Chapter 20 #4
We plunge into the maze quickly.
The hedges are dense and dark, the kind of living barrier that swallows light and sound. Up close, the leaves are sharp-edged and waxy, and it’s clear this isn’t some flimsy setup thrown together for decoration. This thing is real —designed to trap, confuse, disorient.
Small solar lights dot the gravel pathway, casting just enough glow to keep us from walking headfirst into a wall, but not enough to see more than a few feet ahead. It’s like being inside a cathedral that’s tall and quiet, with every footstep muffled by crushed leaves and damp earth.
“I know this maze well,” Holt says as we take our third left turn without hesitation. He sounds almost smug. “Helped design it, actually. The owner is an old friend who owed me a favor from… never mind what from.”
I stop short and yank my hand out of his, giving him a wide-eyed look. “That’s cheating!”
His brows lift. “Cheating?”
“Where’s the adventure if you already know the way?”
He steps closer, and the narrowness of the path means I have to tilt my head up to meet his eyes. The light hits his face just enough to make his smirk visible, and the way he looks at me then? It’s like I’m the only thing that’s ever mattered.
“The fun is catching you,” he says softly.
The words sink into me like ink into paper, slow and staining. There’s something about the way he says it, all calm, certain, as if he’s already pictured exactly how this ends. It sends a shiver down my spine that has nothing to do with the crisp October air.
My heart stutters. I try not to let it show.
“Only if you can catch me,” I shoot back, trying for playful, but my voice comes out breathless.
Then I bolt away, grinning, laughing, sprinting down the next turn without waiting for his reply. My shoes crunch on gravel as I dodge past a hanging skeleton prop and weave around a corner lit with a jack-o’-lantern whose grin is way too smug.
Behind me, there’s a low, amused curse, and then the sound of boots pounding after me.
The game is on.
I dart down a side path, my laugh echoing off the hedge walls. The dress flares as I run, ruby shoes clicking on the packed-dirt path. He’s behind me, not running but walking with purpose
“Cindy,” he calls. “You can’t escape. This maze is huge, but not infinite. And I know every dead end, every loop, every secret passage.”
“Then I’d better run faster!” I state, taking a right turn at random, grinning.
“Run all you want. I like the chase.”
God help me, that voice. Deep and certain and amused, like he’s enjoying this game as much as I am. I peek around a corner to an empty path stretching ahead. I dart across to another section, trying to put distance between us, but his footsteps are there, steady and unhurried.
“You know what happens when I catch you?” His voice seems to come from everywhere and nowhere, the acoustics of the maze playing tricks.
“ If you catch me,” I call back, breathless from running and anticipation.
“When,” he corrects, and suddenly he’s there, stepping out from a path I didn’t even see.
I shriek and try to dodge, but he’s faster than someone his size should be. He suddenly catches me around the waist, lifting me clean off my feet. I’m laughing and struggling halfheartedly as he throws me over his shoulder in one smooth motion, my protests lost in breathless giggles.
“Got you,” he growls, hand on the back of my thighs to keep me steady.
“Now you’re mine.”
“I can walk!” I exclaim, but I’m not really trying to get down.
“Soon.” He’s carrying me deeper into the maze, to a section that seems older, where the hedges are thicker and the paths narrower.
He stops at what looks like a solid wall of hedge, then shoulders through what’s actually a concealed opening.
The branches part around us, and he pushes them back into place behind us.
We’re in a small clearing, maybe ten feet across, hay strewn on the ground like someone prepared this.
The sounds of the festival are muted here, distant.
The moon is directly overhead, providing silvery light that makes everything look like a dream.
“You planned this,” I accuse as he sets me down, but I’m not really upset. My heart is racing, skin tingling where he touched me.
“Might have made some arrangements for us to be alone… a kind of date that involves chasing you.” He doesn’t step back, keeping me caged between him and the hedge wall. “Asked the owner to maintain this spot specially. Told him it was for a marriage proposal.”
“Holt—”
“Was I lying?” His hands come up to frame my face, thumbs stroking my cheekbones. “Because the way I see it, you’re already ours. We’re just waiting for you to realize it.”
My whole body flushes hot at his words, at the certainty in them. “You can’t just decide?—”
“I can. I have. We all have.” His thumb traces my bottom lip. “You think I was going to let you escape from us? Return to that townhouse alone? Or pretend this isn’t real?”
“This is going too fast.”
“I know you take your coffee with usually no sugar and lots of cream. I know you sing off-key in the shower when you think no one’s listening.
I know you check the locks three times before bed because you’re still scared someone’s going to come for you.
” His voice drops lower. “And I can tell you’ve been wet since we left home.
I can smell it on you, how much you want this. ”
“God…”
“I can be your god, if that’s what you want?
” He grins sinfully. “Tell me you don’t want this and to take you back to the others right now, and I will.
We’ll go eat caramel apples and pretend I don’t know what your lips taste like.
Pretend I haven’t been thinking about you all day, every day, since you walked into our lives. ”
I stare up at him, his funnel hat long lost somewhere in the maze, eyes dark with want in the moonlight.
“I can’t tell you that,” I whisper.
“Then tell me what you can say.”
“Don’t take me back. Don’t pretend. Don’t stop.”
He makes a sound that’s pure Alpha satisfaction, and then his mouth is on mine and everything else ceases to matter.