Chapter 5
Maliki
Rutting Grounds of the Underworld Labyrinth
Hades is going to kill me.
Not only is this reckless, but it’s also dangerous. Especially after everything that’s happened with Demeter.
Yet I can feel Sera inside me, our mate-bond thriving with life and knowledge. It’s only an initial link, one that marks her as my intended. However, it’s a connection that binds our souls together. Unites us as one.
Which allows me to sense her in a unique way.
She’s safe. Elated. Excited.
I can taste those emotions on my tongue, the sweet flavor causing my veins to burn with the desire to chase.
This isn’t how it felt before, when she left the cabin while on the vestiges of her heat. Something was wrong then. A darkness lurked in the air, a foreign contagion that tainted the moment.
I don’t sense anything like that now.
Just Sera’s desire to challenge me. To run. To hide. To fight.
I push away from the wall, my dick already hard at the thought.
She has no idea what she’s unleashed. Who is about to hunt her.
I meant what I said—I’ve been kind.
That ends now.
She doesn’t want to be a good girl. Instead, she wants to break Hades’s rules. Create a memory that’s just for us.
Fuck yes.
I’ll give her that and more. I could sense her uncertainty in the kitchen before, the source of her needs driven by whatever memories she seemed to be experiencing.
She expects to be erased.
But I’m never going to allow that to happen.
She’s mine. And she just invited me to finish this mating dance.
To take her wherever I want. However I want.
Styx, her words nearly undid me. “Treat me like I’m unbreakable.” Shadows, I’m about to do a lot more than that.
I’m going to bend her in a way that makes her question her grasp on reality. Then introduce her to my version of rapture.
All of this may have started because I was assigned to protect the Bride of Death, but it’s going to end with me formally claiming Serapina Everheart as my mate.
I take a step forward, no longer caring about the sixty or ninety seconds that I promised her. The countdown doesn’t matter. The hunt does.
And my female is ready to be chased.
The ground feels cool beneath my bare feet, the rocky texture hard yet yielding in an intriguing way. I can almost feel it cushioning my soles as I begin to run, causing my movements to feel buoyant and quick.
Clever, I think, realizing Hades did this on purpose.
He anticipated being naked in this part of the maze and made it comfortable to move around, which is at odds with the harsh-looking landscape.
It’s pale, the sandy color different from the bone-white walls of the labyrinth. I can see a bit of those icy corridors in the distance, the Rutting Grounds buried along one edge of the maze.
Hades’s brief tour the other day is the only reason I knew how to shadow here.
Finding it on foot would have taken too much time.
There are only one or two entrances to the Rutting Grounds.
Same with all the other surprise areas built into this network of death.
I haven’t seen them all because Hades is working on some renovations.
Whatever the fuck that means.
I no longer care.
All I want to do is find Sera and show her what it means to be mine.
Fire licks through my veins as I pick up my pace, my instincts scanning my surroundings and hunting for any sign of Serapina Everheart.
Our bond throbs inside me, the pulse of it traveling all the way to my groin.
It’s a sensation I’ve never experienced before. A craving I didn’t even know existed.
I feel wild. A touch out of control. Borderline feral.
Like a beast who has finally been freed from his chain.
She gave me consent to do whatever I want.
A dangerous offer, one I fully intend to accept.
But I can’t see Sera anywhere.
The Rutting Grounds are decorated with jagged rocks that jut upward to four or five stories in some places, along with a few shorter spires in others. It’s reminiscent of the Fairy Catacombs near the Corpse Fae Crypt.
I can definitely see where Hades found his inspiration, anyway.
So where are you hiding, trouble? I wonder, slowing my pace as I pass through two particularly tall shards of tan-colored stones. It feels like an entrance to another realm, reminding me a bit of a fantastical landscape from one of my favorite science fiction films from the human world.
Hades would love the comparison, I’m sure.
Maybe I’ll tell him later, just to further infuriate him.
“I’m impressed,” I murmur, focusing on Sera and pushing my thoughts of Hades to the side.
This is about her, not him.
It’s about us—me and Sera.
“I can feel you,” I go on, hoping she can hear me. “But your location is a mystery. Which is rather appropriate, given everything.”
She’s been an enigma since the moment Hades first mentioned her existence. Not the Omega inside her, but the human—Serapina Everheart.
She’s a walking puzzle, one I’ve been trying to solve for months.
And now she’s evaded me in this jagged landscape.
Given her recent disappearance, I should probably be concerned.
But my link to her soul confirms that she’s fine.
I don’t sense any panic, not like when she vanished before. Instead, the only emotion I sense is her arousal.
It’s like a flame, flickering and beckoning me closer. Stroke me, it says. Make me burn.
Or maybe it’s all in my head.
Everything about this is new—our link, these feelings, my instincts.
I’ve never claimed anyone before. But I suspect these urges are the result of our recent connection.
Every part of me wants to bite, mark, and fuck.
I just need to find my hiding female…
She’s close, I realize, searching the towering rocks on either side of me. “I can taste your need, mate,” I tell Sera quietly, sure she can hear me now. “It’s like a sinful chocolate, lingering on my tongue, begging me to swallow.”
Except, if I have anything to say about it, Sera will be the one swallowing. Maybe choking, too. Hmm…
I take a step to the side and scrutinize the jagged edges surrounding me. Like the ground, they’re deceiving in nature, their harsh points soft to the touch. Almost pillowy, actually. I squeeze one particularly savage-looking shard and smirk. “It feels like foam,” I marvel aloud.
Which means it’s not nearly as inflexible as it looks.
Canting my head, I identify a long crack in the facade and trace it with my fingers.
The material parts beneath my touch, causing me to slide my hand inside and pull it aside, almost like a tent flap.
My eyes widen at the unexpected cave opening.
Then my gaze lands on the prize waiting inside.
“You’re not even trying to hide,” I say, amused at finding Sera sprawled across a massive bed beneath a series of glittering lights. It’s like a million stars, the majestic glow creating an ethereal moment that almost doesn’t feel real.
A fantasy come to life.
A fucking wet dream.
I prowl forward, my tattoos writhing along my arms as a myriad of notions spring to life inside my mind.
Notions that darken as Sera says, “I’m not afraid of you, Maliki.” She spreads her legs, the invitation all too fucking clear. “You found me. Now take me.”
A curse rumbles out of me, my gaze sweeping over the vixen taunting me from the floor.
“You really are trouble,” I inform her as I unfasten the button on my jeans.
“Inviting me to break all the rules…” That last part comes out as a musing thought, one tied to my knowledge that Hades likely built this little love nest as a private place to take his mate.
But I’m about to defile it.
Because I’m going to take Sera so fucking hard that our mingled scents will exist here for eternity. Mark it as ours, not his, and forever remind him that he has to share Sera.
He told me to please his wife.
Well, I’m about to do a hell of a lot more than that.
Kneeling on the mattress—which is adorned with fresh silk sheets, no doubt from the manifestation magic fueling this whole maze—I scan my prey and evaluate what I want to do to her.
“How do you feel about bondage?” I ask as I stroke her lower calf, my tattoos already moving down to my fingertips. “I mean, since you weren’t interested in running, perhaps you would prefer to be tied up instead, yeah?”
Ribbons of smoke leave my skin to weave around hers, the dark strands braiding into a pretty rope pattern along her dainty feet and ankles. She lifts her head off the pillows and inhales sharply, causing my eyebrow to inch upward.
“Scared, mate?” I tilt my head, her aroma swimming around me in a kiss of consent. “Mmm, no, that’s excitement, isn’t it, sweet mystery?” My shadows continue to circle her like binds, creating an enthralling design against her pale skin—one that resembles delicate knots in strategic locations.
When the strands reach the apex between her thighs, I tell my inky ribbons to skip over her slick folds and weave down her other leg again. Then I tug on the ends and affix them to the mattress. It’s not perfect, but it’ll hold because my mind is in charge of the energy winding around her.
Her lashes flutter when the smoke reaches her hip again. This time I draw it through her pussy, making sure to apply just enough pressure to her clit to drive her wild before looping it back upward to cross her flat stomach.
“Oh,” she moans, her lower half trying to writhe against my ropes.
But I hold her in place with a tug, one that draws a gasp from her lips when she realizes just how well I’ve secured her with my power.
I start slithering it around her torso, creating a pretty pattern of smoke that emphasizes her breasts. Her needy little nipples jut out, begging to be touched, but I leave them exposed. By the time I’m done teasing her, she’ll feel like she’s in heat.
“Maliki…” A hint of uncertainty enters her voice as the smoke wraps around her throat.
“Sera,” I return.
“Is this…?” She swallows against my binding, the strand splitting to go down her arms at the same time. “Is this how you torture your victims?”