Chapter Sixteen #2
“I don’t want to get up,” I grumble, rolling onto my side and pulling the pillow closer. “Five more minutes.”
His hand moves before I can process it.
A press. Right against my clit through the thin fabric of my sleep shorts.
Electricity ignites through me, sharp and immediate. My hips lift slightly, involuntarily, and a gasp catches in my throat.
“Later.” His voice is gravel and promise. “We can get back to this shit later. But right now, you need to be worked nice and tight.”
He releases me, and the loss of contact is almost painful.
I grab the nearest pillow and hurl it at his head. He catches it mid-air, laughing—actually laughing—as he backs toward the door.
“Five minutes,” he warns, still grinning like the smug bastard he is. “Downstairs. Don’t make me come back up here.”
He leaves and I stare at the ceiling, pulse racing, body still humming from that single, devastating touch. “Asshole,” I mutter to the empty room.
But I’m already swinging my legs out of bed.
Eight minutes later, I’m dressed. My body’s still buzzing, nerves alive and skin too sensitive, and I know that’s exactly what he wanted.
Worked up. Tense.
Bastard.
I hit the bottom of the foyer and freeze.
His eyes rake over me, slow and deliberate, and that smirk returns.
Only he’s not alone.
There’s a girl, blond, pretty, all prim and demure, standing too close.
Is that the fucking girl from Spellcaster 101?
Something vicious coils in my chest.
Hot. Sharp. Teeth bared beneath my skin.
Mine.
The word slams through me before I can stop it. What the fuck? He’s not mine. I don’t want him to be mine. I don’t even fucking like him. Not really, anyway.
But watching her touch him makes me want to rip her hand off at the wrist.
Legend’s gaze flicks to me over her shoulder, and the corner of his mouth lifts. He sees it.
Smug bastard.
He says something low to the girl, and she glances back at me, eyes widening slightly. Then Legend nudges his head toward the hall, a silent dismissal.
The girl scatters.
My pulse hammers as Legend straightens, pushing off the wall. He crosses the space between us in three long strides, and before I can snarl, snap, or do something stupid, his hand wraps around mine.
“Jealous?”
“Fuck off.”
His grin widens. “You’re cute when you lie.”
I yank my hand back, but his grip tightens, fingers lacing through mine with a possessiveness that mirrors the rage still simmering under my ribs. He tugs me forward, and the air around us ripples, magic crackling to life.
“Wait—”
Too late.
Everything lurches sideways, reality collapsing into itself, and suddenly we’re tumbling through nothingness. The portal coils around us, freezing and charged, dragging us through space in a stomach-turning blur.
My boots hit stone hard when we land, scraping across the surface, but Legend’s hand catches me, keeping me upright through the dizzying spin.
When my vision clears, we’re somewhere else entirely.
The scent hits first—salt and iron and something ancient. Stone walls rise around us, slick with moisture, and torchlight flickers against surfaces carved with runes I don’t recognize.
“Where—”
“Your first task.” Legend releases my hand, stepping back to watch me with that same infuriating smirk, though I can’t help but notice the way he forces it to stay in place, a hand shooting out to steady himself when he starts to sway.
Before I can make fun of him, he speaks. “Hope you’re ready.”
The room shifts.
No—shifts isn’t the right word. The room becomes.
One second, damp stone walls. The next, darkness so thick it eats the torchlight whole. Then color detonates everywhere—shades I can’t name, colors that shouldn’t fucking exist. Purple spilling into gold, electric blue cracking into something that tastes like metal on my tongue.
My breath snags.
Under my boots, the ground shifts. Stone turns to sand—hot, loose—and I stagger as desert explodes into existence.
Dunes rolling out forever in every direction.
Air rippling with heat that crawls over my skin.
The sun sits low and vicious, a ruthless eye searing against a sky that’s too fucking red to be anything but wrong.
Then it vanishes.
City lights explode into existence, glass and steel towers shooting up from nowhere.
The desert’s gone, swallowed by concrete and neon, sounds slamming into me—horns screaming, voices yelling, music pounding from places I can’t see.
The air goes cold, sharp, tasting like exhaust and rain that hasn’t hit yet.
My pulse kicks hard. Sweat dots my temples even though the air’s freezing now.
Something’s fucking wrong.
The dread wraps tighter, winding around my ribs like it wants to crush them. Every shift—desert to city to whatever the fuck comes next—drags it with me. This suffocating wrongness that makes every instinct I’ve got scream run.
“What the fuck is this?” The words rip out, sharp enough to cut.
Legend stands a few paces off, completely unbothered while everything around us warps and twists. His face gives me nothing. Just those dark eyes tracking every move I make, every flinch.
“Your task,” he says again.
The city blinks out. Night slams down like someone dropped a curtain. Stars explode overhead, way too many of them, burning way too bright, arranged in patterns that don’t exist anywhere I’ve ever been.
My hands ball into fists.
“Legend—”
The ground shakes.
I drop, instincts kicking in before thought does, weight shifting as the ground rumbles under me. The stars blink out. Darkness floods everything and the cold hits like a punch.
Silence.
No city noise. No wind. Nothing but my own breathing.
Just the dread, heavy and suffocating, filling my chest like smoke.
Then Legend’s voice, slicing through the black.
“Find your way out.”
The maze explodes around me.
One second, there’s nothing. Next second, jagged concrete walls shoot up around me, black ivy crawling up the surfaces like it’s alive—pulsing, breathing. The air goes thick. Humid. Cloying. Tasting like wet stone and something way older. Something that’s been rotting for centuries.
I slam down on my ass, the impact punching all the air from my lungs. “Fucking Royal.”
Legend’s laugh rolls through the space somewhere behind me, but when I spin, he’s gone. Disappeared like he was never standing there at all. Just the maze. Just me. Just these new walls pressing in on all sides.
Perfect.
I push to my feet, dusting off my palms. The ivy twitches as I near it, tendrils recoiling slightly before creeping forward again, testing. Like it’s alive. Like it’s hungry.
“Real mature, Deveraux,” I mutter, stepping closer to the entrance.
The maze doesn’t just stand there. It waits.
Darkness yawns at the mouth of the first path, a black so deep it looks like it’s drinking the light. The ivy here is thicker, glistening with something that isn’t water. My boots stick slightly as I step forward, the soles making a wet, tearing sound when I lift them.
Perfect. Blood-ivy. Because why the fuck not.
I exhale through my nose, rolling my shoulders. Fine. If this is some twisted game, I’ll play. But I’m not playing nice.
As soon as I step inside, my movements stop as darkness swallows me whole. I spin around, but the entrance is gone.
“Dammit,” I whisper, cracking my neck. I take the first step through the narrow maze toward the distant echoing of crashing waves. Where is it coming from? My feet pick up, but the faster I go, the farther away it sounds. Frustration coils around my forehead as I halt, heaving in deep breaths.
I lean over my knees, when the ground gives way beneath me.
I hit water.
Cold. Fucking freezing. The shock steals my breath, lungs seizing as I plunge under, darkness pressing in from all sides. My limbs flail, seeking purchase, finding nothing but endless liquid void.
Up. I need up.
I kick hard, breaking the surface with a gasp that scrapes my throat raw. Water streams down my face, blurring my vision as I tread frantically, spinning to get my bearings.
Stone walls rise around me, slick and ancient, forming a circular chamber. No exit. No ledge. Just water that tastes like salt and copper, and walls too smooth to climb.
“Legend!” My voice echoes back, mocking. “This isn’t fucking funny!”
Silence answers.
The water shifts.
Not a current. Something deliberate. The surface ripples outward from a point behind me, and I whirl, heart slamming against my ribs.
Legend materializes on a platform that wasn’t there before—dry stone jutting from the water’s edge, high enough that I’d need to haul myself up. He crouches at the edge, forearms resting on his knees, watching me with an expression I can’t read.
“Get me out of here.” My teeth chatter despite my best effort to keep my voice steady.
“No.”
The word lands like a fist to my gut.
I swim closer, reaching for the platform’s edge. “Legend, I swear to fuck—”
He stands. Steps back. Away from me.
The distance between us stretches, impossible and wrong, and something hot and terrible claws up my throat.
“What are you doing?”
“What I should’ve done from the start.” His voice is flat. Empty. “Letting you go.”
The water feels colder suddenly. My fingers slip on the stone as I try to grip it, pull myself up. “Stop fucking around.”
“I’m not.” He crosses his arms, and the gesture—so casual, so dismissive—makes my pulse stutter. “This was a mistake. You were a mistake.”
I stiffen.
No.
The word screams through my head, but my mouth won’t form it. My hands shake as I grip the platform harder, nails scraping stone.
“You don’t mean that.” Why the fuck do I care? It’s not like I wanted him to begin with. So he’s hot, can kind of be funny, and is annoying enough to make me want to fuck him into submission, but I didn’t really want him.
“Don’t I?” His lips curve, but there’s nothing warm in it. Nothing Legend in it. “You’re worthless. You were never fit enough for a royal.”
My heart clenches, squeezing so tight I can’t breathe. Can’t think.
Fingernails bite into my palms. “Fuck you.”