It’s him.
I know it instantly. Not because of the mask. Because of the way he stands. The way he waits. The way the air shifts around him is like it’s obeying something primal.
He doesn’t move.
Doesn’t speak.
Just watches.
And I feel it again, that pulse under my skin, that ache in my chest, that need to be closer. To be caught. To be claimed.
I take one step forward.
Then another.
“You’re late,” I say, voice low.
“I’ve been here,” he replies. “You just weren’t ready to be caught.”
I take a step toward him, cloak dragging over the hay. “You like watching me?”
“I like knowing you’re mine.”
“You already knew that.”
“I like reminding you.”
He walks closer and runs his fingers along my chest.
“Did you wear this for me, baby?” he asks, voice low, rough with hunger. “Did you want me to see the darkness you’ve become?”
The purple glow of his mask casts a sharp light across my chest, my throat, the edge of my lips.
“It matches mine perfectly.”
I don’t look away.
I never look away from him.
“I didn’t become anything,” I say, voice steady. “I just stopped hiding it.”
His fingers brush the edge of my cloak, slow and reverent, like he’s unwrapping something sacred. “You wore black lace and blood-red lips and walked into a maze like you wanted to be hunted.”
“I did.”
He exhales, sharp and low. “You know what that does to me?”
“I’m counting on it.”
He laughs, quiet and dangerous. “You’re not scared of me anymore.”
“I was never scared of you,” I whisper. “I was scared of what I’d let you do to me.”
“And now?”
I lean in, lips brushing the shell of his ear. “Now I want you to.”
The rope is coarse, scratchy with straw dust, and I watch him cut it from the edge of the hay bale like he’s done it before. Like he planned this.
