Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
Eris
Sleeping the day away did her wonders, and Eris stopped concerning herself about what would happen next, how the fantasy would play out, and if Gabriel would continue to live up to her expectations. She slept harder and better than she could remember, waking up with a little drool on her cheek.
The only problem was the bed beside her was empty. Pressing her hand to the sheets, Eris was disappointed to find they were cold. Gabriel hadn’t been in bed with her for a while, and peering out the windows, she discovered that it was dark outside.
Dark enough she was pretty sure it was well into the night and, rubbing her eyes, she peered at the clock on the wall. She’d fallen asleep sometime in the afternoon and hadn’t expected to sleep for so long.
Looking around, she didn’t notice any other lights on in the cabin.
Sliding out of bed, she found some shorts and pulled on the flannel from earlier, buttoning it without a tank top or bra beneath this time.
The tear in the shirt was unfortunate, but it didn’t necessarily bother her.
She knew she should put on a completely fresh outfit, but only allotting herself a carry-on and small checked bag for travel meant that she needed to take care with what she packed.
A little dirt never bothered her before.
“Gabriel?” she called, stepping out from the bedroom. The cabin was dark save for the light by the front door, and Eris’ frown deepened. Did he just leave?
Something on the front door caught her attention, and she paced across the room to find a note taped to the door.
Little vixens know when to run into the wooded areas and hide. Do you know who’s behind the mask?
Eris pulled it from the door and flipped the note over, but that’s all it said. The note had a mask image across the back, those popular plastic ones with the x’ed-out eyes that glow neon. Her heartbeat faster as the pieces connected together.
She’d mentioned being chased by a masked man in her fantasies, and Master Derek hadn’t said a word against the idea when she brought it up. Peering around the cabin, she tried to decide what message Gabriel was trying to send.
Certainly, the mask on the back had to indicate that he would be fulfilling one of her fantasies, right?
She’d checked in at the main house this morning, but she really hadn’t seen all that many people outside the stables since her arrival.
Did he put the image on the back to tease her, or to let her know that he’d be the one wearing it?
The wooded area… that couldn’t be a coincidence.
Staring out the glass of the front door, she could see the outdoor play area in the distance.
It wasn’t anywhere she’d gone before, and it wasn’t the little outcrop of trees they’d played in earlier.
This was the real outdoor play area, across the field.
In the dark.
Did Rawhide have a primal play area she knew nothing about? She’d done plenty of research in the past of places people might play, and she filled her bookshelves with smut that detailed extreme outdoor experiences, but none of it was relevant to the Ranch.
Eris briefly felt a wave of disappointment, wondering why she’d denied herself chances like this in the past. If only she had been true to herself last year, she could have been enjoying all of this long before now.
Turning back, she looked around the cabin once more. She didn’t see any signs of Gabriel, no indicators that someone was watching from the shadows. There wasn’t a lot of space for someone to both hide and watch, but she swore, she felt eyes on her.
Do I know when to run? Eris thought to herself.
She found her cowboy boots again, pulling on knee high socks too now that it was cooler outside but she didn’t want the restriction of jeans.
This time she twisted her hair into a long braid, hoping to keep it from snagging on anything outdoors.
Once she was finished, she looked around the cabin one more time.
“I see your game, Gabriel,” she said, speaking to the emptiness. Could he even hear her? “I’m going to win.”
Eris knew winning didn’t mean she avoided being caught; she wanted to be caught. Stepping outside the cabin, the cool night air made goosebumps rise on her legs. Maybe she should have gone for jeans after all.
Looking around, there was no one in sight. The cabin wasn’t too close to the main building, or, as far as she had noticed, any of the other cabins. It was dark enough she couldn’t make out much in the distance, memory guiding her in the direction of the wooded area.
Taking a breath, she started across the open space.
Without a light or someone by her side it felt eerie, making the hairs on the back of her neck rise.
Realistically, if there were any true danger out here, Gabriel wouldn’t have them playing the game.
He would be more cautious, or at least that’s what she chose to believe.
But the longer she walked across the empty space, trying to keep from running, the more apprehensive she grew.
Even without seeing Gabriel, even before the game really began, she could feel her cunt growing wet as she walked. Her vagina clearly had a mind of its own, building on the anticipation instead of yielding to the fear her brain kept returning to.
He called her a good little vixen in the note, so he had to know, even if it took a bit, that she would eventually walk over to the wooded area. The longer nothing happened, the more her nerves kicked up. How well could he really see her out here?
The crunch of something in the distance—a leaf, a twig?
—caught her attention and she spun around.
She could just be making up noises in the dark, but she swore she heard something.
It could be nature itself, one of the woodland creatures making noise in the night, but something in Eris seriously doubted that.
Good idea or not, she raced towards the trees.
Darker forms appeared ahead of her as she got close, unable to make out every individual tree but getting a general idea of where things were.
She stumbled into the tree line, pressing her scraped palms to the bark of the nearest one.
It made her skin ache, but the fear gave her the same sort of thrill that she sought out earlier.
“See if you can get through the maze, little vixen.”
Eris screamed, spinning around to seek him out. Gabriel didn’t yell, so he had to be close enough to see her. She spun in a circle, not seeing his silhouette anywhere.
He said a maze, but Eris didn’t remember hearing anything about a maze in the past. Spinning again, she stepped a little deeper into the woodsy area.
Right now, with fear and adrenaline mixing together inside her, she wasn’t certain she could even name the type of trees in the area.
She might have a green thumb in the daylight, but she was completely disoriented by the darkness and almost drunk on the thrill of the game.
She couldn’t focus enough to think things through, not that she really wanted to.
Eris turned in a circle, her body going into overdrive trying to find Gabriel. If she did, she might know which direction to run, or more importantly, to not run.
She gasped, catching the dim shine of X’s above a glowing smile. The mask glowed a faint green, lighting up her insides as terror shot through her. It was just like the design on his letter.
“Gabriel?” she called, her voice sounding small in the dark. She scooted back, slipping further into the trees, and her back brushed against something vine-like. Her hands smoothed across the surface as her breath caught, and the figure moved closer in the dark.
Trying to think rationally, Eris acknowledged that he might not be able to speak so clearly behind that mask. She had one on her wall at home that she liked to fantasize about, and he had matched it almost to a tee. Only the color was different.
The figure moved closer, and Eris edged backward.
The vines behind her were soft, but strong, stronger than a vine-like plant should be.
She’d seen vines growing down lattice and even across the ground as coverage, so there had to be something beneath making this firm.
If she ran into it in the dark, it wouldn’t feel the best, but it didn’t feel like it was going to give under her weight either. What was it?
Moving down the barrier as Gabriel grew closer, his glowing mask bobbing with his steps, she felt the vines stretch across the space until she connected with the bark of another tree. It really was some sort of barrier.
Interesting. If only I had the time to look this over right now.
Pushing past the barrier, she tried to move away from the tree and found another of the vine-covered barriers. It almost reminded her of a wall, and she started dragging her fingertips across it as she jogged along, Gabriel momentarily forgotten as her curiosity grew.
Vines. Trees. Vines. Trees.
Whatever structure spread between the trees acted like both a guide and a barrier, and a few trees down it abruptly stopped. Eris stumbled, shocked back to the moment where she remembered she was supposed to be running from the masked man behind her.
Turning into the open space, she reached out blindly to either side trying to see if there was more of the barrier. Nothing immediately touched her fingertips and, determined to not be caught too quickly by Gabriel, Eris took a breath and darted off, fanning her hands around her like a madwoman.
Was she going to be caught? Most likely. The barriers in the area kept deterring her progress, exactly as the maze he’d mentioned would. It didn’t take long for her to slam into another one, stunning her for a second.
Eris blinked, surprised. The impact was jarring, but it didn’t hurt, and she bounced off with little more than a jolt up her spine. Nothing prickly hit her senses, and the barrier bowed but didn’t break.
“Figure out where we are yet, little vixen?”
Eris screamed, jumping further back from the barrier. The voice was close, but not that close, and before she could overthink it she spun on her heel, taking off to her right.
The sound of footsteps growing closer behind her made her pussy clench with anticipation, and darting a glance over her shoulder, she found herself smiling instead of screaming.
She’d always wanted a masked man to hunt her down and fuck her.