by surprise. He narrowly turns aside, but I snag his cheek, raking deep scratches across his face. The sight makes me pause for some reason, long enough for him to seize my arm once more.

“Fucking hell, Sadaré!” he shouts, shaking me. “Are you trying to infuriate me?” He glares ferociously down at me, a growl in his throat. And yet, where his hand grips me, his thumb begins kneading into my flesh, as if he can’t resist touching me.

Not exactly infuriated. At least not entirely. The tension between us is palpable, like when we posed as the statues—except now we’re both free to move.

The scratch has already healed on his face, but a tear of dark blood still drips toward his jaw. I suddenly remember: a spray of bright red blood across his face. Mine, when I bound him. But instead of feeling awful about that again, which I don’t particularly fancy, I remember more what we were doing before I bound him.

It wasn’t fighting.

I raise my hand slowly, like I would toward a wild animal. His red eyes widen a fraction. I cup his cheek, wiping away his blood with my thumb. We stand like that for a moment, my hand on his face, his on my arm. The space between us is a held breath.

And then I yank myself up to him with all my strength, crushing my lips to his.

Those beautiful lips.

First, he tries to pry me off, but there isn’t all his own considerable strength behind the attempt. Perhaps because he doesn’t want to hurt me. I’m clinging to him like a limpet, after all.

Or perhaps there’s something else making him temporize.

“Sadaré,” he gasps around my mouth. “Neither of us actually wants to be doing this. These feelings aren’t yours. The water is feeding on…” He trails off, unable to stop me. He himself is wavering. His hands are no longer pushing me away; they’re holding me in place.

“No, no,” he mutters between my frantic kisses. “Not this. Not now.” But he seems to lose the argument with himself, because he’s starting to kiss me back. Hesitantly at first, and then with more and more fervency, his grip on me tightening. And then he’s pulling me into his embrace, his strong arms coming around me, folding me to his chest. His tongue claims my mouth before his hand fists in my hair, tugging my head back, making me gasp. He all but dives into me, licking and kissing my chin, my throat, even my breasts through my tunic as he bends me back, supporting me with his other arm. He bites my nipples through the wet fabric.

Gods, he could break me, and I think I would like it.

“Yes, yes,” I breathe. “More, give me more.”

He tears my tunic from my shoulders, splitting it to the waist. He seizes my bare breast and hefts me to his mouth as if devouring me, his tongue and teeth and lips working over me until I’m moaning loud enough for it to echo through the chamber. He sticks his fingers in my mouth, gagging my cries so I can suck on them instead. His other hand splays across my backside under the water, squeezing, smashing my hips to his. He begins to grind his length against me.

It’s more than enough to start building within me, even through my tunic. He’s so strong and so hard, and I’m so ready for this, so wanting . When he tucks me back against his chest, kissing me again until I can’t breathe, the rolling motion of his hips remains sure and steady. Bright sensation pulses from my core to spark behind my eyes, rising in me until I’m standing on curled toes, legs trembling.

He breaks his lips away from mine only to growl wordlessly, hungrily, in my ear, taking the lobe between his teeth and sending a searing jolt of pain through me that makes me arch into him. His fingers knead possessively into my backside, pulling me harder against his delicious friction, while his other arm curves tighter around me to claw up my skirt in the water, his hand seeking. When he’s bared me to him, he reaches deeper between my legs, and I feel his long nails caress both openings—the most tempting of threats. Beckoning me like I did him.

He slips two fingers inside me, and a shudder of release wracks my body. That’s all it takes. I tip over the edge faster than I thought possible, obliging his summons by coming almost immediately. I scream into his mouth, every muscle tensing, and white-hot stars explode across my vision, blinding me. His arms contain me as I erupt, supporting me and drawing me ever closer to his thrusting length. His lips swallow my cries with a kiss, his tongue lapping against mine as wave after wave of pleasure rocks me, drinking me down until I’m empty.

I sag against him, boneless, but he shakes me upright.

“I’m not done with you,” he snarls down at me, his eyes burning with only lust now, no hatred. One fire consuming the other.

“I never want you to be,” I whisper. “I want to do this forever. I never want to leave this place.”

Wariness flickers in his red gaze. As well as a silvery light, as his eyes catch something in the water over my shoulder.

“A mirror,” he says, which is nonsensical to me at first. And then I remember. We both stare at each other, wide-eyed.

“Oh!” I gasp.

“ Shit ,” he spits.

That’s when I hear the sound of rushing water. It starts as a low, distant rumble that turns into an earthshaking roar. Both of us turn toward the tunnels, trying to determine which one it will come from. But the noise is coming from everywhere .

Daesra’s hand tightens on my arm. “We’ve lingered long enough. I think we should go now. Down.”

I’m already nodding frantically before he starts dragging me to the edge of the plinth, heaving me through the water. My legs are still bound, but there’s no time to remedy that. I seize Pogli under my free arm. Daesra doesn’t let go of the other.

“Deos!” I cry at the statue still standing near the edge of the cistern. He’s still watching with that placid smile—a strange witness to what just happened—standing still even with destruction careening for his back. “Jump!”

That’s all I have time for before water explodes into the room from every tunnel with the strength of a burst dam. Daesra dives, dragging me under the surface after him, just before the current can tear me from his grip.

I can’t see the mirror through the bubbles. Everything is a swirling whirlpool around us. It’s all I can do to keep hold of Pogli and avoid Daesra’s kicking hooves. His hand is like an iron band around my arm. Luckily, I remember, he’s not very buoyant.

And then everything goes silver.