Chapter 21
Twenty One
Blair
Istep onto the football field and the world shifts.
The maze is made of hay bales stacked two, sometimes three high, forming narrow corridors that twist across the football field like a labyrinth built for secrets.
The scent of dry straw and damp earth clings to the air, mixing with the distant thump of music and the sugary smoke of cider and bonfires.
I step inside, cloak trailing behind me, heels crunching over scattered hay. The walls close in fast—golden, scratchy, uneven—and the deeper I go, the quieter it gets. The party fades behind me. The laughter. The lights. The noise.
I’m alone now.
And I’m looking for him.
I don’t know what Kane’s dressed as. He wouldn’t tell me. Just said, “You’ll know.” So I’ve been scanning every face, every mask, every pair of eyes that linger too long. But none of them are him. I feel it.
The chill bites at my skin, slipping under the velvet and lace. I shiver, but I keep walking. The maze twists again, and I pause at a fork, left or right? The hay rustles behind me, but when I turn, no one’s there.
I’m not scared.
I’m expectant.
Because I know how he moves. How he waits. How he watches.
And somewhere in this maze, Kane is tracking me.
My phone buzzes against my ribs, tucked into the hidden pocket I stitched into the corset myself. I stop walking, fingers fumbling with the velvet flap, breath fogging in the cold.
Kane:
Stop walking and turn around.
My heart stutters.
I do.
Slowly.
The hay maze is darker here, no string lights, no party noise, just the rustle of straw and the distant echo of laughter. And then I see him.
He’s standing in the corner where the bales stack three high, cloaked in black from head to toe. His body blends into the shadows, but his mask glows—purple neon, jagged and sharp, like a grin carved from lightning.
It’s him.
I know it instantly. Not because of the mask. Because of the way he stands. The way he waits. The way the air shifts around him is like it’s obeying something primal.
He doesn’t move.
Doesn’t speak.
Just watches.
And I feel it again, that pulse under my skin, that ache in my chest, that need to be closer. To be caught. To be claimed.
I take one step forward.
Then another.
“You’re late,” I say, voice low.
“I’ve been here,” he replies. “You just weren’t ready to be caught.”
I take a step toward him, cloak dragging over the hay. “You like watching me?”
“I like knowing you’re mine.”
“You already knew that.”
“I like reminding you.”
He walks closer and runs his fingers along my chest.
“Did you wear this for me, baby?” he asks, voice low, rough with hunger. “Did you want me to see the darkness you’ve become?”
The purple glow of his mask casts a sharp light across my chest, my throat, the edge of my lips.
“It matches mine perfectly.”
I don’t look away.
I never look away from him.
“I didn’t become anything,” I say, voice steady. “I just stopped hiding it.”
His fingers brush the edge of my cloak, slow and reverent, like he’s unwrapping something sacred. “You wore black lace and blood-red lips and walked into a maze like you wanted to be hunted.”
“I did.”
He exhales, sharp and low. “You know what that does to me?”
“I’m counting on it.”
He laughs, quiet and dangerous. “You’re not scared of me anymore.”
“I was never scared of you,” I whisper. “I was scared of what I’d let you do to me.”
“And now?”
I lean in, lips brushing the shell of his ear. “Now I want you to.”
The rope is coarse, scratchy with straw dust, and I watch him cut it from the edge of the hay bale like he’s done it before. Like he planned this.
He doesn’t speak.
Just grabs my wrists, lifts them above my head, and ties the rope tight, not cruel, but firm. Intentional. My black lace gloves catch the light, delicate against the rough twine, and I feel the contrast like a brand.
“Mmm, this is the body I pray to,” he whispers.
Then he turns me and faces me toward the hay.
I hear the blade before I see it, sharp, fast, a clean stab into the bale just above my head. The hilt juts out, solid and gleaming, and he drapes the rope over it like a hook. My arms go taut, and my breath catches.
I don’t fight it.
I welcome it.
He steps behind me, one hand on my waist, the other trailing up my spine like he’s mapping every vertebrae. His touch is rougher than usual, less careful, more claimed. And I lean into it.
Because I want this.
Because I wore lace and velvet and walked into a maze knowing he’d follow.
Because I need to be reminded.
“You knew I’d do this,” he murmurs, voice low against my ear.
“I hoped you would.”
He laughs, dark and quiet. “You’re mine, Blair. And tonight, I’m not letting you forget it.”
His arms wrap around my waist, velvet crushed between us, and I feel the heat of him through the chill. His hands slide down, slow and deliberate, tracing the curve of my hips, the dip of my waist, the fullness of my ass like he’s memorizing it all over again.
Goosebumps rise across my skin.
Not from the cold.
From him.
From the way he touches me like I’m his favorite secret. Like he’s earned this. Like he’s owed this.
His grip tightens, fingers digging in just enough to make me gasp. Not in pain. In recognition. Because this is what we are now—rough edges, velvet skin, and the kind of hunger that doesn’t ask permission.
“You wore this for me,” he says again, dragging his hands back up, over the corset, the lace, the places he’s already claimed. “You wanted me to see what I made.”
“I wanted you to finish it.”
He grips the sheer fabric at my hips, fingers curling into the gauze like he’s deciding whether I deserve to keep it.
Then he rips.
The skirt tears away in one brutal motion, the sound sharp and final. Hay scratches my thighs. Cold air bites my skin. I gasp, but not in protest.
Because I knew this was coming.
“You let them see you like this,” he growls, voice low against my ear. “You walked through that maze dressed for me, but you let them look.”
I don’t speak.
I don’t need to.
His hand comes down hard against the curve of my ass, once, twice, rough, possessive, not cruel. A reminder. A claim. My breath stutters, but I don’t flinch.
I arch.
Because this is what I wanted.
Not punishment.
Proof.
“You’re mine,” he says, dragging his fingers over the welts clinging to my skin. “And next time you want to show off—do it where only I can see.”
I hear the sound of his zipper.
It’s deliberate. Loud in the hush of the maze. A warning. A promise.
Then the soft rustle of fabric falling, his pants hitting the hay-dusted ground behind me. My breath catches, not from fear, but from knowing. From the weight of what’s coming. From the way my body answers his without hesitation.
His hands are already on my hips again, rougher now, grounding me. The rope above my head creaks as I shift, wrists still bound, lace gloves brushing the hilt of the blade he stabbed into the bale.
I’m exposed. Waiting. His.
And I’ve never felt more powerful.
“I’d carve your name into my soul if it meant you’d never leave.”
He says it like a vow. Like a confession. Like he’s already done it.
And I believe him.
Because Kane doesn’t love softly. He doesn’t touch without claiming. He doesn’t watch without wanting to own every breath I take.
I feel cold air against my thighs where he tore the skirt and panties away. But none of it matters.
Because his voice is low and reverent, and mine.
I turn my head as he throws the mask to the ground. I can see enough, eyes dark, jaw tense, hands still gripping my hips like he’s afraid I’ll vanish if he lets go.
“I’m not leaving,” I whisper.
And I mean it.
Because if he carved my name into his soul, I’d carve his into mine.
His fingers dig into my hips, hard enough to leave bruises. I want them. I want marks on my skin that match the ones he’s already carved into my soul—proof that I’m his, that I chose this, that I never want to forget.
Then I feel him.
Hard. Hot. Pressing against me from behind, the heat of him cutting through the October chill like a brand. My breath catches, but I don’t pull away. I arch instead, offering myself up like something sacred. Because I want this. I want him. Rough. Unprotected. Possessive.
He doesn’t ask. He doesn’t hesitate. He pushes inside me, no warning, no preparation, but I’m already ready.
I’ve been ready since he first spoke my name like a promise.
The stretch is sudden, sharp, a breath-stealing intrusion that borders on pain.
A gasp tears from my throat, half pleasure, half shock, my body instinctively clenching around him.
My bound wrists strain against the rope, the blade above me groaning with the movement. The hay scratches my thighs, the cold bites at my skin, but all I feel is him—his grip, his heat, his claim.
His hand wraps around my throat, not to silence, not to punish, but to own.
The pressure is deliberate, possessive. His thumb brushes the pulse beneath my jaw, and I know he’s not checking if I’m alive. He’s reminding me who I belong to.
“Breathe, sunflower,” he commands, voice low and authoritative, a growl that vibrates through my entire body.
My lungs seize, my body a battlefield of sensation, a war between the old rules that scream this is wrong and the new truth that whispers this is right.
Then he moves, a slow, deliberate withdrawal that leaves me empty, aching, desperate, followed by a punishing thrust that fills me completely, steals the air from my lungs, and sends a jolt of pure, unfiltered pleasure through every vein.
Again. And again. And again. Each thrust a claim.
Each movement is a brand. Each ragged breath is a testament to the fact that I am his, and he is mine.
The rope above my head creaks, my wrists chafing against coarse twine, the lace of my gloves torn and tattered, the hay scratching my skin in counterpoint to the exquisite friction of his body against mine.