Page 24 of Of Monsters and Mazes

Back on my projection, Sela tripped over a stone, and Theron watched on hopelessly, with an annoyed expression creasing his brow. I started moving faster, chasing my orgasm while Rai’s muscular body writhed on top of me. I dug my nails into his ass as I gave in to that delightful pressure all around me.

Rai was still panting while I finished inside him. Fighting for composure, but still hard as stone. Unfortunately for him, I wouldn’t allow him to finish until I was fully sated. And watching my playthings running through my traps was something I never tired of.

I grabbed Rai’s collar again, and I yanked him upward so his forehead was against mine. Then I growled, forceful and threatening. “Get me hard again. You can come when I’m through.”

“Y-yes, my king.” His voice was little more than a shaky whisper, and my how I loved that rasp on him.

Fraulein neared the blue corridor, and I watched her in my periphery as Rai started working my body to arousal again.

What lovely entertainment. A king of devils could get used to this kind of comfort.

Chapter 10

“Fuck! Ow!” My face smacked into the corner of a false wall, and I recoiled in pain. I swear to fucking god some of these hidden sections moved after I found them. I’d been feeling along the walls to find the illusion panels, because hunting for half a millimeter of variation in a swirly carving was giving me worse eye strain than spending all day staring at a computer monitor, coding in a dark room. Even with my short cut methodology, it had been twice now that I’d misjudged the size and shape of the opening and suffered the consequences. Sometimes only a portion of the wall was fake, and sometimes the whole ass wall was fake, and sometimes it surged between fake and solid and I had to time it to get through.

“You could have entered anywhere in a five foot span, and you literally picked the spot with the lowest pass-through?” Theron stepped through the wall behind me, once again not so much as knocking a hair out of place, and I glared at the Dream Weaver in irritation.

“Why don’t you lead the way if you’re so good at identifying the passages?” I snapped.

“Right now we’re in the safest and least troubling part of the maze. If I helped you get to the other side and you ended up in a much more violent sector, you would blame me for leading you into danger, and I still wouldn’t win. So instead, I want you to figure it out without my help so you have only yourself to blame.” He doled out with a dismissive wave.

“Wow, a man who believes in accountability. Do you apply that same kind of doctrine to your own fuck ups?”

Theron raised a brow. “I don’t fuck up, so I’ve never had the opportunity. But obviously you’re considerably less graceful.” He gestured towards my forehead that I’d just hit into a stone wall, where I would guess I had a visible mark. My whole expression flattened. I fucking don’t like this guy.

“If you’re not going to help, then why don’t you go away and leave me alone?” I scowled as I started running my fingers lightly along the next violet wall.

“I thought I owed you.” He parroted my own words mockingly. Quick rephrase: I fucking HATE this guy. “I’ll happily go back to my home outside the Labyrinth, and you can go through this all by yourself. I’m only here because you obviously need me. Just say the word, and I’m gone.”

I glared at him, and he rolled his lightning blue eyes, because he knew I needed him more than he would ever need anyone or anything. “Can’t you at least give me hints if I’m doing something right?”

“No.” He shut me down immediately, though with the way he was standing around scratching his ear in complete disinterest, it didn’t exactly sound like he had any compelling reason for his douche-baggery.

“Why?” I whined, in a way unbecoming of my otherwise very capable self.

“Exactly. Why. What would I get out of helping you? More of your sarcasm and sass? You’re going to give that to me anyway, so it seems pointless to give you additional reasons.” He continued staring at the clock in the sky in boredom. “At best, I could offer you another nightmare. Maybe fuck you with a knife to your throat, while I remove your fingers one knuckle at a time. How does that sound? I gather that’s more to your taste than walking through vaguely unpredictable walls.”

“No, I’m good. This is fine.” I grumbled as I tested another false wall for its boundaries. Even though he’d blamed me for having masochistic fantasies, I was still blaming at least a portion of that nightmare scape on him. Bleeding out after getting kidnapped by a serial killer was, admittedly, one of my irrational fears though, so it tracked a little bit. But then again, what woman who has delved into the misery of online dating didn’t fear that possibility? Even if 99.999% of men on there were normal, that 0.001% meant it was still a game of psycho roulette.

As someone who just lost that game, I’d say I was now an authority on the subject.

Comparatively, while this wall thing was annoying, it really didn’t seem particularly dangerous. One row at a time, I was getting closer to the center of the Labyrinth. I continued down the next row, my tennis shoes tapping over the amethyst stones embedded in the floor. The corridors were wide enough that I couldn’t reach both sides even with my arms outstretched, but not so wide that we could totally comfortably walk side by side. Overhead, the maze was open, allowing an always clear view of my time limit. I considered that it might be easier to scale the wall and traverse the top of the maze like I was walking on a balance beam, but with the unpredictability of what walls were real versus imagined, I thought better of it.

I skated my fingers across the purple stone barriers, until I felt another dip in reality. My whole hand went straight through the false stone, and I felt around the edge of the illusion, determining what kind of height I had to work with. Once I was satisfied I’d judged my entry, I ducked through the panel in an effort to avoid a concussion.

And of course, I hit my temple on another corner of the wall that definitely wasn’t there when I tested it, and I screamed in aggravation.

Theron said nothing. Just followed like he was a puppy dog watching its owner make a fool of themselves for a crowd. Just another day in the life of Sela versus The Universe.

“You know, back on Earth—because I’m assuming this isn’t Earth—people actually respect me.” I noted as I started along yet another plum wall covered in ivy. “Not only that, but I’m the boss, and they do as I say, and they like it. They choose to follow me, because I’m strong and competent and know what I’m doing.”

“Are you trying to convince me or yourself?” He continued to watch me with those condescending raised brows and an unmoved expression, while I rubbed my forehead.

“Neither. I’m making a statement. These are facts.” I exhaled then examined the pattern in the next long corridor as I walked along the gem-like cobblestone. “I’m just saying, there are way worse people you could be stuck with. Help me, and I’ll help you.”

Theron didn’t bother entertaining my attempt at selling myself. He just shook his head and continued to follow me through each hidden break in the walls. One more row and the bright violet started to fade to a vague indigo. The indigo led down to a door that was deeply blue.

This must be the end of the section, I thought as I recalled seeing it from the cliff side. I glanced up at the orange sky overhead, and the clock was ticking down past the sixty-two hour mark. I’d spent a full ten hours just getting this far, but that included the cliff and the forest and the bad dreams. Though, being this rainbow only technically offered six distinct colors, and the indigo stripe was just vaguely transitional between the first and second sections, that would mean I just needed blue, green, yellow, orange, and red. So I had over twelve hours available per remaining section, with a little time to spare for the castle itself. This was totally doable. Now that I was getting the hang of it, it would probably start going faster, and I assumed the next section wouldn’t have stupid invisible walls.