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So close now. Only a few metres to go.
I held my breath for the last one, pumping my wings slower and craning my neck. What if there wasn't anything above these walls? What if it wasn't even a maze anymore? Cronus could be tricking us, fucking with our heads.
I rose the last few inches, sweat beading on my upper lip and my fingers stretching for the top of the wall so I could pull myself onto it.
So close, so nearly—there!
I didn't even touch the stone.
My fingers connected with a sharp, crackling field of invisible power, and a charge shattered through me like lightning. Both darkness and light flashed across the grey emptiness above the maze. My wings seized. My body stiffened. Stilled.
I didn’t even get a chance to scream before the field of magic sucked me in, like the void had swallowed me in Wynvail’s house.
My entire vision flashed black for a long sickening moment, blocking out the Labyrinth walls, the empty sky, and the sight of my mate below. When it released me and light flared back in, my body suddenly mobile, I wasn't ready. I was prepared to be devoured or crippled with pain, not thrown from the sky.
I splayed my wings with a gasp, freefalling backwards and scrambling for control. The thin air and my panic-tight chest made breathing impossible, my scream strangled in my throat as I twisted until I was facing the ground.
A swell of air slammed into me, caught in the curve of my wings, and halted my fall with a sudden jolt. Relief threw my heart against my ribs, and I panted for air, flapping in place.
Okay, okay, I was still alive. Big fan of being alive.
I peered down at the ground to shout to Kai and reassure him I was okay but—the passage below was wider than the one I just ascended. And my mate was nowhere to be seen.
9
Kai
"Haley!" I screamed, staggering forward when she vanished as if I could bring her back. My breathing spiralled so fast. I threw both hands at the sky, pushing out as much magic as possible. The stories tattooed on my body—tales of my family all the way back through seven generations—twisted around my limbs. Unleashing snakes so powerful that I stumbled in place, dizzy as power built and tore free.
"She'smymate!" I yelled at the maze, shouting at the solid walls with a rage I had no control over. "She's not yours! Give her back!"
My hands shook, vicious quakes moving up my arms and shuddering through my ribcage. I turned on the spot, searching the austere passage like Haley would appear, magically gifted back to me.
This fucking maze! It couldn't take her from me. Icouldn'tbe without her, not ever again. She was the glue that held my sanity together. She was the only thing that made me feel like Malakai and not the mindless brute who'd spent a hundred years fighting anything and everything that moved.
In our old life, I used my magic to protect, only resorting to violence when my family was in trouble.1Wynvail, the absolute cunt of the pit, had made my magic cruel, a blade to be used on anyone, guilty and innocent alike.
Without my mate, that was all I was: a violent beast.
"Give her back!"I screamed, my breathing faster. I spun again, praying I'd find her on my next rotation. Where was she? Where was my rose? I needed her. Ineededher.
My snakes cut through the air like knives, sinking vicious fangs into a solid roof of magic. That was what Haley slammed into, what stole her from me. I rent the sharp edges of fangs through the sky until holes appeared in the grey expanse, venom eroding its power. I hoped it was torture for the titan motherfucker. I hoped his magic ruptured and his chest cracked open and his heart melted to blood and gore.
The erosion spread, the holes wider, bigger, and I grinned, my own teeth bared. He deserved every bit of pain.
But my heart skipped when the holes knitted back together, so suddenly that the power swallowed one of my snakes and my knees buckled. I grunted, grabbing the wall on my left and hauling myself back to my feet. Shit, that hurt. It throbbed in my chest, like I’d been physically punched.
Back here, now!I ordered my magic, tearing them away from the barrier before it could consume any more of my power. It wasmine.Like Haley was mine.
"You can't have her!"I screamed, my head tipped back, the words yelled at the barrier, the walls, at the entire fucking Labyrinth. "She's mine!"
A chill went down my spine when dark, low laughter rippled through my head. He was here.
Good.
I curled my hands into fists, absorbing my snakes when they met my skin. They writhed in my chest, furious they’d been denied the blood they wanted so badly.
"Come and fight me instead of watching from the shadows, you coward," I shouted, my nostrils flaring, my whole body shaking. "When I win, you return my mate."
