LUST
Before the shiver finished running through Ophelia’s body, Blackwell was gone. It wasn’t until she stepped into the dining hall that she remembered the two mortal enemies she’d made less than twenty-four hours ago. The moment she passed through the archway, every single contestant snapped their head in her direction, and it all came roaring back to her. Blackwell and his blood bargain had distracted her from the memories of the nightmarish serpent, the spiders, the knife plunging into her transparent chest…
She wondered to what extent Cade had sensationalized his version of events.
“Here we go,” someone in the back muttered. It was the older man—James.
“Do you think she’s really a Demon?” a young woman with golden hair and severe eyebrows, wondered aloud. “Didn’t she complete the first level?”
“Look at her eyes. They’re fucking creepy. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if she’s one of the hauntings,” the towheaded man next to her commented. He was unusually tall, his hunched posture almost painful to look at. Ophelia wondered if he and the girl with the eyebrows were related, noting their resemblance and familiarity they seemed to have with one another.
“Demon,” Cade spat, scraping his chair out from the table with an ear-splitting screech. The rest of the room fell silent as Cade and Beau stood from their self-appointed spots at the head of the table and took a threatening step toward her.
Ophelia didn’t cower. She didn’t care what any of these people—people who would most likely be dead in just a few more days—thought about her. They could take their insults to their graves.
Instead, she fixed a sultry smile on her face. “I’m so glad to see you both made it through the night.” Her eyes flicked over to Beau. “I was concerned you might have drowned in your own vomit.”
Eric let out a low whistle in the back of the room. Cade and Beau charged at her.
She stood her ground as they came closer. “You both look as if you should be carrying torches and pitchforks. Honestly, if I rile you up this much, the Ghosts in this manor must be having an absolute ball haunting the two of you.”
With lightning speed, Cade reached out and slapped her clean across the face. Her head snapped to the side, and she stumbled back in shock. A choked gasp came from someone to her right. Luci.
“Cade!” the girl exclaimed, expression aghast.
“Shut up, Lucinda,” Cade growled.
Luci obeyed, her expression pained.
Ophelia’s face was tingling from the assault, but a sharper stab of pain was pulsing from the corner of her bottom lip. She reached up and gently brushed the new split in her mouth, bright red blood coming away on her fingertips. A laugh bubbled up in her throat.
Beau sucked in a breath. “She’s bleeding.”
“Yes, she’s bleeding.” Charlotte pushed out of the crowd, a look of disgust on her face at the entire spectacle. “Which means she’s not a fucking Demon or a Ghost.”
“You don’t understand—she disappeared,” Cade insisted to the group.
“Her blood is red,” James pointed out, tone firm. “She might not be entirely human, but she’s a mortal, just as the rest of us are. Leave her alone.”
Cade’s jaw clenched at the admonishment. The grin slowly spreading over Ophelia’s face must have been terrifying given the way Beau paled. He was definitely the sheep in this situation, Cade the wolf. Blood dribbled from the slice in her lip and down her chin as her smile tore the gash wider, but she didn’t bother to wipe it away as she spoke.
“If either of you had a brain, you’d have realized that believing me when I said I wasn’t a Demon would have been a lot less risky than making me an enemy.”
She felt a sense of pride at the strength of her words. It might have been mostly bravado, but they didn’t know that. Cade didn’t bother with a retort as he gestured for Beau to follow him and return to their spot at the table, his eyes shining with a level of malice no other being had ever had for her before. The rest of dinner was awkward to say the least.
Ophelia didn’t eat anything. She stood alone in the back of the room and counted those who were left, making a mental file of their names and features. Twenty contestants, including herself. That meant six people didn’t make it past the first level. She wondered how many of those six had forfeited and how many had died in the labyrinth.
When the lights flickered out a few minutes later, there was almost a collective sigh of relief. Almost.
“Welcome to level two,” a sultry voice announced as the Devil made her entrance. A curling cloud of red smoke caressed its way through the room, the powerful scent of Louisiana magnolias arriving with it. This Devil had bright scarlet hair and warm ivory skin. Her voluptuous body was draped in black silk that left little to the imagination, and Ophelia was pretty sure a few of the contestants had drool hanging from their mouths at the sight.
Ophelia subconsciously wiped the back of her hand over her own mouth to make sure she wasn’t drooling as well.
“My name is Drima,” the Devil declared. “My specialty is lust.”
Someone coughed. Someone else made a lewd comment.
Drima whipped her head toward the source of the comment, and the rest of the room followed suit. The Devil stalked toward the contestant. It was the towheaded man. As Drima slinked up to him, Ophelia made out something twitching behind the Devil from beneath her silk dress. A tail.
“Quite a creative mouth you have,” Drima purred to the man. “I think I’d find you more pleasing without it, though.”
Everyone watched with bated breath as the Devil reached out and waved her perfectly manicured hand in front of the man’s face. It took everyone a second, including him, to understand what she had done, but when the realization hit, the piercing scream of the girl next to him was so loud Ophelia swore one of the glasses on the table shattered.
His mouth had completely disappeared.
“Mmm!” he tried to scream, but it was a choked, muffled sound. His hands flew to his face, clawing at the grotesquely blank space where his lips once were.
Drima addressed the rest of the room with a sinister smile. “Let this be a lesson to not give into your lusts so easily, or your ability to speak won’t be the only thing you lose. Now, let’s begin.”
As Zel had demonstrated for their first trial, the Devil summoned a doorway to portal them into the level, and with a flick of her wrist, their clue began to etch itself into the door’s surface same as before.
In a realm of desire, illusions enthrall, contestants beware, lest you succumb to their call.
Amongst the lustful vices, you must pick only one, when the first bell tolls the trial has begun.
Before the fourth chime, the truth you must find, and the key to your freedom, beneath a bed lies.
Drima began calling out names while Ophelia recited the clues to herself over and over. Most of it meant nothing to her—yet—but one thing that stood out was the part about the tolling bell. She had a sinking feeling that this trial had a time limit.
As members of her group passed through the portal one by one, the man who disturbingly parted ways with his ability to speak was still writhing on the ground in tears, broken, smothered sobs nearly choking him. Ophelia had to admit she felt sorry for him, if only because she thought such a fate should have been Cade’s instead. What a dream to never have to hear that man talk again.
“Edna,” Drima called out.
The girl kneeling by the crying man’s side looked up, gnawing on her lip, unsure.
“Now or never,” Drima snapped.
Edna swallowed and stood, whispering, “You have to get up, Mason. We have to win. Think about Michael.” With that, Edna walked to the door and, with only a single glance back, stepped through.
The Devil called out a few more names and then finally, “Ophelia.”
Ophelia was disappointed that she wouldn’t get to see if Mason rallied the courage to get up or not, but she didn’t waste any time stalking toward the door. She was ready to get this over with. Taking a deep breath, she stepped into the dark portal.
This time when Ophelia stepped out of the portal, she didn’t find herself in a labyrinth of nothingness. No, this time it had transported her to the most opulent display of debauchery she had ever seen.
The walls were draped floor to ceiling in swaths of black silk, the plush carpet beneath her feet littered with what looked to be precious gemstones of all colors and shapes. Circular beds dressed in black satin sheets and scattered with more of the loose jewels took up most of the space throughout the enormous room. Couples and trios in ornate masks writhed atop them, the air flush with heat and sweat. The lighting was dim, the only illumination coming from piles of lit black candles surrounding the beds; for a moment Ophelia worried one of the lust-fueled partiers would knock them over and set the room ablaze.
The heady erotica on display around her was the most sensual thing she’d ever witnessed. When she tried to look away from it, glancing up, she saw that mirrors covered every inch of the ceiling above her, making it impossible to avoid the salacious acts around her. Men feasting between their partners’ legs, making their backs arch with pleasure. Women hoisting themselves atop their lovers and riding them with abandon, rolling their hips while their partners spoke the filthiest words Ophelia had ever heard strung together.
A part of her was darkly fascinated. What would it be like to have someone so enraptured with you that they forgot everything else around them? Not to be embarrassed to speak every unfiltered thought with reckless abandon?
“Drink?” someone asked her.
She turned to see a waiter, face covered with a raven mask, holding a tray of oddly colored drinks, each bubbling enticingly. Red, green, blue, pink, or gold.
“Pick your poison,” the waiter urged as a cacophony of moans vibrated through the room.
She hesitated. “What will it do?”
“Depends,” they answered. “But you have about one more minute to choose before you’re taken from this place.”
“Taken? As in disqualified?”
They didn’t bother with an answer, only shoved the tray of drinks closer to her face. She swallowed and chose the red one.
“That’s my personal favorite.” The waiter winked behind their mask. “Cheers!”
Ophelia peered down at the effervescent drink, as light and enticing as a glass of champagne. When she looked back at the room, she saw a fleet of waiters flooding through a door at the back, each holding a tray of the same red drink she had chosen, handing one to each masked partier. The attendees toasted each other, sending a melody of clinks throughout the room.
“Here goes nothing,” she muttered to herself as she brought the glass to her lips and drained its contents. Every last drop.
Somewhere in the room, a bell chimed.
A bell… there’s something I’m supposed to remember about a bell… she recalled faintly. But as quickly as the thought had entered her mind, it faded. Washed away by the heady feeling of ecstasy now swimming through her blood.
The feeling started at her crown. A warmth that dripped down over her face, her neck, her shoulders. Her head became light as her limbs grew heavy. The champagne flute rolled from her grasp and shattered on the floor, and she stared at the sparkling pieces of glass with a languid smile.
She felt incredible. Indestructible. Free.
The clothes draped over her skin felt softer than clouds, and she began to rub her hands over her arms and torso, soaking in the heavenly feeling of the fabric. Her hands moved up over her stomach, to her breasts, and she moaned as she felt them peak beneath her palms. She reached beneath the collar of her dress and began scraping her fingernails over her skin, leaving angry red lines. She didn’t know why, but she needed to bleed. Needed to release the heat inside of her somehow.
“Come over here, lovely, come sit with us,” a saccharine voice purred at her.
She twisted around to see a masked woman draped only in strings of sapphires and pearls, lounging back on one of the beds, someone massaging her shoulders from behind. The woman patted a spot next to her on the black satin sheets in invitation. Ophelia’s feet began moving of their own accord, and when she reached the edge of the bed, the pair gave each other a conspiratorial look.
“Won’t you play with us while we watch the show?” the woman grinned. “We could have a lot of fun together.”
Ophelia’s brow furrowed. “What show?”
A second bell chimed.
Silk sashes dropped down from between the mirrors on the ceiling, spaced evenly across the room. A flurry of people, dressed in the same red and gold outfits, each claimed one of the sashes and began twisting the silk around their bodies, climbing, twirling, and dancing in the air. Ophelia watched in awe at the gravity-defying stunts, the fluid way the performers were able to move above the crowd, and when they were done, she found herself clapping with the others.
“Come, lovely, sit down. This is the good part,” the bejeweled woman coaxed.
Ophelia sat and the woman immediately positioned herself to kneel at Ophelia’s back. Ophelia found herself sighing with pleasure as the woman gathered the heavy tendrils of her curls and moved them to gain access to her bare neck.
Ophelia didn’t know what the woman’s intentions were, and she didn’t care. She was too enamored with the performers, now draped horizontally in the air, sashes wrapped around their middles to keep them suspended securely. A few of the partygoers began to approach the dancers, touching them in places that should have been too intimate for so many lingering eyes, but everyone here looked positively greedy for the displays of intimacy. And when the screaming began, Ophelia barely even noticed.
Someone was holding a knife over the performer closest to her, and before she could really register what was happening, they plunged the knife through the performer’s throat. Blood spurted and poured out of the dancer as their limbs grew limp, the people around them crowded forward in a frenzy, lapping at the blood like… Vampires.
What did those drinks have in them? They couldn’t have transformed them all into Vampires… right?
“Hold still, this will only hurt for a second,” the woman purred in her ear.
“Hmm?” Ophelia murmured, dazed. She tried to twist around to see what was happening, but her head wouldn’t move.
“I said hold still,” the woman growled now, hands tightening painfully on Ophelia’s biceps.
“This one is mine,” a deep voice cut in.
Ophelia’s eyes snapped to the stranger towering in front of them as the woman hissed a curse in her ear. The stranger looked so incredibly familiar, but she couldn’t put her finger on why…
“I got to her first,” the woman growled, clinging to Ophelia possessively.
“That doesn’t matter if she isn’t willing,” the stranger countered. Then, turning to Ophelia, he reached out a hand in offering. “Would you like to come with me instead?”
Yes. Very much.
“No!” the woman exclaimed. “You want to stay with me, don’t you, lovely? We can have so much fun together if you’ll just let me taste…”
The stranger’s emerald gaze met hers. “It’s your decision.”
Ophelia reached out and grasped the stranger’s hand without hesitation now. As soon as she had made her choice, he wasted no time pulling her up from the edge of the bed and whisking her away, leaving the woman howling curses at their backs. He moved them blithely across the room, slithering through the crowd of people drinking each other’s blood. A couple in the center of the room was practically bathing in a pool of crimson, and it made Ophelia shudder.
The stranger brought her to an empty bed in a far, unwatched corner, sitting her down and warning her, “Don’t move.”
As she watched him disappear back into the crowd, she began to panic. She didn’t want him to go, didn’t want to be alone.
You’re a foolish, foolish girl.
Her chest tightened at the raspy voice in her mind. She needed to get out of here. She needed—
“Hey,” the stranger soothed, interrupting her thoughts. He crouched down before her, placing a steadying hand on her knee as he brought his eyes level with hers. “I’m right here. I had to go get you the antidote.”
“Antidote?” she whispered.
He lifted the hand that wasn’t touching her, a glass of pink liquid in it. “The drink they gave you at the start was a slow-acting poison. Each color would make you, and the rest of the room, experience one of five types of lust and it would slowly kill you unless you broke through its effects and realized you needed an antidote.”
Amongst the lustful vices, you must pick only one… Before the fourth chime, the truth you must find…
Fear rippled through her. The bells had already chimed twice. “Which type of lust did I choose?”
He smirked. “Bloodlust.”
The red bubbly. The blood drinking. Of course.
“Here,” he urged, pressing the glass to her lips. “Drink.”
She did. And just like the first concoction, this one spread through her in seconds. Her head went from fuzzy to clear, and the writhing room around her suddenly seemed less opulent and much, much colder.
She looked back at her savior and breathed, “Blackwell.”
He grinned in satisfaction. “How do you feel?”
“Okay…” she trailed off, rubbing at her temples where a headache was beginning to form. “If you hadn’t come to help—”
“But I did,” he said. “Now, here’s the catch of this trial—you can’t get out of here until you perform a task themed after the type of lust you chose.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that because you selected Bloodlust as your vice, you have to drink someone’s blood and let them drink yours,” he deadpanned. “Now, if you want me to help you choose someone—”
“No,” she choked. “I am not drinking a stranger’s blood!”
He gave her a devious grin. “You’re in luck that I enjoy biting, then.”
“This is a nightmare,” she muttered.
“Then your nightmares must be absolutely riveting,” he noted. “Do you want to drink first, or do you want me to?”
She swallowed thickly before she finally answered, “You first.”
He pulled her to her feet, shifting to take her seat on the bed before pulling her to sit across his lap. He wrapped one of his arms around the back of her waist. She wiggled against him, making herself more comfortable, eliciting a groan from his throat.
“Unless you want this to go in a much different direction, I wouldn’t do that again,” he admonished.
She blushed.
“Tilt your head for me, sweetheart,” he requested, voice still gruff.
She did as he asked, exposing her throat to him. When his cool lips grazed her pulse, something inside her became uneasy. Something about his touch felt… off. Cold. Maybe it was the remnants of the potion, or maybe she was paranoid, but—
—another chime of a bell made her jump, and she recalled that there was something she was supposed to remember.
Before the fourth chime, the truth you must find, and the key to your freedom, beneath a bed lies.
The truth you must find.
“Blackwell? How did you know to come help me?” she wondered, almost absentmindedly. “You said I’d need to summon you so you could help guide me out… but I never said your name.”
“I decided to check in just in case you had forgotten. I was worried it would take you too long to figure the illusion out. Good thing.”
She let him trail his lips over her skin as he reached up with his free hand to angle her chin down, until their lips were nearly touching. Her breath caught. She desperately wanted to kiss him. She wanted to experience the sort of passion the room around her was feeling. It was almost painful how attracted to him she was.
“Can I…” he trailed off, letting the unspoken question hang between them.
She nodded and that’s all it took for his lips to crash onto hers. His lips were cold, hard, not at all like she thought they might feel. And the adrenaline that went through her as he began to deepen the kiss was not from passion.
She pulled back. “I…”
“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” he asked, impatience bleeding into his tone.
Sweetheart. Blackwell had never once called her that. She narrowed her eyes now and looked at him. Really looked at him. And the first thing she noticed was that the spark in his eyes wasn’t the glint of humor she was used to… but rather something harder. Darker. The second was that the locket around her neck was utterly lifeless.
The truth you must find.
“You’re not Blackwell,” she whispered, the oxygen rushing from her lungs as a spike of fear speared through her.
The imposter’s mask immediately began to slip. Beady black irises overtaking the green, a too-wide smile stretching over Blackwell’s stolen face. He moved like lightning, grabbing her by the arms and moving her back into the wall next to the bed.
She began shoving at the imposter’s chest, clawing at any bit of skin she could get her hands on. “Get away from me!”
An insidious laugh came out of his mouth as their grip on the back of her neck turned painful. “What gave it away? Was it the voice? The way I kiss? I could try it again, I could reach into your mind and get every little detail right to make your deepest, wildest fantasies come true. All you have to do is grant me access…”
“No,” she screeched and shoved the heel of her hand into his nose, making the bone crunch and pop, though there was no blood. “Leave me alone, asshole.”
The imposter dissolved into black smoke, and she crashed to the ground with a surprised yelp. She scrambled back to her feet as the smoke enveloped her vision and made it impossible to see the room beyond it. Squinting into the darkness before her, a tall silhouette began to take shape, the wisps of obsidian slowly dissipating. She braced herself.
“It’s about damn time—” the silhouette began.
She lunged. Tackling him to ground, she wrapped her hands around his throat, determined to cause as much harm as she could while he was still solid.
“I don’t care if you’re already dead,” she hissed. “I’m going to kill you again.”
“Is this your attempt at flirting, angel?” he choked out despite the pressure she was putting on his neck.
Her lip curled up in disgust. “Both of my hands are wrapped around your throat!”
“That doesn’t make it any clearer,” he responded, blinking out from beneath her and letting her fall forward on her hands. A second later, he was standing above her, arms crossed over his chest.
She hauled herself up to rush at him again, but before she could strike, he caught her wrist, his grip firm but gentle. She was about to hurl out another insult when the locket around her throat began to awaken, and a warm, familiar static sensation emanated from where his skin was touching hers.
Is this your attempt at flirting, angel?
Angel. That ridiculous fucking nickname, the locket’s steady heartbeat, the strange power that pulsed in the air around him…
All her energy deflated as she realized. “Blackwell?”
One of his brows shot up. “Obviously. You summoned me.”
She shifted on her feet. “I didn’t do it intentionally. I forgot, actually.”
He tilted his head. “You didn’t say my name three times?”
She squeezed her eyes shut in embarrassment. “I did.”
“Why were you saying my name if not to…”
When his words trailed off, she let her eyes flutter back open, and the moment they refocused on his face, she regretted it. His grin could have blinded the stars.
“Do you want to know what the goal of this trial is?”
“Considering the ridiculous smile on your face, I have a feeling that I absolutely do not,” she grumbled.
“The trial presents you with a choice to pick a type of lust. From all the blood on the floor, I’m going to assume you chose bloodlust,” he commented as he looked around at the undisturbed bloody orgy still happening around them. Not a soul seemed to have noticed her confrontation with the imposter or Blackwell.
“Unknowingly,” she reasoned.
“The trial then presents you with an illusion of the person you lust after most,” his expression turned taunting, “in order to entice you to lose in one of two ways: giving in to the theme of lust you chose, or keeping you here until the bell chimes a fourth time by distracting you with said illusion. You didn’t drink any blood, did you?”
She shook her head. “And what of the antidote? Will I be okay now?”
“Antidote?”
“Yes, you—er, the illusion—gave me this antidote. It cleared the haziness from the first drink. You know, the one that made me think everyone stabbing each other to supply the party with refreshments didn’t seem so bad.”
Blackwell shrugged. “If they gave you something to clear your head, it was purely strategic. I’ve never had a contestant they didn’t try to drown in a lust-filled daze, truth be told.”
“It was to lure me into trusting them,” she realized. Then muttered, “To think I thought this trial would lead to something a lot s*xier than fighting an imposter version of you and drinking blood.”
“Don’t tell me you’re disappointed you didn’t get to live out a wild illusion of another nature?” He started to scoff, before pausing thoughtfully and saying, “Actually, do tell. I’m desperate to know what sort of wicked fantasies live in your head.”
Her face flushed at the way his voice deepened with those last words, a sensuality bleeding into them that she had never experienced before. The only person who ever shared her bed had been neither sensual nor passionate. Elliott Trahan, the nephew of the older couple who owned the estate across from Grimm Manor, had been visiting New Orleans for the summer while his parents were overseas. Ophelia was pretty sure he had been hoping to find Genevieve the day he knocked on her door three Julys ago. Instead, he found Ophelia—bored, frustrated, and home alone.
Their brief affair ended with little ceremony the day he’d left New Orleans in late August. It had felt more transactional than anything; two twenty-year-olds ready to see what all the fuss was about and finding that it was far more lackluster than the novels made it seem. Now, she was getting the distinct feeling it might have been the person and not the act or lack of experience.
Blackwell huffed a laugh. “What’s wrong, angel? Too many salacious scenarios to choose from? Or are they too scandalous for you to say aloud?”
She swallowed. “No, they just don’t concern you.”
“Maybe I’d believe that if I wasn’t pretty sure you almost just let someone with my face—”
“Do not finish whatever it is you’re about to say,” she inserted, jabbing a finger at his chest. “Just do your job and help me get out of here. The Devil’s clue said the key to freedom lies beneath one of the beds, right?”
His lips curled up in amusement as he nodded. “There’s a trap door hidden beneath one of the beds. It’s a random one each time.”
They began with the bed closest to them, working together to shove the heavy mattress aside. Nothing. They moved to another, Blackwell unceremoniously kicking off a couple in the middle of their passion, the woman straddling the man in a reverse position, moaning as he cupped her breasts from behind. Ophelia pried her eyes away and got back to her task. She toed the mattress to the side with some effort. Nothing.
They checked two more beds to no avail.
On the next mattress was a lone man, his black eyes piercing into her from behind his mask.
“Aren’t you stunning?” he leered at her, sitting up from where he was lounging to wrap an unwanted arm around her waist and drag her toward him. “Let me have a taste, won’t you, sweetheart?”
She shoved at his chest with both hands, trying to wiggle out of his hold.
Smash his face in. Gouge his eyes out. Break his nose. Tear out his hair.
She froze at the sudden appearance of the Shadow Voice, and the man wasted no time reeling her back in. Then he began to change, his face slowly morphing into one with a familiar, square jaw. The eyes behind his mask turning from black to green as his hair became the color of fresh snow.
“Let me kiss you,” the man pleaded in Blackwell’s voice, with Blackwell’s mouth. “I can make you feel ecstasy like you’ve never felt before.”
Her mouth parted in awe as he tilted his face closer to hers. She knew it wasn’t real, that it was an illusion, but she couldn’t control her reaction to the words let me kiss you coming from Blackwell’s lips. Even if it was an imposter.
“I sure as Hell hope I’ve never sounded so ridiculous,” the real Blackwell said behind her, snapping her out of her momentary lapse in judgment.
She cleared her throat as she answered, “Oh, you absolutely have.”
Then she brought her knee up between the imposter’s legs, as hard as she could, making him release her as he howled in pain. She shifted her eyes to the real Blackwell, and he gave her a small smile.
“Nicely done,” he praised. “Though, for the record, I’d like it to be known that I am personally rather fond of choking as the method of attack if you’re ever compelled to brawl with me again.”
Her look of exasperation was completely ignored as he moved to kick the bed aside. The imposter Blackwell still moaning in pain atop it. And beneath the mattress—there it was.
Blackwell pulled the trap door open. He offered a hand to her and said, “I’ll jump with you.”
She grimaced down into the dark abyss beyond the trap door, remembering the unpleasant collide with the dining hall’s floor from the first level.
“I’ve got you,” he reassured her.
Her locket warmed against her neck as she nodded and grasped his still outstretched hand. She let him wrap a secure arm around her waist to tuck her in close.
“Ready?” he prompted.
“Okay,” she said.
They jumped. And as they fell through the portal, the final bell chimed above.
