Page 72 of Of Monsters and Mazes

I gasped and grabbed my hand in sympathy pain, just from watching the violent and terrifying display.

Then I started tearing up, feeling my own hand crumpling in my grip, while stomach churning agony had me on the verge of puking. My eyes were watering, and my vision was fading black, while Rai stood from his stone throne, tossed aside the rock that was dripping with scarlet, and held his battered limb in front of my face.

“W-what the hell.” I whimpered. When I looked at my own hand, I couldn’t see the damage, but I could vividly feel it. I covered my mouth, trying so hard to keep the contents of my stomach down where it belonged. Not that I’d eaten much of anything since I’d arrived, but the vile taste of my empty insides wasn’t improved by the fact.

Before my eyes, his hand healed at a rapid pace. My pain subsided at the same rate.

“Have you noticed how fast you heal?” Rai’s voice was steady. “Any idea why that might be?” He grabbed me by the arm before I could answer, then he twisted my elbow behind my back and shoved me into a tree. I kicked back, slamming my heel hard into his shin with all of the strength in my glutes as leverage—which was substantial, in my opinion. He didn’t buckle, but I yelped at the blaring ache in my own shin.

“What the fuck.”

“Figure it out.” He growled in my ear as he forced me more snuggly against the tree trunk with his body.

“Why are our nerves linked?” I asked the obvious.

“How did you think you got through the Senseless Forest?”

“What?” My eyes widened at the confession. I had no idea how I’d survived it. At best, I’d assumed Theron had found me there before plunging me into his dream space. “What does that have to do with you?”

“You would have been digested by Skolexes if I hadn’t stepped in.” He stopped talking as if he was catching himself, ashamed to admit he really had helped me. “I found you being dragged to their lair, I killed the maggots, and I healed you, giving you blood that could reject the senseless poison and close your wounds. My blood.”

I was stunned. Completely taken aback. At a total fucking loss for what to make of that.

“Why would you do that?” How many times had Rai saved me, directly or indirectly, that I hadn’t known about? How much of my success could be attributed to this connection? And how much of the Labyrinth’s challenges were made easier by this link to his mind and body?

He sighed.

“Because you looked defenseless, and I didn’t realize you were a tribute. I shared my blood to heal you, thinking I’d just return you to the human world and go about my day. But all of that changed when you entered the maze and fully linked our bodies, emotions, and nerves.” He twisted my arm harder until I yelp, and he was gritting his teeth. “Now you’re nearly as much a part of this maze as I am.”

“I don’t understand.” I did, but I also didn’t. His words made sense but their meaning was completely lost on me.

“It means that so long as you have my blood in your veins, you can’t be killed,” Rai lifted his chin, and his nostrils flared as he took in a breath. “And so long as we share that connection, I’m going to have to endure your pain, your emotions, your…” He cut himself off as his body pressed me more snugly into the tree. I felt him swallow at the same time I noticed he wasn’t entirely… soft. He cleared his throat and inched back just far enough hide his body’s reaction. “You’re a fucking nutcase who feels way too much for way too many people, and I’m not going to be your puppet.”

“How long will this last?” I tried next, the sense of dread filling me from the depths of my gut. “My body will replace all of my blood cells eventually, right? Probably even faster with all of my injuries.” Never mind that it supposedly took years for someone to fully replace their cells.

“I don’t think you understand. I’m half devil, but I’m also half angel. My blood is nothing like what you’re used to.” He wrenched down his grip on me again, twisting my arm and grabbing me by the back of the neck, shoving my cheek into the scratchy bark. “You’ll continue to bear this connection until I drain every last drop from your worthless mortal body.”

“S-so you’re just going to kill me? After everything, you’re going to bleed me out, even knowing you’ll feel the same pain and anguish I will?” My words as weapons had failed me, and I knew it. How could I reason with someone who could feel everything I felt. I couldn’t lie to him, and I couldn’t manipulate him.

“You seem scared.” Rai returned to calm and casual. He must have felt my panic, but it didn’t faze him. “Is that what you’re most afraid of, Sela? Is death really the worst fate you can imagine?”

“No.” I shook my head best I could, but his grip and the tree allowed for little movement. “What I’m afraid of is if I die here, then I’ve failed the one I love the most. Everyone who ever loved me, counted on me, believed in me—it doesn’t just affect me.” My voice broke on the last word. No one was coming for me at this point. “If the pain was mine alone, I wouldn’t be so afraid. But imagining my parents grieving, my cat never knowing what happened to me, and every ambition I’d ever had being snuffed out before I’d accomplished even a fraction of the things I’d set out to do…” My lip was quivering as I fell prisoner to a man who had no reason to care about any of this. “Death means something in my world. It’s an end, it’s never again, it’s failure, and it’s leaving everything you ever cared about behind. We’re not all immortal, heartless monsters.”

“Heartless.” Rai repeated the word without emotion. “I suppose that’s a fair assessment.” With a suddenness, he released me. He stepped back, and I rubbed at phantom pain from his grip. “Ages ago, I killed my own mother. I gutted her right here in this maze—this Sector even. She called me heartless too, moments before the light faded from her eyes.” A smile too soft for his words graced his lips, and I knew I’d fucked up. “The irony was that she was a devil who did anything she wanted, even if that meant destroying her home and family. I’d caught her as she was trying to flee the castle, alone, without her lover and without her son. She had freedom, and she used it as a weapon that only served herself.” He flexed his fingers and rubbed his own wrist in the same place he’d grabbed me. “After that, my father was murdered for sport. I watched him breathe his last breath for a cheering, raucous crowd, and no one mourned his passing. He was an angel who lived in slavery, and fell for the beautiful woman who offered him an escape. She used her silk tongue to control and manipulate him, and he paid the price for his weakness.”

I didn’t respond. I didn’t know what to say.

“I didn’t mourn him either. I had nothing to learn from a man who only knew how to run, hide, and cower before his enemies.” He cracked his knuckles. “But in the end, I was the one left over.” Then he tugged at the leather collar on his neck. “I was the one who took on the punishment for the sins of my parents. Neither had cared about what happened to me when they died. They only cared about what would happen to them. Because being ‘heartless’ is in all of our natures, isn’t it? You speak as if you’re so noble, but how many people would you destroy if it meant you would survive another day?” He started stroking his right horn, sliding his fingertips along the smooth black bone. “Would you accept your death if you knew it meant others would be safe and happy? Would you die, right here and now, to free a stranger from your influence?”

“Would you?” I managed the words, but only in a whisper.

“Me?” He lingered at the point, rolling his thumb around the narrow diameter of the sharp tip. “A heartless monster?” A low chuckle reverberated in his throat. “My life has never belonged to me. I’m a weapon and a tool, just like everything else my mother created, so my death wouldn’t make a difference.”

I shook my head, not willing to accept anything so sad. “Don’t you think Jericho would care?”

That question seemed to strike him, his eyes opening wider the moment before he closed them. I might not have noticed if not for that subtle sense of surprise I felt through this bond. I’d had no clue we were connected before, and now that I was doing my best to hone in on where my emotions ended and his began. The subtle and unexplainable feelings that had settled in my gut no longer seemed so obscure.

“The king isn’t so sentimental.”