Chapter 24
Chapter
Twenty-Four
Harlow wasn’t everything; she was the only thing. The only thing I wanted to protect from the ravages of this fucking curse. Fuck everybody else, because she deserved better than to be at the mercy of some ancient words chanted over an open flame.
As we remained nothing more than a heap of flesh and fluids, the hunt was far from over. In some ways, it still hadn’t begun.
My head knew that we were on borrowed time, that every second counted, but all my limbs were heavy. Corbin’s cock still pulsed against mine as we remained buried to the hilt deep inside Harlow.
All around us, the lingering scent of sex, magic, and fertile ground provided a false sense of safety.
If it hadn’t been for the scent of the curse’s malevolent influence creeping in, I would have wrapped her up in our arms and counted every damn star in the sky.
However, the moon’s pull on the tides was growing perilously closer. Too close. Each second that passed would put us all at more risk.
We needed Harlow to move. We all needed to separate ourselves, despite the lingering high from our bodies joined together.
“You… You need to go,” I said as I mustered enough strength to pull my cock free. Seeing it soaked in all our fluids sparked a groan that bordered on painful.
I wanted nothing more than to remain buried in her until the first light of day crested over the horizon. I wanted to make our kitten mewl for us like that all over again.
Not tonight.
Patting Corbin’s thigh, he nodded weakly in agreement.
“Now, Harlow,” he instructed her.
She whimpered as she slid off of him, collapsing to the side in the dirt.
My hands shook uncontrollably as I tossed Corbin his clothes. The tremors were growing stronger, to the point where it took three tries to get my belt latched.
A familiar tingling sensation buzzed throughout me. It was on top of my skin, beneath it, part of it.
“Move it, kitten.” The words came out sharply with a harshness that was rare for me on any other night.
Corbin was doubled over, struggling in the same way I was. His pants hadn’t even gotten buttoned before he gave up. His jaw visibly clenched as he glanced over at our girl, who was struggling to get moving.
Looking back at me, his eyes were glowing a richer shade of amber. It was like staring at pools of liquid gold. The message was clear. Neither of us trusted ourselves to touch her now that the unseen force of the curse edged closer.
Harlow managed to get herself up onto her hands and knees, joints visibly compromised after we had just fucked the sense out of her.
Too godsdamned slow. It would be so easy to grab her now, let her blood soak the corn.
I forced the encroaching thought from my head with a yell as my fingers clawed at my skull.
The sound drew Harlow’s attention. She peered over her shoulder, still breathing heavily.
My hands clenched into fists as I roared at her, “RUN!” The depths of my eyes burned like fireballs, emphasizing the control that was slipping through my fingers.
At the same time, Corbin grunted as he fell to one knee with one hand braced against the ground. When he tried to yell, the chorus of caws came out instead. The sound of a murder of crows exploded through his vocal cords before his form devolved into not a single bird, but a whole flock of them.
The jarring imagery finally jolted Harlow into action. She sprang into her cat form, paws pushing at the earth as she bolted.
My eyes tracked her shadowy form until it melted into the dark.
The sound of my voice ran deeper now, the voice of the hunter in me coming out when I spoke. “Run as fast as you can, kitty-cat.”
Power was invading all my senses, all my free will, as I fought to stay planted where I was. It was a losing battle, especially as Corbin’s split form circled in the sky above.
He was already lost to the call to chase. Power surged through my body as the moonlight pressed down brutally on me. It left me curling in on myself until every nerve broke under the pressure.
The curse filled me, eradicating everything inside me that gave a damn about anything but the urge to hunt. The urge to claim our prey. The urge to end the threat she posed to the curse.
Drawing myself upright, I rolled my shoulders back, squaring them off. Spreading my arms out at my sides, I tipped my head back and closed my eyes. I breathed in the scent of one little feline and the trail of fear she left behind.
“Ahhh, there’s the smell I’ve been craving,” I said to myself.
Opening my eyes, I rolled my neck until I was staring straight ahead. My arms lowered to my sides in a controlled motion.
A few of Corbin’s crows landed on my shoulders as I took the first step towards the promise of bloodshed.
Chirping in my ear, all of Corbin’s birds communicated with each other before the magic relayed the translation to me: Harlow was heading southeast.
Good. I could easily cut her off.
My movements weren’t rushed. Every step taken was done in confidence that she would be turned around in this labyrinth made of grain. Besides, there was no need to end all the fun too soon.
Beneath all the curse’s influence, there was a part of me that prayed to the old gods she would make it out. It was a shadow of a whisper of my conscience, but it remained powerless to stop the larger force driving me towards bloodshed.
In her feline form, her movements were more difficult to differentiate from the breeze rustling the cornstalks. It provided an exciting new challenge, now relying on the scent of her fur and my seed.
The many sets of eyes under Corbin’s control made sure that we didn’t lose her within the maze. Even as small as she was in her cat form, she couldn’t hide from us forever. Shadows be damned.
My boots fell silent on the ground as I made every turn based on the way her very existence between my rows drew me towards her location.
Looking at the crow perched on my right shoulder, I smirked. “Go distract her,” I ordered with a devious gleam in my eyes.
Launching himself from his perch, he flew up into the night sky and began to circle with five other crows. I watched with detached interest as they all dove down towards a section of the maze three rows over from where I was.
The shrill feline spitting and accompanying growls of one angry kitty sent satisfaction rolling through me. All except the part of my soul buried under layers of dark magic. That part recoiled in guilt and fear.
When I eventually turned the corner, the sight of the crows all fluttering around Harlow, her tail twice its normal size as claws swiped at every beak and wing that taunted her.
“Looks like it’s game over, little kitty,” I said with mock sympathy.
Dropping to one knee, I reached out for the scruff of her neck.
Those eyes met mine, and for a split second in time, I wasn’t looking at a cat. I was looking at her.
The hesitation, just enough for our hearts to share a single beat, provided both a damning and redemptive opening. And she took it.
She fucking took it the way she had taken Corbin and me—without hesitation, without fear, and without apology.
Harlow lunged at me, claws extended, all fury and fierce determination.
It took me by surprise. Her sharp nails sank into my arm, tearing at my flesh as she scrambled up to my shoulder, leaving a host of bloody scratches in her wake.
Before being able to grab hold of her wriggling figure, she launched herself off the peak of my shoulder and darted off behind me.
Grinding my teeth together, I hopped up onto my feet. Sharply, I gestured at the crows. “Stay on top of her!”
Unlike before, now I was moving swiftly to chase after her. We were already too close to the maze’s exit point. The curse’s desire to spill her blood was painting my vision in shades of red. Rage and violence crescendoed in my veins at the threat of her escape.
My hands smacked away corn leaves that dared to hinder my advance, my boots crushed anything that didn’t have the sense to flee, and my eyes carved through the dark that threatened to obscure my vision.
One more turn and I spotted her—we were at the final corral.
Those four little legs of hers were sprinting hard and fast.
Up ahead of her was the gap in the corn, the exit that ninety-eight others had never seen from within this maze. Visible just beyond the exit lay the unlit pile of wood that would be the near-century-long curse’s undoing.
All the crows in the air turned into a frenzy of caws and a maddening blur of wings moving chaotically.
Seeing her so close to escape, my legs were moving, but my heart remained frozen in my chest.
With only a couple of feet of me coming within reach of her, those tiny little paws crossed the threshold. At first, my mind refused to believe it.
She made it. She fucking made it.
Gradually coming to a halt before the exit, the bloodlust waned the moment she crossed over out of the maze.
Alongside the recession of the predatory instincts, my scarecrow form dissipated, and I took my human shape again.
Standing there shirtless, arm streaked with blood from her claws, and stricken with relief.
All of Corbin’s crows fell from the sky in unison, combining into one form at my side. The feathers faded away as he stood, returning to his human state. His eyes were wide as mine in awe and disbelief.
Harlow shifted back to human, as gloriously and beautifully naked as she had been when she had taken off after our carnal indulgences in the center of the maze. Her bold emerald eyes were blinking rapidly with shock and exhaustion.
“We did it!” she shrieked breathlessly. Then, looking down at her naked form, her cheeks turned the cutest shade of pink at her realization that she wasn’t wearing any clothes.
Corbin smirked and, like me, didn’t mind the view.
“Let me go change before anybody shows up here,” she stated quickly before she ran off towards the corn pit, where Corbin had stashed a bag of clothes for her. He had known that after we had fulfilled all our desires, there was a good chance she wouldn’t have a chance to dress herself.
Couldn’t have our girl walking around naked for all of Falston to see, now could we?
Turning, Corbin pulled me into a firm embrace. We had survived this together, after all this time. Now, we would finally get the chance to take back our lives.
When we parted, all I could think about was how I wanted to scoop Harlow up in my arms and never let her go.
To tell her she’s everything and more. That I’d spend every waking day feeding her as much grilled cheese as she could fill up on, wake up next to her every morning, and love her like I was bonded as tightly with her as Corbin was.
Finally, this curse could be broken officially. All thanks to her.
Stepping forward to join Harlow out of the maze, something knocked me back on my ass at the threshold.
Whatever invisible barrier was there had enough power to send me to the dirt, rattling my brain in my skull.
Corbin stared at me in confusion before he tried to leave the maze with the same result that left him crashing back into a wall of corn. Limbs and leaves wildly thrashing and stalks snapping.
Scrambling to my feet, I got as close to the barrier that locked us inside the maze’s walls as I could.
“Dammit!” I cursed in frustration. “Harlow!” I shouted to grab her attention.
She came jogging back from the corn pit in a simple evergreen colored dress. Running over to the gap where I stood, she reached out for me, only to hiss as she withdrew her hand like something had burned her.
“Bale, what’s going on?!” She stared at me in horror at the realization that she couldn’t reach us as much as we couldn’t reach her. The divide was a cruel trick on the eyes and the heart.
Angrily shaking pieces of corn leaves from his hair, Corbin came up to the exit.
“No, no, no, no, no. There has to be a way out. This isn’t part of the curse.” The fear crept into his words. His hands pushed at the stalks next to the exit, only to find they were unyielding.
Harlow’s hands covered her gaping mouth, looking as lost as we felt.
The three of us stood there staring at one another, realizing that breaking this curse may have come at a cost none of us had been prepared to pay.
I dropped to my knees, sitting back on my heels as defeat pressed down on my shoulders. It wasn’t supposed to end like this. We were all supposed to be together.
We were supposed to have our forever.